Initial Ideas Presentation

Here is a general idea/plan in visual form.

Location Survey: Art Department

During Tuesday's lesson, Shir and I went down to the Art Department to do a location survey/vlog video. Since we didn't have a professional camera to film this video, I used my phone with a fish-eye lens. I tried to play around with the editing but I don't think it turned out to look that nice.
 Here is my attempt:

Lesson 3 (8/12/15) Planning- Change of plans(?)

In todays lesson, Shir and I went over some new plot ideas, aside from the art idea that we initially thought of, we want to explore and experiment with using dolls. I originally got the idea from American Horror Story: Coven where a character (middle aged mute man) has a strange obsession with dolls and often has tea parties; the feeling I got while watching was really unpleasant and uncomfortable- which I think would be really good if we could recreate that. A particular episode that I got inspired by was the one where he used the corpse of a girl as one of the dolls, the makeup and setting in the scene really was horrifying and unsettling, especially because the body was rotting and pale, in contrast to the makeup that was put on her (red lipstick/fake lashes) which makes the whole scene even more creepy.

However, this idea would be quite difficult in practice as we would need to buy (a lot of) dolls and find a new suitable location, also we want to keep in mind that it this project is a thriller not horror.

Since we really like this idea, we printed out some creepy doll images to stick on our inspiration board (Mr.Harrison gave us a wall to stick our stuff). 

If we really go through with it, Shir and I would need to find time outside school to go buy what we need. For example, makeup, dolls, outfits, tea sets (?). We are not sure if we will have to go through too much but we will have to make a decision soon.

Back to the original idea, we wrote up a plan to present in Thursdays' lesson.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cW4i_-w5sjm9haJ8WbHD63RMzaseLM-JSEQGm3FeRc4/pub

Children of Men

Camera 

• Protagonist is in the middle of the shot.
• Camera follows protagonist around, showing his importance (main character) and the storyline follows him.
• Not a lot of angles, making the scene more realistic.
• Handheld camera: more natural as we follow the protagonist- creates a realistic feeling.

Editing

• Not much editing for a more realistic look.

Sound

• Diegetic sound from TV giving context of the movie.
• Diegetic sound from surroundings in the cafe/street (shouting, car sounds) makes it seem more realistic yet creates anxiety and worry.
• Explosion sound
• Non-diegetic music in the background at the end, building up the suspense.

Mise en Scene

• The news tell us that it is the year 2077 (in the future), this builds up anxiety in the audience as it has a possibility of happening.
• Tuk tuk shows globalisation and diversity, different cultures coming together.
• Alcohol in coffee suggests that he may have depression (alcohol numbs you), giving the audience some clue to what kind of person the protagonist is. 

Representation:

 

Location: The cafe in which the protagonist buys coffee from looks relatively normal and modern, like on we would see today, this shows that in the year 2077, things are not that much different than they are today- from this, the audience can relate more with the characters in the movie and the struggles that they go through. The setting is Seattle, which is generally a nice, modern city. In the opening however, we can see that the streets are dirty and dark with trash every where, showing that the government doesn't care for the cleanliness of the streets/homes. With that being said, we can still see some modern elements such as the giant TV screen, but other than that- the buildings look pretty old.  We can see the different cultures from looking at the cars; the tuktuk shows globalisation and more diversity in the Western world.

Character: The man in the middle of the shot which the camera follows around is the protagonist; we can see from what he is wearing (black clothes) and his expression (stoic, calm) what kind of person he is. He looks almost annoyed at the commotion at the coffee shot, where people are crowding around to watch the breaking news, shows that he is uninterested and unfazed my the media and what is going on. He is shown putting alcohol into his coffee, from this we can guess that he may be sad/numb/depressed.

Narrative: Enigmas

• Why is the oldest person only 18- why did people stop reproducing?
• What struggles/problems does the protagonist have?
• Who/what caused the explosion?
• Why are the streets dirty and unkempt?
• What importance does the protagonist have and what will he do next?

Dexter Credits

Dexter is an American television crime drama mystery series. Set in Miami, the series centers on Dexter Morgan, a blood splatter pattern analyst for the fictional Miami Metro Police Department who also leads a secret life as a vigilante serial killer, hunting down murderers who have slipped through the cracks of the justice system.

Denotation:  Connotation

•  Mosquito Slap: Opens with a 'murder'; action seen as 'acceptable' and justifiable; Dexter smiles, showing his satisfaction- he finds pleasure in act of killing, the fact that he killed the mosquito before it sucked his blood suggests that Dexter likes playing games.
• Shaving: Shaving is a mundane action. Blood is a recurring theme and it appears once again in the shot where Dexter cuts himself. His reaction and 'calmness' to the blood running down shows that Dexter is unfazed by blood and gore- meaning that he is familiar. The cleaning up by letting the blood soak through the tissue also shows how Dexter is careful in cleaning up and collecting the blood of his victims throughout the show.
• Cooking breakfast: The cutting of the meat shows Dexter's skill with using the knife and cutting flesh; one of the ways in which he murders his victims; it also puts Dexter in an 'animalistic' light, which makes him seem more dangerous and threatening. For the egg, the yolk is represented as blood.
• Coffee grinding: The coffee beans are turned into grounds by being spun around and cut with sharp blades. This shows the destroying of one thing to use as another purpose.
•  Cutting Grapefruit: Again, Dexter uses a knife to carefully cut a grapefruit (really precisely and skilfully), the insides of the grapefruits after being juiced look like guts/distorted flesh. The accuracy of cutting reflects Dexter's tendencies to cut his victims up. The 'juice' of the fruit is represented as blood in this shot.
• Flossing: The tightness of the floss around his fingers shows that Dexter has more than one way of killing, although it looks uncomfortable and painful, Dexter finds pleasure in cutting off the circulation in his fingers.
• Dressing up: Dexter wraps his shoelaces tightly again, this suggests that this may be one of the method that Dexter uses to kill. The tightness of the cloth against his face shows suffocation but his expression seems to not suggest that he is suffering. 
• Out the door: The key suggests that being a serial killer is a secret and is 'locked up', the fact that he has neighbours suggests that he does not isolate himself (can still fit in with society) and that anyone can have a killer as a next-door neighbour. 

Camera

The extreme close-ups exaggerates and scrutinises every little detail. It is also suggestive and misleads the audience into thinking Dexter's everyday actions are something more violent. For example, the shoelaces scene resembles strangling someone and the shirt scene resembles suffocation or wrapping a dead body. Close-up shots also make everything more personal and intimate; we are in Dexter's personal space.

Editing

Jump cuts and rapid movements builds up suspense and keeps the audience curious.

Mise-en-scene

Dexter's morning routine is perfectly ordinary and 'everyday' but is put into a sinister light. For example, cutting meat looks like he is craving out human flesh. 

The dim lighting in Dexter's apartment contrasts the bright, friendly vibe in Miami (when he goes outside), this suggests that in his apartment, the audience are in his personal space- the darkness shows that his secret is dirty/dark.

Sound

The non-diegetic music is somewhat joyful and 'happy', which is unusual for a mystery/crime/thriller show. The contrast in the sound and images shows the two sides to Dexter's character, the calculated serial killer and the nice guy who he shows to his family and colleagues.

Inspiration

Here is a mood board that I made. I cut out the pictures from magazines that I found lying around the house. This is what it turned out to look like:

Here is a time-lapse of me making the board:

Inspiration Video:

Location Survey Vlogging!

On Sunday, Shir and I decided to hunt for locations! I filmed the whole journey as a vlog, which records our process and our thoughts in the moment :)

Before I met up with Shir, I bought a fish eye, wide, macro lens and a selfie stick for my iPhone as i feel it would look much better for a travel vlog type video. The editing was also really fun!

Part 1:

Part 2:

Location Survey- Rhythm/MRT

Another one of the locations that we chose was Rhythm HuayKwang. We set out on Sunday to film two of our locations(MRT Pahon Yotin and Rhythm). In the video, we mainly focused on Rhythm because we decided to cut out the MRT scene (we originally planned to do a chase scene, which is shown in the beginning of the video and in the vlog)

Location Survey- Bawarea

Here is the video that Shir filmed and edited. One of the locations we chose was Bawarea (Shir's house). Having been there once before, I really like the mood/vibe of the house, which is antique style which reminds me of a traditional Indian home. Shir's house also has dim lighting which goes with the Thriller theme and has a swimming pool (which we might need). Overall, I think Bawarea is a good location for filming.

In terms of the video, I think Shir really did a good job filming different aspects of her house and her angles are very artistic and well thought out. The editing is also great and the music sets the mood right.

So far, I am quite happy with the path that we are going, hopefully we can keep it consistent throughout the whole project!

Lesson 2 (4/12/15) Planning

In this lesson, we continued with the planning from last lesson. We developed and added in a few more plot ideas as well as thinking of more locations. Towards the end of the lesson, Mr. Harrison showed us a few videos from media students.
All this is recorded in a time-lapse video that I filmed, here is the edited version:

Lesson 1 (1/12/15) Planning- The first day!

For this project, I am working with Shir. We decided to name our project: 'PROJECT A.M', which came from the first letters of our last names put together :)

In todays lesson, we did mindmaps of the Plot ideas, Locations and the sub-genres that we are interested in.

We also filmed a time-lapse video of us working :)

Sub-genre Audiences

We used the website Yougov to see the types of people who watch Psychological Thrillers.

Sub-genre film

For the sub-genre film project, I got into a group with Shir and George and we decided to create a short film for two different sub-genres of thriller: Psychological Thriller and Horror Thriller.
Planning
I drew a story board for the storylines.

Here is the final video:

Camerawork

I was in charge of filming for this project, since we already planned the storyboard, it was easy to visualize the shots and didn't take much time to see which angles looked best. We decdied not to include too many weird/fancy shots and just stuck with the simple ones.

I personally really liked the glasses shot where the camera pans over to the actor placing his glasses on the sink.

Acting

George acted in the first one (psychological thriller) while Shir acted in the second one (Horror thriller). Both were very co-operative and had many ideas regarding the angles they think would look good. 

Editing

We all did the editing together but Shir did most of the sequencing. We experimented with different effects (making the tone more blue-tinted) or decreasing the brightness. George also did the sound separately for scenes that had loud external sounds and it turned out really good.

Evaluation

Overall, this project was extremely enjoyable and a good experience for me in terms of filming and editing. Furthermore, I had the chance to work with someone new and it helped me in terms of compromising and working with others.

In terms of the actual film, I think the reverse mirror wasn't as good as it could be as we got confused during filming, and the ending for the second film was slightly confusing. 

Next time, I would like to try acting as well as more advanced(?) editing.