Research into similar texts

Before we were allowed to start the pre-production written work for our film, we had

to come up with two si

milar texts for reference.

Our first similar text was the grudge, mainly because it is a famous horror story. We also chose it because a young woman was the lead character (the one being haunted) which was very similar to our piece. We watched different parts of the film on YouTube to help us come up with scene and camera shots that would look effective.

New Similar text due to change of genre - Thrillers

Abandoned is a film about a young woman who takes her boyfriend to the hospital and comes to pick him up only to find that he not there. She is then told by hospital staff that he was never at the hospital. As she frantically searches for him her sanity is questioned.

This is a thriller/horror which relates more to the new genre of our film. It is also about a young woman who finds herself alone as no one is willing to understand her - like our protagonist.

TRAILER

Final destination 3 is another thriller that relates to our film as the girl has many things in common with our main character.

The are both students

They are both young women

They have both lost someone close to them

They both feel alone and powerless

TRAILER

Initial Ideas - Storyboard, synopsis and script

When given the task, my first idea was to film a romance story. This was mainly because I enjoy watching romance films and I felt that my group could film different scenes to create an interesting plot. Many story lines came to my head all romantic but with different sub genres E.G tragic, teen and comedic.

However when discussing with the group about what genre our film should be we decided to make it a horror/Thriller.

The story would revolve around one character who is being stalked by an unknown force. This would be the thriller element of the story. The horror element would be the fact that the stalker seems to be a ghost or some other spiritual being.

Scripts and Storyboards

Before we started writing these up for our film, we asked to come up with our own film ideas individual and practice by writing a one page script and one scene story board for them.
Immediately I went back to my initial idea and decided to do a romance story which starts off in the characters teens and covers the length of their lives.
I found the pre-production written work for my film very fun and I im

mersed myself in it completely as I was enjoying what I was doing.
Writing the scripts was a piece of cake as I had already envisioned many scenes for the film. I decided to choose my favourite one, which was a scene that took place at college in the sports hall.

I found the storyboard slightly harder as I’m not much of a drawer. However I tried my best and I think the end result was quite good. For the story board I used a different scene I had imagined. It's one where Tracey gets hit by the car and dies. However i could not upload it to the blog.

I found the synopsis to be the most difficult part. Not because I could not do it, but

because I had so much to write and had to limit it to a single page. However despite
this, I enjoyed writing the synopsis the most, because I could allow my imagination to
work full time and daydream about different scenes ( which is what I do most
of the time).

The group work

When the time finally came for us to write up scripts and draw storyboards for our film, we decided to give each person in the group a different task so that the work would be done faster.
My job was to write up a script for a scene of the film. I chose the scene where Daray has just come back from college to find just her sister in the house. Mysterious things then happen which lead to her sister dying.

During the creation of the film, we changed the concept of the movie and decided to make it more of a thriller than a horror. this meant we had to come with new preproduction work.

Synopsis

New Script

Film Analysis

Hard Candy

Hard Candy is a controversial psychological thriller starring Ellen Page asHayley Stark and Patrick Wilson as Jeff Kohlver.

The film opens with an online conversation between Hayley and Jeff who agree to meet for the first time at a nearby café, Nighthawks. They chat over coffee and it is revealed that Hayley is an honours-student, aged fourteen, and Jeff is a successful photographer, aged thirty-two. The pair decide to go back to Jeff’s house where things quickly get out of hand

We analysed the first couple of minutes of the film 'Hard Candy'.

The film starts with slow, mysterious non-digetic music to establish the genre - which is a psychological thriller.

A chat screen pops up on the page and we can see its a conversation between two people. One's user name is 'Lensman' and the screen colour is blue, showing that it s a male. The screen name also tells the audience that this man might have something to do with photography because of the term 'Lens' and also because he has a camera as his display picture. Already with this little information, ideas about the personality of this character are made. For example he could have a warped view of reality as he spends most the time looking through a camera lens.

The other person in the conversation is 'Thonggrrrrl' whose screen colour is red again highlighting that this is a female. From her user name it may seem that she is a bit naughty or flirty as she has the word 'Thong' (which is a very revealing piece of underwear) in her name and also because the colour red represents sex, passion and inevitably violence. She has a heart as her display picture.

There is digetic sound of the girl typing and each time she posts something the camera draw closer to the screen. this builds intensity and tension, which draws the audience in.

The next shot is an extreme close up on a cake. The plastic fork tells us it is in some sort of shop- probably a cafe. The chocolate cake represents sexuality and provocativeness.

The shot then zooms out to show a young looking girl in a red hoody eating the cake. The red hoody could signify sexual romance but the fact that it is a hoody shows that she is a bit of a tomboy. The red colour could also be a symbol for little red riding hood, showing that the girl is innocent and is in danger of being eaten by the wolf.

Next is a point of view shot from 'Lensman' prospective. He sees the girl and zooms in on the chocolate on her mouth. The shot makes him seem like as predator examining his prey.

All shot are eye-level meaning 'lensman' sees 'Thonggirrrl' as his equal. The background is also blurred at this point showing that 'Lensman' is focusing all his attention on the girl.

He then leans forward, wipes the chocolate off her mouth and licks it from his fingers.

Training Day

The movie stars Denzel Washington who plays Alonzo Harris and Ethan Hawke as Jake Hoyt.

The film is about a rookie cop (Hawkes) who is paterned with the corrupt Alonzo on his 24hr 'Training Day' which he must undergo to become a fully flegded officer of the L.A.P.D narcotics department.

Jake does not realise Alonzo's moral values at the start but as the day draws do a close many events happen which question his judgement.

We analysed the scene where Alonzo and Jake visit some south American gangsters and Jake realises Alonzo is corrupt.

The camera shots used in training day are used to portray different kinds of emotions. The scene starts with a point of view shot from one of the main characters, which shows women in the household, which could be related to their role in the 'mobsters' household. The camera angle starts at eye level, which is showing that the two characters are at an equal level at the time, but the way in which the policeman is placed in the middle of the every shot shows that he is isolated from everyone else. The way in which the close ups are used shows the emotions and reaction of the characters, this results in more intensity being added. Throughout the scenes, the main character remains in the middle of the shots to highlight his isolation from these 'mobsters'.

In the following shot, it shows that the policeman can not see that the gang member is looking at him in a sinister way, this gives an advantage to the audience because we can see things which the characters can not. This keeps the audience on edge and keeps them guessing about what is going to happen.

The shot then changes angles from eye level to a low shot looking up, showing that the other character has more power. The next shot is a high angle shot looking down onto the police officer (main character) showing that he now has less power than the other characters. This gives another advantage to the audience because it gives the viewer an extra insight into what is happening in the scene, that the character can not see. As a result it adds intensity and draws the viewer in more, which puts the audience of edge because we start to doubt what is happening in the scene.

During the scene, a cloud of cigarette smoke drifts around their surroundings, this could symbolise the characters state of mind and highlight his confusion, because he can not see fully through the smoke. In addition the low angle shots show that the gang members are still in control and have the power over the policeman (main character). The next shot is a worms eye view to show that all the gang members have complete power and the high angle show shows that the policeman has absolutely no power and is fully weak opposed to the gang members.

The next scene is in the bathroom where it shows a mid shot of water running, which symbolises that time is running out, because the policeofficer is about to get killed by the mobsters. Just before hes about to be killed he claims to have saved the mobsters younger cousin from being raped, so the mobster calls his younger cousin to see whether the police officer was telling the truth. The shot then cuts to his younger cousin on the phone, where he then asks her about if anything happened to her recently, at first the camera angle shows her lying upside down on a bed, which could symbolise that she is not being fully truthful, but when she begins to tell the truth the camera angle straightens. In addition, during this whole scene, women are constantly walking in and out of the scene which shows that the mobster is also a family man.

In the bathroom, the mise en scene shows the shower curtains have two different shades consisting of white and blue, this could portray that the mobster has two different sides to him. White being good, and blue being mechanical and cold.

Preliminary task

First we filmed a pre-prelimary task as practice before we got to the actual task. This helped us become familiar with the camera and angles of different shots so that the prelimniary task would be easier to do.

For the actual task we were put into groups of four and asked to go and film in any area of the college.

first we had to decide who would act and who film. I was behind the camera with another student named Julia. While the boys Dahir and Oraldo created a scene.

Our location was outside the cantine, Dahir was already sitting down on a bench and we decided that Oraldo would come through a door to go and join him.

We started with an establishing shot of the area outside the cantine. Next was a close up of Oraldo's necklace, the shot then zoomed out and we used a pan to follow him walking towards the door to go and meet Dahir.

The following shot was an extreme close up on Dahir's watch which then zoomed out into a long shot of him looking at the watch. After this its a medium shot which shows Oraldo coming through the door and a pan which follows him and then a close of up bof the two boy's hands greeting each other.

Next is a close up on Dahir's ear which zooms out into a medium shot of the boy's conversing.

AFter this I executed the 180-degree rule by recording over both boy's shoulders.

Then it was a cutaway showing a football poster, followed by a long shot of the boys.

We then panned Dahir as he went to his lesson then Oraldo as he went to his.

We faced many problems while filming the preliminary task. Many factors affected the overall outcome of the task. For example the location was a mistake as it was a very busy place with people constantly coming back and forth. This meant we had to stop filming at times to let people through. This created a lot of pauses in the piece and it was unable to be continuous.

The next problem we faced was the sound. We could not not hear what the boys were saying most of the time due to the fact that we were in a highly noise polluted area and also because we were filming far away at times in order to zoom in.

To have prevented this, I think we should have chosen a better location, such as a quiet classroom or a less busy area.

I found when watching back the clip that i saw that I zoomed out too fast from Dahir's ears. At the time i knew i had done this but i thought it would be slower on the computer.

When filming the 180-degree rule, I found that i could not use the tripod to steady the camera as the bench was obstructing it. This meant I had to film by hand which made the camera movements shaky and unfocused.

Filming the Preliminary Task was an eye-opener as it showed me how difficult the filming process is. It also gave us practice for when we have to film the main task.

OUR PRELIMINARY TASK

My Brief

The task consists of two elements:

Preliminary task

Film and edit a character opening a door and crossing the room to sit in a chair opposite another character with which he/she then exchanges a couple of lines of dialogue. Demonstrate match on action, shot/reverse shot and the 180-degree rule.

Main Task

Create a short fiction film with a minimum of 2 minutes and a maximum of 4 minutes including opening credits and titles. It can be a genre of our choice.

All video and audio material must be originally produced by candidate with the exception of music or audio effects from a copyright-free source. Have to create an original script and story board to aid in filming. Both preliminary tasks may be done individually or as a group. Maximum of four per group.

Introduction

My name is Rachel Owusu-Dappah, and I am currently studying As Levels at Haringey Sixth Form College. The subjects I am enrolled in are: English literature, Media, Psychology and Drama. I currently play basketball for the school team, Enfield Phoenix team and also for Middlesex University. My other hobbie's include: reading, writing short stories and poems and public speaking. I believe that my experience with writing short stories will aid me when it comes to writing the scripts for our films.


I chose the subject of Media because I hope that in the future I will get an opportunity to be able to write scripts for major movies alongside my career in Law.