Planning : Audience Research Video

Audience Research video

what do you expect to see in the opening 2 mins of a film in horror/suspense genre?

Can you think of any specific film openings from this genre you have remember for good or bad reasons?

How much of a storyline do you expect to be given away in a 2 minute film opening?

How many characters and locations do you think is necessary for the opening 2 minutes of a film opening?

In your opinion the best opening two minutes of films are the ones that......?

What do you think of my idea at the moment?

Coursework : Planning - casting

Coursework Planning - Casting

Images of the people you will be auditioning for your character(s)?

For our piece of coursework we won't be using a character as such in the opening scenes, we won't have the faces of our character featuring, we will only have our characters hands in our opening. This is because our idea is to use the hands of the character in a way that it is capturing what they are doing, pulling apart pictures, cutting things, painting etc. So for this we had a look at peoples hands to see who would fit our character best.

Who are they?

The person that we will be using for this will most likely be from our group as it is easier than finding someone to use purely for that, also it makes everyone in the group feel a lot more comfortable and easier to ask them to perform certain actions as we know them. However we could alternatively use a parent of one of ours where we are filming as this would also be easier.

Why do you believe they would be good for the role?

Any one in the group would be suitable for this role, as it doesn't require any dramatic performance, but instead just being willing to use their hands. They don't need to perform any facial expressions or anything of a dramatic nature, therefore it means that they don't really need any experience of too be particularly good at acting for this.

Why have you given the role(s) to this/these people?

It will be given to someone in our group or a parent of a group member as it is most convenient for the process of filming, it is a simple role and doesn't require any great deal of acting and therefore it is the most logical thing to use one of ourselves for the role.

LR

Coursework : Planning - Character

COURSEWORK PLANNING: CHARACTER

First Ideas:

We now have a rough idea of our idea and what we want our film opening to be. Next, we need to discuss and figure out who we want our character/s to be. The film is a suspense/drama/horror genre film, so we knew the character had to fit into this kind of area so that the plot also fit. First we made a list of attributes that we wanted the character to have: lonely, weird,  quiet, disturbed, historic past, unusual, creepy. These are all characteristics that the range of characters have in the mind map to the right. However, after a rather heated debate of who would suit the film best? Where we could go with each character? What's the message we want to give to the audience if we were to carry this on? we chose the 40-50 year old man (in the bottom left hand corner on the mind map), an artist, who was abused as a child and enjoys being alone the most.

For our opening two minute film for our coursework we have decided that this is our character profile:

Name - Jayne Doe

Gender - Female

Age - Between 15 to 20 years old. We chose this particular age as we thought it linked well with our reference to being disturbed and weird. If the character were too old, we would feel sympathetic towards them, and if the character were younger, it would make for a cliché plot. The only other age that would work for our idea, is a middle aged (man), because it would still come across as creepy. 

History - As a group we decided to make the history of our character destructive and disturbing which ultimately links to the personality traits. Therefore, we decided that the character was bullied and abused as a child, mostly because she was interested in things that the other children weren't. Moreover, she was abused by his parents, and in turn had the most effect on her and her personality. This continues the idea of the character being strange.

Profession - An artist. My group and I chose an art student for the profession of our character as it draws them away from any social environment. Nowadays, it can be construed that artists are expressive, creatively unusual, and wayward (traits that are perfect for our character). Also, we wanted to film them painting and sewing strange and peculiar things, so it fits well. 

Likes - Considering our character is an artist we thought she should like being in her workshop/studio making art, and also have the idea that that's the only thing she likes doing. It continues the idea of her being obsessive and unusual. Our character, also, likes to be alone and away from the society. This is due to the fact she has no social skills as she was bullied when a child.

Dislikes - A dislike of our main character is people, considering our characters upbringing, we thought it would be fitting if she liked being alone because doesn't like people. Another dislike of our character would be seeing happy families. We thought this would be an interesting dislike due to the idea that she was abused when she was younger, and therefore doesn't like to see families that are content, because it reminds her that she had a rough upbringing.

Personality Traits - The personality traits for our character are: strange, quiet, wayward and creepy. We chose these personality traits as we need to portray weird aspects of a character to continue to the rest of the film, and therefore she needs these traits in the opening two minutes to portray this idea.

Three words to describe our character - Disturbing, lonely and abnormal. My group and I chose these three words to describe our character because we think these are three words that describe her best.

D.G

Coursework : Planning - Location Research

LOCATION RESEARCH

Potential locations/settings of our film opening (+ photos):

We plan to create a film opening of a suspense/drama genre, with the idea to focus on specifically the characters, the props, the setting and the titles. Therefore, the location to get the correct setting, the location is particularly important. There are several options and various locations that we can choose to set our film in, but from the start, we have something specific in mind. Ideally, we want a home studio/office in the home of the character (depending on the character we want to have). For instance, the first idea we had was to film somewhere unrecognisable to the audience, so any landmarks were a big no. Instead, we thought the locations had to be personal to the character, somewhere familiar or at least a place where only the character could access/no public outsiders. Going with this theme, our first ideas below are in order of our importance:

- A Home Art Studio:
This could be any room at any of the group's home to act as the characters own personal art studio. This choice is the most realistic as the art studio at school is always busy so we will probably be interrupted which isn't ideal.
- Our School's Art Studio:
Our school has a wonderful and expansive art studio that we could ask to use after school or on a Saturday if the caretakers have opened the school. If this is not possible then between the four of us, we have more enough art products and objects to build a smaller art studio (below).
- A Dark Cellar/Basement:
Any basement that could also act as the characters basement space to work. This could act as more creepy as the other locations and would go with the genre much better.
- A Converted Shed:
This would require more effort as we would actually have to convert a shed if we couldn't already find one.
Weather conditions, schedule, availability, timing, sequences etc...

The film opening location (we hope) to use is only one location, a dark room in a pretend art studio in one of our group's house, where the charcter is to make strange notebooks and other 'things'. We are sure that only one location will be enough, becuase its only the opening to the film, and therefore we shouldn't be giving everything away. Yet, our location also depends on several other factors such as the weather conditions, schedule, availability, timing, sequences. For example, to decide the location we need to know that that place is indeed free and meets the needs in terms of availability, and ideally free for the entire time of our shooting so that when we return to the location, it hasn't changed, and therefore achieving continuity. As for the schedule, all of the crew and cast need to be available and all can get to the location in time, as well as all of the crew knowing the schedule for filming. I think that the schedule will be determined after the dates for filming have been decided so that we know where and when it is happening. The film will be shot inside, so the weather conditions do not affect us in any way, yet they could play to our advantage if we wanted to create a certain atmosphere e.g. if it was raining and we had a shot of the raindrops on the window. The sequences, again, are all going to be shot inside in the relatively same location so the sequences going through each shot and telling the story aren't dramatically going change in terms of location.
Why are these locations so good for what we are trying to achieve?

As we aim for to create a film of the suspense/horror genre, there are several conditions that make this location good. For one, the flexibility of our location is excellent because we can use it at any time of day, especially at weekends. The location has also several lighting options that we can alter and use for how we want it. The area of the room we want to use, also, is enough space for us to try and experiment with what the character can do.
Are we using interior and or/ exterior locations?

We won't be using any exterior locations, only interior settings. This is because we want the feeling of the character being isolated or loneliness in his house, and perhaps not confident to go outside. Only using interior locations creates a feeling of secrecy of the character, and, for the audience, an atmosphere of being alone. The conservatory we are using for the location will have no curtains on, and we plan, to film at night time. This will create a creepy element of the house because it will be black outside while the character works in his art studio.
Do we have back-ups?

We plan to use Daisy's conservatory for the setting of the art studio, with the props surrounding him. However, if plans change and we need to use another location, then any of the homes of our group can be a location if we need to. All of our group have other options we can use, including other rooms, houses, and our school. It also depends on circumstance, availability, schedules and timing on whether everything goes accordingly or something happens to go wrong.

L.R

Coursework : Planning - First ideas

COURSEWORK: FIRST IDEAS

For our coursework, we have been given our task to create a two minute film opening. We actually were given this project a few months back to start preparing, researching and thinking about 50% of our AS grade. But now we start it. Our group, (Megan Lansdell, Lily Mitchell, Daisy Gilbert and I) started by researching about all of the mise-en-scene conditions you find in a film. This would help us find out more about the things we would need to consider for our coursework, and also so we could start to gather ideas from the examples we studied. The research includes: Narrative, Sound, Setting, Dialogue, Narration, Breaking the fourth wall, 

Target audience, Attracting the target audience, Camera shots and angles and Character. All of these you can find in previous blog posts. We split these posts into four, so we each had three to do and everyone didn't have to do as much. I had the Dialogue pt.2, Breaking the fourth wall and Character. Each Blog post will have the initials of the person who completed it at the bottom of the page, so it doesn't go uncredited. 

The next stage is the Planning section, which we have, again, just split into four so that we each have two planning blog posts to do; I have Plot Synopsis and Location Research. But, before we carry on with our coursework, we need to have a couple of ideas. Yesterday, the four of us sat down to start to discuss and mind map some ideas:

We like the idea of going very simplistic with a plot that can develop into the rest of the film, seeing that it is only the opening 2 minutes that would continue into a feature film that would last approximately 1-2 hours. We would also want something challenging but achievable so that, when finished, it would seem respectable, not 'cheesy' but realistic as it might come out as a little childish if the idea was difficult. Doing a mind map really helped identify the kind of film we want to produce, considering the conditions needed and the possible ideas each of us are thinking of. Regarding the genre, we are leaning towards the suspense/drama area where we think we can pull together our strengths and interests best to plan, shoot, edit and evaluate our opening more than any other genre. Other specifics about the coursework such as characters, setting, dialogue and plot are all ideas in the works and haven't been decided yet, but we for now we continue with our blog posts on planning whilst going through the mentioned details in planning lessons coming up. 

LR

Coursework planning : based on your first draft

What did you learn during your preliminary task that you want to avoid/ implement/ develop upon in your actual coursework?

Avoid

As we had the lesson to make our preliminary task, we decided to use two media students with no script and no plan on what was to happen. Only a couple of shots were filmed and our editing knowledge was limited/ no-existent, contributing to it being a poor outcome. Therefore, there are several things we wanted to avoid in our preliminary task. Firstly, we learnt during our preliminary work the importance of sound and non-diagetic sound in the video. We thought that considering music choices from our last task, we want to stay away from well known music because we think that then it doesn't have the best effect possible on our audience as they already know the mood. With this in mind, diabetic sound in our preliminary was also something we didn't think about particularly. We had no script, and as a result, the actors were nervous and improvised the script, meaning the film became almost awkward to film. For our actual coursework, therefore, will either have a script or no dialogue at all, meaning this doesn't happen again. As for the filming, we all wanted to film as many shots and angles as we could so that the situation in the preliminary task wouldn't happen, but we would have lots of film to choose from. However, considering we had no understanding, from the preliminary task to our actual coursework, there has been a lot of learning and developing. For that reason, we don't want to avoid anything more because we thought even though our last practice needed a lot of work, it was more development than things to avoid.

Implement (do again)

There isn't much that we want to implement as we thought everything either needed to be avoided or devloped. However, one thing that we want to implement in our film opening is our willingness to work together, share ideas and experiment to try and learn new things throughout our coursework. We knew from the start that we would work really well together and this whole project has proven how well we can put our heads together to come up with ideas, plans, written pieces or practical projects. I think experimenting and our enthusiasm to take time to try a new shot or re-write our plan is something that I have learnt in our preliminary task that is important and something I want to implement in my actual coursework. Other than that, again, we either want to take what we've learnt and avoid it or develop it, but not implement it.

Develop

I thought that for our preliminary task, we learnt a lot about the basics of making a film opening from creating ideas and planning them to filming and editing. Therefore, it's a perfect basis to build on and develop our skills in our actual coursework. Something specifically we want to improve and develop on, is our editing skills, which we know will be put to the test if we want to produce a film opening anything like we imagine. Another point we discussed during the preliminary task, is to come up with more ideas so that we can have a wider choice of what we can do. Then later, plan our idea to almost every detail so we know what is happening at every point. This is something that could have been better in our preliminary task so I want to develop in our actual coursework so that everything runs smoothly and accordingly. For our preliminary exercise, even though the mise-en-scene conditions told us to cast a child in the opening, and we chose to use two teenagers, I think this was a part of the project that didn't go so well because we had specific ideas in mind that were hard to share and cooperate with them as they didn't understand what we wanted. With this in mind, we still wanted to use that age bracket to cast people in our coursework, but instead make sure that the actor understood our idea, and therefore, someone in our group would be preferable.

Coursework : Planning - Based on my ideas so far

Based on my ideas so far

What ways would your target audience ideally be able to consume your films? 

Our film is a suspense/horror film. Therefore I recon our film would go straight online because not many people in our target age range, younger people, go to the cinema much anymore, this is because the cinema is a lot more expensive nowadays than it used to be and students can't really afford to spend money on the cinema meaning they are more likely to watch movies online or family purchased Netflix accounts. I don't think our film is block buster material as it's not a big action film with famous actors. Therefore having our film online rather than in cinema or cinema city, where our target audience will not be.
Online such as youtube, on social media, facebook, twitter, instagram.
Some films also go straight to netflix 

Coursework Planning : Script first draft

camera focuses on paper) 

  (Hands using scalpel) 

  (Burnt photo of mans torso) 

(Scratching collage) 

  (Overlay image of hands using pens to cross out words in a book)

(Hands grabbing paper)

  (photo of two people in St. Andrews asylum)

(Wet paint on lined paper)

(photo of mans torso with melted wax)

(Macro shot of a page in the book)

Title : A film by..  Lily Ray  Megan Lansdell  Daisy Gilbert  Lily Mitchell

 (Image of person in St. Andrews asylum)

(Turn page with wet paint)

(Scalpel)

(Drawing)

(Mascara smudged on photo of mans torso)

(Fire burning piece of paper)

(Image of boy at st Andrews Asylum)

  (Image of girl and St. Andrews asylum) 

(Writing)

(Painting on lined paper)

(Over lay writing)

(Stitches on image of mans torso)

(Crossing words out in book)

(Collage of images of mans torso)

  (Zoomed writing)

(Scrunching hands leave page)

(Painting a face on lined paper)

(Ripping scrapbook page)

Final Title : MERZ

LR

Coursework : Planning - script ideas

Coursework Planning: Script Ideas

Script

Are we going to be using a script and why?

We plan, at the moment, to not include any speech at all in our two minute opening. This means that we won't write a script for our film. We don't want anybody speaking because we think that as our film is a thriller it should create as much suspense as possible. One of the ways we can do this is by not including any other noise or sound other than the background music or noise made by the props. The background 'music' is some background music we found on Soundcloud that represents our genre and film well as it contains some creepy/suspense sounds. So, to have dialogue would ruin the atmosphere we are trying to create. Another reason not to have dialogue is because I think that having dialogue would distract the viewers from what's happening with the character in the film but they would instead listen more to what they were saying. Also, if we were to have dialogue then we aren't too sure of what would be said. Due to the fact we don't want to show any of the character other than their hands so the audience can make their assumptions, it would be giving away their voice. The only other option would be if we had a narrator, (either the character's voice or someone else) over the top, perhaps, describing something that happened a long time ago.

LR

Coursework : Planning - Plot synopsis

PLOT SYNOPSIS

Plot outline of current idea for the film opening and where the film as a whole would go if you were to make the full film.

After much debate, analysis and exploring, we have come up with our current plot and now are planning the other elements to the film opening. Our idea for the film opening is very simplistic:

The idea is to film a character's hands, and only the character's hands, working and making different, slightly creepy, things. We plan to film from various angles, and shoot several 'scenes', where the character can be creating different things. We want to focus, specifically, on props, lighting, the character and the titles.

The props the character will be using could be things such as: scrapbooks, sewing onto images, using software, etching into plastic and painting pictures of people. The profession of our character is an artist, so it makes sense why the character would have access to these things, only this is revealed later in the film, so it makes this as an effective film opening as the audience think the character's unusual. We plan the lighting to be dark, so it can add to the 'creepiness' and act like the character enjoys making things in the darkness. For example, a shot could be the character only being lit by the computer screens light, when typing or printing out photos etc. For the rest of the film, the lighting I'm sure wouldn't stay as dark all the time, but would flicker between different lighting options to create that sense of suspense. The character is important, and while we only really get to know them later in the film, it's still important to get the first impression. We have several ideas for who the character may be (check Character Blog), but we know that the character will be lonely, unusual and wayward. As the character develops throughout the film and as the viewers get to know the character, we aim to show as little as possible so that not all is revealed (hence only showing the hands). When it comes to the titles, we felt these were important to focus on, to get the correct introduction to the film for the audience. This is where the titles can help, because even though they may not thought of as a component in a film, they can add a sense of the film that may otherwise be missing.

In terms of where the film as a whole would go if you were to make the full film, we have a few ideas. We think it would go along the lines of the character going out to his job during the day whilst continuing making these creepy creative things in his home, until someone (a colleague perhaps) finds him suspicious and breaks into his home. From there, our character starts to draw the suspicion away from himself by killing the colleague's wife and then framing the colleague. It would either end by our character getting away with the murder and the colleague going to prison or our character then killing the colleague and getting away with both murders.

LR

Coursework : Planning - Our ideas so far

My ideas so far

OUR IDEAS SO FAR

For our coursework, we have been given our task to create a two minute film opening. We actually were given this project a few months back to start preparing, researching and thinking about 50% of our AS grade. But now we start it. Our group, (Megan Lansdell, Lily Mitchell, Daisy Gilbert and I) started by researching about all of the mise-en-scene conditions you find in a film. This would help us find out more about the things we would need to consider for our coursework, and also so we could start to gather ideas from the examples we studied. The research includes: Narrative, Sound, Setting, Dialogue, Narration, Breaking the fourth wall, Target audience, Attracting the target audience, Camera shots and angles and Character. All of these you can find in previous blog posts. We split these posts into four, so we each had three to do and everyone didn't have to do as much. I had the Dialogue pt.2, Breaking the fourth wall and Character. Each Blog post will have the initials of the person who completed it at the bottom of the page, so it doesn't go uncredited.

The next stage is the Planning section, which we have, again, just split into four so that we each have two planning blog posts to do; I have Plot Synopsis and Location Research. But, before we carry on with our coursework, we need to have a couple of ideas. Yesterday, the four of us sat down to start to discuss and mind map some ideas:

We like the idea of going very simplistic with a plot that can develop into the rest of the film, seeing that it is only the opening 2 minutes that would continue into a feature film that would last approximately 1-2 hours. We would also want something challenging but achievable so that, when finished, it would seem respectable, not 'cheesy' but realistic as it might come out as a little childish if the idea was difficult. Doing a mind map really helped identify the kind of film we want to produce, considering the conditions needed and the possible ideas each of us are thinking of. Regarding the genre, we are leaning towards the suspense/drama area where we think we can pull together our strengths and interests best to plan, shoot, edit and evaluate our opening more than any other genre. Other specifics about the coursework such as characters, setting, dialogue and plot are all ideas in the works and haven't been decided yet, but we for now we continue with our blog posts on planning whilst going through the mentioned details in planning lessons coming up. 

LR & ML