Risk assesment

This is the busy road that was mentioned in our risk assessment.  At the top of the road, there are more cars and it is busier, this was when we began to film through rush area and how dangerous the road was changed.  As a group, we were aware of the changing situation and adapted our filming because of this.  This involved moving all our equipment to one side of the road so we would not have to keep crossing whilst there was moving traffic.

This picture shows a small area of densely compacted twigs near the pavement.  Some of these were sticking up, and across the pavement so we made our actors aware of this and moved any twigs and sticks out of the way of each filming area before we started.  We also kept looking at whether any had moved once members of the general public had walked past as they could have moved the twigs which may have caused injury to our actors if they went unnoticed.                    

Tester Film

This was just me testing out shots and angles that would be useful for our film, this is a clip of the very first shot of the film. It was filmed on the camera built in on an iPhone 4 for easy upload to YouTube.

Pitch of The Existence

Day 2 Of Filming

Alex is ready to be filmed; she is wearing the costume that we have designed for her to wear which we have put blood on and dirt. I have done her make-up with is black eye shadow and blood on her eye.

This is the make-up that I have used, it a black SBC brand that I used for her eyes; this will make her look scary and freaky.

The tri-pod is ready waiting if we need to use it.

Charlotte has to straddle Tabi for a certain shot that we needed. This was fun filming and we got the shot which was good.

Charlotte filming at the location.

Tabi acting and practising what she needs to do for the role.

Dairy of a day shooting

We planned to film on Saturday 19^th March 2011 at 6pm. We all met in Ongar high street to film on the street for the first scene. The first scene had been filmed and we wanted to watch it back but found out the camera had broken and the head needed cleaning which means it won’t let us watch any footage back and we were unable to tell if anything had actually recorded. As one of our group members (Charlotte Mackenzie) had an iPhone 4 we decided to film a scene on that to see how it turned out. The quality of the recording was good but we would not have been able to edit on there and this would have been a massive problem later on. We then went to our second location, which was the public toilets but they were locked. Our third location was a bedroom and one of our members (Alex Fresco) lived very near the locations, so that scene was easy to film. As the rest of the filming did not work we didn’t want to film one scene as we are going to use other actors if we did not get all the filming done that day as the actors we used cannot get any time off school.    

We have planned to next try and film Wednesday 23^rd March 2011 after school in the original location in King Georges in Brentwood.  This worked successfully, with each scene being shot a few times so we could choose the best one when it came to editing, we did not have any major interruptions either.  However with our main actor having to go at half 5 for college we could not complete all of our filming on this day, therefore we kept and uploaded the footage onto the school system, and completed the rest of the scenes needed on Tuesday 28th March 2011 straight after school. 

Here, on Wednesday 23rd March 2011.  Rachel is completing Alex's make-up ready for filming, and in order to complete filming to a high standard.  Black make-up around the eyes was used to show abnormality.


I needed to make Alex look messed up and to make her look weak and basically dead. I used black eye shadow to make her eyes look deeper and i put white powder over he face to make her like ghostly and ill. I also put blood on her top to make it look like she had been cut and that she still has the wounds that killed her. I also put black make up round her face and on her arms to make her look dirty. This look was important to the shooting because we needed her not to look 'normal' or real.

Textual Analysis: Donnie Darko

During the opening credits you can hear the sound of a storm, which acts as contrapuntal sound when you realise that it is not in fact raining, the sound stops within the first few seconds of the scene starting. The titles are on a simple black background with bold white writing, the gothic style font gives away the genre. The use of an establishing shot gives an idea of location; here it is a shot into a valley where it pans across to reveal a long shot of Donnie laying in the road, although it is not yet clear that it is Donnie.

 The ambient sounds of birds reflect the time and place; it is shown to be dawn. As the camera moves closer it sparks an enigma, making the audience ask “what is it?” this is key to creating suspense in a thriller. You can begin to make out that it is a person in the road, and laying on a bend on the road – a very dangerous place to be, this could symbolise the danger of Donnie’s condition, which is schizophrenia, intertwined with the big open space around him showing that with this mental illness, he is alone. A non-diegetic soundtrack begins to play matching a classical genre with choral singing, tying in very much with the psychological thriller genre. As the camera moves around Donnie, it makes it clear to the audience that he is the main protagonist, this leads to the first cut of the movie, the use of this first long take creates suspense and possibly representing that Donnie is currently calm. You then see another pan of the location and when the camera stops, Donnie stand up and the back of his is revealed in the shot, this suggests he is in the middle of it all.

                When Donnie turns his head and we see him smirk and laugh it gives the impression he is unstable interlocking with his mental illness. We can see that he is wearing pyjamas, giving viewers an idea of the time again but also symbolising that what he does is out of his control, it’s not classified as a social norm to cycle to an unknown place and sleep in the road.

After the shot of Donnie laughing and walking out of shot, the title of the movie appears in the same gothic font but what’s really affective is the sun getting brighter and creating a blank screen to move on to the first cut of the movie, the use of this first long take creates suspense and possibly representing that Donnie is currently calm. Donnie begins riding his bike and the editing becomes more rapid, fitting in with the different non-diegetic soundtrack that has begun to play fitting in more with a rock genre but still creepy. Some of the shots are from Donnie’s perspective going along the road; this represents the journey he has to go on to get home or to be ‘normal’.

Many of the takes throughout the opening are shot with a handheld camera, this makes it feel more real, and like you’re there with him or observing him, this makes the audience feel more involved. I chose to analyse this film because it’s a psychological thriller which is what our film will be, I also like the story and the soundtrack throughout.

Script

The Existence: Script

Written by Charlotte Mackenzie & Alex Fresco

Scene 1

Lucy walks down the lane with her iPod in, she looks down at the ground as she walks

Georgia enters and the two meet, Lucy begins to engage in conversation

Lucy: …Are you okay?

Only looks up when she finishes her sentence

Once Georgia is recognised, she begins to run away, tripping over she cuts herself

Scene 2

Lucy walks into the public toilets and begins to wash her wound

Georgia is already behind

Lucy looks up and sees Georgia in the mirror, she moves frantically looking around

Lucy: *breathes heavily*

Georgia is removed from the scene as if she has disappeared

Scene 3

Lucy wakes up

Lucy: *breathes heavily*

Georgia: Shhhhhhhhhh

Lucy turns to see Georgia sat in a chair, staring at Lucy

Shooting Schedule

Initially we decided to shoot in our free periods in school time as we are all together but this was an issue as Georgia has school as she is younger than us and lives around 45 minutes away and also we didn’t have similar frees altogether. When we planned this the props were not ready and thought through properly. We planned to film the whole thriller beginning in these free lessons but as we discussed this we realised that this was very unrealistic as it is too much to film in single hours. Also we would not have had time to get to our location, film and get back to school in time for our lessons as the location is 40 minutes’ walk away.

As a group we planned to film Sunday 20^th March 2011 at 9am. We planned to film the whole of the thriller in one day. We found out that we cannot all film that day as Mary Sullivan, Rachel Wardley and Charlotte Mackenzie all have work on that Sunday at 9am, also Georgia Fresco has an audition for the Olympic children’s choir that day at 2pm which means she cannot make it either.

The next time that we have planned to film to shoot is Saturday 19^th March 2011 at 6pm as Mary, Rachel and Charlotte finish work at 5pm, so we can all be at the location by 6pm. We are hoping to film as much as possible with all the props and scenes that we have planned earlier. If we do not get everything filmed in that one day then we are going to organise the next time we meet up that day. We all have allocated jobs to do. Rachel is doing a health and safety risk assessment on the area we are filming to make sure it is safe for us all to go in and film. We are all asking for permission from the owner of the land where our location is set. This is a diary of what we are going to do when filming:

6pm – Arrive and set up for our first scene on the road side.

7pm – Moving to our second location for the middle part of our thriller

8pm – Moving to our third location and filming the last part

9pm – Finish

Props

In our thriller we are going to use only a few props because we want to make our filming as simple as possible.  Also, because our thriller is physiological we have decided not to have a murder scene as we are going for an unconventional style of a thriller as it is against the stereotype of thrillers.

Our first prop is an iPod.  We have used this to represent to the audience immediately the antagonist (Tabi's) age as the majority of teenagers often listen to music on a regular basis.  Sometimes when they are walking on their own music can be used as a distraction.  In our thriller Tabi is going to listen to a iPod as she is walking, in our initial ideas the audience will hear the sound from the iPod however this may be difficult to implement as the music is not allowed to be copy write.  Tabi will be walking on her own, with her iPod in when she sees the protagonist (little girl) and when she drops her ipod this leads onto the next scene.  Therefore, this is an important prop as it is crucial in linking each scene together smoothy and keeping the storyline clear for the audience.                                                           

Our next prop we are going to use is a bed at the end of our thriller in which Tabi will wake up in, in the last scene.  This is a important prop as part of our filming because when she looks to her side, she will see the little girl.  In our initial idea we thought the girl could have one side of her face normal make-up and the other side black and horrible to represent Tabi's schizophrenia.  However, because we are only doing the first two minutes of our film we have not developed this idea because it will give away the storyline to the audience.  We are using this as a prop, because this will make the thriller beginning more exciting, creating enigma as the audience don't know whether the series of events are real or a dream.  This will then lead onto the rest of the film that we are not going to make as part of our media course.

Another prop we will use, and purchase is extreme make up.  This is used to clearly display to the audience who is the protagonist and who is the antagonist.  Due to this, the little girl (Georgia) will wear very pale almost white makeup contrasting against dark smudged eyes to show abnormality.  This is important to our thriller because the audience need to quickly establish she is not a normal girl by makeup, clothing and actions.  Tabi is going to wear normal teenage make-up as this will relate to the audience more as they could feel it could happen to them, and will represent her age.                                                                 

This is also shown by the protagonist (Georgia) is going to wear a hospital wrist band to show that she was once in hospital, and this also portrays an idea that she may have died. She is also going to wear a dirty white dress that flows to show that she was apparently innocent once, but not anymore due to a bad experience. This creates enigma for the audience as they may ask themselves who this girl is, as they are not told straight away, only as the beginning develops.  They may also view there own idea of her in there minds and why she is acting this way. 

Here is a picture showing the make-up being used in our day of filming.         
 We are also going to use fake blood to create a more dramatic scene, using the protagonist (Georgia)'s top to put this on.  This will make it clear for the audience to identify that something is wrong, building up psychological abnormality and tension within our filming.  This should create a desired effect on the audience, and a tester run on another piece of material proved successful as the fake blood was noticeable.  We tea - stained the top for it to look muddy, whilst also putting it on the ground and stamping onto it.  With Alex's real life scars, and the effects from the fake blood - the long shots used in our thriller proved to be extremely successful as it looked threating and dominant.  This was also shown by strong black makeup surrounding Georgia's pale face.

Film Poster Ideas

For the poster we felt we wanted a basic and raw background and a simple portrait of the protagonist and antagonist with inspirations from Francis Bacon. This style is demented and twisted suiting the theme of our psychological thriller; the text would be layered on top with a scratchy style and a more readable font for other information. A plan for the poster is below:

The two circles will be portraits of the characters.

Initial Sound Ideas

With our non-diegetic soundtrack sorted we felt we needed to think about other use of sound in our film. I believe that music stings will make the actions in the film exaggerated and more dramatic, a sharp violin noise will do this job well, still fitting in with the classical non-diegetic soundtrack. The soundtrack will only be as a background noise and the original sound will still be audible and possible some accentuated sound to show the significance of some parts of the film.

The Name Of Our Thriller

The name of our thriller is one of the most important things that we as a group need to consider, the name will represent our entire film.  Therefore it has to be strong and catching, drawing the audience's attention to it, when discussing this in our group we decided we wanted a short, catching title that didn't give away what our film was about.  We studied different thriller film titles, for example: the film 'Taken' is about a daughter that gets 'Taken' by a group of men and her father has to find and rescue her.  The name is a clear indication of what the film is about, it is one word so it stands out against other titles and is easy to remember.
Here are some potential names for our Thriller that we discussed:
  

1. Hallucination 
2. Mistake
3. Delusion
4. Resentement
5. Existence
6. Alone
7. Emotions
8. After hours
9. Intuition
10. Disturbed
                

After looking at the good and bad points of these names we came to the conclusion that number 5 'Existence' was suited the best to our thriller.  However, as a group we felt it needed to be stronger - therefore by adding the word 'the' before it will make the title stand out.  'The existence' is the name we have decided to use as the title of our thriller. This is because it is relevant to our Thriller, as our protagonist is a ghost and the word 'existence' is suggesting that ghosts and other paranormal things exist.  

Non-Diegetic Soundtrack

As a group we decided we wanted a classical soundtrack so I went on various sites and went through the variety of tracks available, i eventually found something suitable on http://www.freeplaymusic.com/ with a classical genre and a mixture of tempos. We are slightly basing the pace of the film to the soundtrack so it fits in perfectly. I've uploaded the soundtrack below:

Costumes and Make-up

Tabi, (The Antagonist) her make-up will be like a normal teenager girl’s style make-up. She will have mascara on, foundation, bronzer and lip gloss. We will buy the mascara and it will be cheap as we have a small budget, however this is also good because when we do a crying scene the mascara will run easily showing black tears create the desired effect for the audience to feel intimate with the antagonist, whilst not wasting anyone’s own products.  The emotions used will also keep up the audiences expectations of the film, creating enigma for the audience.  Her costume will be black jeans and she will have a white top on that will flow this will suggest to the audience that she is innocent. 
This will also show a deep contrast with the black jeans against the white top which is representing her split personality as she is schizophrenic.  She will have military boots on, so when she is running the boots will suggest to the audience that she is fighting for her survival and is a strong character.  She will have a khaki coat on that will be quiet big so she can, sort of, hide in it to show her vulnerability.  Georgia, (The Protagonist) will be wearing/edited white contact lenses to show she is abnormal, she will have straight, hair sprayed hair in a middle parting. Her make-up, she will have black eye make-up and her skin will be pale white, representing her abnormality. 

She will wear a white dress to show her apparent innocence, this will create enigma for the audience as they will be unaware of who this girl is at this certain time.  The young girl will wear a white dress that will be dirty to show that she was innocent but a series of events has changed this.  She will also wear a hospital wristband to show that she was close to death.  Also, because the camera will have a close up on her face and makeup it will be clear to the audience that she is abnormal.   

                                 -By Rachel Wardley, Mary Sullivan, Charlotte Mackenzie and Alex Fresco

Demographic/Psychographic Profiling

Demographic is when you target people according to their wealth but because the film industry is suitable for anyone it is hard to base a film on a particular group of people just according to their wealth. This is because the different social classes can like a film or have the same taste in films. The film industry needs to cater to everyone’s taste not basing their target audience on those who are rich. A Demographic profile is a term used in marketing to describe a demographic group or a market segment. A demographic profile can be used to determine when and where advertising can be placed to achieve maximum results.

Psychographic is based on individual psychological characteristics, rather than demographic or other factors. In the field of marketing, demographics, opinion research, and social research in general, psychographic variables are any attributes relating to personality, values, attitudes, interests or lifestyles. 

This is also true to films, a person’s personality and values can have an effect on what film they want to watch. A romantic person might want to watch a film such as The Notebook, but a person they might want to see a lot of action because they like drama in their life might watch The Transporter.


By: Rachel Wardley

More Do's and Don'ts.

Do’s

- Find an interesting place to film which is cinematically interesting to the audience.

- The Poster has the most cinematic scene on.

- Use nice/expensive cars or extremely old/vintage cars, not normal cars as they are not interesting.

- Instead of using zooms, get up close to the thing you want to film.  

Don’ts

- Do not use zoom.

- Do not film inside your house as this is not an interesting location.

- Do not have girls running down alley ways as it is boring and typical.

- Don’t lose site on the visual media