Planning of the Detailed Story Boards

Planning treatment (synopsis, lighting, costume, actors, camera angles, music)

SYNOPSIS

MISE EN SCENE

Describes the design aspects of a production such as;

• Location
• Set
• Design
• Costume
• Properties
• Lighting
• Artificial lighting
• Colour design

MISE EN SCENE

Is important within ‘INNOCENCE’ to connote the evil nature of the STALKER, played by ANDREW GILBERT and the innocence of the runner ELEANOR played by EMMA EAVES (me) and DIRECTED by RACHEL TRAWICKI ELEANOR as a runner is wearing a big PURPLE jumper which connotes to the audience he content sate as she is wearing a mellow and calm shade of purple. To add to this characters costume she wears plain leggings and trainers which anchor to the audience she is on a run.

Conversely, THE STALKER is wearing all BLACK with a HOODED black jumper. The black hood connotes his longing not to be recognised or seen anchoring his bad intentions; breaking in to her house and also anchoring his EVIL character.

LOCATION -was in Long Marston, a little country village by an old church where the last witch in England was drowned. This ancient scary story gave us inspiration to FILM the opening 2 minuets of a suspense filled clip. The tower/ church is surrounded by open fields which were perfect a POINT OF VIEW shot from the stalker whilst Eleanor runs through the fields. This brings suspense and tension to the audience as you are aware she is being watched however you don’t know where from.

PICTURES OF LOCATION

CAMERA ANGLES

Within the film, 'Innocence', we have used a range of diverse camera angles and shots such as an establishing shot to show the audience where the runner is, what surrounds her and what state of mind she is in. In addition, we have used a range of; high and low angle shots, medium close up shots and close up shots to give to connote to the audience the illusion of suspense and surprise.

EDITING

We edited the film, on FINAL CUT EXPRESS with APPLE MAC computers, this gave us a wide range of effects to use within the film.

Synopsis :

Innocence’ is a face-paced thriller based around the death of a teenage girl, leading to the destruction of a village and eventually humanity. The first two minutes of the film centre around Eleanor Ford, a teenage girl on a jog around her village. She returns home unaware of the fact she has dropped her keys and is being followed. Once at home she finds a suspicious note stating that her keys will be found at the local derelict church tower. Naively she runs to the tower and is of course confronted with the killer who has been following her all along standing at the top of the run down tower, she hears the bell chime symbolising her death and as she begins to piece together what has happened she is grabbed by an unknown figure behind.

Alternate shots of Eleanor being followed against shots of the stalker picking up her keys will then be placed with shots of Eleanor returning home after dropping the keys with black and white shots to represent the recent past of the stalker breaking into her house and leaving the note after finding the keys.

I also created a brief synopsis for the rest of the film:
The film follows several brutal murders all in the same sleepy village of Wilcott, as the audience try to decipher the killer they must also discover the culprit’s motives for the town of Wilcott holds a deep rooted horrifying secret that is ready to rear its ugly head.

Research into Target Audience

QUESTIONNAIRE
1)What is your age

15 – 18
18- 21
21- 30
30 – 40
40 +

2)Are you male or female?

3)Which is your preferred genre
Comedy
Thriller
Horror
Romantic
Action adventure
Documentary

4)If you chose thriller – why?
a - adrenalin rush
b - I like blood and guts
c- I just do, no reason

5)What creates suspense for you?
- music
- lighting
- sound
- camera angles

From these sets of questions we asked 30 random people from school includidng teachers to answer them and the results are as follwed:

1)
27 / 30 people asked were 15 - 18
2)
17 were female and 13 male
3)
12 - comedy
13 - thriller
5 - romantic
4)
20 - a
3 - b
7 - c
5)
23 - music
2 - camera angles
5 - lighting

In conculsion, we as a group have been able to asses a certain amount of the populations specifications. we can see from the results 'thriller' is the most popular movie genre and the music causes the most suspense. we therefore will take into consideration these results when creating our film and consquesntly produce a 'thriller' movie.

Research into Genres

There are many types of film Genres which directors, producers and writers include within their films such as :

• Action
  Adventure
• Comedy
• Romance
• Crime/Gangster
• Drama
• Horror
• Musical

These genres include certain conventions which hold the key to a certain genre.

For example: Action films contain a lot of physical movement, stunts, energy, races, fights or battles, such as James Bond. This is one of many examples of action films where the focus of the audience is centralized around a hero whether it is James Bond or Indiana Jones. As an audience we can see how James Bond has achieved success with winning a conquest against the enemy, including romances from 'Bond Girls' and always maintaining the initial objective.

Firstly the conventions of a classic horror movies has been incorporated within the film ‘Scream’ and an example of this is the use of a constant chase. The chase and stabbing that is to occur after an intense conversation, accompanied by low string music, emphasise the tension and suspense the audience feels for the protagonist.

The dramatic orchestral music which climaxes throughout the clip suggest what is happening in the chase (for example at 1:22 when there is a sudden increase in pitch when the masked killer is spotted on the stairs).

Further more the fast paced cuts are cleverly used to extend the action throughout the whole scene which ensures the audience’s attention is constantly occupied by always looking for the killer and reoccurring danger.

The camera angle of the ‘exterior shot’ drew me into the setting and made me as the audience feel the helpless and defenceless the protagonist is due to the isolated situation therefore connotes the vulnerability.

The use of phone calls in horrors and thrillers to inject terror is nothing new, but I liked the way it served as a basis for the chase, as soon as they trace the call from inside the house, she knows she must be scared and try to escape. I also liked conventional shots of the victim from the stalkers perspective or point of view, I think this reinforces the protagonist’s vulnerability in contrast to the power the antagonist and would like to try and experiment with our filming of how we could incorporate such effects and emotions.

In addition we looked at M. Night Shyamalan's 'The Village'. Again early on we formed a basic idea of setting our film in a sinister village deserted of people and so we looked into 'The Village' for inspiration. We knew our film would not be as rural as the setting shown in the clip, we loved the idea of a eerily tight-knit community and the use of a chiming bell to signify danger from an unidentified source and therefore wanted the setting of our film to hold a similar feel or the isolation represented in both ‘Scream’ and ‘the Village’. While this film probably applied the least to our ideas, the shots used of the village and the idea of a very atypical community really allowed us to brainstorm some well-thought ideas of local locations such as rural villages near members of the groups own home and experiences of feelings in places we have felt scared by for example, the woods or being alone in a field.

Research into the industry

ALFRED HITCHCOCK :

This Britishfilm maker produced many intense and suspense filled psychological thrillers of all time;

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000033/

http://hitchcock.tv/mov/hfilm.html

- Psycho

- Vertigo

- North by northwest

In 2007 Hitchcock was ranked #1 by film critics in The Telegraph's list of 21 greatest British directors, which said: "Unquestionably the greatest filmmaker to emerge from these islands, Hitchcock did more than any director to shape modern cinema, which would be utterly different without him. His flair was for narrative, cruelly withholding crucial information (from his characters and from us) and engaging the emotions of the audience like no one else.

Brief and Introduction

We as a class were given the choice of genre for the opening 2 minuets of a film. As my group chose to produce a film from the ‘thriller’ genre the target audience was for teens and above and consequently 12A. Within my group there is Andrew Gilbert and Rachel Trawicki and we worked well as a team for the pre production and production of the film. included in the pre production is ;

1) Research into the industry

2) Research into genres

3) Research into promotion

4) Research into existing films

5) Research into target audience

6) Proposed ideas

7) Planning treatment (synopsis, light ing, costume, actors, camera angles, music)

8) Planning of film including film schedule

9) Planning of the detailed story boards

Preliminary Task

Our PRELIMINARY film was our first experience using the camera. Our brief was to create a short clip of someone walking into a room, opening a door, and closing it. However, as we were so excited with using the equipment for the firstime we extended this brief to include a short conversation and in addition added more movement.

The ESTABLISHING shot was of me walking up the stairs which includes a HIGH CAMERA ANGLE which is where the camera approaches the subject from above the eye level. The short clip is of me getting my book which i have left in a room and walking through a total of 4 doors to reach the teacher played by ANDREW GILBERT. We have included extreem close up shots of the opening and closing of the doors to emphisise our initial task. This will give us an EXPERIENCE with working with the camera which will be mirrored within the EDITING.

STORYBOARD:

This shows us the positions the camera should be in so filming costs can be reduced as less time is wasted on set whilst trying to figure out which shot looks best. As you can see we have used varying shots; long shot, medium close up, over the hsoulder shots and extreem close up.

SCRIPT :

ANDREW : got the book?

EMMA : yep

ANDREW: Learnt the hymn?

EMMA : Yep

ANDREW : Suppose I will have to let you off then.

PROPS :

- Chair (x2)

- Table

- Hymn book