Pros And Cons Of Our Locations

This is Tooting Bec Common. We have chosen this location as our scenery as we feel as a group that it creates a feeling of insecurity and reality. Because the location is outside and it well known, the audience are able to identify with the opening sequence which creates a suspense atmosphere and successfully makes the audience feel insecure about their surroundings. However there are limitations to the location that we have chosen. One limitation of our location is that the pavement and walkways are not completely smooth, and so when it comes to using a dolly, our filming may appear rough which will make our tracking look unprofessional. Together, we expressed many different ideas to try and overcome this limitation and we came to the conclusion that we would would try and find a thin sheet of wood or cardboard on which we will move our dolly on to try and make our tracking shot appear smoother. However, if we do choose this location to film our opening sequence, we will do it during mid day which will be easier as there will be less people walking around as most people will be at work, school, college, etc. This area will be ideal for us to use as there are loads of trees that we can tie our police tape too and there is concerete which we can draw on with chalk and rub off after we have finished outlining out victims body on the floor. There is also a local car park opposite the area of the common we have chosen which is also ideal as we wanted the detective to park up and walk to the crime scene.

 

The image above is a confined room within our school which we will be using in our opening sequence. This room will be the area in which the distorted man is in. The walls are yellow and the area is messy, however we will cover the yellow walls with white wallpaper and tidy up the room to give space for the camera and tripod. Being outside in an open space with the detective and switching to a very small confined space like this could be effective as it could go from a sense of reality to a feeling of restriction which could make the audience feel uneasy. On the walls will be blood splattered and dirt to resemble the character as the insane antagonist. The room is also very dimly lit which is is conventional for a thriller. We haven't tested out the room to see if it is big enough for me (the distorted man) to go crazy in. However, There is also a toilet in our school which is grimy and very dirty which we could use if we ask for permission from the caretakers.

18/02/11 Log (Target Audience)

18/02/11 Log (Audience Research)

View more presentations from therealswish.

Above is a presentation about our target audience. We considered the age, sex and gender and ethnicity of our audiences and came to a conclusion of what our target audience should be.

Narrative

View more presentations from therealswish.

Above is a presentation done by Tanika Hibbert which gives an overview of what our opening sequence is like and went into depth by describing the mis en scene.

18/02/11 Log (Final Logo)

Today, Izak accessed 'Abode Photoshop' and edited the logo for our production team. We changed the background of the logo to create a more suspenseful and chilling atmosphere as the colours are more dull. As a team, we felt as if the red/burgundy color stood out too much and wanted to create a bleak eerie feeling rather than a horror type atmosphere. We kept the sharp font of our production name but decided to mellow it down and make it seem more simple so we got rid of most of the effects we applied onto the font.

18/12/11 Log (Images Of The Cast)

                           The image above is a picture of Kadeem Gordon, one of the members of 'Tell'em Productions' who will be our 'distorted male' in our opening sequence of our thriller 'Fraction'. He is currently growing his hair for the opening sequence which will represent the character as a filthy and rough male.

Izak Gordon is another member of the team and will be playing the 'Detective' in the opening sequence. Izak and Kadeem are twins so we thought that we should take advantage of the fact that we had twins in the group and come up with the idea of the detective and the distorted male being the same person.

Tanika Hibbert is the final member in our production team who is in charge of the cinematography. Tanika also helped Kadeem think of the storyline and described the narrative of the opening scene in detail in presentations on the blog.

Editing Research (Overlapping)

In this music video titled 'Cant Be Friends', a specific editing technique called overlapping has been used throughout the music video to show that the artist; Trey Songz is not in the right frame of mind. I find the use of overlapping in this music video very inspirational and if our group could grasp the idea of overlapping and include it in our opening sequence for our thriller 'Fraction', then we could end up with a really admirable finished opening sequence.

I think that if we incorporate overlapping into the scene where the crazy man is sitting down in the room, that would really emphasize the idea that he is not right in the head. We want the audience to know that the crazy man in the room has a broken mind frame without the use of dialogue, and by using overlapping, we can successfully do so. We hope to do this by collecting different shots of the crazy mans face and overlapping them to show the opaque original face and a number of slightly transparent other faces in the background.

Treatment

In the opening sequence of our thriller titled 'Fraction', a forensic team and detectives are at a murder scene investigating the dead body of a middle aged woman found in a park. Initially, this will be a shot to show the production design, and we will use an establishing shot to do so. This creates a disequilibrium at the beginning of the film because we jump straight into a murder scene without any explanation or build up. The forensic team will be wearing white overalls which will cover the whole of their bodies, and the murder scene is surrounded by police tape or tape reading 'Do not cross'. There will also be a white outline of the victims body painted on the floor to help the forensic team piece together the investigation, which we will create by using white spray paint, duck tape or chalk. One of the detectives, who will be the main character of the story will then exit a car, which we will show by using a low angle shot to connote his superiority. We will then tilt the camera up slowly to reveal the detective identity. The detective will then walk towards the crime scene which we will shoot using an over the shoulder shot. High key natural lighting will be used to create a false sense of security for the audience.

The scene will then change to show a man who appears to be crazy sitting down in a room. Little does the audience know, the crazy man in the room is actually the detective. The detective is unaware of his alter self due to his split personality and memory impairment, making him both the protagonist and the antagonist. This makes the narration of the story restricted, as the audience have limited access to the storyline and know as much as the characters in the film do. However, his whole face will not been shown at this point, reason being because we don't want the audience to grasp the idea that the detective is the killer so early on in the opening sequence of the film. The production design will need to be as simple as possible. It will be a dirty, bleak, confined space to represent the alter ego of the detective who is sitting inside the room. The dangerous half of the detective will have blood around his mouth and hi hands, and will be wearing a white t shirt covered in blood, to add to his sinister appearance, which we will make ourselves. Artificial low key lighting will be used in this room to connote his dark personality.

The scene will then cut back to the crime scene showing a colleague lifting up the police tape for the detective. In this shot, we will use a point of view shot to make the audience feel involved in the story. Another detective who is standing inside of the restricted area surrounded by police tape will then hand the detective a case file, containing photos of the dead woman. At this point, we will use a eye line match to show the audience what the detective is looking at. The scene will then change again to show the crazy man in the confined room, hitting his head against the wall. However, this time we will see a photo on the floor of the dead girl found at the crime scene beside him. The photo will be slightly ripped and will be covered in blood. We will  use a close up to ensure that the audience can see that the photo is of the dead girl. Again, low key artificial lighting will be used.

The scene will then cut back to the detective back at the crime scene. The detective will be kneeling down over the dead body, which we will shoot using a low angle shot. This connotes he superiority over whoever is in the body bag. The detective will then begin to slowly unzip the body bag, which we will show by using a close up of the detectives hand on the zip. The top of the victims head will be revealed to show the hairline, and then the scene will cut back to the crazy man in the room again. We will use a mid shot to show the crazy man sitting in the room, but this time, we will use an editing technique called overlapping to amplify his distorted mind frame. We hope to do this by collecting many shots of the crazy mans face and overlapping them to make it look like there is more than one face in the single shot. We have decided to use a mid shot rather than a close up so that we are able to see the overlapping faces in the background. Using a close up would mean that the background would be restricted and there would be no space for the extra faces in the background.

The scene will then cut back to the detective at the crime scene. At this point, the detective will carry on unzipping the body bag. When the body bag is completely unzipped, the detective see's his alter self (the crazy man) inside of the body bag. The crazy half of the detective will have his eyes wide open looking straight up into the sky. His head will then tilt so that he is making eye contact with the detective. He will still have the blood on his t shirt and around his mouth at this point. This shot will be filmed with a point of view (POV) shot, to put the audience in the detectives shoes. The detective will then step back with a confused and frightened look on his face, which we will film using a close up. The detective doesn't know who this person inside the body bag is as he is unaware of his alter self, however, he can see that he looks virtually identical to him.

The detective will then look around to see if any of his colleagues saw the crazy man inside of the body bag. We will use an over the shoulder shot to show the detective looking around. However, no one was watching and when the detective looks back at the body bag, the body of the dead woman is inside it, which we will show yet again with a POV shot. We will then have a low angle shot of the detective standing above the body bag, which will then switch to a high angle of the dead woman in the body bag. The opening sequence will finish off with another low angle of the detective looking down at the body bag, however, we will be using overlapping again the combine the image of the detective and the image of the crazy man together in one shot.

17/02/11 Log (Titles for Animation)

Kadeem went on 'LiveType' and created some amazing titles that will be suitable for our animated storyboard. Tanika was absent to approve to our titles but Izak gave some positive feedback and told me that the titles have a real good thriller element. There will be our animated illustrations in the background so I will change the white text to a darker color. When it comes to creating the opening titles for the real opening sequence, we will make a few minor adjustments. We will change the position of the titles because if we place them in the middle of the shot, we will not be able to see certain things in the opening sequence. The titles will be in the way of the shots. Also we will change the colour red into the colour grey because the red text makes it look more like a horror than a thriller.

17/02/11 Log (Production Logo)

Today, Kadeem and Izak logged onto 'Adobe Photoshop' and worked on a logo for our production team. We went for a font which was bold and stood out and we wanted a bleak and eerie background to create a tense and chilling atmosphere within the logo. The logo is very basic but does appeal to the eye due to the red scratchy effect in the background. The colors also represent a thriller as they are 'cold', 'dark' and 'bloody' and the font is very sharp and strikes the eye of the audience. However, we may adjust the logo and make changes if we have time to make it look more certified.

We've also updated our treatment as we decided to change the title of our movie form 'Disambiguation' to 'Fraction'. We were not very sure if disambiguation was a word which appropriately suited our movie so we changed the the title to something more simple which relates to our film. Because the title is short and simple, it makes the audience question what the film may be about as the word 'fraction' could be used in different ways. During the process of changing our thriller title, Kadeem and Izak have also started to write out treatment of the opening scene of our thriller in heavy detail not only referring to the storyline, but also referring to the cinematography and camera shots, the editing techniques we will use and the mis en scene. Tanika finished writing the opening sequence shot list and in addition to that, Izak is expanding on the story and the shot types we are using within the opening sequence.


Izak also continued to draw out the story board and by tomorrow everything will be ready and sorted to film, animate and post onto our production blog.

Soundtrack Research for Storyboard

As a group we researched a range of different soundtracks of thrillers that we felt could fit in with our storyboard. We felt that the Saw soundtrack worked well with our titles and the pace of our storyboard. However we felt that as the soundtrack is so iconic it would not show our creativity as a group. We wanted to go for a soundtrack which creates suspense and this successfully creates suspense, however, this is a very common song and may be classified as a horror soundtrack more than a thriller.

This soundtrack was originally used in a horror film called 'Let Me In'. However, we decided as a group that this track conveys to a typical thriller soundtrack as creates a lot of suspense and tension within the audience. As the soundtrack comes to an end, it begins to loose its thriller meaning and jump into a different genre of music and as a group we were not entirely keen on this soundtrack.

We really did like this soundtrack from the film 'Dead Silence' and felt as if we could incorporate this soundtrack into our animation. Because is has an element of horror and thriller, we thought that using this soundtrack could be successful as it would build up more suspension within the audience when watching our animation. I feel that this soundtrack could go well with our story line as the first part of this soundtrack sounds like it could of been taken from a crime scene thriller (our thriller is a crime scene/psychological thriller) and when its half way through the soundtrack, the instruments become quite distorted and bleak creating a thriller effect. This will link into our thriller very well and we may consider using this.

As a group we also really liked this soundtrack from the film '28 weeks later' because it sounds calm and tranquil but also creates suspense. The instruments used within this soundtrack are expected within a thriller. It has an element of action to it but has a sense of thrill to it. Listening to this soundtrack created suspense without even watching the movie. As a group, we would need to consider whether using this soundtrack or using the soundtrack above would fit into our animated story board and create a sense of tension.

Daily Update

I Tanika Hibbert and Kadeem Gordon are currently in media studies working on a production logo and titles for our animated storyboard. We are using LiveType to create our titles and make them look as if they belong in the thriller genre as much as possible.