How are we going to use the technical elements to create tension and enigma codes?

Lighting:

Lighting is important for the horror genre. Low key lighting is one of the main codes and conventions for horror because it creates tension and puts the audience on edge. The audience are unable to visualise the whole scene and often this creates mystery and suspense. Within the filming we had to make sure the lighting was dark enough to create a tense atmosphere. We used torches to illuminate one of the actors. This causes the audience to focus on this character and realise that she is a main protagonist. They may feel nervous for her safety as she, like themselves, are unable to visualise the outside location from the train. This emphasised that she is alone, vulnerable and trapped on the train.

Characters:

The female protagonists emphasis the stereotypes of girls being vulnerable and needing help, and to be saved by men. The characters being scared of the murderer show that he has authority over them, this makes them susceptible to danger. The characters, being teenagers, are portrayed as stereotypical as they get into trouble and they can’t sort it out on their own. This shows that they’re not as grown up as they thought they were.

Props:

Using the props makes the opening two minutes seem more realistic. The petrol can when it is first shown will create an enigma as the audience wouldn’t know what the petrol will be used for therefore they’d have to guess. The rope and makeup put together makes it too, look more realistic as it looks like the rope has done damage to the girl when she is shown.

Mise-en-Scene:

So we capture the setting and location of our opening, we have got shots of the train pulling into the station, also, some of the shots that we’ve filmed has the name of the train station in it. To create enigma we will use different shots to make the audience wonder how a station could be used to torture/ harm the characters. We then will reveal it in other shots, this will end the audience’s questioning.

Production company title

Production Company Title:

There are many production companies already created. When creating our own production company, we had to make sure that it wasn’t too similar to other production companies out there. However, we could take inspiration and use that to create our own unique title.Some options for our production company name were:

-Boy next door films

-Millennium productions

-Cloud 9 productions

-Glass films

Overall, we chose ‘Cloud 9’ for our company name. The definition on google for cloud 9 is ‘State of perfect happiness’ we choose this name as it contrasts with what the majority of films we will be producing (horror/thriller). We think that Cloud 9 can have an alternative meaning of all happiness will evidently come to an end. For the design of our production company logo, we will incorporate an image of a cloud made out of 9’s. We are going to put the cloud in white and the text below it in a pale blue. This will then change to the same cloud but with red text and a white lightning bolt too. The text will be on a black background. When this comes onto the screen there will be a lightning bolt sound to shock the audience. This also shows that the genre of the film is horror.

Filming diary day 1

Filming Day: Day 1

Date: Sunday 15th January

Location: Stoneleigh Station

On our first day of filming, we had most of the actors however one couldn’t make it. Therefore we worked around this issue and filmed as much as we could. We did lots of different shots, some of the same shots but at different angles so when it comes to editing we then have a choice on what angle of shot we want to use.

We decided to start filming at 16:00 as we needed to have a dark atmosphere. The makeup and costume were done beforehand this made the process of filming faster.

The first shot was of one of the teenage girls tied up against the train station sign. Then another shot we did was having a girl on the train when she’s dying and the train doors open. For this the actor and one of us had to get on the train and go to Ewell West, to then change train and come back. This took a while as there was a wait for the next train. Once the train stopped at Stoneleigh the actor acted, then had to go to Worcester Park to change train again to come back as there wasn’t enough time to get off the train after the shot was done. As a group we decided not to repeat the shot as it was very time consuming. We were very lucky to get the shot first time.

After this we go a lot of running shots. Some makeup had to be redone as the rain was making it peel off. This was a problem as this too was time consuming. Throughout the afternoon, the sky got darker so this created more of an atmosphere for our filming.

Below is a short video to show what we got up to on the day.

Animated storyboard - 'Everlasting Journey' opening 2 minutes and evaluation

In our animatic story board, we tried to use as many different shots as possible to create tension, also to make the audience feel as if they’re there and part of it. We created an enigma code by changing the storyline from starting at the end of the night to cut to the beginning of the night. This creates an enigma code as the audience won’t know why the story has suddenly changed, but also they’ll wonder what happens to the characters at the end.

Our narrative has been established through the location of the film, as it also entwines with the title of our film, about and journey and we believed that a train was a good representation of it. The characters establish our narrative as they are relatable, and they’re most likely age to be going out at night. The props we use don’t only establish the narrative but also the genre as they are conventional props for a horror film.

From making the animatic storyboard, we learnt that different shots would create different effects on the audience. We didn’t adjust the shot length because it was over a minute and all we wanted was to show the different shots not the timings of the shots. However, when we edit the actual footage the opening will fit 2 minutes.

Our editing will be quick cuts as this is conventional in horror films, and we want to create a tense effect on the audience. These will be effective as through research we have found that this type of editing has created tension and has put many audiences on edge.

Shot list - Everlasting Journey

Shot List for ‘EVERLASTING JOURNEY'

1.XXXXX Timer XXXXX

2.Medium shot of train going past on diagonal

3.Another medium shot of train going past from straight on view (added title)

4.Medium close up from behind murderers ankles as train is continuing to move past

5.Wide angle long shot of train doors opening to reveal main character inside

6.Extreme close up of forehead wound

7.Wide angle medium shot of girl on train continued

8.Extreme close up of girls eye bruise

9.Wide angle medium shot of train doors closing to hide the girl

10.Close up of girls mouth and nose as she mouths the words ‘help me’

11.XXXXX Timer XXXXX

12.High angle/birds eye view shot of murderers feet as they are walking along platform

13.Medium shot (from behind) from waist down of murderer walking

14.Cut back to high angle/birds eye view shot of murderers feet as they are walking along platform

15.Medium shot of girl struggling

16.Back to shot of murderers feet walking which pans up to reveal the girl attached to the sign

17.Close up profile shot of girl breathing

18.Close up of wrists and wounds

19.Long shot of girls position on platform

20.Medium profile shot of girl screaming (part 1)

21.Close up of girls forehead wound

22.Medium profile shot of girl screaming (part 2)

23.XXXXX Timer XXXXX

24.High angle medium shot of murderer walking

25.Extreme close up shot blood on hands holding petrol can (Murderer)

26.Repeat high angle medium shot of murderer walking

27.Extreme close up shot blood on hands holding black rope (Murderer)

28.Repeat high angle medium shot of murderer walking

29.Medium tracking shot over the shoulder of murderer

30. Repeat high angle medium shot of murderer walking

31.Panning shot of murderers feet close to the edge of tracks

32.Match on action shot of murderer dropping petrol can

33.XXXXX Timer XXXXX

34.Eye level shot looking through at victim lying on the floor

35.Medium shot with shallow focus on victims phone

36.Repeat distorted window shot showing victim

37.Short cut of blurred phone

38.Extreme close up of victims phone showing message

39.Medium to close up shot of the legs of the victim

40.Close up of victims corner of shoes and petrol hitting floor

41.High angle shot of victims legs and petrol can

42.Similar High angle, medium shot of victims legs covered in petrol

43.Repeat high angle shot of victims legs and petrol can

44.Canted angle of victims feet and the petrol can to show imbalance

45.Match on action shot  of murderer lighting flame

46.Medium, canted angle shot as the match hits the floor

47.Wide angle of flames

48.XXXXX Timer XXXXX

49.Tracking shot of victim boy running

50.Match on action of victim hitting sign as he runs past

51.Extreme close up of blood on sign

52.Tracking shot of boy running down the platform

53.Close up of victim panting (profile)

54.Medium tracking shot as victim runs up stairs

55.Close up of victim panting again and shows bruises

56.Low angle of victim running up the stairs

57.High angle looking down on victim running up the stairs

58.Close up of feet running past (tracking)

59.Medium shot as boy runs down stairs

60.Medium shot of legs as boy continues running down the stairs

61.Low angle shot looking up at boy running down the stairs

62.XXXXX Timer XXXXX

63.Another medium shot of train going past from straight on view

64.XXXXX Timer XXXXX

65.Close up of boys face as he is looking out (get surroundings in)

66.Medium shot tracking girls from behind

67.Medium shot of boys face as he is looking out (get surroundings in)

68.Medium shot tracking girls from behind

69.Medium close up tracking shot of girls shoulders up walking

70.Medium shot with shallow focus on boy then dee focus on girls walking towards them

71.Match on action medium shot of hug taking place

72.Train pulling in establishing shot

73.Long shot of characters getting on train

74.High angle shot capturing seating arrangements

75.Over the shoulder shot (in-between chairs) onto main victim girl

Codes and conventions featured in our opening two minutes

Having researched around different genres at the beginning of the school year and understood the different features of them, we feel it would now be a good time to explain that we have learnt from our research and that this research has impacted our openings in a positive way.

Firstly, a very common feature of the horror genre is blood and gore. This appears a noticeable amount within our opening and the injuries of our characters is what creates fear for our audience as they are scary to look at. The blood appears on their clothing as well as the colour red being used a lot.

Secondly, low key lighting is a main feature of horror films as it links to fear of the unknown, darkness and night time, all things which our teenage audience may find unsettling. We filmed in our location whilst it was dark as it made the location look much more frightening.

Thirdly, the isolated location of a quiet train station in Surrey had the potential to be scary for a large number of our viewers as it's always frightening being at a train station on your own at night. Furthermore, train stations could have connotations to death and suicide in the context of a movie due to the depiction that the media creates.

Fourthly, our use of creepy soundtrack and effects links to a typical horror film. After all, what’s a horror film without a blood curdling scream? The soundtrack that we chose also links to our title and storyline which follows a stalker style series of events. We also included lots of enigma codes, including hiding the identity of the murderer.

To conclude, our horror opening is a classic mix of gore and creepy story and is inspired by a combination of the horror film market.

Preliminary task evaluation

For our preliminary task, we decided to make it a little bit more entertaining with a comical twist, rather than the traditional opening doors, walking and having a short conversation. Although it does have these basic movements we have made them more exciting for the audience.

We wanted to practice the different filming techniques, this included; our first shot, continuity to show the female actress walking up, we think this shot was successful because it showed two sides of the actress (front and back) with a simple fade. The next shot was a tracking shot of the female actresses legs and feet as she was walking away from the camera, we noticed in our editing stages that this was poorly filmed as the camera was slightly shaky, to avoid this next time we will use a tri pod and potentially put it on something that wheels. Our next shot reflects the rule of thirds, it shows a low wide angled shot of the actress feet walking past the camera. This is through the audience seeing the foreground of the actresses feet and the background of the landscape.

The next shot was long and wide angled, this was top help set the scene of a typical school setting, we used the 180 degree rule to help create realism. We think this was a successful shot because the camera was steady and gave the impression that the audience were there themselves watching the actress. The editing from the current shot to the following shot flowed very well, the following shot was a match on action shot showing the actress attempting to open the door, the camera then pans up to a close up of the actors face revealing her embarrassment as she was unsuccessful. However we don't think we are going to use a similar shot as this because it was potentially unrealistic and unprofessional. The next shot is a tracking shot which follows the actress from the outside of the door, to through the door and ending on her sitting down at the table. We think this shot started of well as it flowed nicely however towards the end of the shot as the actress is about to sit down the camera was a little bit shaky. Similarly to before we would resolve this by using a tri pod on wheels.

We then used a shot reverse shot, which included a short dialogue between two characters, the camera started by looking over the shoulder of one and then changed to the other side to see the other actress. We believe this was a successful shot as the camera was steady, it flowed smoothly and looked realistic. For future reference we wouldn't film this in a busy area as the sound sometimes muffles. Our last shot was high angled to show both female actresses laughing, this is possible something we could use in our film to show the dominance of the stalker/ killer figure looking down on the victims.

Overall, we think our preliminary was successful because it helped us to practice and improve our filming skills and editing techniques. However we have also learnt areas were we need to make improvements to help make our opening two minutes as successful as possible.

Preliminary task: video

The purpose of this video was to practise our filming techniques and editing skills. We now understand what we are good at and what we need to improve upon to make our video the best it will be.

Costume and prop research

As a group we had to think about the props and costumes that we'd need to film. One factor we have to take into consideration was the type of clothing for two reasons: 1) we had to think about what teenagers would wear on a day out to London. And 2) we had to think that we'd use fake blood or red paint which could be messy and hard to get out of clothes.
We then did some research about types of clothing and we decided that for the two teenage girls they'd be in:

-Jeans

-Crop top

-Flannel Shirt

We decided the jeans as everyone would have them and they're typically part of a teenage outfit.

The crop top was the same reason, then we could 'pre-ruin' them. The flannel shirt was because this is typical fashion and practically it would help keep them warm during filming.

Then we decided for the two teenage boys that they'd be wearing:

-Jeans

-Pale colour shirt or jumper

We needed a pale colour shirt because we needed the blood to be visible on the clothes. We then again wanted jeans as this is the fashion for teenagers now.

For the props we will need dark black boots as when the doors open to the train we will see the dark black boots. We will also need a pretend knife so the killer can drop it which will show how he has injured and killed the victims. The clothing and knife will be covered in fake blood to show what it was used for too. Alongside this, we will need rope to show the victims have been tied. Petrol (we will use water) will also be a prop as this could be very dangerous otherwise to the actors. 

To keep the actors safe, we will make sure they feel comfortable before filming them, also if they’re tied up we won’t make the knots too tight. We will survey the filming area to make sure there are no hazards too.

 

 

 

Stoneleigh station location research

This is the video that we made at the location we will be filming at. The benefits of going to our location is that we could experiment with different shots and find out what worked and what didn't.

Adobe tutorials

We decided to use the official help page for adobe to teach us the basics for our editing. This website was really useful as it was simple, easy to understand and allowed us to develop some key skills.

https://helpx.adobe.com/premiere-pro/how-to/easy-video.html?playlist=/ccx/v1/collection/product/premiere-pro/segment/designer/explevel/beginner/applaunch/orientation/collection.ccx.js

The first video that we looked at was ‘importing footage’, this helped us gain our basic skills needed, because without this very basic technique we wouldn’t have anything to edit. Through importing we could bring onto the screen either a still image or a video clip. This will help us when it comes to editing as we will then be able to choose the exact bits of footage we need.

The second video was creating a sequence. After importing this will help us move the footage we have into different places. From here we can choose what goes where, and for how long. The timeline will then be set for us to edit any further if needed.

Adding the title was the next video. This showed us how to get text, change the font and the colour. This is good because then we will be able to adapt the font quite easily and adjust the place.

The audio to our film is very important, this is the next video; ‘add and adjust audio’ was key. The audio is what will help create suspense in our opening two minutes therefore watching the video was very important.

‘Exporting to Youtube’, this was the final video. Once we had all the basic skill and techniques. The last thing we needed to do was to upload it to Youtube so then we could put it on our blogs. This was quite simple to do but we had to save it first.

Overall, the easy video tutorials were very helpful as they informed us on the simple techniques we’d use. This website has advanced videos too that we could watch if we wanted to change our opening two minutes at all.

January 2017 to do list

Jan 2017 Media To-Do List:

Katie:

-Relevant Online Tutorials (on filming and editing) watched and commented on (At least 2 posts)

-Diary of filming and editing

-Costume and prop research

Eloise:

-Film at Stoneleigh Station
-Practising different shots to see what will work in our film and what won't work
-Complete Storyboard

Gemma:

-Film at Stoneleigh Station

-Practising different shots to see what will work in our film and what won't work

-Edit Eloise’s storyboard into an animation and upload to youtube and blogger

Researching adobe premier pro software

Style:

We have decided that we will probably use red font colour to promote blood with a shadow of white which creates a mysterious atmosphere. At the moment this is just an idea as we are still researching around the different fonts that we can get. We know for definite that our actors will be in a smaller, more discrete font than the distributor, producer, director etc. We have an example of one of our actors fonts and colour choice.

Transitions:

We have decided to practise using this adobe software so that we can prepare our title sequence and get used to the idea of using this program. The title transitions that we have liked so far are 'doors' which can be found under the section 3D motion. It would be ideal for us to use when the doors of the train are shutting, especially if we could synchronise them together. We also liked 'barn doors' which could be found under the section wipe. It would be really good to use when the doors are opening. The transition 'split' would also be good to use during the footage of the doors.

Examples of title openings and analysis

Se7en:

The opening title sequence of Se7en begins with a close up shot of a ticking barometer followed by another close up shot of a hand flipping the pages of a book, there is a shallow focus to mask the identity of the moving hand. This is combined  with diegetic sounds of the clock ticking which immediately builds tension as the audience feel like they under time pressure. The first two titles are the production company's name and the producer, they are shown in bold capitals distancing them from the actors involved in the film. However the actors are shown in creepy handwriting to highlight their involvement in the film and potentially the crime.  Moving images of the killer shaving off his fingers prints and looking through disturbing photos introduce the horror/ thriller genre. There is also a use of red colouring which reflects the potential use of blood in the film and is a convention of the horror genre. Also their is still images of CCTV which introduces a stalker story, to show the audience that the killer is most likely watching his victims. There is a continuous moving image of the killer crossing out the eyes of a photographed man which could be a visual metaphor of their death. Less important actors or people involved in the film eg. the editor appear later on in the sequence over images of the killers handwriting and highlighting in textbooks combined with photographs of potential victims. The closing sequence to the title uses non diegetic music which stops suddenly. The whole sequence had a eerie effect throughout to add tension and create further enigma codes.

Dawn of the dead:

The opening title sequence of Dawn of the dead opens with the name of the production company written across the screen. It is shown in a trickled blood font which instantly highlights that this links with the codes and conventions of a horror genre. There is a high, wide angle shot of a large number of people (around 200) who all appear to be praying at the same time. This could be linked with how people could be brainwashed and follow the commands of a leader. Another production company is then shown on the screen in bold capitals before it also disappears of the screen in a similar matter. The red colour connotes to death and anger. This is followed by 3 short fast moving images, the main stand out one was a close up image of a person who was presented as possessed and had blood pouring out of their mouth. This helped to build up tension to the title of the film appearing on the screen in red, bold capitals. This leads to a range of moving shots of a zombie like creature aggressively moving, linked with a voice over taken from some sort of news report asking questions about this virus alongside the sound of a heart beat speeding up gradually. The voiceover helps the clip to feel more realistic and the non diegetic heart beat connotes the feeling of worry. A diegetic song starts to play over the top off a montage of clips showing different TV news reports highlighting the chaos that has happened due to this virus, in particular the audience sees riots, explosions, zombie like characters and lots of blood. There is also an additional sound of the TV changing channel as it cuts from clip to clip to once again help with the realism and build tension. The diegetic sounds of screaming, crying for help and sirens can be heard over the top of the music create the feeling of fear. The final title used is the directors name, once again in the trickled blood, combined with a creepy final voice over, mumbling words about death and hell.

Opening title research

What are the different ways titles can be presented?

-Titles accompanied by still image

-Effect over titles

- Can be inserted over the action (series of moving images)

-Titles built around animation or motion graphics

-Black and white titles

Note down order of titles in the horror genre:

Must include…. title of film, director/ producers name, production company and studio or distribution company. The order sometimes varies where the director may be followed by main actors or vice versa. This is because they may be a unique selling point of the film. Other titles include costume designer, screenplay writer, producer, make up and any other key people involved in the making of the film. 

eg. Catch me if you can:

Storyline is summed up through animation
Cleverly use lines to create affect 
Presents some sort of chase
Top a list actors came before title of film 
Less important people eg. Production photographer and costume designer are mentioned later on in the titles 


Directors name (Steven Spielberg) mentioned twice shows how important he is