Location : My Room

Below are some photos of my room, which will be used for Alison to get ready in.

                          

I think the bright pink of my room will contrast nicely with the dark, sophisticated tones of the dining room. Also, because pink connotes femininity, it is imediately obvious that it's Alison's character's room and not Will's. Also (bottom right) is a picture of my ensuite, we could use this for Alison to do her hair/make up in (and do a point of view shot in the mirror, as I looked at in my research).

Camera Shot Ideas (Dinner Scene)

So, after school I set up my dining room in the rough way it's going to be in our film (the small table with a candle in the centre etc). I took a couple of shots with different styles of candles and different positions of candles as well as experimenting with high angle and point of view shots to see which gives the clearest impression.

DIFFERENT CANDLES.

Above are 2 point of view shots (the left with one, central candle and the right with a tea light sprial and a candle in the background)

DIFFERENT SHOT TYPES.

On the left is my personal favourite shot - a high angle with both candles. I think its effective as you can see everything on the table more clearly (including the food etc). The right is a point of view with the two candles.

I think we should include both types of shot in order to let the audience see everything; I also thought we could pan down from the high angle as they start talking to a point of view, then maybe doing a shot reverse shot, so you can see it from the perspective of both characters.

Production Meeting 4

These are the notes which Della made when I was off school with the flu last week. She thought we needed to finalise everything and pick convienient times for both ourselves and our actors.This week I have spoken to Alison about dates; she is free all holiday, as is Will.

Final Descions

So, the deadline for research and planning has been and gone; and Della and I had some imperative descions to make. We discussed our final choices for the costume, music and location.
Final Costume (Alison) : We decided on a classic dark coloured dress to imply that she's going on a date, with dark or smokey eyes and deep red lips.

Final Costume (Will) : We picked a smart casual look for Will; to again, empahsise the date. Jeans or dark trousers and a shirt probably.

Final Location : We are hoping to film in both loaction's if they fit together. If not, we will end up filming all of it in both forests and then deciding which one looks best after the editing process. We are using my room, dining room and hopefully my friend's brother's room for the getting changed scenes; however, I still need to ask my friend if she's okay with this because she's been away this week.

Final Music : Not picking any specifics as of yet, because once we have the footage we will put it to may different songs and instrumentals and see what fits best. However, we're both thinking of sweet and cute piano music for the getting changed scenes (to build tension), and then for the forest scenes, more scary, streotypical horror music (although we are in the process of thinking about using a haunting instrumental).

Final Props : We have already decided on these (see previous posts on 'Research : Props), but, if the water is too cold to film in, we will need a knife and possibly some fake blood to film the knifing scene.

Film Ending

Me & Della thought that making the actors go into the river in the winter would be extremely cold and they might get ill if they are in there for a long time. We don't really want to cause them illness so we thought of some alternate endings incase it is too cold to do our original idea.
Our ideas for alternatives are:


- Create an underwater shot, looking up at the actors.
This may be a little ambitious as we do not own an underwater camera however we could experiment in editing with layering clips together. Maybe a shot of the water layered over a very low angle shot of the actors.

- A shot of Will holding a knife to Alison's throat, looking towards the river as if he has decided that he wants to drown her, maybe an over the shoulder shot to make the audience feel like they are actually there seeing it happen. For this we will need a knife as a prop and maybe some fake blood.

- A shot of Will pushing Alison into the water, provided it's not too dangerous/cold. If not, a shot of her about to be pushed, which then jumps to the main title.

Research : Indoor Locations.

We need 3 main indoor locations: a girl's bedroom, a boy's bedroom and a kitchen / dining room area.
Since neither me nor Della are boys, we had a slight issue with the boy's bedroom. However, I asked my next door neighbour whether we could use his room to film Will's getting ready scene and he said it was fine. I also thought we could use my bedroom for Alison's dressing scene as it is very obviously a girl's room and has lots of things like photos on the walls to make it seem more personal, allowing the audience to connect with her more, finally it is close to where we will film Will's getting changed scene, so hopefully we can do them both in one day's work.


Also, I was thinking, in my house we have a deep turquoise dining room that's never really used. It is quite small and cosy, with mahogany chairs and table. I think it would be cute for the date scene as it's enclosed and quite dark, creating a romantic atmosphere, however, I will discuss this with Della tomorrow.


Tomorrow, I will go round to my neighbour's house and take a photo of his room, as well as a couple of my room and dining room, to show the indoor locations we are thinking of using - tonight it's a bit too late.

Research : Costumes for Date Scene (Including hair and make up)

For our film opening, Della and I need to think of suitable costumes for our male and female actors which relate to the story as well as reflect the personalities of our characters. Costume is a very important micro-element which can instantly reflect a character's social and economic class and for us, it needs to represent that they are out on a date and not just two friends meeting for a meal. For this reason I think we should have them in 'smart casual' style clothing.

For Alison we liked the idea of a dress and heels, and I thought having her hair loose and wavy could reflect the fact that she's young and quite carefree, also it will enhance how naturally pretty she is and will make her character look more natural and down to earth - which is how I see her to be. I was thinking of something like this for her (but obviously slightly longer).

For make up, I was thinking simplistic but maybe with a touch of glamour with dark eyes like the ones below - which is quite an easy look to do and also connotes glamour and mystery without being too over the top. 

As for the dress and heels, both Della and I were thinking a dark blue or preferably red dress, we asked Alison to see if she has one, and she does; it's black and navy checkered - I think this will be effective because it will look date-like when teamed with heels, but also doesn't look too much or make her character out to be promiscuous.


Will was slightly easier to think about as boys don't really need make up or hair. Will's hair gives off quite a laid back impression, which is how we want him to appear in this scene. For clothes I was thinking a button shirt and jeans - going with the relaxed and approachable look. I can imagine Will's character as the slightly quieter type, who is really sweet and cute to Alison. I feel using jeans and a shirt also links with the 'smart casual' look we want to use.

Storyboarding

Whilst I did font research this week, Della drew out a rough storyboard, which basically mapped out the rough timings and ideas we've discussed over the past few months. She didn't include any shots, editing etc because it was only a rough idea and we discussed the shots and mise en scene at school the next day. Below is the rough draft:

Della and I looked through the storyboard and discussed ideas for developing it into an actual film, for example the shots to use, and how we are going to edit them together. Using our ideas, Della went back and created a much more detailled, informative storyboard including shots and a basic summary of each clip. As well as benefiting Della and I, it will hopefully also help our actors understand more about the plot and how we want them to portray their characters. Della and I will also know how much to film and what shots we need to get our vision into a reality; it will also aid the editing because we have a rough (things may cha

nge as it progresses) idea of how we are editing the shots together and also for how long each shot lasts. Here is the final storyboard:

We have also tried to make sure our timing stays near the 2 minute guideline given to us and worked out that our film should come to around 2 minutes and 5 seconds.

Scripting

Della and I have thought hard about whether we wanted to include speech in our opening two mintues, and have decided against it; we both feel it could ruin the atmosphere as there are a lot of short, sharp shot changes. Also we want to let the music set the scene and pace and we feel having conversations could slow the general pace of the film down, I feel that speech in the opening two minutes of a horror gives too much about the characters and plot away; hence losing the interest of our audience. Our main reason for not doing any speech however, was that for most of the opening both characters are alone, in fact, it's only really the date and walking home scenes where there is room for dialouge, and we feel it could look messy if we put it in. Also, out of all the film research I've done on horror openings (for videos and links, look back) there is very little or no speaking at all.


Having said this, we are thinking about using bits of diagetic sound over the music in certain scenes, for example the running away scene could have her caqtching her breath to add tension and maybe in the getting ready scene she could be humming along to the music; much like a typical girl getting ready for a date would. 
The Opening To Saw 2 is a good example of this, unfortunately I could only find a clip of the first 3 minutes when all I needed was the first 1. I love the way the lightbulb sounds and grabs the attention of the viewer straight away; and also how the deep breaths add tension, which I definitely want to use in the running scene.

Research : Props For Our Film (Mise En Scene)

This evening I have been thinking about how we are going to set up the dinner scene for our film. I made a list of props that we will need and have also thought about colours and connotations of certain props to create a deeper underlying meaning to the piece. Mise en scene is a very important way of telling a lot of things about the house, and characters in the scene almost immediately. It gives suggestions of class, wealth, personality and what sort of thing is happening in the scene. For that reason we had to think long and hard about various props needed.


Della and I thought we needed:


1. A Candle : We are going to place it in a wine bottle because we feel this looks cute and because the people are both quite young they wouldn't have the money for an elaborate candlestick etc. I think we should have a black candle, I did some research on connotations of candle colours - from http://www.ehow.com/facts_5759230_meaning-black-candles_.html - and discovered that a popular connotation of the black candle is witchcraft, which ties into our film's topic of visions and seeing the future.


2. Wine Bottle (+ 2 small glasses of wine) : To make it look more like a date I think we could have two small glasses of red wine for the characters; it creates an ambience and adds a more romantic feel to the scene; which will contrast well with the forest scenes. We will obviously need a wine bottle to put the candle in as well.


3. Flowers : Tomorrow I will go the the plant nursery in my village to see what flowers are avaliable, I think maybe using a passionate colour, such as red, or a warm colour, like yellow, will make the setting look more inviting and also would contrast with the negative connotations of the black candle; maybe showing the two sides to the boy's personality.


4. Glasses, Cutlery etc : We want to go for quite a formal feel, so nice knives, forks, spoons and plates. Some napkins (either red or black, red connoting passion and love, black connoting death, depending on which ones we can find) and posh wine glasses. All of this will make the scene look really cute and as thought the lead male has tried really hard; hence giving us a good first impression of him and shocking the audience completely when they see the drowning scene.


Also, for the getting ready scene, Alison will probably need some form of make up to be putting on, and maybe a hair brush / comb and Will may need some form of hair gel etc. I have all of these items at my house, so it won't be expensive to use them.

Research : Final Fonts For Our Film

For the past few days Della and I have been looking at various fonts that fit in with the horror genre of film, we have been watching opening sequences of films from youtube and then attempting to find a font we liked and that replicated the conventions of a horror/thriller title sequence on free font download site http://www.dafont.com/. We need two main fonts; one for the titles such as 'produced by' and the actors name's, and also one for the main film title, this needs to be bigger and more bold than the others in order to attract more attention to the name. However, I feel we should keep all of the rest of the titles similar as that is what's conventionally done in films such as The Orphange, The Exorcist and The Shining. Below are some of the fonts we liked :

Smaller Titles

Personally, I found Jellyka BeesAntique too hard to read. My personal preferences are 1942 Report, as I think it has an official and quite personal feel to it and also looks old and worn; a technique normally used in thriller film fonts, and either Scriptina or Throw My Hands Up In The Air because they are quite convetionally romantic style fonts, and I think it would provide an interesting contrast with the title. However I could see it being quite confusing for the audience if we were to use one of these two fonts as it doesn't make the genre as clear as 1942 Report.

Main Title

These are the main title fonts we liked the best. My personal faveourites are Angelic War, Broken Ghost and Stamp Act, because I feel that the first two have an eerie, haunting feel to them, and this will tie in with the theme of being able to look into the future. On the other hand I think Stamp Act is good because it's attention grabbing and looks like quite a powerful font, which will remain in the audience's mind. Although fonts such as Metropolitan are conventional of a horror film, to me they connote a lot of blood and violence, which could (like the font's for the smaller titles) give the viewer the wrong idea about genre.

Research : Titles To Use.

In our last production meeting Della and I decided that this week I should look at titles shown in the opening of films so we can get a wider idea of the sort of things to include ourselves. Nowadays, the opening credits to a film are usually embedded into the beginning scene of the film, and can last for however long the director wants (for example, the credits in the1993 film The Fugitive lasted for 15 minutes into the opening sequence).


According to Wikipeida's page on opening credits the most commonly found sequence of titles goes as follows (I have left some of the title's on this page out because they aren't relevant to the opening sequence):


NAME OF THE PRODUCTION COMPANY : "HMG Productions"
DIRECTORS NAMES : "A Film By Della Helwig & Becky Daniels"
STARRING : "Will Steele" & "Alison Cowling" (On our storyboard we have allowed for them to have seperate titles. The first one to be shown will have 'starring' with their name)
PRODUCTION DESIGNERS : "Produced by Della Helwig & Becky Daniels"
FILM NAME : "Foretold"


I don't think we should put in too many titles because otherwise it will look too much like the opening credits and not the beginning of a film, so I've picked what are the most important 5 (in my opinion and by doing research on other title sequences eg The Shining from http://www.artofthetitle.com/ )

Research : Fonts

Font size and colour is very important for attracting a target audience and identifying the film's genre. It must be logical and flow within the shots well, for example, all titles should be the same size, colour and font unless it's changed for a specific impact upon the audience.
I researched the opening title sequences to famous horror films on http://www.artofthetitle.com/, where I found the storyboard to the famous horror film, The Shining (shown below):

We see that this title sequence conforms to the ideas stated above, all the text is in a light blue, of a similar font and size. This gives an overall apperance of neatness to the shots and also has significance to the film itself; light blue is a cold colour and in the end of the film the lead male eventually dies in the snow. This has given me the idea of possibly doing our title in a blue / clearish blue colour to connote water (matching in with her vision).

We could also potenitally have the title dripping from the top or to that something to that effect, although this may be slight overkill.  

Research : Target Audience

When the filming task for our foundation portfolio was given to us, I immediately thought our target audience should be people of my own age group because that's the age I know best and, luckily, Della had the same thoughts as me. Also, in modern day society we predominantly see horror films and their sub-genres being directed at a teenage audience; examples of this are: The Ring, the Saw series and Final Destination. However, I understand that it is mainly dependant upon the personality of the individual; which is why myself and Della had the idea of merging two of the more common genres (horror and romance) together in our film, this will hopefully expand our target audience to both genders and different personalities.

Final Film Name (and tagline)

Over the past week I have been surveying my friends to see which name was the most popular. We chose to ask our friends because we feel if the film was to actually be produced they would be our target audience. I have collected 14 people's votes and placed the results into a bar graph. The most popular name for our film was "Foretold". Now I can begin to research title fonts and begin to place them into the storyboard. Here is the final graph:

We had 7 votes for 'Foretold', 4 for 'The Foretold', 2 for 'The Foreboding' and 1 for 'Apparitions'.


Also, Della and I thought we should come up with a tagline for our film, so we came up with 3 ideas and asked people to vote on them, the most popular option for this, with 9 votes was "The end is only the beginning". If we need to produce posters etc we will use this tagline to summarise the film.

Research : More Music.

HORROR SCENES


I am looking at music that could relate to our specific scenes and I found various clips, for the running scene or the hazy scene I was thinking about using Lullaby from the famous horror film, Rosemary's baby by Enoch Light. I think the beginning of it is eerie and mysterious, much like the forest we want to show. On the other hand I realise that all my music research so far has been on piano music, and maybe this is not the best option for the 'future' scenes; so I looked at the Saw Theme Song, which has a fast, rhythmic tempo, brilliant for the running scene. However, because the saw theme music is generic to the saw series of films, I think that it will be difficult to use because people automatically assosciate this particular song to the specific film, making our film not as unique or individual.


ROMANTIC SCENES


I also had a thought about potential music for the 'present' scenes; earlier I mentioned maybe using the jazz music from 500 days of summer. I also love the way Just The Way You Are - Piano sounds and I think by using a popular song it will captivate the audience, however, because we may use piano for the running scene I feel it may be too much. The beginning to the song Kiss The Rain by Yiruma could be a cute idea for the getting ready scene, or perhaps the date scene as it is quite light and has a romantic air about it.

Research : Romantic Film Music

In romantic comedies the style of music used is normally upbeat and fun, Della and I think that it will provide a good contrast between the haunting music we are considering using for our 'future' scenes. I feel we should use music that creates a sort of soothing astmosphere because it will fit with the romantic, cute ambiance and also could lull the audience into a false sense of security, making the future scenes have more of an impact.
500 Days Of Summer Trailer

500 days of summer is a romantic comedy, and I thought the above trailer exhibits many different styles of music that could be used within our own film. I like the jazz sounding music that comes on second for our date scene, it creates an air of relaxation and will contrast well with the piano / saw style music we are considering using for the vision scenes.

Production Meeting 3

These are the production meeting notes from yesterday's meeting. Della and I feel that we need to start storyboarding our film, as well as continuing the film name research; at the moment we are in the process of asking everyone we know for their opinions. Finally we decided to start having a look at fonts to be used in our film.

Actress Found

We asked our good friend, Alison Cowling, to play our lead female role. She has been in many school plays and was involved with the National Youth Theatre this summer. She passed her drama GCSE this year and has moved on to do the A level course, as well as being involved in our local drama group's productions. We have told both Will and Alison a rough filming time and briefed them on the synopsis, they are both free and keen to help us out, which Della and I are very happy about; they are both extremely talented.

Film Names.

Film names are harder to come up with than we thought! We wanted to do a title with one or two words so it sticks in the audience's heads, but all the obivous ones such as 'visions' etc were taken. We came up with four potential titles and are asking people over this week which one they prefer.
1. The Forboding
2. Foretold
3. Apparitions
4. The Foretold


We also are thinking of a slogan or tagline for our film and again are polling our friends to decide a prefered one.
1. The end is just the beginning
2. There is no end, only a beginning.

Production Meeting 2

Here are the production notes from our last meeting. We decided we need to confirm an actress, and decide upon a name for our film that relates to the horror genre. Finally we said that we should both do some individual research on music and types of music used in famous horror films so that our final piece is as informed as possible.

Research : Horror Film Music

It's amazing how music can completely alter our feelings on a film; it can change from a dramatic, terrifying moment to a laughable one just by swapping songs. For this reason Della and I thought it would be good to look at typical music from horror films and decide upon the sort of music we would like for our own final piece.
Probably one of the most well known soundtracks is to the 1973 version of 'The Exorcist' directed by William Friedkin. He used a mixture of modern classical music (which is something I find particually haunting about the film), including some of Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki's 1971 Cello Concerto. The original soundtrack has only ever been released once on CD, and is the only soundtrack to use the main theme 'Tubular Bells' by Mike Oldfield, which became a lot more popular after the film's realease. Here is a clip of the famous Tubular Bells from youtube.
Looking at this clip has given me the idea of using haunting classical piano music like this for when the characters are getting ready for their date; this could potentially add an element of tension and fear to an otherwise fun scene.

This is a really good blog Becky the reasearch and planning that you have done with Della has shown a good understanding you could put in maybe about looking at camera angles in different trailers related to your opening scene.


Gemma x x x

Research : Location Idea (Clavering Forest)

Here are some photos I took yesterday night of the forest at the back of my house. It is less than a minutes walk from where I live, making it easy to access. I thought this location would be good because it's iscolated and around dusk looks particually eerie. I also felt the bridges within it add a sense of authenticity and can appear quite spooky.

Actor Found

We have chosen Will Steele to play the lead male, he has been in many drama perfomances and took the subject at GCSE. Della has talked him through the basic plot and what he needs to do. We have a couple of female lead ideas in mind, but will discuss this next production meeting.

We have a synopsis!

Last lesson Della and I were talking about our storyline for the final film. Our ideas fitted together well as we had both done our individual research on similiar topics, so we looked through our resources and selected our favourite ideas to use in the piece.


Della had the idea of the film starting with a later scene to create a sense of suspense, leaving the audience wanting to know what has happened to get the character into their situation. We decided to show the female lead running through a forest, or trying to escape from something; this would give us an oppotunity to use a point of view shot, close ups and panning/tracking. Then we wanted to do a split screen (as seen in our favourite film, 500 days of summer) of the two characters getting ready for a date. This will introduce the characters to the audience and also imply that they're together; however we are considering interjecting short, edited stills of the forest into this scene to keep the viewer's attention, the title's could possibly appear within these stills as well. The scene would then swap to the actual date itself; showing a romantic, candlelit setting (probably at the boy's home) with them eating a meal. We are aiming for quite a cute, innocent feel to this scene, to contrast with the streotypical idea of a horror film. Then, as they hold hands across the table, the female lead gets some form of vision into the future; we will make the future shot unclear and hazy - it will be of the forest, possibly another point of view shot and her running or some muffled screams. Next we will quickly snap back to reality with her shaking it off and looking a little confused. As the boy and girl walk home (possibly shot in the dark/dusk for a more lethargic feel) he puts his arm around her she gets another vision; this one is really focused and sharp and is of him trying to kill her by drowning her in the forest's river. We see her struggle to break free, leaving it on a cliffhanger as we see the reality, a final close up / mid shot of the pair; her looking distraught and concerned. To end, the title of the film (which has not yet been agreed) will appear, and finally fade to black.


I thought that we could put some reference to time in the corner of the shots, so the audience can more easily distinguish between visions and reality. It would also provoke the viewer to think about what is happening inbetween the times. Also, I thought it would be quite good to use both black and white and full colour (as of yet we haven't decided which is to be monochrome and which is to be colour). I have discussed these with Della, who likes them and so we will most likely use them within our piece.

Research : Silence of the lambs (1992)

This is the opening 5 minutes (including titles) to the VHS version of the 1992 film 'Silence of the lambs'. I particually like the way that the location comes up at 0:57; the font adds a futuristic, almost criminalistic sense to it. To contrast with 'the ring' there is a lot of music withing the opening to this piece, and I feel it works to create a tense atmosphere. The fact that the camera follows her as she runs (at roughly 2:39) is effective because it develops a sense of fear, and because it's not held steady we feel more as if we are there with her; engaging the audience more.

Research : The Ring (Opening scene)

Above is the first 2 minutes 34 seconds of 'the ring'.
The ring is a horror film produced in 2002. I felt the opening scene of this film had a lot of ideas which I could use in my own piece; for example the large variety of shots and the quite dull colour scheme. I also liked how there was no music, it added a sense of tension to it because you were fully concentrating on what you could see, then at the end it made the gasp a lot more piercing. I thought the use of micro elements such as the costume (she appears to be a school girl, the outfit resembles that of a uniform) and the camera angles (the high angle shot at 1:51 makes her seem so vunerable) both contribute really successfully to the macro effect.

Production Meeting 1

Today myself and my partner; Della Helwig had our first production meeting. We discussed a variety of things; we decided on a genre of horror / thriller and have said we will both research two or three opening scenes from a varitey of films of this genre by Tuesday. We started debating the idea of a location; by using our knowledge of conventional horror film settings we picked a forest. Due to the fact we both live near forests this week we are going to go and take some stills to decide which location would be best to film in. Finally (after much debate) we chose a synposis for our story, but we still need to finalise this and select who we want to play the murderer by next Friday. Below is a copy of the notes we made during our meeting:

Research: http://getaheadocrmedia.blogspot.com/

For this task I had to go onto a level 4 blog (for the film 'the accused') and analyse against the criteria how well they had achieved each one.
Here is the blog : www.yaleblock1mediaproject.blogspot.com


1. Framing a shot, including and excluding elements as appropriate.
Throughout the vast majority of the film the shots are really well framed and they change at appropriate times so as not to miss out any important parts but to cut out irrelevant material.
2. Using a variety of shot distances as appropriate.
I think that they used a lot of different shots, including close up's to show the level of power and depict how emotional it was because we can clearly see their facial expressions. They used an interesting mid-shot of feet and lower body running at 0.08, which is good because it's unconventional and also adds mystery because you can't see the murderer's face. The camera pans when the murderer is running, and a good extreme long shot is used, possibly to show the deserted area surrounding him?
3. Shooting material appropriate to the task set.
The film did this very well, from the outset we could clearly tell the genre of the film. The blood found on the shirt after he commited the murder was also good, we could immediatley tell what had happened.
4. Selecting mis-en-scene including colour, figure, objects, lighting and setting.
All the micro elements were chosen effectively, especially the use of colour. I loved the contrast of colour and black and white and also thought how even the colour scenes were slightly of a slightly duller hue than normal was very well thought out. I liked how the lighting distinguished the facial features in the black and white scenes and how the setting added a sense of iscolation.
5. Manipulating photographs as appropriate to the context for presentation, including cropping and resizing.
The photo's upon the blog as all neatly presented and have been manipulated for aesthetic appeal. The film itself has also had a lot of editing done to it, which has all been effective.
6. Appropriately intergrating illustation and text / Showing understanding of conventions of layout and page design.
Her blog is very colourful, adding interest, and it has a good, even balance of text and images to back up her research without the blog looking too overwhelming. It's not difficult to read and is plesant to look at.
7. Showing awareness for the need for a variety of fonts and text size.
This has been achieved by use of italics and a predominant 2 colour scheme. She has done this well because if there was anymore colour / change in font the page would look unprofessional.
8. Use of ICT
Through the combination of the uploading of hyperlinks, pictures and videos to her blog, and the editing of the video itself, I would say ICT has been used very well here.

Doing this was usful as I discoved what I need to do to reach the top grade boundary with my film and it has made me more aware of all the different criteria.

'Juno' Timing List

‘Fox searchlight pictures’ 0:17 s
‘Mandate pictures, Mr Mudd production’ 0:21 s
‘A Jason Reitman film’ 0:27 s
‘Juno’ 0:30 s
‘Ellen Page’ 0:40 s
‘Michael Cera’ 0:47 s
‘Jennifer Garner’ 0:50 s
‘Jason Bateman’ 0:58 s
‘Allison Janney’ 1:03 s
‘JK Simmons’ 1:08 s
‘Olivia Thirlby’ 1:15 s
‘Casting By…’ 1:18 s
‘Costume Designer’ 1:22 s
‘Music and Songs’ 1:29 s
‘Music Supervisor’ 1:34 s
‘Co producers’ 1:41 s
‘Film Editor’ 1:45 s
‘Production Designer’ 1:50 s
‘Director of Photography’ 1:54 s
‘Executive Producers’ 2:01 s
‘Produced By’ 2:05 s
‘Written By’ 2:13 s
‘Directed By’ 2:18 s


For this task we had to watch the opening scene for the film 'Juno' and note down what titles appeared at what times; this was to aid us in knowing firstly how to effectively use titles in our own films and also so we could take a look at timings so we knew how long to hold shots for. I quickly learnt that the length of time for which a title appears and also how long a shot is are both very important factors to consider to keep the pace of the film.

Research: art of the title

I went onto http://www.artofthetitle.com/ to research title sequences, and I came across the opening part of 'to kill a mockingbird'. I like the way it's in black and white, adding a melancholy and nostalgic mood to the film, it also adds a bit of a mysterious air; ideal for the thriller / horror genre I am thinking of doing.

Research: Fright (1971)

This is a still from the 1971 film 'Fright'. I like the camera shot of the person in the glass, I feel it adds an element of mystery to the scene and would be fairly easy to replicate within my own piece. Also I like how everything is blurred because you're seeing it through a mirror - it really creates an atmosphere of tension.

Research: 'Cherrybomb' (2009)

This is the opening 2 minutes of my favourite film; 'Cherrybomb'. I like it because it starts with the end, which is an interesting way of grabbing the reader's attention as they want to see how the character's got into said situation. Although this idea is quite conventional, in my opinion the director of this film makes it unique by the use of various micro-elements such as sound, costume and lighting. I may incorporate this into my own opening piece.


I like how there isn't much dialouge in this either; it makes the whole opening faster paced and more interesting because you feel like you want to get to know the characters better. In my film I am going to use this lack of speech to hopefully give the same effect.
Also, I like the way the title appears in the screen in a scattered manner. It makes the sequence more sporadic and youthful; directly relating to the audience who will be watching. I think the way in which it uses the whole ideology of teenagers texting eachother everything and showing what they're saying to one another is also really well done and quite individual to this specific film, making it more memorable.

Research : Shots + Colours

This is a poster from the new 'Nightmare on elm street', although I am not doing a horror film, I like the way you cannot see his face as it adds an element of mystery. I think the way he's standing over somebody shows a really strong sense of power and the red and black colour scheme shows that it relates to death and violence as that's what red connotes.
The hat is also very good because it again shows that he is mysterious and untrustworthy as you cannot see his eyes.

Preliminary Task

This week we have been doing our preliminary tasks. I worked with Della, Gemma & Sarah to create a short clip involving a character opening a door, holding a conversation with another and then leaving. We had to include a number of things in it; match on action, the 180 degree rule and shot reverse shot.
Doing this has helped me by allowing me to learn how to hold a camera steady with and without a tripod or dolly and how different shots and ways of filming create different moods and impressions, for example a low angle shot would give the implication of power of authority and a long shot could create an impression of how big an area is.


I learnt the definitions for the three terms; match on action is when you use a variety of different shots to show one action. We used the opening of a door to demonstrate this. Firstly we filmed a midshot of Gemma walking to the door, took another close up shot of her hand reaching for the door handle and a final shot of her walking through the door from the other side.
The 180 degree rule is basically keeping the camera on one side of the actors, we did this by selecting a central point and making sure we didn't film beyond 180 degrees of this point. Our example of this was in the conversation between Gemma and I. By keeping the subjects on one side of the camerait may make the viewer feel more as though they are there.
Finally, shot reverse shot is when you see the orginal shot, and then see the exact reverse of it. To demonstrate this, we took a shot of Gemma speaking over my shoulder, and then filmed my response over her shoulder. We had to ensure that we kept with the 180 degree rule whilst doing this though, however we did not encounter any problems with it. We did this so you can see both characters inital reactions to what was said previously, allowing a better connection with the audience. We also used it in Sarah and Gemma's conversation, to show more emotion and let the audience see both points of view.
We also used panning, when Gemma was opening the door, walking to the stairs and whilst she was walking to me. We did this so that we could see her moving into the situation clearly.


I loved how the match on action looked on the film, and may try to incorporate it into my actual coursework piece if I can. I thought that we were sucessful in our attempt to film, although there were some slight issues with framing the subject and getting everything central. We now have to edit the shots we have taken using an editing programme, which will help us to use it later on for our main tasks.