Our Final Film. Tracing Steps

Our commentary

Our final magazine cover...with a small addition

This version is very very similar to the original one we posted, however, whilst editing this cover, we had difficulty in applying a barcode to the cover which is part of the conventional style of a magazine cover. So to make this happen we transferred the picture from the Mac onto the PC where we found it easier to copy and paste a barcode picture onto the front cover. It might be small and slightly pedantic to do this, but we want it to be perfect.

Our magazine final cover

This is our magazine cover

Our inspiration

This magasine cover is part of our inspiration.
It is the front cover from Empire magazine from November 2008. It is a clear shot of the main character from The Godfather and so is a non-conventional front cover of a magazine. It is in black and white with a fairly unhappy man on the front cover; The whole cover is the title 'EMPIRE', the picture of him and a slogan on the bottom 'The Godfather, The Greatest Movie Of All Time'. A typical magazine cover has a lot more information about the magazine to advertise and persuade their customers to buy it. We like the Black and white style on this though. So are thinking more towards the black and white picture

Shots possible for magazine subsidary task.

It is between these two pictures one being in black and white, and the other in fully saturated colour :)

Magazine names

These are all the film magazine titles that we found online :)

Boxoffice
Box office results, top ten, movie reviews.

Bright Lights
One of the best film magazines online that examines classic, commercial, and independent films from a wide range of vantage points from the aesthetic to the political.

Cineaste
Selected articles from the magazine on the art and politics of the cinema.

Close Up
Online UK film magazine. Find reviews, features and interviews for new cinema and dvd releases, articles on independent, low-budget and regional filmmaking, more.

eFilmCritic.com
Australian movie magazine offering film reviews by visitors to the site.

Empire
Features news, reviews, top movies, upcoming releases, box office results (UK), forum, and more.

Errata
Presents collection of essays, reviews, commentary, and discussion about cinema.

Eye For Film
UK site with movie reviews, news, critique and festival coverage.

Film Comment
Quality magazine providing articles on films old and new, foreign and domestic, narrative and documentary.

Film Journal
Movie reviews, news, and interviews for Hollywood, indie, and foreign films.

Film Threat
Covers cult films, underground shorts, alternative films and independent features.

Filmink Magazine
Provides film news and gossip, movie reviews, video and DVD releases, Australian and international film industry information.

Filmmaker Magazine
Presents an insider's perspective on the world of independent filmmaking, including: interviews, case studies, financing and distribution information, festival reports, technical and production updates, and more.

Films in Review
Online version of the oldest film magazine in the US. Find reviews, interviews and feature articles.

Future Movies
British movie review guide features profiles of new movies, cinema releases and latest DVD reviews.

Guardian Unlimited Film
Film news and reviews from the Guardian and Observer newspapers.

Hollywood Reporter
Newspaper providing movie reviews, box office info, entertainment and celebrity news, more.

iF Magazine
US magazine on indie filmmaking.

Images Journal
Quality reviews and analytical articles on old and recent movies, and popular culture.

Inside Film
Provides news and information on the world's film festivals.

Kamera
Intelligent UK magazine that mainly concentrates on arthouse and independent films.

MovieJuice
Hollywood's movie satire site.

movieScope
Magazine explores the various aspects of filmmaking from the perspective of the filmmakers themselves.

MovieMaker
Guide to independent film and filmmaking from around the world.

Premiere
Features Hollywood movie news, reviews and previews, celebrity interviews and inside stories.

Preview
International magazine packed with information on the latest big screen movies.

Rotten Tomatoes
Reviews and previews of Hollywood movies and videos from the nation's critics.

Screen
Online edition of the bollywood weekly magazine offering Indian movie news and interviews with stars.

Screendaily
Daily film industry news from around the globe, reviews from the world's leading festivals and box office comment from every major territory.

Senses of Cinema
Online film journal devoted to the serious and eclectic discussion of cinema.

Sight and Sound
Well-known magazine from the British Film Institute. Features top ten movies, the best film music, in-depth interviews, retrospective articles and news.

Strictly Film School
Online journal offering a collection of short essays featuring the respective filmmaker's notable films.

Uncut
Popular UK music and film magazine. Features hundreds of music and movie reviews, interviews and news.

Our test subsidary tasks - Poster

These are mocks of a poster we could use.

It shows the obsession through a creepy and eerie style that Charlotte is trying to get across. The fact she is shown through a blurred screen shows how she is blocked off by a barrier but also is able to attach herself emotionally to Summer. The fact her hand is pressed up against the blurred background of Summer, her eagerness to touch or be connected with Summer in someway is evident here. Summer looks, in the first picture, like an angelic teenager but has a sense of worry in her eyes. This suggests that at this point, Summer may be in the know about Charlotte's psychotic behaviour but at the same time, it hasn't got to the point that she is worried about her own safety necessarily. The second picture simply shows Summer at possibly a different point in the film. She is on her phone getting on, living a normal teenage life barely noticing Charlotte.

These are simple mock-ups of some of the pictures we took last lesson. They are edited through the photoshop Picasa 2 by adding shadow and changing the colour temperature. It was made darker and less bright so that the 'dark' atmosphere pushes through. The text was also added through the same programme. The poster will have very similar characteristics but these are just tests to see how they will really work.

This lesson.

This lesson, we took pictures for our subsidary tasks. This is our poster and our magazine cover shots that we got. It included shots of Charlotte and Summer in the same shot but separated by a door or blurred background. It will be shown in a following post

New edits

This new edit involves a few things we have changed due to our audience feedback. We now have (possibly temporary) music for the montage and we have also cut a few clips as we were told some were too long.

In what ways does your media product use, devlop or challenge form and conventions of real media products.

By looking at all of our previous research into all kinds of psychological thriller type films in earlier posts of our blogs it clear to see that we have been inspired greatly by other media texts. We have not 'stolen' any ideas as per say as our idea for our trailer came early on before even finding out about the film 'Single White Female' it was simply coincedence that they were similar shots of the stealing identity of Summer by Charlotte. This shot of Charlotte looking in the mirror with a red wig on was inspired by the film (not copied it is just coincedence that they have the same shade of hair colour)









Another film we were inspired by with a a similar storyline is a modern take on Single White Female is the film coming out in February 2011 The Roomate. The girl that is being obsessed over is a kind, pretty and sweet teenager similar to Summer. This is where her inspiration came from. Some of our camera shots are similar to ones in this as we loved the creepiness of them as they're portrayed such as the quick close ups in the montage.


The famous film Fatal Attraction starring Glenn Close and Micheal Douglas was one of the reasons the idea for using the similar storyline. We both watched the trailer and loved it so much that we had to watch the film and obviously loved it. We not only loved the storyline but the types of shots in this film. They have a fair few low angle shots however we were not in a position to include these but would've liked to. Fatal attraction's progression throughout the trailer was very appealing to us so we decided to go down a similar path on this note.


Obsessed, another more modern take on Fatal Attraction is yet another film we analysed from the trailer in a previous blog

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

Looking at our audience feedback, it shows that our trailer is a success. There are many complients but also lots of helpful constructive criticism. We obviously need work which is why we wanted some of our audience feedback at this stage in our process. It will help us to show us what we need to do in order to make it even more successful. The little things that we may or may not have noticed initially, the audience could tell fairly quickly which goes to show that because we know the trailer inside out from working on it so much so an outsiders point of veiw has really helped at this stage. We already are aware of the really obvious things such as music in the montage that we need to sort out so by telling the 'feedbackers'what we already knew we were going to do reassured them that it will be a good trailer...which is definately what we want to hear. We want to do our best in order to please the audience as this is who we want to sell it to and subsequently making it a success.

Our first volunteer who gave us feeback gave us a few ideas of what she enjoyed about out trailer...
-Music at the beginning
-The voice over works particularly well as it tells the story in a different way.
-All the scene in the darkness from the montage and at the end of the trailer make it creepy and particularly suspenceful as it's such a contrast from the calm beginning.

This is what they thought we needed to work on...
-The montage isn't as fast paced as a conventional trailer so we need to have shorter clips within the montage
-Having a shot to show Charlotte looking at Summer and her boyfriend Sam which would clearly show her jealousy of Summer's happy relationship with him and show her own personal attraction to him
-Having a shorter clip of Summer crying at the end so not too much is given away
-Some clips are shorter and some a bit too long which can be unconventional of a trailer.


Our second willing volunteer said these lovely things about our trailer...
-The montage is really effective and when the music is added it will be even more effective
-The overall storyline is enticing and it is successful in persuading her to go see the film
-Therefore she feels a lot of people would enjoy it and want to watch this based on the information given in the trailer.

This is what she thought we could do to make it better and improve...
-By adding more transitions such as 'Who directed/produced it', 'Who stars in it' and 'When will it be avaliable'; she said this will make it overall more conventional
-By adding music, the montage will generally be more effective in its dramatic and intense atmosphere as it really doesn't work without.

We are currently working on improving it thanks to the help we have recieved and now know exactly what needs changing.

Rough cut Feedback

This is our rough-cut audience feedback to give us ideas of our strengths and weaknesses thus showing us what we can improve. We asked two willing volunteers to give us some feedback and we will take onboard everything they have said.

How did you use new media technologies in your research, planning, construction and evaluation stages?

We used the camcorder as our main way of recording the actual footage. By doing this we needed to have a sturdy base. We used a tripod in order to do this. We had already learnt how to use one during our AS coursework and so it became quicker and easier when it came to using it at A2. It is what most of our shots are done on however, some shots worked better filmed by handheld. For example when the two girls are at the table talking, we used the tripod. Whereas when Charlotte appears from behind the darkness to Summer, we used handheld as the unstable motion refected the atmosphere.

E-mail was used during our trailer production in order to get useful information from person to person. For example, we used e-mail in order to tell the cast members when and where they were needed. This helped greatly as otherwise we would be alot less organised.

Our panasonice camcorder was used in order to get the footage we needed. We used this throughout our process to get our footage. This was good as it was portable, reasonable quality and picked up sound. Even though most of the sound we actually picked up on the camera is not being used, it gave us a real idea of where it would go in the trailer. We used it in conjuction with the tripod as I have previously described.

Imovie was the programme we used on the Macs in order to do the editing within our film. This included everything from peicing all the shots together, to making transitions between them, and adding music to the film and the titles. This evidently took longer than anything else put together. The actual editing involved took a massive amount of time so Imovie made this as quick as possible for us.

History of music in thriller films

Friday 13th -1980
The music from Friday 13th was composed by Harry Manfredini and at first the decision from the director was that the music would only to be played alongside with the killer so it would not "manipulate the audience" into thinking the killer was there when they were not. A quote from Manfredini - "There's a scene where one of the girls […] is setting up the archery area of the film. One of the guys shoots an arrow into the target and just misses her. It's a huge scare, but if you notice, there's no music. That was a choice.". He also decided that when something was going to happen, the music would then cut off so that the audience wouldn't expect it, and relax so the scare would be so much more frightening and effective when it did happen. Manfredini was inspired by the film Jawswhere, as the shark is not seen for most of the film and the music appears when it is present.

Silence of the Lambs - 1991
Some of the songs in The Silence of the Lambs (1991) are:
"American Girl" written by Tom Petty
"Alone" written by C. Newman and G. Lewis
"Sunny Day" written by T. Ottaviano
"Real Men" written by B. Licher, M. Erskine, J. Long
"Goldberg Variations" written by Johann Sebastian Bach
"Goodbye Horses" written by W. Garvey
"Hip Priest" written by M.E. Smith, M. Riley, S. Hanley, C. Scanlon, P. Hanley
"Lanmò Nan Zile A" written by Les Freres Parent

Unlike many thriller films such as the other ones we have researched the music about, there is not a constant composer throughout the film. Instead, there are tracks that are freaky or suggest a mood at the time of the music.

Psycho - 1960
The famous music from Alfred Hitchcock's thriller, Psycho, has been voted the scariest movie theme tune by viewers! and was composed by Bernard Herrmann.
The music was only made up of strings!
Unusual for a thriller at the time, it used ONLY the string section of the orchestra. The violin music is described as 'screeching' and is heard during the famous shower scene (which originally was meant to be silent) is one of the famous moments in film score history.

The Exorcist - 1973
Originally, Schifrin had written 6 minutes of music for the initial film trailer but audiences were reportedly too scared by its combination of sights and sounds.
Warner Bros. executives told Friedkin to instruct Schifrin to tone it down with softer music, but Friedkin did not relay the message.

Halloween - 1978
One major reason for the success of Halloween is the moody musical score, particularly the main theme. Lacking a symphonic soundtrack, the film's score consists of a piano melody played, composed by director John Carpenter. Critic James Berardinelli calls the score "relatively simple and unsophisticated", but admits that "Halloween's music is one of its strongest assets".
The theme music for Halloween has been posted on a previous blog, it shows that simplicity is sometimes the most effective way to create suspense. Only consisting of a few chords, the soundtrack is overall really effective and the simple piano instrumental piece over the top works extremely well.

Halloween (Original) Theme Music

Here is the music from Halloween to show our further research into psychological thriller music.

Our Scene board.

This is our shots so far, from our trailer just giving the audience a quick review of the scenes. Each one tells a story and this is useful when we are reveiwing which scenes we have done and which ones work well.

Region, once avaliable to DVD

All DVDs have a specific region and are allocated to where the film is published and released...

REGION 1 -- USA, Canada
REGION 2 -- Japan, Europe, South Africa, Middle East, Greenland
REGION 3 -- S.Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Parts of South East Asia
REGION 4 -- Australia, New Zealand, Latin America (including Mexico)
REGION 5 -- Eastern Europe, Russia, India, Africa
REGION 6 -- China
REGION 7 -- Reserved for Unspecified Special Use
REGION 8 -- Reserved for Cruise Ships, Airlines, etc...
REGION 0 or REGION ALL -- Discs are uncoded and can be played Worldwide, however, PAL discs must be played in a PAL-compatible unit and NTSC discs must be played in an NTSC-compatible unit.

As we will publish ours in England, and if we were to sell it, sell it in England, it will be a region 2 DVD.

Certification

These are the specific catagories of certification that a film must be classed in before being released to show which ages are allowed to leagally watch it.
We will make our film a 15, however the trailer is avaliable to most audiences (PG) as this is conventional of a trailer with a higher certification.
This then means that no-one under 15 is allowed to watch the full-length film

Our own test shots for subsidary tasks

These are some of the ideas we had about one of our subsidiary tasks. We decided to produce a poster as an advertisement for the film to accompany our trailer. The Single White Female poster is our inspiration for this as it is of a similar style.

Unlike Single White Female, we have decided to include the boyfriend character in the shot, at least as an initial idea. We also have our inspiration from the poster of Obsessed as this is more to do with the relationship of the character and her boyfriend and the psychopathic's obsession over the man unlike ours how this simply slots in due to the obsession with the girl character who happens to have a boyfriend who she gives more attention to.

We are trying to portray Summer as a happy and content character, as well as Sam in some of the shots, whereas Charlotte looks obsessed and interested in finding out what Summer/Sam are doing a lot of the time. Of course these are simply test shots and the proper poster will look a lot more professional with a proper costume list, editing to make the lighting appropriate and many takes so that we get the sure one.

As you can see, they are either separated by a wall or some form of blockage from seeing each other. This is so that Charlotte looks psychopathic and creepy as Summer does not necessarily know she is there. In the full version, Charlotte will most likely look fairly normal however, there will be a look in her eye to make her clearly look psychopathic, but in consideration for it to look conventional and fit to our trailer, she will be dressed in fairly plain but modern clothes. We may put make up on her to make her eyes look darker to make her look as if she has a certain darkness about her.

Summer will be in bright clothes and look quite girly and pretty and content with Sam, if he is used. She will most likely have a look on her face which suggests she is entirely happy with her life so it shows the irony of the film.
Our other subsidiary task is a magazine cover which we have been researching, such as GORE ZONE magazine editor coming in and talking to us about it. We will start with it's production soon. These are simply test shots but just a general idea of what we are expecting

Single White Female Poster

This poster from the film Single White Female shows exactly what our film is trying to portray. Next blog tells all about our own shots.

Music for the montage

We are finding it difficult to find some music for the montage. We want a stereotypical style of music used in montages within trailers, i.e strings or something along these lines growing in intensity. We are trying to find an actual track that has music we can use however we may need to use Garageband to compose a track. This may be problematic as it may sound too simple or not fit the style totally but we will just see how things will pan out.

Analysis of use of camera shots within our media text

Camera shots can make a big difference in a trailer as it shows a variety of angles which can subsequently change the audiences perspective on what is trying to be shown.

Within our trailer we have a range of different shots. From the beginning :-

-Charlotte looking into the classroom, based on the 180 degree rule, and opening the door. This shows her nervousness and lack of eagerness towards going in and meeting her new classmates.

-The establishing shot of Charlotte walking into the room with Summer and her friends. This shot shows that Summer has friends and is originally popular before Charlotte is even introduced.

-The low angle shot of Charlotte and Summer shaking hands shows that they are being formally introduced, possibly an obligation on Summer's side.

-There is a two shot of Summer and Charlotte working at the table and the audience see that they are clearly close enough as friends to do some work on their own. This shot is useful as the audience see their growing relationship which means something different to both characters.

-The shot of Summer and Sam is a two-mid shot and it works effectively as Summer goes off to the right and disappears whereas Sam walks off into the background which generally shows a difference in perspective.

-We then have a title which fades in from black

-Charlotte then stands in the right corner of a mid-shot as she looks on on the couple, again simply showing a different perspective.

-Another mid-shot of Charlotte walking into the back gate.

-A low angle close up of Charlotte looking into Summer's bedroom. This works as it shows she feels like she has a power and the perspective is that the audience is looking up at her.

-A shot we are very proud of is the next one; Summer walks past her bedroom window - mid shot- as in the background there is an extreme long high angle shot of Charlotte standing in her garden. This shows how subtle she is in stalking Summer and how she does it quietly and quite eerily

-There is then a reverse shot of Charlotte looking vacantly away as the wind blows in her hair

-The title of 'that turns fatal' shoots in from both sides, which is conventional of titles in a trailer

-A two mid-shot of Summer and Sam where the audience see the growing intensity of Charlotte's character and how she is starting to worry other characters such as Sam

-There is then the montage which includes a range of different shots such as an extreme close up of Summer's eyes as she opens them, a close up of Summer looking for something, possibly Charlotte, and Charlotte is slowly shown up behind her through the darkness and a mid shot Charlotte walking past a post at her school and wiping her bloody hand against it, suggesting she has been involved with blood. The range of shots are shown to show a variety of clips showing different perspectives and angles.

-The long shot of Charlotte running towards the camera is effective as it would shock the audience and it is stereotypical of the genre.

-The close up of Summer crying in the corner is effective as the lighting works in time with the camera shot and the music. Also we filmed this handheld as it suggests Summer's vulnerable and scared emotions.

-The last shot is a reverse shot from the left however it is reflected in the mirror. This is effective as again the lighting and music works well in sync with the camera angle.

Analysis of symbolic codes within my media text

Within our trailer, there are a range of different symbolic codes throughout. Typically they can be very obvious such as a character holding bloody knife. At this point the audience can tell that this character is someone who has most probably killed someone...or seriously injured them. However these symbolic codes can be done subtly for example if pathetic fallacy was used...A person walking down the road whilst rain is pouring down - the rain expresses their mood and the audience can tell that they are feeling low. However this is not always done purposely to show an emotion or action. It simply done, because it is!


One particular part of our film that, at first was unintentional, is the use of red doors in our trailer. The audience see Charlotte looking at Summer and Sam behind a red door as she looks jealous and angry, she is then seen again going into Summer's back garden through a red door again. This works well as in the beginning,it starts out as red doors as the atmosphere is still fairly calm and then progresses to red ending up on Charlotte's hand - blood.

Another unintentional symbolic code is when there is the low angle shot of Charlotte looking into Summer's bedroom; the wind is blowing in her hair and across her face. This could suggest the anger or need she is feeling. These kind of things cannot be done purposely as we do not have the equipment such as a wind machine to create these effects but when we can catch the chance we most certainly will!

In this scene, Charlotte is wearing dark and dull colours such as grey and black which suggest her mood or feelings are of the similar sort. Throughout the film, she wears similar colours. She tends to wear darker colours in comparison to Summer.

Summer is always wearing bright and stylish clothes which reflect her personality and popularity status at school; the fact she is happy in most of the scenes shows the audience the kind of person she is. However in the end scene as she is crying in a corner, the audience will feel empathetic towards her as it is emotional seeing her like this. The music works well to create this empathy. The audience see a side of her they hadn't before; she is vulnerable and alone, crying and it is a big difference to how happy she is when she is in the scene with Sam for example.

The scenes in the montage show blood, clearly fake blood for filming purposes, and even then we tried to make it slightly more glamorous than the typical 'full-on' gore so that it still fits the style of the characters.

Analysis of the use of audio codes within my media text

We use all different types of audio codes within our trailer such as music, dialogue from the camera footage, voiceovers and non-diegetic sounds.
Our music is very important to us. At this point in time we have used 3 different tracks, two of which are the same track however one has been remixed into a more upbeat and 'ravey' version of the original acoustic version we have used. ('Uninvited') We use the acousic version at the start to keep the mood calm as in the film the mood is calm and nothing is going wrong. However we have edited in the more upbeat remixed version to fit the realisation of Charlotte not being a normal girl. The audience see her change into a more obsessive girl as the music changes. This was done by editing and merging the two tracks together in Garageband. Our song at the end of the trailer 'White Blank Page' by Mumford and Sons is used as it is slow and gives an odd sense of happiness and dullness at the same time. This works well in opposition of the clips being shown while it is being played, for example, Charlotte running wildly down a coridor whilst happy gituar music is beoing played.
Our voiceovers have so far been successful as they work well in the trailer. Our first one at the beginning of the trailer when Charlotte introduces herself 'Hi, i'm new here?', 'Name?', 'Uhh...Charlotte Westbridge'. This works well as we are not using filmed footage in order to do this so it is playing over another clip therefore getting more information in within the time-span of a conventional trailer. Our second voiceover at the moment is of Summer saying 'So why did you move here in the first place?' This was done simply because when it was filmed it was not loud enough and when we made the volume louder it sounded grainy and distorted. This way it is a more clearer sound and makes the trailer look more professional. More voiceovers will be done and will work in the similar ways of the above.
At the very beginning of the clip, the audience can subtely hear the students in the classroom Charlotte is about to walk into talking. The audience wouldn't be able to make it out but it adds to the atmosphere of the situation she is in. It suggests that the people in the room are already comfortable talking with the people in there and do not want change, i.e Charlotte walking in and trying to become friends.

Analysis of last uploaded clip and review of audience feedback

This is it so far; as you can see it is looking more like a trailer now thankfully, however still needs work. Music in particularly has not been either touched up enough by either making it louder or softer in places and the montage needs some music. We were thinking the conventional style of music which included strings getting higher suggesting a growing in intense atmosphere; we still need to make this music and it can be problematic as the programme we use, Garageband, is not entirely user friendly. The montage is the main part that has been added since our last upload. At the moment, it is a rough sketch of the particular bits of footage we will use hoever we still need to vary the speeds of the clips to make it look more like a conventional montage and to match with the music when it is eventually done. This means that the clips will most likely start off being fairly slowly changing and by the end the clips will be less than half a second between them. We have added a transition of 'fade-to-white' in between them which is looking effective but, personally sometimes doesn't look quite right so, we will see about that. We have the titles fairly spread out from each other which isn't typically conventional but the scenes that are inbetween need to be kept as a group or they will not make sense. This lesson we had some audience feedback which helped us as she could tell us what needed to be done. This recording will be uploaded at a later date. These are the types of queries she brought up:-
The handshake between Charlotte and Summer at the beginning is apparently shown as the veiwer not knowing who the characters were and so she said we needed to make this clear. However, we feel that a trailer is there to give you a glimpse of what the film is, would it give too much away if we played the film out scene for scene in the trailer? Of course it would. This means that we have purposely missed out particular scenes that would be in the film as conventionally this is what would be done for an actual film trailer.The next scene is of the two girls sitting at a table together so we would assume that the audience would put two and two together and realise it is the same people. Plus the fact you can see the red hair in the shot of the shaking of the hand helps just in case.
The scene where Summer and Sam kiss and Charlotte is looking in on them, we may edit this as our volunteer, and Calry and I agree, that it is not totally clear if she is spying on them as a title 'An obsession' separates the two clips. Like i said earlier, We need this sequence kept together so that it makes sense to the audience even though we are breaking the rules slightly by having the titles so far apart, time-wise.
Coming back to the music side of things, we need to add a voiceover or two in as I feel it needs more speech in the trailer. Probably one from Charlotte just as she enters the back gate. We did attempt this, and it failed as it really just didn't fit, but we may have another go because, although we want to keep some mystery, we're not telling them much at all at this point so we still need to keep our audience interested.
We are particularly happy with the choice of music at the end of the clip and so we are definately keeping this. It is perfect for our trailer as it is almost happy music, but has a certain eerieness to it and the lyrics are 'Can you lie next to her, and give her your heart?' suggesting a 'stalky-ish' theme and it works in opposition with the scene of Charlotte running towards the camera in a manic fashion screaming 'DON'T RUN AWAY FROM ME!' when the music is very calm in comparison.
Overall, as it is coming together, particularly the montage, we are happy with our progress.

Trailer so far

Montage Scene Footage

Here is our footage we got from filming particular scenes to use for quick shots for the montage

Last lesson's footage

The description of this is in the last post.

Last lesson

I was quite proud of what we achieved in the last lesson as we got a fair bit of footage filmed that can be used for our montage.

We filmed a variety of shots based around a gory theme, for example:-

We have a shot of Summer looking through a dark area with blood dripping down her face, out of her nose, suggesting she has already been attacked or hurt in some way. We used fake blood and it actually looked very realistic and thankfully, came off nice and easily. Charlotte the appears out of the darkness which shows the creepiness of Charlottes character.

Another shot was of Charlotte scraping a knife across a wall suggesting that she was going to use it due to the fact that it didn't actually have any blood on it. We still need to do some shots of Summer's boyfriend, Sam, and Charlotte attacking him in a provocative way. Although it's not very professional to start editing before we have finished filming, we want to keep up to date how it will come together so by editing the footage we do have together, it means that we know the precision of the shots that are needed to be filmed.

We also have a shot of grace scraping her hand across a wall with blood on her hand to create an eerie suggestion that she has already hurt someone; this would most probably be at the middle-end of the montage as the audience then sees that she is a harmful character.

Another shot we got was of Charlotte looking at her hand in a psychotic way, dripping with blood.

This video highlights the footage we filmed last lesson, and we have literally just put it together, not necessarily in the right order we wish to do it in, in our film. The description is in the previous blog. wahh

Extra filming, more footage.

Today we did some shots of Summer and Sam (Summer's boyfriend) to show scenes of them being a couple so it is clear to the audience they are together. We also did some shots of Charlotte and Sam together showing Charlottes intense need to want Sam due to the fact he is Summers boyfriend. This worked really well as it was the first time we were filming Mark (Sam) and he played the part very well alongside Grace (Charlotte). We still need more shots of the two of them and a few more of Summer and Sam, however most of the shots from now on will be short clips to put together into a montage that grows in intensity throughout. It is now a case of getting the music to work in time with the footage and the speech in the clips as we may need to do voiceovers to make it more pronounced and hearable as the technology of the cameras is not great so the sound in the clips are rather terrible.

It's all coming together now!

More Editing, Music

This shows what we've done so far. We have filmed more scenes such as the beginning one, the establishing shot of Charlotte entering a classroom full of Summer and her friends. We have used a voice over of Charlotte saying 'Hi, I'm new here' to which an office lady replies 'Name?' and she answers 'Charlotte Westbridge'. As the trailer develops we may change the position of the trailer if any shots are needed to be added or taken away. We have come very far with our music; we have made it into a track that can be used throughout the entire trailer by using an acoustic version of the song 'Uninvited' and link it into the Freemason's club edit version which helps as at the start the scene seems innocent and unclear whereas the music begins to become more uptempo as you see Charlotte's true intentions and actions towards Summer, such as her opening her back gate. We still need to work on the music as somehow the volume keeps changing. This is probably due to the fact we have hushed the sound in the clips and it is therefore changing the volume of the complimentary track but we will sort it out. As not all of our filming is done and we are not sure how much time will be taken up of the track we are not yet merging the two tracks together due to the uncertainty of how long the trailer will be in the end. We feel like we still need to edit some of the clips already involved in this version as some may be a tad too long to work in time with the music. We have added some transitions, subtle ones as we run the risk of making it look too cheesy if the transitions are hugely noticeable. We have titles now, and we will most probably add more but for the moment these work well ad are in fairly secure places in the trailer as we are sticking to the conventional type of psychological thriller trailers. We have begun to add some short clips in that will eventually be part of a montage such as the 1-2 second clip of Summer crying on the phone. At the moment, it doesn't look good but it is just a small taste of what we will include when all the filming is finished. The shot of Charlotte running wildly out of a room and towards the camera is most likely to be at the end of the montage once it has intensified more gradually as at the moment it all happens fairly suddenly. It's just about doing some more filming which we plan to do in this next week and it will start to really take form.

First Edit

Here is our first edit. It needs a lot of work but just shows what we are developing upon. It shows we have put together a few clips of footage and started thinking about music at the beginning of the clip. We have chosen another piece of music to have at the end of the clip which works well as there is variation, whether or not we will keep it is another story. Right now, continuity is not great as we have literally put which clips we want together is a rough guide of the order we would eventually put them in surrounded by other clips we yet have to film. In some clips we need to sort out the diegetic and non-diegetic sounds, by either adding in certain noises, for example the part where the gate shuts we might add an artificial slam, or by taking away the original background noise such as the wind or myself and Carly discussing filming ideas whilst actually filming (not very professional, whoops). We have however sorted some of the sound out as we dubbed a part of the scene where Summer is doing her hair and Charlotte is looking in her window from her garden; we split the clip after the hairspray noise and muted the sound after as it was the sound of Summer sitting on the bed when she is meant to walk past, but we wanted to keep the sound of the hairspray, spraying, so we did it in this way. We still need to add transitions between clips as at the moment it is looking rather jumpy but in time we will make this flow.

Call sheet

Call sheets, like all big movie production teams use, are a way in which they organise the day's routine, showing the necessary things the actors need to know such as locations, cast members, crew members and all the information needed to contact them. Here is one designed for our own film:-

Directors: Imogen Brown and Carly Chamberlain
Production office: Southfield School for Girls, Kettering

Locations:
1)Longfellow Drive, Kettering, - Summer's house
2)Southfield School for Girls, Kettering - main cast's school

Cast Members

Grace Meredith - Charlotte Westbridge - 07845728107
Imogen Brown - Summer Freeman - 07664522967
Mark Drakeford - Sam Furlow (Summer's boyfriend) - 07944627756
Greg Hughes - Matt Green (Sam's bestfriend) - 07778563126
Carly Chamberlain - Chloe Streisand (Summer's best friend) - 07658376492
Chloe Pitts - friend at school - 07531249655
Ellie Tate - friend at school - 077988641523
Phillip Swain - Teacher at school - 07514296380


Cameraman - Carly Chamberlain
Production team - Carly Chamberlain, Imogen Brown
Location - Imogen Brown, Phillip Swain, Grace Meredith

Filming Schedule

Friday:-
Charlotte is at Summer's house, partly invited but some shots show clear signs of her not being invited. These shots will include:-
-Charlotte in the location of Longfellow Drive. Certain shots of her in and around her house such as the hallway, garden and study area/dining room.

Saturday:-
Same location.
- Charlotte is by the side gate entering Summer's house very cautiously showing her insecurity and uncertain invitation to the house.
- Shot of Charlotte putting on a red wig, trying to look like Summer, however, the audience cannot tell whether Summer knows of this yet.
- Scene of Charlotte and Sam together

Monday:-
Location: Southfield School
- Shot of classroom scenes between friends
- Shot of group class laughing (establishing shot)

Initial filming

Here is some of our first filming that we did and some of the shots we will use in our

actual film because some are quite effective.

For example, the one where Charlotte is standing in the garden and Summer

Walks passed oblivious to her while she is doing her hair. This is quite a conventional

scene, e.g in films where there is an obsessed person they are often there when the other

person is unaware.

Currently there is no music and this will obviously be added for affect. This post also

acts like a test shot as it gives us an overall idea of what we need to do in order to make the trailer effective and also to give us an idea of what it may look like.

Filming Schedule

Filming In the holidays...

Friday: Grace will come to Imogen's house and we will aim to complete the following scenes.

Location: Imogen's house, using the landing, hallway, garden and side gate.

* Shot of Charlotte entering Summer's house

* Shots of Charlotte in Summers garden, spying on her.

* Shot of Summer doing her hair while Charlotte is in the garden.

* Charlotte screaming 'Don't run away from me'.

Saturday: We will aim to complete more scenes.

Location: Imogen's house, front of the house and bedroom.

* Shots of Summer walking out the house with Charlotte round the back of the

* Charlotte putting a wig on to copy how Summer looks.

Filming during term time.

Location: School

* Shot of classroom scenes

* Summer and her friends scenes.

* Composing of music

Creating Charlotte Westbridge

Choosing our characters

These pictures show the particular characters we will use in our film. At the top there are the group of friends that Summer will be chatting and laughing with. This is not yet the definate group as we will cast properly near the time, but we wanted some shots of boys and girls laughing and having fun together. The next two pictures are of the popular girl, Summer, who is followed and imitated by the psychotic character, Charlotte. The picture shows the confident side and the other picture shows the more arrogant and 'knows she's popular' look. The next picture is of the teacher who asks Summer to befriend Charlotte. The next picture is of Chris, Summer's boyfriend. He looks friendly and also conserved 'knows he's popular' look. The next picture is of Summer's best friend, a template of what her friends should act like however Charlotte wants to take over this label. The final picture is of Chris's best friend, Ricky. He is a person who alike Chris, does not warm to Charlotte and sees her from Chris's perspective.

Our location shots

Storyboard

This shows pictures of our storyboard in a drawn out fashion to show a shot by shot description of what will happen in the trailer. The description is included to but hard to make out so I will describe below.

The trailer begins...

-Fades in from black. An establishing shot of the classroom with a voice over of Charlotte introducing herself to the receptionist. The classroom door opens and Summer is there with a group of friends laughing and joking.

-The teacher is seen asking Summer to look after Charlotte as she is new.

-Summer is then seen introducing herself to Charlotte and tells her friends they have to be nice to her as she is new and will have a hard time settling in.

-(Two shot) Summer speaks to Charlotte and asks her about her past such as why she moved but Charlotte doesn't reveal very much.

-A mid-shot is then shown of Charlotte looking in the mirror and putting a wig on which is identical to Summers hair. She has a look of a psychotic character with a hint of craziness and a sinister side. While this is happening there is a voiceover of Summer's boyfriend, Chris, saying "The girl is kinda weird", "She's not that bad, give her a chance".

-The growing obsession of Summer is becoming evident in Charlottes behaviour as she follows her everywhere. This will include a reverse shot of Charlotte stood outside Summer's house and this is when the music will intensify further

-A similar shot is shown of Summer and her mother talking explaining that Charlotte is starting to act weird and obsessive but her mother thinks she is being silly and ignores her.

-A scene of Charlotte getting jealous when Summer is with anyone, in particular her boyfriend. Summer begins to ignore her but this just aggrivates Charlotte further.

-Charlotte drugs Summer's boyfriend in an attempt to distract him from her and takes pictures of the two of them in the same bed as she wants to be exactly the same as Summer.

-The cuts then begin to quicken as the audience are still unaware of the conclusion. A shot of Charlotte crying hysterically with slashed wrists is shown.

-Another cut of Summer crying in a dark room..."Why are you doing this?!", "Because, I love you." - This doesn't give too much away to the audience but still makes them realise the situation by thinking what is she going to do...Kill her? By this time the music is becoming more and more rapid, possibly strings in a high pitch growing in intensity

-Another cut of Summer screaming is shown as she is being dragged away but by a darkened background

-The final shot is of Summer's boyfriend laying down on a bed, opening his eyes. Then suddenly Charlotte's crazed face is shown and looks as if she is going to kill him by either stabbing or strangling him. The music stops suddenly and the title of the film fades in. This will work effectivly as the audience do not see if he is actually hurt or killed and how it pans out. Fades out to black.

The Roommate Trailer 2010

This trailer is a more recent remake of the film Single White Female and it shows a more modern take of the style of the film being set in University. It is a typical American style film being cheesy and unoriginal but our own film would like to use some similar camera shots for example, the last shot when the girl is laying in bed and suddenly the psychopathic girl creeps up behind her and touches her face as she opens her eye. Another shot is when the camera looks at her once the guy she is stalking has taken a book out of the library as it is an effective way of portraying her persistent and creepy personality.

Scriptwriting - Planning & Deciding Our Final Plot

(This information was taken from The Guardian's leaflet How To Make Films)

When you have an idea for a film, the next step is to write a treatment (also known as a synopsis), which summaries the key events in

the story. A simple story line can be broken down into a 5 step structure.

1. Exposition - opening premise and setting of the scene.

2. Development - the situation is built on and moves forward.

3. Complication - An event changes the situation

4. Climax - A decisive point where everything comes together

5. Resolution - The outcome is reached. However, a resolution is never shown in a trailer

otherwise it defeats the object.

The protagonist is the central character in a narrative whose actions propel the story forward. There are three classic protagonist:

Dramatic - They succeed due to their efforts

Tragic - They fail in spite of their efforts

Comic - They succeed in spite of their efforts.

This information is mainly used for films, the audience wouldn't be able to tell what kind of protagonist our actress is because the whole film isn't shown. However, some aspects of the Dramatic and Tragic character may be shown through some of the script. A comic character would not be appropriate in this film genre.

More than initial ideas...Our synopsis of the trailer

We have decided to go with the idea of the psychotic character taking an interest in a particular girl at school.

The trailer will begin with an establishing shot of the popular girl, Summer, in a classroom laughing with all her friends and boyfriend. This would be aligned with a voiceover of the new girl, Charlotte. A voiceover would consist of one of the characters at any time during the film, providing insight into who they are and what they think. Charlotte then is seen at the office coming in as a new girl at the school, so the audience see the contrast between the confidence in the two characters.

It then cuts to a teacher talking to Summer saying something along the lines of 'There is a new girl coming to the school and she needs someone who knows the school well to show her around' Reluctantly, Summer agrees as she is scared it will ruin her reputation. Surprisingly, Charlotte is actually alright, with slight hints of social unawareness here and there. Charlotte starts impersonating Summer by wearing similar make up and buying a red wig in private. Reverse shots are used here in the mirror. Summer's boyfriend, Chris, is reluctant to welcome Charlotte as she seems odd to him. Summer reassures him that she is a friendly person even if she is a bit weird, so he has to be nice to her. He agrees until, she makes a move on him and he rejects her so she drugs him and takes photos of the two of them when she is impersonating Summer. In the trailer Charlotte goes to kill Chris but there isn't a resolution so not too much is being given away at this point.

We will aim to build suspense while showing this throughout the trailer with effects such as music and slow fades to make it seem more building in tension.

Trailer Single White Female and possible ideas?

This trailer shows a particular idea we got from our teacher in that we could have our film based round a psychotic character who 'would kill to be her', that is her room mate. This would be fairly easy to film and the trailer would conventionally follow the rising tension as it progresses. This would mean we would need to cast 2 young girls to fit the style of this story. This would mean finding a girl the same age as me as we could use myself as an actress in this. film.

The Conventional Psychotic Character

The first recognised psychotic character was Alfred Hitchcock's character Norman bates from his film Psycho. He was originally based on a real character who impersonates his 'dead mother' due to his split personality. This idea has been used greatly in future films from this as he lets this character take over in situations he cannot control. Most psychotic characters have a hint of Norman.

The Shining is another greatly remembered psychotic thriller films and has been claimed to be one of the best films ever made. Due to alcohol and writers block the character 'Jack Torrence' slowly changes from a caretaker in a hotel to become a neurotic character who attempts to kill his son 'Danny' through the dark spirit. The famous picture of Jack Nicholson, the actor of Jack, shows the psychotic side through desperation and anger.

The Uninvited, a newer horror film in comparison also contains the mentally disturbed character, Anna. After her mother died in a fire, Anna was admitted to a mental hospital, and was released 10 months later having no recollection of the incident. She then has dreams once she's been released with 3 children and the strong belief that her mothers killer is the carer and her fathers new girlfriend constantly reoccur. Strange occurrences mount and the ending has a very big twist to the film, she is the killer all along without realising it. This character is different to the typical middle aged man so it make the film even less conventional yet works just as well showing that we don't necessarily need to stick within the conventional boundaries.

From doing this research, I have found that the psychotic character can vary widely, even though most films tend to show them as behaving and acting perfectly normal at the beginning of the film then the audience sees the change usually just before halfway when the character starts doing things that make them seem psychotic ending with them finally doing something irreversible or evidently paying for their behaviour as another character realises what they have become. Within a trailer however, the chronological order is the same however only the smaller more obvious points are shown so not too much is given away therefore making the audience want to see more.

Choosing our character

These photo's are general screen shots of a character that could be considered as psychotic. The woman could be an abused or confused ,for some reason, and evidently has a vacant look in her eyes; this is an effective character as it leaves a lot of room to move around in the psychotic style, she could quietly do things to make her like this or could change at certain points. The other character looks clearly disturbed and has a slight twitch in his eye. We asked Mr Swain to look a lot like Hannibal Lector fro Silence of the Lambs as there is a famous shot of him close up to the camera with a similar facial expression. He fits this conventional middle aged disturbed man, so we could easily use him for our film if we decide to go down that route.

Mood Board

Here is a mood board showing all of the particular films that have inspired and changed our ideas for our own trailer. These show a wide range on psychological thrillers we have personally delved into and learnt about their own conventions. Films such as One Hour Photo, Obsessed and Silence of the Lambs have been included. Either the film poster or an action snapshot has been taken and used here. It is an overall summary of the main ideas we want reflected in our own trailer.