Costume, Sound, Lighting and other relatively important things...

Costume:


For the costumes, we are just going to use our school uniforms since the film is set primarily in our school. Since we are all in Sixth Form, our uniform is not going to be distinctive to the school's uniform for younger students. The killer's costume will be so distorted in the moments he is involved, it is not worth putting time or effort into.


Sound:


There is no special equipment that accompanies the cameras for sound, therefore we think we will dub over the footage we film to make it sound professional. There is little dialogue in the film, but the dialogue there is we will have to do well as to dub over it, especially the scene where the protagonist finds his dead friend, as dialogue may be frantic as part of keeping the realism.




Lighting:




Hopefully the natural lighting will be good enough to make the film seem genuine and of half decent quality, but on top of these we will try and add some filters to the film, to add our own personal atmosphere for the film and additionally to improve the quality of the footage.




Editing:




The editing is just as important as the filming, in my opinion. We will need to work hard as to make sure the footage is continuous and not jumpy with technical excellence, as well as making sure it isn't cliché or just generally poor. In our previous project, we used editing to import humour into the film by making it purposefully cliché, but now we are working on a serious project, we need to be extremely selective and precise.




Progress so far:




We will begin filming today, leaving the dilemma I mentioned in the previous post for the next session of filming. During filming today we will be aiming to set a precedent for a quality story as well as quality camerawork.

Update on Horror Project: Problems

So far, we have encountered few problems with our plans andwith ideas we have for the project, however, the problems we are facing are rather big. Since the murder is taking place in the chapel, we need to be careful as to not disrespect the place of worship. I myself am not religious, however with filming a death scene in a chapel it is necessary to be respectful of other people's beliefs, even if it possibly hinders the possibilities of the film itself. With this being said, we have to ensure the fake blood and such doesn't get on any of the carpet or religious ornaments, which may make realism a challenge for the film. To overcome this, i think we will have the protagonist's friend's shirt stained with the fake blood before he enters the chapel.

Another additional problem is that the entrance to Outwood House (the area in our school which has the chapel) is shut due to problems with the scaffolding. It is unknown as to when this will be solved/fixed, and if not in time for the filming, we have to adapt and change the protagonists route to the chapel or, as an extreme option, have the murder take place somewhere else to keep the film under time restrictions and to keep it convenient, as we don't want a half to three quarters of the film taken up by running. At the moment, to get to the chapel, you need to go through the library, up the stairs into the sixth form facility (Outwood), and enter the chapel. The library could possibly destroy the atmosphere we are trying to create, as it is quite modern, bright and friendly looking, which is something we completely want to avoid. We want to keep the film dark and mysterious, aswell as tense, which is a mood the appearance of the library could disable. We could possibly stop this by making the library desolate and empty, adding to the mystery, however we will need to discuss this with the librarian, Ms. Ashton. 

Apart from these 2 factors, our film is heading in the right direction. We are collectively optimistic about the project and we will constantly be looking to adapt to the problems we face, which we hope we can tackle without effecting the quality of the film.

First Test Shots for Horror Project

Protagonist leaving detention* (this is not the area we will be filming at, therefore the shot type may vary)

Protagonist answers his phone to his friend, who is alarmed and pleads for his help

Protagonist running to rescue his friend, with chapel in shot through the window

Protagonist running down stairs

Protagonist leaving detention*

Protagonist leaving detention*

Protagonist leaving detention*

Protagonist taking his phone out of his pocket after the prompt of a call, an unknown number appearing on the screen

I am looking forward to producing more test shots for the film with more suiting areas and atmospheres, as well as for the final filming. The problem with test shots, in my opinion, is you cannot get a good sense of the speed of the scene with a picture, as when the protagonist is running, the camera angles and movement will be effected by the speed of the scene. On the other hand, I think we have done good to achieve an essence of what the short film will be like through these images.

Visual Narrative of Horror Project

Frame 1: Protagonist exits from detention, set around 4:30-5pm, with a dark atmosphere surrounding him
Frame 2: Protagonist's phone begins to ring in his pocket, surprisingly well timed
Frame 3: As the protagonist begins to walk down the corridor, he speaks on the phone to an alarmed friend who is in danger of being murdered, equally alarming the protagonist
Frame 4: We see the protagonist's friend bloodied, battered and bruised in the School's chapel, as a dark figure slowly leans into shot appearing to hold a knife, eventually seeing the killer lunge down on him
Frame 5: First frame of protagonist running down the corridor in an attempt to find and save his friend, if there is anything to be salvaged at all
Frame 6: Protagonist bursts through a door, very fast paced camera movement and tension-building music accompany him
Frame 7: (see Frame 6)
Frame 8 & 9: Protagonist enters building as music and tension is reaching it's climax
Frame 10: Protagonist enters a dark chapel, with his friend seemingly dead on the floor infront of the altar, almost sacrilegious connotations and climactic music follows
Frame 11: Protagonist has approached his now certainly dead friend, with the knife through his chest becoming clear, protagonist becomes emotional at the sight of his dead friend
Frame 12: As the protagonist stands up from analysing his deceased friend, two bloodied hands appear on the window either side of the protagonist, with an immediate transition to black, with the credits appearing in the blackness

Like the script in our previous project, I believe this will be a rough draft which we'll stick to with some degree, yet deviate in some areas to make it slightly more interesting. However, I believe one of the aims we have for this short film is for it to be simplistic, yet display technical excellence. Additional planning as well as pictures from shooting will be soon to come. 

Mind Map for final Preliminary Task

This is a mind map our group made for the upcoming Horror short film we are going to produce. The group involves the same students as the previous Preliminary Task, however, there's a lot of things different to last time. The planning side of this task is a lot more in depth, as we need to create such things as a timeline and a visual narrative. Through a mixture of group decision and Ms. Parry-Paxton's advice, we decided to make our project a Horror film, as it is the most interesting to do, in our opinion. We have done a rough plan (shown above) of everything we plan to involve in the film, however, as our ideas have developed from doing this draft (a good month ago), a lot of the features, for example, the killer wearing a mask, we have now decided against in favour of something more beneficial to the film, in our opinion. George has took the role of directing the short film, as well as being involved in the film itself at the end, Lewis has decided to film and Jordan appears to be without a direct role, this being an area we can fix. I am taking the role of the protagonist of the film, as well as voicing my opinions for the angles, shot type and events in the film. As we begin to film, hopefully we can make this project burst to life.

Script for Preliminary Task

This is the script we used for the Preliminary Task we have done before Christmas. The script is rather loose and the categories are not completely accurate, as we have diverted from some of the original Shots, Actions and Dialogue. A minority of dialogue that wasn't jotted down was improvised and the was a wider variety of shots. Personally, I think we were successful in making the short film from this script.