Practicing photoshop

Olivia's attempt

Nicole's attempt

Becki's attempt

We did this on photoshop, we did this in one of our first media lessons with the earth and the eye and thought it looked effective. We did this with the eye and the phone as we are researching which background looks best, against the eye, we are doing this as we want to have a reflection of a gun in the eye in our film, we used a phone as it is similar size and will work the same way a gun does, however we dont have the gun with us at the moment.

Script

Our character will answer the phone and say
"hello"
pause
"what do you mean"
pause
"what "
pause
"when"
pause
"ok"
pause
"alright ill be there in five minutes"
We think we are going to have a split screen and film another person speaking in a different location to show a conversation over the phone between two characters.

Basic Storyboard

The story board is a rough outline of the sections of our thriller opening, we have changed part of the opening and therefore have needed a different storyboard, we will film us doing various things untill it will all come together for a conclusion to the opening which will lead the viewers into suspence and they will want to ask questions about what will happen.

Fonts

We are researching different types of fonts for our title sequence, we want the font to look slightly feminine but we also want the credits to actually look as though they are the credits for a thriller here are some possible fonts:









This font was in the calligraphy section of the website, and although it looks quite creepy and it does look relatively feminine we think that it is quite difficult to read.






We thought that because the font is distorted, it would suit the thriller theme for our opening, however we do not think that it is suitable as it does not fit well with what our thriller film is about, we also thought that the font would be quite difficult to read.






We think that this font is clear and bold and has a slightly creepy edge to it, we have decided that this is the font we are going to use for our opening credits.

Brief Outline Of Opening

After around 40 seconds of short clips of things such as putting on lipstick etc, during which time we will have music which will be made on garage band playing. The characters phone will then ring and the music will be shut off to make an abrupt stop to the first part of the scene on the phone a short conversation will be held where the character will make comments such as 'what? when? I'm on my way now' (we are undecided at this point as to whether or not we will have someone else on the other end of the phone) and start rushing and panicking (stuffing things into a bag - gun etc)the character will then open the door to leave the room but as she opens the door, someone with a gun will be on the other side and it will be made apparent to the audience that the character gets shot, we hope to do this by having a still image of an eye, and hopefully (if possible) on top of the eye have a moving image of someone shooting this character. If not we will use photoshop to merge two images together, one of an eye and one of person holding a gun.

Changing Our Idea

We have discussed our original idea as a group and decided that we are going to change our opening. We have decided to change it for the following reasons, firstly, we feel that our idea would need a lot of tense acting and speech and we don't think that in such a public place such as frankie and Bennys this would be possible. Also we have yet to find out if we can use Frankie and Bennys for our filming, and as the deadline is coming closer we feel that it is wasting time.

Our new idea is using the same theme of women and drugs etc, however we are going to use shorter clips such as a clip of someone putting on lipstick, or fixing their hair, for the first part, however we will change the images to be more sinister, such as putting a gun in a bag or a needle on a table etc.

Credits

We are going to have our credits appearing on the scenes which display the character getting ready (putting on lipstick etc.) A possible way that we would like the credits to appear are by having them fade onto the screen. In our next lesson we are going to research different fonts that we could use for the title sequence.

Storyboard for thriller opening

The story board is a rough outline of the sections of our thriller opening. We did not include the first thirty seconds of shooting on our story board as we'll be taking shots of the surroundings of the restaurant and use them with the music.

Our Film Certificate

We have decided that our film would be certified as a fifteen, this is because it will not contain strong bloody violence or strong language or images of drug use. However, it will contain drug references so it needs a higher certification.

A 15 film also brings about more of an edge to the film as it includes violence, as it is a 15 it has more of a wider audience as it includes teenagers, rather than being an 18 it has all of these features however doesn't have this wider audience.

This also applies to our new film idea.

Health And Safety When Filming

Health and Safety-

* Be aware of your surroundings
* Get consent
* Don't do anything that a passer by might be offended by
* Be respectful to the public
* Don't film in a dangerous place
* No swearing/children can appear in the film
* You cannot go on the roof of the college

Deadlines

11th Jan to 15th Jan: Thriller introduction.

18th Jan to 22nd Jan: Analysis of real and student examples/ Production logos.

25th Jan to 29th Jan: Planning and delivery of pitches.

1st Feb to 5th Feb: Storyboarding, shot lists and other planning.

Cameras are available from Friday 5th Feb at 4.10pm until shooting deadline of 9am Monday 8th March. Students can have 2 overnights or one weekend to film. There are three weekend slots available ( 6th & 7th Feb, 27th & 28th Feb and 6th & 7th March).

8th Feb to 12th Feb: Filming.

15th Feb to 19th Feb: HALF TERM. NO CAMERAS OUT.

22nd Feb to 26th Feb: Filming and editing.

1st March to 5th March: Filming and editing.

8th March to 12th March: 8th March Shooting deadline. 2nd lesson of this week is Rough Cut Deadline. Third lesson of week, rough cut feedback.

15th March to 19th March: End of second lesson of the week is Final Cut Deadline. Last lesson of the week, feedback on final cuts and re-introduction to Evaluation questions.

22nd March to 26th March: 9am 22nd March is Interim writing deadline. Lessons this week are for feedback on interim drafts and revisions/writing.

9am 29th March: Final writing deadline.

Filming Tips

At the start of the lesson the class brainstormed tips for filming and heres what we came up with:
1) Think carefully about the different shot types
2) Organisation - of both time and a decent shot list (could be ticked off as each shot is done)
3) Think ahead - for example the credits, where they will go, how they will appear on the screen etc
4) Stick to the storyboard as much as possible
6) Shout out each shot number before each shot or take
7) "lights camera action"
8) Think about the distance, e.g camera and sound
9)Lighting should be tested so it is not too dark or light
10) Perform. The actors should make an effort.

Crime Thriller

This particular genre is a hybrid type of both crime films and thrillers that offers a suspenseful account of a successful or failed crime or crimes. These films often focus on the criminal or criminals instead of the policeman. Crime thrillers usually emphasize action over psychological aspects. Central topics of these films include murders, robberies, chases, shootouts, and double-crosses are central ingredients. Some examples of crime thrillers are The Killing, Seven and Reservoir Dogs.

Ideas

We have decided that for the opening,we will make music on garageband and have clips or images of both the inside and outside of the restaurant as this will show the audience the setting and where the story is set. Other ideas are things such as, someone putting on lipstick, expensive bags purses etc as this shows that the characters and the story will be more classy and high end, however we may also include needles and guns as this shows the darker side of the story,

shots we want to include

Long Shot - Shows the three women sitting around the table
Pan Shot - Goes around the table to show each character, freeze frames to introduce them
Medium Shot - Showing the characters
Shot Counter Shot - Conversation between characters
Over the shoulder shot - Conversation between characters
Slightly high angle on drug dealer
Lower angle for druggie

Mise-en-scene in our opening

Props: The props that we will need for our opening are:
- guns
- expensive looking purses
- drinks.
- handbags

Costumes:
Druggie - Tracksuit, bags under eyes, rough, hair slicked back
Drug dealer - Dressy, lots of jewelery, expensive looking
Under cover cop - similar to the drug dealer, however the cop will have handcuffs in her bag


Location: We are hoping to film our opening in frankie and bennys as in the restaurant we can film the conversation with the characters sitting at a booth.
Lighting: We will film the opening at both night and day, inside Frankie and Benny's the lighting is quite dim - so the room will be relatively dark, however we will need to do test shots in order to check that the lighting will look good for our film.