Questionnaire

 I will ask my peers and teachers to fill out a questionnaire that asks them Crime/Thriller related questions. The questions will help myself decide what we need to add and after showing my group the results I will be able to take in their input of what we should add in order to make the genre clearer.

The results -

     

There was one more result paper however it never got given back to me.
From these results I know that music should be a mixture of Intense and Eerie, there should be Quite a lot of blood, we should take ideas from seven, and it should have an element of horror within it.

Feedback

Feedback

In today's lesson we were given some feedback on our title sequence so far. We gained some positive feedback for things such as the cinematography, soundtrack and props used. The things we were told we could improve on was to maybe get rid of some of the scenes as they didn't quite fit. For example the investigation scene we planned to use could be taken out or if we want to keep it then there needs to be a clearer transition from the two settings. We were also told that we need to have maybe 1 or 2 more setting in our title sequence. 

Cinematography -
Canted angle shot
Low angle shot to show the killer as a more powerful being
Hand Held Footage

Sound -
Add foley sound like scratching or footsteps for example

Editing -
No gaps
Credits
Correct font
Clear narrative structure

Mise en Scene -
Possibly add a new location
More props
investigation scene needs work e.g. wrong setting.
new character

Using Final Cut Pro

Using final cut Pro 

When editing our title sequence we had to use final cut pro on the Macs in the school. It didn't take me that long to figure out how to use it and learn all the little specs that would come in handy such as the transform tools including scale, rotation and anchor point. Final cut has plenty of filters to choose from which comes in handy in case we want a scene to look darker or lighter/. The filters can also change the levels of intensity. Using Final cut Pro wasn't as easy for me compared to using my own programs at home such as Premier Pro and after effects. This is probably because i am already use to using these programs and final cut pro is new to me. However i dont thing it takes that long to get use to and i found that experimenting with different tools is a good way of learning where everything is and what works well and what doesn't.

Production Log 1

Production log 1

Today myself harry George and Tommy filmed our first shoot in the drama room, we used our prop book that harry made, fake blood, a strobe light, netted yarn, fake knives and the filming equipment. Tommy being the cinematographer came up with the different camera shot ideas and the rest of the group gave a few ideas here and there. As i am the editor i gave some hints on what things would look good in our final piece and how some of the shots would be effective.

These are photographs of our prop book -

Issues from 1st Screening

Issues with the 1st screening

After our first screening there were a few issues we would need to fix during our next shoot and editing sessions. The first issue was that we had not established our narrative well enough and it wasn't clear enough on what the film is about.

The second issue was that we had still not added any titles meaning our peers had no idea on who is in the film, who directed it or any of the company's that helped produce it.

Another issue was that our investigation scene didn't have anyone in it and the setting takes place in doesn't look much like an office so we are going to need to re shoot that.

First Screening

First screening

Today we showed our first screening to the class so that we could be given feedback on what we have done so far and if it looks like its going to work.

Title sequence Narrative

Title sequence Narrative

We have come up with a narrative for our title sequences film, using todorovs narrative structure.
this is our narrative:

Equilibrium:New family move into new house. (father/ex cop and two sons/one young one late teens)
they notice that their are no kids on the street.

Disruption:children been going missing since the neighbour has lived there, only this streets children go missing
family don't believe it carry on packing
few days later one night youngest son wakes to the sound of pebbles being thrown at his window he goes to check and finds a figure of a very tall man over the road just staring at him, as a car goes by the man disappeared. weird things keep happening to the boy: he wakes up in the morning to find things have moved around in his room to finding his window wide open and footprints around his room. This becomes more serious with each happening.

Disequilibrium:the father is told about the children being murdered in depth. (only evidence are polaroid's of the dead children with them scribbled out).
fathers youngest son goes missing from his room one night. only thing left behind is a picture of both sons but the eldest eyes are scribbled out. the father believes his son has been taken by whatever has killed the other children, the father goes to the police station to look through evidence this shows him that all the murders happened exactly four days after they went missing, on the fourth day using the evidence he finds out where his son is rapidly heads there in hope of finding him alive.

Attempt to repair:father finds the place races in to find his son bound and gaged but alive, goes to leave until the killer terns up. father fights the killer he thinks he's dead. they leave to go home.

New equilibrium:they get home to find the front door wide open. they walk inside wearily and in the hallway they find the same polaroid that was on his young sons bed but with the eldest son scribbled out. the father sees the back door open and finds that his eldest son is dead in a tree in the back garden.

Created by Tommy D, Max R, George K and Harry LJ

Mise en Scene for killer

Mise en scene- killer shoot

For our killer scene, we wanted our actor to have a rough kind of look. The outfit that we decided that he should wear was back ripped jeans, black boots and a black shirt with some blood smeared on it. We decided it also might be a good idea to smudge charcoal over his hands to give him that rough and dirty kind of look. I feel this effect worked well when it came to shooting the killers scene which will be played by J.K. Simmons (Harry). It clearly shows and tells the audience that this is the killer and will be the main antagonist for the film. Some of the other props in the shoot included a two fake knives that we covered in fake blood to give the effect that they had been used already, giving the audience an idea on what kind of character this is. Another useful prop that turned out to be a success was the strobe light that we found in one of the storage rooms. We placed the strobe light on a table then told harry to stand in front of it. In the scene, harry was acting stressed and agitated and with this mixed with the flashing of the light i thought that when the light was flashing the light then it represented the good and when it would go dark for that fraction of a second, it represents evil and darkness. This gives the audience the idea of good fighting evil.

Production log

Production log

1 and 2 first film shoot monday 27th of feb.
location - drama room possibly dark room, if we cannot book out  either of the rooms we will sign out through getting permission of jerry to find another location to film a different scene. This will then be edited later on to change the ordering of the scenes we record.
Equipment - camera, steady cam, tripod and possibly go pro to get a pop shot if we are going to film in the woods.
coatume - long sleeve shirt, jeans, and boots.
propps - antagonists book, fake blood, string, tape, pictures, scale and a pen.

Title Sequence- Genre

Title Sequence - Genre

Typography

Typography

When planing our title sequence we need to consider the typography to use when displaying the credits and the title of the film. These are some of the different examples of fonts we are considering to use.

My favourite font out of the 5 above is either the 4th or the 5th one. The reason i like the 4th one is because i like the way parts of the lettering is either out of place or missing which is mysterious, this is good as our title sequence/ film idea is supposed to be mysterious. The reason i like the 5th one is because although its so simple it just feels like it creates a spooky effect. 

The 1st font and 3rd font are pretty similar in the way that they are twisted and almost messed up which is perfect as the character we are looking to shoot in our title sequence is supposed to be a twisted and messed up character.  

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Analysis of Title Sequence- The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

In todays lesson, as a group we had to discuss the title sequence for ''The Girl with the dragon Tattoo''. This title sequence is slightly unconventional for a Title Sequence because it doesn't establish any of the key characters or settings. Instead the sequence is in low key lighting and it looks like everything is made of ink. This is interesting because the title of the film has the word tattoo in it which ink is required for. Its starts of with a load of close ups but we are un sure on what they are of, one of them looked like dragon scales but we couldn't work out what the rest were. Once the close ups stop playing, the title of the film is revealed. Right after the shot of the title it cuts to an arial shot of someone struggeling with their body strapped down and there eyes have been covered. The body seems to be half submerged in ink.

The next shot gives the audience an idea of where one of the settings in the film is. We see a close up of a keyboard with ink traveling through the gaps. This suggests that one of the the setting in the film is in an office environment. Further on in the sequence we see what looks to be a match being lit, we then see it falling downwards where it then lands in an eye, setting it on fire. As the match is falling towards the eye we see a close up of the eye shaking which suggests the person is struggling. We could also suggest that the person is being tortured by someone.

The fact that fire is being used refers back to the ''dragon'' part of the title as we refer to dragons as fire breathers. Going back to the fire landing in the eye, this is when the pace of the music increase and becomes more intense. We then get  about 8 seconds of quick cuts of different scenes of torture. For example we see a mans face catch on fire and then an extreme close up of what looks to be a face  melting, then it shows a skull on fire so its possible that this is the same person who's face set on fire in the previous shot.



Later in the sequence west what looks to be someone sinking under the water. He is likely to be dead as he looks motionless, it is also possible that he has been killed and then thrown into the water, possibly as being a way of disposing of a body.