Saturday 13 December 2014

Genres: Horror

When discussing themes with Jess we came to a disicion on what theme we will use in our openning sequence. We are going to either use a horror or a thriller theme. So here are some conventions of the horror genre:
The setting is usual far away from people, whether in the mountains, similar to The shinning, or in the contryside, similar to A cabin in the woods, and most typically a haunted house. Usually this setting is unfamilar to the characters.
Another convention is iconography. In a lot of films these are repeated, such as low key lighting, monsters or a mad man. The mise-en-scene is very important here too. Starting with the low key lighting, this gives a very haunted and dark feel to the films. This also limits the character's and the audience's view of what is happening and movies can use the dark to trick us in thinking that there is something there as we cannot clearly see what is happening. Some props such as kinves or chainsaws are used often as they are very dangrous weapons that a person on their own cannot defend against, helping to induce a feeling of fear and defencelessness.

Friday 12 December 2014

Filming Schedule: 14th - 15th Dec

Sunday, 14th Dec

Sophie coming over, 11am

Shots-
Phone message scene
Towel shot
Shower shot
Dressing shot
Teeth brushing shot
Lipstick shot

Location-
My flat
- Bathroom
- Bedroom

Props, costume-
Jeans, jumper
Pyjamas
Towel
Phone
Lipstick
Wine glasses
Perfumes


Monday, 15th

Zoe and Sophie coming over, 4pm

Shots-
Waking up
Zoe hair and face mask scene
Toast and coffee scenes
Feet 'goodbye' shot
Kiss on the cheek shot
Mug smash, dead shot

Wednesday 10 December 2014

Tuesday 9 December 2014

Opening sequences

As part of my research I am looking at existing opening sequences and breaking them down. Looking at each element and seeing what effect this create. I can use this to help design my own scene by both using existing conventions and by changing other to suit my idea.

Monday 8 December 2014

Prelim //Summer task



We were tasked to make an opening scene of a movie of any genre of our choice. The only condition was that our characters needed to sit down at a table and say a few lines of dialog. For this task I worked with josephine and we had one lesson to plan, one lesson to film and one lesson to edit our movies. This is the end result:



Evaluation: In the prelim there were two main problems we faced. The first obstacle was the limited time. Both Jojo and myself found that trying to design and shoot a film in a two hour period proved very difficult. We had to edit the scene and find the music/effects outside of lesson time. This helped to show that time management is very important when we make our actual opening sequence.
The second problem was that we  filmed the last scene at two different times. When we came to finish off the scene we had lost track of where each character was stood. We had to quickly change the scene and try to work around this problem. 

What we did find very useful, however, was planning each scene with a script and then storyboard. It was interesting to see how the idea of how the short film would plan out from and random idea:
Zoe: "We could do a super hero movie"
Jojo: "Haha how would we do that?"
Zoe: "My super power could be ... making people fall over! Haha."
"Jojo: "No, we could actually do that!"
To a fully planned script and then drawn out story board. Then working behind the camera and directing from both the audience and the producer's view. Overall, doing this prelim-task helps to plan out what i will do when creating my course work. 

Sunday 7 December 2014

New blog

Welcome to my new blog. I apologise for any inconvenience but I hope I can improve this new blog. Here is my old post that explains what happened.


You can find Jess' blog here and some of my old posts can be moved over as they are still relevant but due to the main change in genre there will be many new posts. I hope you enjoy my new film!