Once we had captured our film and put it onto the computer for editing, it became apparent that i had absolutely no sound what so ever... this was a big problem for us, as the use of sound was worth alot of marks and it was needed to complete the convention of any film!.. let alone a Thriller.
So to fix the problem i head back out the next week to re-visit the family to record sounds...
My mum drove me down there one night after school and it only took about 1h30m, and as i had a schedule i new exactly what i had to do. But i didnt write down any of the sound durations so i was treding a fine line when i had to ask my actors to repeat what they remembered saying the week before.
Lucky when i downoaded the sound to our movie the next day everything was fine-They had repeated sounds in the same way as i had asked them the first time, because that was their normal way :)
phew, panic over!
Now we just needed to add in the extra sounds of the sea and sea-guls which we had taken from Freesound, and FreeSFX.
http://www.freesfx.co.uk/
http://www.freesound.org/
Wednesday 6 April 2011
Filming Day
Unfortunatly Lauren was unable to make the filming date after it had been set, so i had to go solo! However the weather was a perfect sunday, and i had great cooperation from my family. My uncle had some walkie-talkies too, so that really helped in terms of communication when he was half way down the road!
I realised that there was a continuity issue as the sequence of shots didnt run from the country to the town, it jumped. So we had to go back on the road to film a long shot of the car driving towards the beach. the walkie-talkies came in handy here as Philip radio'd me on his approach so i could capture it perfectly.
We did the first bit of filming at the house and Philip contributed some good idea's about possible shots and angles that we could try. It was great weather and we had all day so there was no rush at this point, making filming really good fun.
This is the start of filming on the journey, and it was probably the most scairy. I asked Philip to drive close as he went past, but i didnt account for any other moving vehicles. Luckily the guy who's drive i was in front of, was soon made aware of my presence!
Most importantly was the beach scene where charlie went missing, and it was about 2:30pm when we started filming down there.
This is when i got some good mid close-ups of Philip and Becky walking along, and also some esablishing shots of where we were.
I realised that there was a continuity issue as the sequence of shots didnt run from the country to the town, it jumped. So we had to go back on the road to film a long shot of the car driving towards the beach. the walkie-talkies came in handy here as Philip radio'd me on his approach so i could capture it perfectly.
The gap between the two beach huts is the space in which charlie runs down and disappears. Filming this shot sequence, i wanted to include an over -the-shoulder shot, and a mid-close up of charlie, to show showing her fashial expression and movements.
So thats the end of filming day!
The Cast
Charlie is actually 11 or 12 but in the film we want her looking around 9 or 10, which we hope we can create using costume. She said she was quite happy to be filmed down the beach dressed like this which was lucky considering it was going to be busy!
We borrowed a red coat that was aged 8-9 but fortunatly Charlie was petite enough to squeeze into it. Also we tied red bowes in her hair to increase her innocent persona which was quite effective.
Giving charlie a dress and white socks also contributed to her innocent character, and her overall costume was effective.
Tuesday 5 April 2011
Film Preperation
In order for our filming day to run smoothly we created a schedule. There are Three main scenes in our film opening: The Journey, The arrival, and The disturbance in the equilibriam. And all three required a variety of capture angles.
The Journey
This needed to establish who the family were, and the general genre of the film. It captures the stereotypical middle-class happy family, leaving for a day out, and shows the setting of the film. Camera angles are mainly wide-shots to establish the film, and there are not too many close-ups or variations, to ensure there is no awareness of any disturbance. We wanted the "opening of the opening" to be relativly calm and un-asuuming.
-wide-shot of family leaving the house following dad
- getting into the car
- various worms-eye and high-angle shots supplimented by long shots and wide shots of the journey from outside the car
- high angle long shot of car pulling into the car park
The Arrival
This scene begins to build more on the characteristics of the family, and the camera angles become more varied as the opening begins to build pace. During this scene the stereotypical conventions of the family's happiness are continued further as they all walk along the beach, whilst the music plays a role in building suspence and tention.
- establishing wide and long shot of family walking toward the beach
- low-angle of family approaching
-worms-eye close up of children running past
- wide shot of childen chasing eachother along the sand dune
- mid shot of family walking along the beach
- long shot of family approaching beach huts
The Disturbance In The Equilibriam
This is the point in our opening where music dies out and the anxiety sets in. The pace of this scene is disturbing, and there are more high-angled shots of the family to imply the characters helplessness. Also the shot sequence becomes more rapid to aid the "Thriller" convention.
- Over the shoulder shot of charlie hiding inbetween the beach huts spying on her family
- mid close-up of her giggling and slipping inbetween the huts
- slow motion close up of her sliding round the back of the beach huts
- establishing shot of family realising charlies disapperance
- cut to a high angle from on top of the beach huts
- High angle of shouting and searching
- Cut to a mid close-up of philip making an emergency call
- Cut to wide-shot of police radioing in and pulling away
- Cut back to a 180 degree pan of the beach huts showing charlies red coat on the floor
The Journey
This needed to establish who the family were, and the general genre of the film. It captures the stereotypical middle-class happy family, leaving for a day out, and shows the setting of the film. Camera angles are mainly wide-shots to establish the film, and there are not too many close-ups or variations, to ensure there is no awareness of any disturbance. We wanted the "opening of the opening" to be relativly calm and un-asuuming.
-wide-shot of family leaving the house following dad
- getting into the car
- various worms-eye and high-angle shots supplimented by long shots and wide shots of the journey from outside the car
- high angle long shot of car pulling into the car park
The Arrival
This scene begins to build more on the characteristics of the family, and the camera angles become more varied as the opening begins to build pace. During this scene the stereotypical conventions of the family's happiness are continued further as they all walk along the beach, whilst the music plays a role in building suspence and tention.
- establishing wide and long shot of family walking toward the beach
- low-angle of family approaching
-worms-eye close up of children running past
- wide shot of childen chasing eachother along the sand dune
- mid shot of family walking along the beach
- long shot of family approaching beach huts
The Disturbance In The Equilibriam
This is the point in our opening where music dies out and the anxiety sets in. The pace of this scene is disturbing, and there are more high-angled shots of the family to imply the characters helplessness. Also the shot sequence becomes more rapid to aid the "Thriller" convention.
- Over the shoulder shot of charlie hiding inbetween the beach huts spying on her family
- mid close-up of her giggling and slipping inbetween the huts
- slow motion close up of her sliding round the back of the beach huts
- establishing shot of family realising charlies disapperance
- cut to a high angle from on top of the beach huts
- High angle of shouting and searching
- Cut to a mid close-up of philip making an emergency call
- Cut to wide-shot of police radioing in and pulling away
- Cut back to a 180 degree pan of the beach huts showing charlies red coat on the floor
Moodboard
This is the moodbaord Lauren created for our film, and it uses possitive and neggative imagery to inspire our unexpected disturbance.
The colour scheme of this moodboard is also relative as it interprates the vivid red connoting warning and danger, contrasted against the wide shot of the beach in pastil blue, that opposes the initial neggativity.
Inspiration
Inspiration has come from various other movies, not mainly the narrative, but more the Mis-en- scene of costume and also sound and the mood it creates. We didnt want an inspirational narrative as we felt it would be more creative for us, if we developed our own, hence why we chose an indipendant film.
however inspiration in the form of music has progressed and Lauren and i have concluded upon a solo piece of either piano or guitar. origionaly we thought about orchestral music but after further film reseach, the genre of our film was more suited to a solo of some sort, or possibly a mix of the two.
however inspiration in the form of music has progressed and Lauren and i have concluded upon a solo piece of either piano or guitar. origionaly we thought about orchestral music but after further film reseach, the genre of our film was more suited to a solo of some sort, or possibly a mix of the two.
Thomas Newman was our main inspiration, as his music has been used in two very strong emotive thriller films i have watched, where music is used to build suspence and tention. The first film looked at was Road To Perdition (the music is piano/orchestral which we hope to include in our film) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aM0Iu7Mdw4A
and the second called Brothers which is more guitar http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFs7Rv7J3To
But both create a similar effect which we hope to interpret into our film; its that deep emotive feel that Thrillers often create, making the audience empathetic.
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