We are starting filming properly with our actors on Sunday and Helena will later post the e-mail we sent to the girls regarding the details for the day. This post is mainly discuss the costumes for both of the girls.

For Catherine (the girl who is actually dead), we have decided she should wear:
--> Black trousers/ black knee length skirt/ black dress
--> Black tights and shoes
--> Black shirt and cardigan
--> Hair loose and potentially slightly dark make-up with a pale face

We are going to ask the girls what they have and then build on the outfits from there, but that is a rough plan above.

For Mary (the main character) she will wear:
--> Dark blue jeans
--> Purple/black t shirt
--> Ordinary trainers/shoes
--> No specific hairstyle, as this may differ between takes, without breaking continuity
--> Naturalistic looking make up

We want Mary and Catherine's wardrobe to be contrasting to show the difference between the two girls, without making it blatently obvious. We have said to the girls that we will meet with them in a few days to discuss this in detail.

Filming on Sunday will depend on weather, which we have made clear to the girls, but we have also formed a back-up plan, which means we can do some inside shots instead. Nat lives just down the road from the park and so has offered her house in case of rain. The shots we can film as a back-up are...

10) Wide shot of two girls on the bed, laughing and chatting
12) Straight cut into two girls linking arms
13) Close up of Catherine's hand going onto Mary's shoulder
15) Long shot of two girls looking into mirror in the bathroom
16) Mid shot of Mary saying "I wish you'd stop staring at me Catherine"
17) Wide shot of Mary leaning over sink
18) Mid shot of steam rising from sink
19) Over the shoulder shot from behind Mary straightening up words "R.I.P Mary" are written in the steam
28) Close up of Mary screaming
30) Close up of tap and sink
31) Zoom out shot of sink filled with blood

Hopefully we'll have some good weather!

Stef

Post a poster

Well, during my free I thought I would do a bit of poster research. We were having a chat about this earlier and Nat suggested our poster be really subdue colours so that it could make a impact that connotes darkness.

This poster that I have uploaded below is not in black/grey/white but has dark colours and the visual image is quite striking.

However, I don't think we could do a poster like this only because we have two principal characters so the poster would have to feature both. However I did have an idea that maybe we could have one of the girls at the front of the pictures and the other blurred looking at the first girl. Its only an idea but maybe we could develop it when we start designing our poster.

Another thing that has made me think about this poster was that its quite a teaser poster as the girl's mouth is blanked out and you don't know why this is, which gives an element of mystery.

Helena

Fake blood

We and Jack have spent the evening creating fake blood. Orginally we were supposed to be filming tonight, however, we underesitmed the time it would take and we didn't follow the recipe quite as we were supposed to do so it took the majority of the evening.

We have decided that we do another day after school for the shots. And do the fake blood shots when the girls are filming with us on sunday so there are no continunity errors.

Although it took us along time to perfect the fake blood we belive it was worth it as the shot will be really effective.

Helena and Nat

Sorry for my absence!

Just a quick sorry for not being there tonight guys but will definitely be there on Sunday to continue to filming.
I have a few responses from the questionnaire on my facebook that could be used to collate our data and was thinking maybe we could come up with a titles for our teaser trailer?

Stef

Wonderland

I was looking at different teaser trailers as a bit more research and I came across this teaser trailer for Tim Burton's 'Alice in wonderland'


What struck me about this teaser trailer is that the beginning is quite similar to ours. It is a continuous scene until there is a shift in the atmosphere something changes. Fast cuts are then introduced, like ours again.

Looking at this I hope ours can be as effective as this teaser trailer. I think we will have to be very careful about the choice of music as this teaser trailer made a good choice of non-diegetic background music.

Tonight Jack, Nat and I are filming the scenes that dont invole the actors. We are going to make fake blood using a recipe we found on Wiki How


We will update on how filming went later

Helena

Research

I was just looking around and found a teaser trailer for the new Saw film (SawVI) I thought it was very interesting how very little was given away in the trailer and I know we have already done the storyboard ect. but it still may be handy to keep in mind, especially during the editing process.



Nat

Storyboards

Today I am finishing off the storyboards, just finishing some last minute details. So I will hopefully be able to scan them in and upload them either tonight or tomorrow.

Fingers are crossed for tomorrow for filming

Nat

And you're hired

Well after our really sucessful auditions that Stef blogged about we have chosen our two actors, Lexie and Alice. Their auditions were amazing and we feel that they can really potray our charecters in the way that we want them to. These are the emails we sent out. One for the sucessful students and one for the students that we didn't choose.

In other news tommorow is our first filming day. Nat, Jack and I will be filming, Stef cannot make it but we have decided as a group if someone cannot make it then everyone else should continue. This means that we can meet our deadline as other wise we would have to wait a long time for everyone to be free.

The shots we are filming tommorow are the ones that don't invole actors. This is because they were not free on such short notice.

The shots to be filmed are;

22) Close up of keys falling off table

23) Mid shot of door slaming

26) Mid shot of pages of book blowing

30) Close up of tap and sink

31) Zoom out shot of sink filled with blood

Allthough there aren't many shots it means that they are out of the way for when our actors are filming with us so we can concetrate on filming their scenes

Helena

Remember my name...

We held our year twelve auditions today that went very well. I found a short monologue from the musical "Fame" and they each read this in front of myself and Helena. I chose this monologue as it encompasses alot of different emotions in one speech and would allows the girls to act out a dramatic and highly emotional scene. Jack told the students where to find us and we held the auditions.

We had a fair few number of students turn up and have decided on our final two actors so will hopefully be ready to film by next week...We are going to e-mail the two students this afternoon hopefully and let them know they have the parts.

Nat is finishing off the storyboard currently in preparation to show on Monday and then we can officially begin filming.

Stef

Shot em quick

Well, since the last blog me and Stef have composed the shot list that we will use when we start filming. We decided that we should do this before we started entering shots into the storyboard so that they are accurate. This took a while to do and when we finished we felt that we were really happy with our shots.

One idea I came up with which I was particularly happy with was the dead girl, Catherine, is sitting cross legged surrounded with candles right at the end of the teaser trailer. She is playing with the candles and singing under breath the nursery rhyme, "Mary mary". This will be done as a wide shot. Then she finishes by blowing out the candle. And the song finishs
However Stef came up with an idea to finish it which the whole group preferred, where Catherine extingushs the flame with her fingers. This would work well as the ideas of flames and nusery rhymes are quite contrasting.

This is the shot list

Shot list
1) Fade transition into film company logo of “Hammer Film Productions”
2) Fade transition into establishing shot of girl swinging alone in a park
3) Straight cut to wide shot behind the swing of Mary swinging with diegetic sound of chains squeaking
4) Point-of-view shot of Mary on swing leaning back, repeated four times with not there then suddenly appearing
5) Close up of Mary’s feet digging into ground to stop swinging
6) Over-the-shoulder shot of Catherine who says “Hi. I’m Catherine.”
7) Reversal over-the-shoulder shot of Mary replying “Erm, hi, I’m Mary.”
8) Long shot of the two girls talking along with non diegetic voice-over of “Mary’s mother” saying “You’re such a lonely girl Mary, why don’t you try and make some friends?”
9) Long shot of girls leaving the park as voice-over continues (sound bridge)
10) Wide shot of two girls on bed, laughing and chatting with happy sounding non-diegetic background music
11) Fade transition into a mid shot of two girls walking down a high street talking
12) Straight cut into mid shot of the girls linking arms
13) Fade transition into a close-up of Catherine’s hand going slowly onto Mary’s shoulder followed by an immediate straight cut to a black screen
14) Fade transition into title “But friendships can change”
15) Fade cut into long shot of the two girls looking into a mirror in bathroom
16) Mid shot of Mary saying “I wish you’d stop staring at me Catherine”
17) Wide shot from the side of Mary leaning over sink, washing face
18) Mid shot of steam rising from the sink
19) Over-the-shoulder shot from behind of Mary straightening up and looking in mirror as “R.I.P Mary” is written in the steam on mirror with non diegetic tense background music
20) Fast cuts between the following…
21) a) Long shot of Mary running
22) b) Close up of keys falling off table
23) c) Mid shot of door slamming
24) d) Long shot of Mary running part 2
25) e) Close up of Catherine laughing and diegetic sound of laughter continues throughout rest of fast cuts
26) f) Mid shot of pages of book blowing
27) g) Long shot of Mary running part 3
28) h) Close up of Mary screaming and diegetic sound of screaming continues throughout the rest of the fast cuts
29) i) Close up of wrists tied up with chains with diegetic sound of chains squeaking
30) j) Close up of tap and sink
31) k)Zoom out shot of sink filled with “blood”
32) l) Immediate cut to black screen
33) Long shot of Mary running on beach yelling “CATHERINE!”
34) Long shot behind of Catherine, waist high in sea turning around, smiling creepily
35) Wide shot of Catherine with candles surrounding her playing with them. Singing nursery rhyme ‘Mary Mary’ to her self when dies out candles are extinguished
36) Title screen

We will film extra scenes and maybe change diffrent scenes when we actually shoot it but for now it is what we will story board.

Helena

Audition notification

Luckily we got some very enthusiastic responses from the year twelve drama students and so I comprised this email and Helena found the names of those that responded and sent them all this e-mail...





So hopefully a few will turn up and we will have our final actors by next week to start filming asap.

Today in media Helena and I wrote a formal shot list for Nat to use to draw the storyboard. The two of us took half of the storyboard each to write in the descriptions for each shot and so hopefully will have it completed by next week. Jack's now in charge of questionnaire results and data so just a note to him; people have responded to the questionnaire of my facebook so feel free to include my results to draw up a conclusion.

Stef

"Let there be light"

Here is some research on types of lighting; something we should consider when filming our teaser trailer.

Types of Lighting

Lighting must be carefully considered when filming as different lighting can create different atmospheres, as shown in the following examples…

Back Lighting

Light source is placed behind the subject
Looks like a silhouette
It adds a sense of mystery or wonder.
Shadows surrounding the subject add to the mystery
Can create fear and terror of the unknown.
Often used in horror films to conceal the villain.

Under Lighting

Light source is under the subject
Creates shadows in the subject, adding mystery
Shades of light and dark are added to the subject
Full features of subject cannot be properly seen
Gives a “ghostly” feel
Often used in horror films to create unease
Makes the subject appear domineering

Top Lighting

Light source is above subject
Face is let well, as are the surroundings
Used to create realistic settings
Looks like “everyday” light
Naturalistic feeling.
Used in TV soaps regularly.

High Key Lighting

Overall bright light is used
The overall scene appears very bright
Clearly shows the subject
No shadows in the background
Can add a clinical feel to a scene, like in a hospital
Used to highlight the subject clearly

Low Key Lighting

Shades of light and dark are created
Adds a sense of mystery
Conceals the full features of the subject
Used regularly in films such as the Harry Potter series
What is happening on screen is not shown completely
Keeps the viewers “guessing”



Hope this helps.

Stef