Tuesday 23 November 2010

my horror/thriller idea

my idea is that a young child is playing with a puupet toy before bed, she is dressed in a innocent nightdress with plaits and is put to bed by her mother, her room is dark but girly and there are lots of dolss covering the wall, there will be a close up of the girl placing the puppet toy very delicatly on the chair next to her bed and a reverse zoom shot retreating from the chair to show the puppet and put empahise on it, we will then see the child getting slowly into bed and go to sleep, there will be a montage of her sleeping and the clock going forward to around 3 in the morning then there will be a close up of the puppet where we see its eyes slowly move and focus on the child, it will change to a point of view shot and will see the puppets arm slowly stretching out, and fly up and hanger over her bed , as if its arm is reaching for the childs throat. Then the little girl wakes up and screams. the names also of who wrote it and directed it ect, will be written in crayon and in childish writing to empahise the innocene of the child which i think makes it more creepy.

Denotation and conotation of horror/thriller films

 
 
Gothika
Denotation: women looking at blood message on wall
Conotation: the message 'not alone' gives the impression of something paranormal so that she may physically not be alone. The colour of the writing is red which gives the impression that its blood which signfys danger.
 
 
Haloween
Denotation: man standing over a banister holding a knife and wearing a mask.
Conotation: he is holding a knife which signys dnager and the mask makes him look even more creepy also the low angle shot signfies that he has a higher status and is in more power
 
 
Scream
Denotation: man wearing a mask holding a knife looking at a child who is on the phone on the other side of a window
Conotation: there is a stranger trying to get in and kill the child as symbolised by the knife, also the fact that the child is on the phone gies the impression that she may be calling for help as she knows that this masked figure is dangerous

conventions of the horror/thriller genre

in class we were asked to make a list of the things that scared us or that we associated with horror or thriller films:

  • Blood

  • Knives

  • Axes

  • Torture

  • Dark

  • Isolation

  • Paranormal

  • Supernatural

  • Villans

  • Victims

  • Abandonment

  • Ghosts

  • Footsteps

  • Screaming

  • Kidnap

  • Fire

  • Puppets

  • Mutation

  • Creaking doors

  • Trees

  • Wind

  • Clowns

  • Storms

  • Bad Omens

  • Shouting

  • Guns

  • Psychos

  • Dolls

  • Hooded Figures

  • Rats

  • Owls

  • Church Bells

  • Grave Yards

  • Candles

  • Pain

  • Murder

  • Fear
  • Friday 19 November 2010

    Prelim post production - editing

    Logging your shots

    First, we had to select the appropriate shots from each camera angle, and place them in a log bin. This was important because it meant we werent constanly going through shots with mistakes or that werent useful to us and had all our information and useful footage in one place. Also, it meant that some of the shots that might have been out of focused or badly framed could be easily discarded which helped me understand how to recognise badly shot scenes.

    Organsing your shots

    When organising our shots we wanted to show the level of power and status betweent he two characters so one character was sittting down, so we had an opening shot of the more dominant character walking in to establish the scene, we orgaisned the over the shoulder shots to be shot reverse shots as we wanted to close up of peoples expressions and emotions.

    editing in final cut

    we added in certain extra frames such as a close up of the phone, and added them in were it would flow correctly, so the was a slow paced zoom in of the phone as the end frame.

    Prelin task Evaluation

    Location

    the location we filmed in the studio which was beneficial for our task as it allowed us to use different lighting and set the scene effectively in a large open space within a controlled environment. during the filming i took part in 3 different roles of directing the staging of the set and calling out commands such as stand by, roll camera and action. i also helped with he filming and ensuring we didn't break the 180 degree rule.

    Lighting

    our thought towards lighting was to make it naturalistic as if the event was actually occurring so not have it overly bright or dark, but as if it was daytime and the lights were simply on, so a sort of straw coloured gel tone. this was important to the scene because we wanted to make it as realistic as possible as if it was just two girls having a heated conversation during the middle of the day, and not add anything fancy which i think made the seriousness of the situation more severe as it was relatable.

    Filming

    with the filming we ensured that the camera was set up correctly and changed the height of the tripod according to each different shot. We also had to bubble the tripod, to make sure that the tripod was level in each shot. We also checked that each shot was framed correctly each times which meant checking the white balance and make sure it was in focus each time. We also ran through the scene on standby first to ensure we kept by the rule of thirds and that everything fitting into the shot correctly. Similarly, we had to make sure that the lighting equipment and shadows that it caused was not in any of our shot as it could effect the realism of it and caused problems later in editing. We also had to make sure that we were using the appropriate camera angles, such as the over the shoulder shot and close ups. We chose these types of shots because it allowed us to get the reaction of the actor to what has just being said, so the audience watching would know how they were feeling and set a mood for what was happening. Also, we filmed the shots using practical and appropriate planning, this meant choosing one shot and filming the whole sequence through with it, this may seem tedious but was useful in editing because it meant that we had a lot of material in which to work with.

    So far, this prelim task has taught how to confidently use the camera and shown me how important things such as the 180degree rule is, also the whole feel of being on a set and using the appropriate terminology.

    prelim storyboarding

    A storyboard is a graphic organizer. It illustrates a series of images which are displayed in a sequence. A film storyboard is a large comic of the film in order to help film directors to recognise probable problems before filming. It provides a visual image which helps the filming process. It also helps to imginne the film sequences better before they are even filmed.