Planning Sound - Miss Miller

Planning Sound

Planning sound for our thriller opening scene is key because it consists of everything that you hear. It is used to create tension, suspense and to thrill the audience. Sound can also be used to make different shots flow together, and allows characters to be depicted in certain ways. For example when we hear uplifting music we can tell that the character is happy. Planning the sounds that I will use in my sequence is important as it enables us to choose which types of sound we want in certain places and what effect they will have on the audience in our opening sequence and how they challenge/meet conventions. 

Non diegetic sound in the form of tense music will be used within my opening sequence. This will build suspense among the audience and also inform them when something may be about to happen. This sound technique also will make the victim seem inferior and as if she is in some sort of danger, this will allow relationships to be built between the audience and the character as they will want to tell her that something is going to happen. Non diegetic tense music is conventional to the thriller genre as it creates suspense, thus being one of the most important conventions in a thriller film.

Contrapuntal sound is also something that I am going to try to incorporate into my opening sequence, this could be in the form of happy music. This will make the audience feel uneasy as they would not expect to hear this music in relation to what may be about to happen, and this therefore builds suspense and tension. This sound technique will also portray the strange and eerie characteristics of the antagonist. This sound technique is less conventional of the thriller genre but it can still be used as a way of building tension.

I am also going to be using diegetic sounds in the form of the antagonist laughing and the victim heavily breathing, this will be used to portray how scared the victim is at this moment in time. The diegetic sound of her breathing heavily will depict a sense of panic towards the audience and this will therefore leave them in an uneasy situation. The diegetic sound of the laughing antagonist will create an eerie atmosphere as you would not expect to hear someone so evil laughing. This also portrays the antagonist to be twisted as he is laughing at what he is about to do. Diegetic sound is conventional of a thriller as it involve the audience with the characters and they can see exactly how they are feeling, this allows relationships to be built.

I will also be using non diegetic sound effects in my opening sequence, these will be in the form of a sudden jumpy noise when the antagonist appears. This will be used to firstly scare the audience and make them feel uneasy, but it will also be used to create a sense of superiority surrounding the antagonist. This sound effect will also grab the audiences attention and make sure that they see the antagonist. The sudden jumpy sound will also convey to the audience that the victim is in danger as it has alerted them. This is conventional of a thriller film as it scares the audience and this therefore creates tension among them.

I think using sound in my opening sequence is very important as it creates tension and portrays certain emotions across to the audience. The use of sound also makes it easier for the audience to follow what is going on and they can judge characters through the sound that has been used in relation to them. I am hoping that the sounds that I have chosen for my opening sequence will create an enigma and enable the audience to build relationships with characters. I believe that the sounds I have picked are conventional of the thriller genre as each of them create an enigma, tension and an eerie atmosphere, all of these being the main conventions of the thriller genre. I found planning sound very helpful as it has allowed me to evaluate which sounds I want to include in my opening sequence and what they are required for.

Planning Cinematography - Miss Miller

Cinematography is the art of movie photography, this includes both the shooting and development of film. Cinematography consists of many different camera shots and angles. In this blog I am going to be planning and discussing the cinematography that I will be using in my opening sequence. Cinematography is an important element within films as it connects the audience to the characters and it allows them to relate with them. Planning my cinematography is important in order to create an excellent opening sequence as it will allow me to evaluate which camera shots and angles are most relevant to use in order to create the effect I want.

The first use of cinematography I will be using in my opening sequence is a panning shot, this will be at the beginning and it will pan from a large tower with a dark night background into a young girl saying goodbye to her friends. This piece of cinematography has been chosen here as it sets the scene and allows the audience to know where the setting is and that it is at night time. I am hoping that the panning of this large tower will create an eerie effect.

I will also be using a close up shot of the victim in my opening sequence, this cinematography has been used here as it allows the audience to visualise the victims face close up, this therefore portrays the emotions that she is feeling very scared. This means that the audience will be able to relate to the victim more easily, as they can see the genuine fear in her face. The impact of this shot is that it fills the screen and the audience therefore have no choice but to focus on it. This cinematography is conventional to a thriller film as it allows the audience to see that the victim is scared, this therefore makes her look vulnerable, and a vulnerable female victim is conventional of the thriller genre.

I've included the cinematographic technique of shallow focusing in my opening scene, this will be when we first see the antagonist. In this shot we will see the victim in full focus and then in the background we will see the antagonist standing out of focus. The impact of this shot is that it creates tension as the audience know that something is there but they don't know the true identity of what it is. This cinematography will convey to the audience that the person standing out of focus has bad intentions as their identity is being hidden through the blur. This technique will make the audience feel more alarmed as they want to tell the victim that there is something behind her, I am hoping that this will build relations between the audience and the character. This camera shot is conventional to the thriller genre as it creates an enigma as the audience are unable to clearly see who it is.

I have also included a point of view shot in my opening sequence, this shot will be used from the point of view of the antagonist. In this shot we will only be able to see eye holes as the antagonist is wearing a mask. The impact of this shot will be to strike fear into the audience, as they are put in the position of the antagonist, this will make them feel uneasy. The P.O.V shot will allow relationships to be created between the audience and the antagonist as they can see things from his position. Furthermore it depicts the fact that the victim is so isolated, as she is being watched but she is unaware of it. This shot will create low key lighting as most of the screen is blacked out apart from the eye holes, this is conventional of the thriller genre. This piece of cinematography emphasises the fact that the antagonist is wearing a mask, and shows that his identity is hidden.

In this opening sequence I have also used a long shot, this shot is used to show the antagonist for the first time clearly. The shot will show the antagonist standing in a mask and holding a knife. The impact of this shot is that it allows the audience to see the whole of the character and the setting in which they are in. This shot allows the audience to identify that the antagonist is wearing a mask and holding a knife, thus creating a terrifying atmosphere. This therefore creates relationships between the audience and the victim as they are both scared at what may be going to happen. This shot also portrays how isolated the victim is as they are alone in an empty car park, thus making the victim look extremely inferior and vulnerable, which is conventional to the thriller genre.

I think the use of cinematography in my opening sequence is vital in evoking a reaction from my audience as it allows the audience to create a relationship with the characters. The cinematography I have used also permits me to portray certain emotions toward my audience, for example the close up portrays the emotion of fear to my audience, thus creating fear among my audience. I feel that the cinematography I have used is conventional to the thriller genre as it extracts the key features of a thriller film such as low key lighting and an enigma etc. In planning and discussing the cinematography that I will be using in my opening sequence, I have been able to see what effect each of my camera shots and angles creates, this has been extremely helpful as I can identify which areas I need to improve on in terms of cinematography.

Planning Group Storyboard - Miss Miller

In this blog I shall be evaluating our group storyboard, including the content of the storyboard and the specific elements we have used from our individual storyboards. The purpose of the group storyboard task is so that we can incorporate all the ideas of each individual into one storyboard. The storyboard will allow us the organise the shots, editing, iconography, actors, sound and lighting we will be using in each frame. This will allow us to keep organisation and structure when it comes to filming.

In our group storyboard we have included several elements from each of our own individual storyboards that we created. In frames 8 and 12, we incorporated Joe's idea of a point of view shot from the antagonist's position, this means the camera shot will be filmed as if he is wearing a mask. This was an inspiration from the original 'Halloween' film. This frame allowed me and Dan to see Joe's idea and the features of a thriller that it would generate, such as low key lighting and hidden identity.

We included the long shot feature of my storyboard, these long shots consist of the victim and the antagonist. The reason we included this feature in our group storyboard was because it creates the atmosphere of isolation as we can clearly see the empty background. This allows the audience to identify the fact that the victim is helpless and alone, thus therefore will create a relationship. We included this element of my storyboard as it generates the convention that this creates is a vulnerable female victim.

In using the group storyboard it enabled us to split our narrative into separate sections, this allowed us to see where we wanted low key lighting, diegetic sound, editing etc. This is helpful as when we are filming we can make sure that each element that we require for each shot is available. Using the group storyboard has also enabled us to not only note the key elements that we will be featuring in each frame but also conduct a sketch to make it easier for each member of our group to visualise our ideas.

I think our storyboard is very good and has been managed very well as it has broke our opening sequence down into separate segments making it easier to understand and also make it easier for filming. I found that the ideas each member of our group put forward were very helpful as we have built a very well structured storyboard. I thought it was a little bit tough incorporating all of our ideas into one storyboard as we had to leave some out. But overall I do believe that we have made the best possible storyboard with the ideas that we had.

Opening Scenaration - Miss Miller

The narrative of our opening scene is about a blonde, teenage girl walking home on Halloween night after going out with her boyfriend. During her journey home she begins to feel as if someone is following her, she recieves a text from her Mum asking when she will be home, she replies saying that she is nearly home and will see her soon. At this point she enters an underground car park, this is where we first see her stalker, in the background out of focus. Then the man appears in front of the young girl making him fully visible to the audience and the victim. We can see that he has bad intentions because he is holding a knife and wearing a mask to conceal his identity. The victim is then in a state of shock as she begins to run away, fearing for her life, this is when she is captured by the killer. It then jumps to the killer making his way down to an abandoned shed, there is a lot of low-key lighting in this clip. The victim then wakes up in the shed, tied up and gagged and realises that she is being held hostage, this is when she begins to call for help. The killer then turns the lights on in this abandoned setting, this is when the audience sees that he has set her up for a murder scene, with dead bodies hanging from the ceiling and scattered about the room and blood all over the floor. This shows that the killer has had intentions of killing her immediately from seeing her and that he has killed many people before, for no reason, showing that he is a serial killer that needs no motive. He then begins to taunt the tied up victim by slowly walking around the room with a knife. He murders her and turns off the stationary camera which is set up to make it look like he recording the murder for his own pleasure. The final shot we see the outside of the shed in the dark and rain and the masked killer jumps in front of the camera.

There are a few things we could change to make our opening scene better:

 Shortening phone scene - This scene involving the victim texting her Mother telling her that she'll be home soon was quite long and took up more of our designated 2 minutes than we would like. We felt that this part is not as significant as other clips in our opening scene and isn't too important to the overall narrative so we decided to shorten it. This will allow us to use other clips that enhance the storyline and narrative better as well as the opening sequence to increase in speed and intensity, creating much more tension among the audience, this will therefore make it much more conventional.

Using out of focus shots: We plan on using a lot more out of focus shots in our opening sequence, these will be included when the killer is in shot. This will make our opening sequence much more conventional as a thriller as it creates an enigma, key to creating suspense and tension, as the audience aren't fully able to see the killer and adds to hidden identity factor given by the use of a mask.



Filming Schedule/Risk Assessment - Miss Georgiou

The purpose of the risk assessment task was to make sure that all of our group would be safe filming and it is carried out as effectively and efficiently as possible. To do this we made sure that the possibility of any dangers occurring were minimized and dealt with. For example, using knives in public can cause problems while filming for legal reasons. To avoid this and other problems from happening we thought of preventions and solutions for each problem we identified.

Description of hazard	Prevention of hazard
Trailing leads while filming	Use gaffer tape to secure leads
Using knives in public.	Take care about where we film.
Getting run over.	Be careful when crossing roads with equipment.
Tripod falling over.	Make sure it is carefully balanced at all times.
Dropping the camera during handheld.	Make sure it is always strapped to your hand.

We also made a filming schedule which is a rough copy to go by of when to film. It also included the set location of where we intend to film, what scene we was going to film and any equipment/props we will be needing. This schedule proved to be incredibly helpful because it gave us something to stick by and it allowed us to keep organised as we knew what we needed to achieve and do each day we recorded. Although we didn't stick completely to the film schedule was still extremely helpful.

Shot	Date & time	Location	Content /Action	Shot type & Duration	Costume/ hair/ make up	Iconography	Personnel	Equipment
1	17.11.2013 5:00pm	Repton Park	Filming the large tower in order to set the scene.	Extreme long shot into a pan, for approx. 4 seconds.	None	None	Cameraman Location manager	Digital camera, Tripod, Street Lights.
2	17.11.2013 5:15pm	Repton Park	Filming the victim saying goodbye to her boyfriend after a night out on Halloween.	Long shot, approx. 5 seconds.	Girly outfit, Hair up.	Phone and Handbag.	Cameraman Location manager Actors	Digital camera, Tripod, Street lights.
3	17.11.2013 5:30pm	Repton Park	Filming the victim on her way home.	Mid shot, approx. 3 seconds.	Girly outfit, Hair up.	Phone and Hanbag.	Cameraman Location Manager Actor	Digital camera, Tripod.
4	17.11.2013 5:45pm	Repton Park	Filming girl texting her Mum when she will be home.	Close up, approx. 5 seconds.	None	Phone,	Cameraman Actor	Digital camera
5	17.11.2013 6:00pm	Repton Park, underground car park.	Filming girl walking and then mysterious figure appears.	Long shot approx. 5 seconds.	Girly outfit, hair up.	Phone, Handbag, Mask.	Cameraman Location manager Actors	Digital camera, tripod.
6	17.11.2013 6:15pm	Repton park underground car park.	Filming the antagonist walking towards the girl.	Over the shoulder shot approx. 5 seconds.	All black outfit.	Mask, Knife.	Cameraman Location manager Actors	Digital camera, Tripod.
7	17.11.2013 6:30pm	Repton park underground car park	Filming the girl looking shocked and scared.	Close up approx. 4 seconds	Hair up, make up on.	None.	Cameraman Location manager Actors	Digital camera, Tripod.
8	18.11.2013 5:00pm	Repton Park, field	Filming the girl running	POV, approx. 4 seconds.	None	Shoes.	Cameraman Actor	Digital camera.
9	18.11.2013 5:15pm	Repton Park field	Filming the girl being captured	POV approx. 2 seconds	None	None	Cameraman	Digital camera, bin bag.