Storyboard Alterations

Alterations of Storyboard Through Filming

We made some alterations to our story board whilst filming as certain angles and frames worked better. Also, through the editing process we found that the order of shots and the sequences of the footage was changed as different things worked better and to make a more fluid narrative.

A big difference was changing our beginning of the film opening, as we wanted to make it more dramatic and too suit our genre of a psychological thriller, we decided to use blackouts with flashing images. These flashing images would be of the pursuer, using close-ups. It would then proceed into the church scene. This gave the viewer more information on the unable characteristics of the pursuer before she is introduced in the church scene.

We then decided through feedback that the narrative of the to women needed to be separated and made more clear. We did this through adding in a voice over of a phone call, in which Anna Parker makes toward the police. This reports of Anna Parker being followed by someone, complimented with the flashing images of the pursuer whom is following her.  

We also decided that the church scenes were to be scattered throughout the film, instead of being grouped together all at the beginning. This would then reinforce the meaning of the film and all create questions of why the images continue to be drawn back to the religious aspect. 

Some aspects of Anna Parker walking were also changed as we chose the filming footage which looked most natural. Also, through over filming we could place in some new shots and angles which were not planned as this helped the narrative and footage become more fluid. 

Final Re-Filming

Today we went to Tonbridge park to re-film the stair scene for our film opening.

Originally the three shots looked like different times of the day, so for continuity purposes we decided to re-film. We also decided to go later on in the evening for more low key lighting as it connotes fear and suspense, typical of a psychological thriller.

We concidered where the scene was taking place and how it appeared to make sure it fit with the rest of our opening. Unfortunately the stairs we used before were too dark to film at so we moved to a different set of stairs, which worked just as well and allowed us to experiment with many angles and shots.

We used an the same iphone camera as previous and the steadicam produced a slightly unsteady image which creates a sense of immediacy. It also allows greater mobility when filming as we were tracking our victim walking up some stairs.

We are happy with the shots we got today and aim to edit as soon as possible.

Problems Encountered With Filming

Tonbridge Park Lighting Problems

When filming we encountered some continuity problems which had to be re-done and re-thought out in order to make the film opening consistent.

When filming at Tonbridge Park we discovered that there was continuity issues with the day light in each part of the footage. We discovered that in some scenes it was very bright and in another it focused on the darkness. Even though this was filmed on the same day, we needed to re-film this as it did not show a consistent outlook on the scene.

We also felt that as we filmed in the day it was a conjunctive contrast toward the darkness in which is present throughout our film opening to signify death, uncomfortableness, gloominess etc. We thought it would be best to film this in the evening to continue the environment and mood throughout our film opening continually, putting emphasis on it being a psychological thriller.

After setting up in the evening, we realised it had become very dark very quickly so this then left us with more lighting issues of having a lack of lighting to see the character. This was important as it was introducing a new character to the scene and so we needed a enough light. I had brought a torch to add extra light, however this ran out of batteries and we felt that only having a limited number of people from our group at the scene, lighting the area was difficult. This meant we had to change the location in Tonbridge Park to somewhere with more spotlights.

(In this current photograph it is lighter in contrast to the video setting) 
This was our intended and planned location in using the steps, but when reviewing the shots the lighting was not light enough, and through our characters movement we found the spotlights were blocked out.

This is the location of the steps in which we changed to. We found that the lighting was brighter here and we felt it was more clear in order to see the character's face.

Props Analysis

Why we used certain props in our film opening

We used different props in our film opening to represent different ideas and issues. Firstly, we used these pages of writing to represent the unstable character of the pursuer, as people who are not emotionally stable stereotypically write excessive amounts of writing which may not make functional sense. These pages of writing were effective through the pursuer scrunching up, pushing and searching them in a panicked and frustrated way. This added to the mood of the opening as it told the viewer more about the emotional state of the character. 

We used this bag and phone for the character of Anna Parker as this is apart of a normal teenagers accessories and also corresponded with the dark colours used, relating to her outfit choice.  This phone also represents the key interest of a teenager which is technology. These props enabled the suggestion of relatable characters for the viewer as we targeted it at teenagers. 


The Apple laptop used also touched on the use of different technology used in the film opening. We also used a Bible, which was a key signifier of the setting of a church, the title and the character of the pursuer in doing God's will.


The candles also played an important role in our film opening, as it signified sources of light through the constant darkness through the film. DIfferent types of candles were used in the film opening through the church scenes to represent the pursuer having a clear path of lightness (or holiness) in the dark. 

Make-up of Pursuer

 Make-up of the Pursuer of Anna Parker

Analysis of Make-up-

The pursuer in which follows Anna Parker, was mentally unstable through wanting to take revenge/doing God's will. As she was an unstable character this had to be signified through her make-up. Through her having running eye mascara it automatically signifies she has been crying/ and rubbing her eyes. Through this we can see hurt in the character, but as she is filmed, she is scratching down her eyes which again produces this somewhat unsteady appearance.

Her hair was messed up as an unsteady character wouldn't have straight and cared for hair. Through this, it shows a lack of self maintenance, which implies her focus is on something/someone else.Through these signifiers it identifies some key characteristics about the pursuer of Anna Parker in the film opening.

Make-up for Anna Parker

Anna Parker's Make-up

Analysis of her makeup-

Anna Parker's make-up consisted of it mostly being natural, however with some applied make-up.

The reasons behind this was because when researching what make-up signified, it was most common that heavy make-up would be worn by teenagers. However, this would be to hide insecurities and to feel more confident about them self. When looking into the character of Anna Parker, we didn't want her to be presented as confident, due to being a 'victim', so through wearing less make-up she can be presented as more innocent to the viewer.  Although, through still wearing make-up it complies with the conventions of a teenager, again relating to our target audience of teenagers. 

Her make-up would be consistently the same through each scene she would be in.

Costume Three for Anna Parker

Anna Parker Costume

-Alley way Scene


In the final scenes of Anna Parker, she is wearing the consistent darker colours of greys, which juxtapose her presented innocence. Anna Parker is wearing a blue denim jacket, however, which through researching colours, can signify being suppressant and restraining or hiding something, which in the characters case she is. As it was only the opening we did not wanted to very subtly give details of the character not being all she seems (as the victim). Denim in itself can also represent a rebellious attitude of a character. Here the character is also wearing black jeans, which is what the other character was wearing in the church seen (whom is following her), representing that they share the same characteristics. This, for example, could be the meaning of the colour black representing evil/power/death.

Costume Two for Anna Parker

Anna Parker Costume

-Cafe Nero Scene

Here the main character is wearing black jeans and a grey top which again represents the dark colours turning away from innocence of her character. She also has a red/maroon cardigan on which can signify danger, possibly portraying she is in danger or the opposite of her being dangerous. Through looking at what colours can represent in my research, black can also signify fear and mystery and as this character may be portrayed as the victim in being followed, her choice of clothes colours identify hidden meanings into her unknown identity. This is significant also due to it being a pschological thriller we wanted too created confusion and unanswered questions from the viewer. 

The choice of clothing style reflects a perceived normality of a teenagers outfit choice. Again we have presented the cardigan rolled up and her hair to one side to emphasise her wrists and neck, which are features of vulnerability displayed on a women. 

Costume One for Anna Parker

Costume 

Costume is important in any film opening as it tells the viewer information about the character and represents key ideas of their personality through what they wear.

Costume One

-Introducing the character walking from Tonbridge Park

In this costume we wanted to relate an average teenager through the items of clothing chosen and signified parts of her character through her colour choice. Firstly, we used dark colours to juxtapose the idea of her innocence (which would normally be signified through white colours). Through our storyline Anna Parker seems to be a victim through ringing the police, accounting of someone following her, however, this was conventional in having someone being followed to be innocent. We decided to move away from the conventionality of this thought and produced the storyline of Anna Parker having done something wrong and is being punished by the person following her for 'The Greater Good' in doing God's will. (which is where the church scenes come into action). Through this analysis of the plot Anna Parker is not innocent but the opposite in something she has done wrong. In this case we have signified this through her clothing choice in choosing black and dark, dull colours to reveal the darker side to this perceived innocence. 

The fashionable heels she is wearing symbolise her being a teenager and also touch the signification of femininity. This is also conveyed through wearing a dress, but we decided to have this at a suitable length to play on the idea of her darkness being hidden and unrevealed to people through her modesty. As this was at night and outside it was appropriate for her to wear a coat, for one reason of health and safety and two, it would be realistic. Tights are worn to show a disclosed nature about the character. However, it is viewed that when women have their wrists on display it can be seen as a type of vulnerability, so due to her reporting she is being followed  we decided to show her wrists in rolling her coat sleeves up, to include a subtly the  vulnerability of the character.

Health and Safety Concerns

Before we began filming the shots we needed, we had to think about our locations and the health and safety that we had to be aware of. For example, we had to be aware of the general public, trip hazards, water/fire hazards and the safety of the camera equipment and the actors. 

We made sure to get the shots as precise as possible on the first take so that the shooting time was minimal and overshot just in case :)

The Station Platform/Stairs
One of our locations was the local station. However when we tried to film we were told filming wasn't allowed at stations due to public safety. In the end we decided it wasn't a safe place to film as there was constant dangers. Eg.. Trains, other passengers. As a result we moved our location to the local castle stairs.  Here there were less safety hazards and was easier to shoot without risking the danger of the equipment.


Alleyway
For the end section of our film we decided to film in an alleyway. There are a lot of safety concerns that come with filming at night in a dark alleyway so we tried to minimise these.1.) Brought lots of torches2.) wrapped up warm3.) used an alleyway behind one of our houses so if there was a problem we could get help nearby4.) made sure there was at least 3 people

Cafe Nero
When we were filming in the vicinity of public citizens we had to make sure we wouldn't be shooting in an area that would affect the people around us. We had to be careful not to be a nuisance and make sure that when filming that we would not move into people who may be positioned nearby. While filming at Cafe Nero we had to move around a lot from seat to seat to get different angles that we wanted so we had to be careful to be out of the way of the public. to make sure we were separated we moved to the corner of the shop where no one was sitting. We also decided to film just before the shop was about to close so it would be relatively empty and made sure to ask the shop assistant for permission.

Church 
We finally decided to use our local churches our filming location. We were given access to the church for a whole afternoon and the wardens were fine with us using candles. As we needed our actress to be barefoot we brought wooly socks and made sure there was nothing sharp on the floor. 

Font Analysis

Here are some font ideas for our film opening...

The font featured in the opening sequence of 'Seven" is child like and looks as if it has been hand written. It is relatively small but is white to make it stand out between the shots and fast paced cuts. The font used is messy, flickering and jumping making it seem old, creating an eerie effect typical of the thriller genre creating suspense for the audience. Accompanying the credits is non-digetic music which is atmospheric and scary.

The opening sequence of 'Delicatessen' is interesting because the credits have been placed onto objects that correspond with the role of the person in the film. For example the costume designer's name is embroidered onto fabric and the director of photography is on a camera.

In the opening sequence of 'Kill Bill' a quote appears before anything else, "Revenge is a dish best served cold". It sets the tone for the rest of the film, making the audience aware that revenge will be a key theme in the film. The rest of the titles are classic white on a black background with no distractions.

Location Analysis

Why we chose the Locations...

Tonbridge Park Scene

We decided to use Tonbridge Park for one of our scenes as we needed to have stairs, and found this was the most convenient place. We had to wait at our designated location until it was dark due to wanting a consistent darkness of colour throughout our psychological thriller opening. This is because most of our filming has been in the dark and we want this to be continuous in colour themes. The colour of darkness represents a hidden and uncomfortable environment which is what we want to achieve in our psychological thriller. The dark also hides secrets and things about a character, and adds to the tension and scared emotions which is necessary in a thriller. 

Alley Way Scene

The alley way ending scene is also very dark and consists of many short lanes and turns which creates a sense of panic from the character. There will be a lot of cuts in this scene to reveal the tensional and contrasting emotions of the character. The darkness will compliment the rising tension of music at this point and will add to thrill of the film opening. 


Church Scene

This scene will be placed mainly at the beginning of our film opening and plays an important role in our psychological thriller film opening. Firstly, this scene compliments the storyline of a character tracking down Anna Parker through something she has done, and is doing God's will and the greater good by the actions which are not seen in the opening. This scene sets the story in her walking down the church and praying, enabling the title of 'The Greater Good' to relate. This scene will also introduce the first character and some of her characteristics (e.g how she will walk). 


Cafe Nero Scene

This scene will serve the purpose of placing the character in normal circumstances so that the audience of teenagers can relate to her environment. When the character is more relatable, the audience will be more inclined to watch it as they become involved and understand her to be a supposed 'normal teenager.' This scene contrasts which the Church scene as this is not a conventional place for a teenager to be placed in films.

Creating Music for our Film Opening

When watching different clips of phycological thrillers, it was difficult to create a piece of music which fit with our filming. We decided to have a track which was created by Serena Evans and then if we needed to layer over different sounds to distort it more we could. 

This is the sound track played by Serena on the piano as our first music attempt for our film opening.

Film Distributors: Paramount Pictures

A film distributor is a company or individual responsible for the marketing of a film. The distributor may set the release date of a film and the method by which a film is to be exhibited or made available for viewing: for example, directly to the public either theatrically or for home viewing.

When researching a film distributor to distribute our film, we had to take many things into account to select the perfect one. We researched other films in the Psychological Thriller category to see who they had used to distribute their films:

Se7en - New Line Cinema
Memento - Summit Entertainment
Black Swan - Fox Searchlight Productions
The Prestige - Touchstone Pictures/Warner Bros. Pictures
Shutter Island - Paramount Pictures
Psycho - Paramount Pictures

Schedule for Sunday 9th March

Plan for Sunday 9th March is as follows:

1:00pm - Meet at St. P&P church, Tonbridge
1:15pm - Set up and establish filming areas
              + Ellie our actress will arive - do make up
1:30pm - Begin filming
4:00pm - Finished filming and head back to Serena's
4:15pm - Do foley sounds/film
5:00pm - Break
5:15pm - Re-film parts of the Alleyway scene
6:00pm - A wrap!

Make sure we over film and stick to our health and safety rules - especially fire.

Story Board

'The Greater Good' Story Board

Here I have created the storyboard for our film opening 'The Greater Good', detailing the types of shots we will use, the sound/music, lighting etc. We will try to achieve these results planned, however, we may detract away from it, if we feel certain types of shots or angles work better. 

How would we advertise our Film?

A key aspect of a film becoming successful is advertising it to your target audience. As our film is aimed at a target audience of 16-19 year olds, I believe the best form of advertising would be via social media and on public transport billboards. 

The benefits of advertising through social media is 16-19 year olds are active on most forms of social media and with features such as the share button on Facebook it would make it easy for us to get the word around about our film. Also, because we are a low budget film, social media is a free way of advertising our film as it is spread from person to person by word of mouth. 

The benefits of advertising through public transport means is that 16-19 year olds are the met common users of public transport, particularly busses and trains for journeys to school or work. Therefore, if we advertised on the sides of busses or on posters at train stations, people would be sure to see them and be made aware of the release. 

How to Change the Speed of a Clip in iMovie

For our Film Opening we wanted to make some of the clips slower to build up tension within the narrative. As none of us are very experience with iMovie we decided to look up on Youtube how to change the speed of a clip in iMovie. We found one that was especially easy to understand - here it is:

Scripting

For our film opening, we required a distressed phone call from the victim to the police. For this, we had to research into how a real life phone call to the police as we wanted it to be as realistic as possible. We looked at a variety of you tube videos, however we found these unsuccessful as they were focused on prank calls to the police and were very unrealistic. 
We then looked online to see if there were any scripts for the police automated voice, however we were unsuccessful in finding any here either! 

Fortunately, another media student at Weald's dad is a police officer and deals with distressed phone calls on a day to day basis. So, we organised a talk with Hannah's dad and he gave us guidelines of what to say and what the police automated voice would ask. This was a huge relief as we had struggled to find anything accurate and reliable online to create out script by. 

Taking into account all the information we were given, this was our final script used in our film opening: 



*Phone ringing sound effect*

Automated 999 voice: Which emergency service do you require?

Victim: Police, please

Automated 999 voice: Can I take your name and the address you're calling from?

Victim: My name is Anna Parker. I live at 13A, Elm Lane, Cowden, Kent

Automated 999 voice: What's the emergency?

Victim: There's someone following me. I've tried to report it for weeks but no one is helping me. Please can someone actually do something now, I can't take it anymore!

Automated 999 voice: Are you safe? Or re you in immediate danger?

*Phone disconnects sound effect*

Costume Props and Make-up Sourcing

Costume planning:

Protagonist - The clothing that the girl wears needs to be simple and not too expensive looking - show she is an average teenager.

• Black/dark coloured jeans - pre owned
• Dark brown top - Primark 2.99
• Dark green top - Primark 1.99
• Dark coloured cardigan - pre owned
• Brown Dr Martens boots - pre owned

Antagonist - Clothing needs to be dark and loose fitting and look unwashed and worn a lot.

• Dark trousers - pre owned
• Loose fitting dark jumper (green) - pre owned

Props:

• Candle - bought from homebase for 2 pounds - which we lit before filming, the wax dripping down it was effective
• Diary notes - pre owned 
• Matches - pre owned
• Torches - pre owned

Make-up:

• Mascara - boots 2.99
• Dark eyeshadow pallet - boots 3.99

Possible Filming Location

The church has many stained glass windows which would be ideal for natual light. However the church doesnt allow candles to be lit, only if supervised.

There is a long isle with pews on either side, and feels like an old church. This leads to a table at the end and an area where you can kneel and pray.

Parts of the curch are decorated wth dark stained wood, ideal for creating a dark atmosphere/backdrop. The seats have deep red cusions on which is ones of the colours associated with psychological thrillers.

There are many stairs round the church, two of these lead up to a balcony tyoe area, great for taking crane shots or high angled shots. The only problem is that there are windows creating large shadows if you want to film making it hard to capture crisp shots. The church has a marble floor, which would get very cold at night making it a problem as we want to film with barefeet. Also the celing is far too decorative to be used for a psycological thriller set.

We found that the church didn't have a car park and was very close to the main road making it hard to find space to park. Also as the church is situated in Tonbridge Wells, it would take 20 minutes to get there so we decided to find a church nearer, so that if we needed to re film parts it would be more convenient.

Alleyway Location Scouting

In our film opening we want to shoot the last few shots in a dark alleyway. Filming at night in an alleyway is quite dangerous, but luckily I have one behind my house. Here are a few pictures that I've put togther, using interesting shots to try and show the full extent of the alleyway.

Luckily the alleyway has street lamps on during the night, which are used alot in thrillers to keep the emphasis on the protagonist. it also means we dont have to use much artificial light to illuminate the scene, giving it a more authentic feel.





Also in the alleyway the fences consist of bars that are often used in a thriller type film as it suggests that the characters are imprisoned with no way of getting out. This is suitable for our film opening as we are showing the victim getting trapped by the killer.

There are many places for the person filming to stand without their shadow obstructing the scene. At night there is a redish tinge to parts of the alleyway created by the lamp wich ties in perfectly with our genre - psychological thriller.

Classification: BBFC

When discussing our target audience, we also had to decide from this what the certification of our film opening was going to be. Our target audience we had decided on was 16-19 year old teenagers, so we based our certification research upon this:

We knew immediately that we weren't reaching to a younger teenage audience therefore we immediately ruled out the 12 rating as we believe we could not include a variety of codes and conventions by setting it this low, seeing as our target audience is 16-19 years. 

We went onto the BBFC website and researched into the different age classifications.

- No theme is prohibited, provided the treatment is appropriate for 15 year 
   olds and above.





In a 15, you may see: 

•   strong violence
•  frequent strong language (e.g. 'f***').
•   portrayals of sexual activity
•   strong verbal references to sex
•   sexual nudity
•   brief scenes of sexual violence or verbal references to sexual violence
•   discriminatory language or behaviour
•   drug taking

- No theme is prohibited at 18. Adults are free to choose their own entertainment provided the material is not illegal or potentially harmful, so it is possible some themes tackled at 18 may be offensive even to some adult viewers.

In an 18 you may see: 

•   very strong violence
•   frequent strong language (e.g. 'f***') and / or very strong language (e.g. ‘c***’)
•   strong portrayals of sexual activity
•   scenes of sexual violence
•   strong horror
•   strong blood and gore
•   real sex (in some circumstances)
•   discriminatory language and behaviour

From our research, we decided that we would rate our film with the 15 classification as it meets the guidelines of a 15 set by the BBFC however is not as strongly offensive as an 18 can be. It addresses issues of 16-19 year olds and therefore is capable of being a 15. 

The BBFC: 

BFI Media Trip

British Film Institute 

As part of our course, our media class went on a trip to London to visit the BFI. This part of the course is different to our coursework side, however, we were able to gain knowledge into how and why certain things were presented. This helped us to gain analytical skills which is useful in evaluating our own piece of film because it forces us to think of ways to signify certain ideas or moods.






Through the day the lecturer guided us through different slides with tips on the exam but most importantly, he went through particular clips of representation of TV drama. We then had to discuss and write down how different issues (i.e gender/rural identity) were portrayed (through different aspects such as mise en scene).   


Through reviweing and analysing these different clips we could gain ideas of how to expose different emotions or ideas about a character. This is useful because we can incorporate these thoughts into our film to expand how the viewer perceives the narrative of the film opening. (We analysed films such as Glee and Waterloo Road)

After watching the first episode of BroadChurch, we then had a chance to listen to a question and answer with the producer, Richard Stokes. 

We then were allowed to have audience participation where we could ask the producer questions about creating the episodes, or how to get into the future line of becoming a producer, or any other ideas about how he produced BroadChurch/other TV series. 

Other examples of TV series in which he has produced is Law & Order, Torchwood and Holby City. 

Overall, this media trip was very beneficial, as it enabled us to gain further ideas and helped us to develop onto our previous ones, to clarify how we can signify certain ideas that reflect contrasting or stereotypical viewpoints of a character/scene.