29/11/1O

In today's lesson, we were given a deadline of 28th February 2O11 to have completed our filming, un-edited, so we can progress onto the Post Production stage of our teen horror film.

BBFC; Classification

As our horror film is to be classified a 15, i need to know what is allowed in a 15 certified film. I used the website www.bbfc.co.uk to look at what is acceptable in one of these films, and what is seen as unappropriate for this certification.

Discrimination - The work as a whole must encourage discriminatory language or behaviour.

Drugs - They may use these, but as a whole they must not be promoting drug use, and drugs that are easily accessable such as solvents are unlikely to be allowed.

Horror & Violence- Strong threat and violence is permitted unless it is sadistic or sexualised. The violence may be strong but must not dwell on injury.

Imitable behaviour - Dangerous behaviour such as self-harming or suicide should not be used with too much detail and should not be dwelled on to prevent it being copied.

Language - Strong language is frequently allowed, and the strongest language may sometimes be allowed if it is used in context. Repetitive use of the strongest language is unlikely to be permitted.

Nudity & Sex - Nudity may be allowed but without strong detail. Sexual activity may be portrayed if there is no strong detail. The strongest details are unlikely to be allowed unless it is justified by the context.

Theme - All themes are allowed as long as they are acceptable to be viewed to 15 year olds.

The Art Of The Title

The Walking Dead

• the title
• actors/actresses names
• casting
• editing
• production designer
• producer
• executive producer
• the writer
• director
  

Six Feet Under

• actors/actresses
• co-stars
• casting
• main theme title by
• music by
• editor
• production designer
• director of photography
• co-producer
• producers
• supervising producers
• co-executive producer
• created by
• the writer
• the director
• film name

Arlington Road

• production company
• co-producer
• company name
• producer
• actors/actresses
• name of the film
  
  

Here i watched three openings of films from the website www.artofthetitle.com, and wrote down what titles i seen and what order i seen them in.

i learnt from watching the opening of these films that the title does not always have to be at the start, and can also appear at the end. i also learnt that the actors or actresses names appear in order of significance - for example, the most important names will appear first, and the least important actors will appear later.

Location Three

Location Three - Brambleside Alley Way

Advantages - Space, lighting & quiet

Disadvantages - Rubbish & people

Location Two

Location Two - Regent Street Alley Way

Advantages - Nothing

Disadvantages - Lighting, space & rubbish

Location One

Location 1 - Wood Street Alley Way

Advantages - Lighting

Disadvantages - Rubbish & Space

1O/11/1O

-Casting-

-Chloe Robinson playing

Victoria West

[Sociable, outgoing &

quirky. Claustrophobic]

-Stephanie Smith

playing Sarah Parker.

[Sociable, quiet and friendly.

She's scared of the dark. ]

-Jessica Bruton

playing Louise Frost

[she's friendly, social

& easy to get along with]

-James Smith

playing John James
[Dry, evil & freaky

Family man]

Storyboarding

These are our completed storyboards for the opening of our teen horror film. We have used different camera angles, camera shots and camera movements.

O8/11/1O

During this lesson, me and me group started the storyboarding for opening of our teen horror film. We experimented using different camera shots, camera angles and camera movements.

Opening Idea's

Opening Idea 1

Two teenage girls called Victoria and Sarah are walking home from their friends house, and take a shortcut through a nearby alleyway.
Sarah stops to tie her shoelace and Victoria walks on ahead on her mobile phone. She then notices that Sarah isn't there anymore and thinks that she is just messing around. She walks further back into the alleyway and notices Sarah's dead body, and before she registers this, a voice comes out of the shadows, and says 'You're next'.
Victoria tries to run around him back towards her friends house, but he grabs her from behind and stabs her.

[This links to the idea for the whole film as this is an example of two of the murder's that were commited]

Opening 2

A teenage girl is taking a walk through the woods to go to a campout. As she walks through a number of strange things start to occur for a walk. She hears noises and thinks it's her friends just messing around, but as she walks on her friends don't seem to be in the place they said they would meet. She tries calling them but there's no answer so she keeps on walking incase their on their way. As she turns the corner of the pathway she spots a trail of blood, she then decides to follow it. The teenager is then supprised at what she finds at the end of the trail, a dead body.

We have decided to use opening 1 because it links more to our plot of a teen horror film. We now have ideas of casting and locations that we can use.

O3/11/2O1O

During today's lesson we were given the go-ahead to start the pre-production stage of our horror film. We were then given the task to discuss to possible openings, to storyboard our opening, to plan the locations and the casing. These need to be blogged and finished for Wednesday 17th November.

O1/11/1O

Today the class gave the pitch for their film to Mr Henton. However one of our group members was absent so we were not able to do it today, so we are pitching next lesson on the Wednesday.

Continuing Our Pitch (2O/1O/2O1O)

In today's lesson we carried on with thinking about the general storyline of our groups horror film (me, Stephanie and Chelsea) and then finalised the synopsis, adding the names of the characters and the working title, and it's now ready to pitch on Monday 1st November.

Making Our Pitch - 18/1O/2O1O

In todays lesson we talked about the three different stages of production. These are Pre-Production (everything before filming), Production (filming), and Post-Production (everything after filming, like editing). We then started to Pitch our ideas for our horror film, which need to be finished on the 1st of November.

Preliminary Task Storyboards

These are my groups Preliminary Task's storyboards. The storyboards helped me and my group to film our footage for the task. However we added and changed some footage that we had planned on our storyboard to improve it. One change that we made is Stephanie walking inside the building after the opening establishing shot, instead of walking outside it. The other change we made was me and Stephanie walking out of the room after our dialogue and walking out of the building having a conversation, instead of zooming out of our conversation to finish. We also added a long shot of me and Stephanie walking out of the building to finish.

Editing Prelim Task (11th October)

In today's double lesson we finished editing our Preliminary Task footage together on the Mac's. We added transitions to our footage, and we then added opening credits. Our opening credit is called 'Lunch Time'. We added the names of our two actors to our footage, and then added end credits. After we had finished editing our footage we exported it as a quicktime movie and saved the finished Preliminary Task to each of our memory sticks.

Preliminary Task (Filming) - 5th October 2O1O

On the 5th October my group filmed our Preliminary Task. We used a range of camera movements and camera shots in our footage, so that when we come to edit our footage we can edit it together smoothly using a wide variety of techniques.
After filming, we uploaded the footage onto the mac's so that we can begin to edit our footage.

O6/1O/1O - Wrong Turn

Today we looked at an article about the opening of the film 'The Shining' and then we watched the opening few minutes of the film 'Wrong Turn'. We watched it twice and noted down the visual and audio effects that are used in the opening.

Homework
Visual and audio effects include:

There are a variety of different visual effects used in the opening of 'Wrong Turn'. These include shots like bird's eye view, and point of view shots.
The bird's eye view shot at the very beggining is significant as it shows that the characters are isolated and in the middle of nowhere, and highlights danger subtly.

There is also a point of view shot from the top of the cliff, and this highlights how high up the characters are and again that they are away from any other people. Another point where the point of view shot is useful is where the woman is running away from whatever is chasing her, and the camera is hand-held which helps it look more realistic, and creates more tension as it is from the woman's point of view and the audience cannot see what it is that is chasing her.

The editing gets closer together as the openning progresses and also when the characters are in danger which helps build up the tension. There is a point on the cliff where the woman looses her grip on the rope and falls down slightly and screams. This is significant because the audience get a 'false scare', before the actual danger arrives.

The music increases in speed and volume (tempo) when the characters are in danger and as the opening progresses, and the music is stringed (orchestrial) which is good because it sets the scene and creates anxiety for the audience. Drumming in certain points also pinpoints the danger.

When the rope is cut, and when the rope is being pulled up the cliff, we hear it louder than it would normally be as it is enhanced, and this technique also helps to build up more tension for the audience, as they can clearly hear what is going on.

O4/1O/2O1O

In today's lesson we were introduced to the conventions of a horror film, and we watched the first five minute opening of the films Jeepers Creepers (2001), Jeepers Creepers 2 (2003) and Dead Wood (2007). 

The History of Horror Films

The history of horror films

View more presentations from Chloe Robinson.

29/O9/2O1O

In today's lesson we were introduced to the concept of the horror genre and looked at different horror movies and conventions of a horror film, and talked briefly about the history of horror films.

27/O9/2O1O

Today's lesson was a double lesson.  We were split into two groups, one half went out to practice filming for the preliminary task for an hour and the other went to the media room, and at the end of the hour we would swap round. We went to the media room first and learnt how to upload footage from the camera's onto the macs. Then me, Stephanie and Chelsea went to practice filming in the second hour. 

What We've Done So Far

8/O9/2O1O - On the first lesson we had an introduction to the course, and we discussed how to set up a Blogger account.

13/O9/2O1O -We learnt how to use our school e-mail adresses, so we can transfer work from home. We then discussed how to set  up a SlideShare accout. and talked about our Prellimary Task and what it involves. We also  divided into groups of two or three and i am in a group with Stephanie Smith and Chelsea Wilkie. Lastly we watched two mini clips about camera angles and camera movements, and took notes.

15/O9/2010 - Today we looked at camera shots, camera angles and camera movements in more detail. We then used these to help us start to plan a story board for Preliminary tasks and planned what the task would include.

2O/O9/2010 - In todays lesson we carried on with our storys that plan our Pleliminary task. We then found out our individual groups names, and ours is called 'Allen', after the director Woody Allen. After this we had a recap of how to use the camera and set up a tripod securely, and about when we can take them out and how long for.

22/09/2010 - In this lesson we went to the Mac suite and we went onto Final Cut. We got given a piece of footage to edit so we could practice how to edit different shots so they would run smoothly together. We also learnt how to change parts if certain shots went wrong and didn't run smoothly and learnt how to add sound clips.