Extra Research - Orphan PERFECT CASE STUDY

Okay basically my sister wanted to watch Orphan and I realised it had a fantatsic representation of a young girl/child who kills people, so i watched part od it too.. HA

Basically at the beginning of the film the girl is dressed in pastel colours in a traditional doll-like/ victorian outfit and has perfect curly hair depicting her as an inncoent young child. She doesn't kill people, just pigeons ;) She also had dolls in her bedroom!
Towards the end of the film her clothing is black, which obviously is the complete opposite extreem. Her hair is also no longer in ringlets, but in a pony tail, and its slightly straighter, like her perfection is falling away. She also looks older, loosing her childhood innocence, as you discover her secret ;) haha It was totally like the perfect case study and i'd so recommend looking it up on youtube if you don't have access to the film!

xxx

Fonts

We have pretty much always decided our film weas to be called, 'Dolls House', so now we are editing, we decided to experiemnt with fonts and graphics. These are some of the inital ideas

PLEASE COMMENT :D THANK YOU XXXXXXXXXXX

okay for some reason all the fonts have appeared in BACKWARDS order above my typing.. ANYWAY the fonts are

1)Calibri (Body)

2)Arial

3)Georgia

4)Freestyle Script

5)Segoe Script

6)Blackadder ITC

7)Times New Roman

The black a red works well i think, good connotations ;)

The BRIGHT pink and black.. makes me want to kill myself and puke.

I don't think white works as a background as tehre isn't enough depth to it, and it give the wrong impression about the film.

merci xx ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahha (fml. baby gurl hover)

FILMING AT WILL.I.AM'S HOUSE ;)

Basically, just wanted to say we completed all our filming :) we used will's house for the bedroom and barn location as it saved time/money/effort traveling to a trillion locations :) it also meants filming only took up one day, which was good, and also sad once everything had been done! filimg went really well, we spent a long time setting up mise en scene, as this is key to out plot, but were we very efficient filmers. We got lots of shots of the same thing so we can choose the most effective one, and we got some extra shots that just seemed to work on the day, and have been added in to out opening now we are editing :) xxx AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!! yes Ash.

Filming !- 07/02/2010

We started filming at 10.30 this morning round Sofy's house. We filmed the 'perfect' kitchen scene where we have two murder victims which we will edit to use as snapshots etc in the final piece. We spent about an hour making the set perfect and then another half an hour on make up. We then made sure we had perfect lighting and we played around with lots of different techniques to make sure we had the right shots. We then spent about an hour filming trying to get the best shots as possible.

Cheers guys, I think it went really well :)

Thats a wrap ;) ahaha xx ahaa lol. oh yes.

possibly the worst youtube video, ever.

maggorts are frickin' creepy. This is the youtube link to possibly the worst youtube video, ever. Please don't watch if you like eating cakes or are currently eating..

Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-gTkPLO8uY&feature=channel

Part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L92-kwequcU&feature=channel

aahahahahaha xxxxxxx ahahahaha xxxxxxxxx ahahahaha <- idiolect ;)

PS: don't laugh at me, it was scary!

petrilude!

This is a really cool guy who does awesome make up that we could take inspiration from :) his name is petrilude, and here is the link ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54AQxoju1BA&feature=SeriesPlayList&p=CC0E9141FB953F13


hope you like ahahahaha xxxxxxxxxxxxx

We're Organized

Final filming dates are set, going to start and finish by the end of half term leaving enough time for editing

the three final locations are:

Ash's bedroom - wake up scene

Will's barn - nightmare scene

Sofy's kitchen - 'perfect' scene

BBFC

Hey Guys! I was just checking out the BBFC for film certificate definitions and i found this aswell, thought it would be quite useful!

Horror
The use of frightening elements which might scare or unsettle an audience is part of a long tradition of story telling and film making. Many children enjoy the excitement of scary sequences, but, where films are targeted at a younger audience, classification decisions will take into account such factors as the frequency, length and detail of scary scenes as well as horror effects, including music and sound, and whether there is a swift and reassuring outcome. Older audiences often pay to see horror films because they like being frightened or shocked and such works are classified at an appropriate category to ensure that the young and vulnerable are protected from too intense an experience.


Violence
Violence has always been a feature of entertainment for children and adults. Classification decisions will take account of the degree and nature of any violence in a work. Works which feature the following are likely to receive more restrictive classifications: portrayal of violence
as a normal solution to problems, heroes who inflict pain and injury, callousness towards victims, the encouragement of aggressive attitudes, and content which depicts characters taking pleasure in pain or humiliation. Sexualised violence or works which glorify or glamorise violence will
receive a more restrictive classification and may even be cut. A strict policy on sexual violence and rape is applied. Content which might eroticise or endorse sexual violence may require cuts at any classification level. This is more likely with video works than film because of the
potential for replaying scenes out of context. Any association of sex with non-consensual restraint, pain or humiliation may be cut.


Photo or pattern sensitivity, motion sickness and reactions to low frequency sound
A small number of viewers are sensitive to flashing and flickering light, or some shapes and patterns, and may experience seizures or other serious physical effects. In addition, some viewers experience feelings of motion sickness or other symptoms when viewing works which feature hand held or otherwise moving camerawork, or which feature very low frequency sounds. It is the responsibility of film makers and distributors to identify works in
which such issues may arise and to ensure that, when required, appropriate warnings are given to viewers. Such effects are therefore not normally taken into account when reaching a classification decision. However, if it is obvious during viewing that the work is highly likely to affect a significant number of viewers, the BBFC may advise the distributor of the need to ensure that appropriate warnings are in place. In extreme cases, assurances regarding the display of appropriate warnings may be required as a condition of classification.

CERTIFICATE CATEGORIES
After looking through all teh certificates, we thought a certificate of 15 should be awarded to our film.

15 –Suitable only for 15 years and over. No one younger than 15 may see a ‘15’ film in a cinema.No one younger than 15 may rent or buy a ‘15’ rated video work.

Discrimination
The work as a whole must not endorse discriminatory language or behaviour.

Drugs
Drug taking may be shown but the film as a whole must not promote or encourage drug misuse. The misuse of easily accessible and highly dangerous substances (for example, aerosols or solvents) is unlikely to be acceptable.

Horror
Strong threat and menace are permitted unless sadistic or sexualised. Imitable behaviour
Dangerous behaviour (for example, hanging, suicide and self-harming) should not dwell on detail which could be copied. Easily accessible weapons should not be glamorised. Language
There may be frequent use of strong language (for example, ‘fuck’). The strongest terms (for example, ‘cunt’) may be acceptable if justified by the context. Aggressive or repeated use of the strongest language is unlikely to be acceptable.

Nudity
Nudity may be allowed in a sexual context but without strong detail. There are no constraints on nudity in a non-sexual or educational context.

Sex
Sexual activity may be portrayed without strong detail. There may be strong verbal references to sexual behaviour, but the strongest references are unlikely to be acceptable unless justified by context. Works whose primary purpose is sexual arousal or stimulation are unlikely to be cceptable.

Theme
No theme is prohibited, provided the treatment is appropriate for 15 year olds.

Violence
Violence may be strong but should not dwell on the infliction of pain or injury. The strongest gory images are unlikely to be acceptable. Strong sadistic or sexualised violence is also unlikely to be acceptable. There may be detailed verbal references to sexual violence but any portrayal of sexual violence must be discreet and have a strong contextual justification.

The webpage that we looked at to get this information was http://www.bbfc.co.uk/downloads/pub/Guidelines/BBFC%20Classification%20Guidelines%202009.pdf

It was REALLY FANTASTIC and i deffinatly reccomend checking it out if you have the time! I only uploaded the most revelvant pieces, but there is still so really great information on there!

xxxx

Natural Lighting. What time does it get dark?

3.20pm- Fairly bright despite cloudy weather.
3.40pm- Slightly dark yet still bright.
3.50pm- Cars starting to turn their headlights on
4.10pm- Darker still, streetlights not quite on yet. But need to turn lights on inside to be able to see/read etc.
4.20pm- Getting quite dark now, streetlights beginning to come on.
4.40pm- Very dark, hard to film.
5.00pm- Seriously dark.
5.20pm- Pitch black.

Interesting shots- Produced by...

Right, i might get some stick for this but pft, while watching watching bride wars this morning (YES BRIDE WARS) I came across a couple interesting shots in the opening couple minutes. The shots display the names of the famous actresses by showing them above an individual doll. In a lesson last week we were thinking of displaying our names. ie Produced by... in this same way.

The images are also dolls which relates to our film.

Also, i apologise for using the first person personal pronoun 'i' as our groups community ethos is based on being a team, not an individual. I just used i because I didn't want to drop Will or Jack in it for watching bride wars haha.

video's

basically the videos of our location are so long that they can't be uploaded on here! sorry guys! ahaha x

Post-Editing Session

During a coursework lesson, we decided to look at the different styles of editing we can have, we looked on IMovie Maker, which had limited editing techniques, such as 'grainy images' or an 'Earthquake' style - which on further inspection was really effective, when the 'Earthquake' settings were adjusted.
Editing will be extremely important, as after a quick view of the yr13's new trailers, we have been shown, that editing can create a movie from being terrible, to a movie being amazing !...

BlANGI x

Sound Effects.

Looking into certain sound effects to use for our opening, we searched the internet for any sound effects that would be suitable and specific to our genre. We downloaded some sounds onto itunes such as- walking on gravel, heart beat monitor, camera click, whistling, and wind. These all come from the site www.a1freesoundeffects.com,

Hey Guys!

Hey guys! sorry i've been lacking on the blog front, it's quite a scary prospect for me! ahaha not sure whether to upload all my work so far as you all already seen it, but i can do if you like? ha i probably should really! so anyway, this is the video's myself and Will took about possible locations. the REALLY short one is my kitchen showing the dresser, i thought that was quite dollshouse-like! ha and all the rest is lovely William's father's barn that he talks us through, enjoy!

Neck Wound

As one of our victims in the scene with the 'perfect room' we have decided to explore with creating neck marks meant to resemble th aftermarth of a stranglin, here are the results

Jacques Tourneur

One of the greats in horror directors, Jacques Tourneur was recognised most for the way he created shadows, among his pieces...

Jacques made films such as "curse of the demon" and "The Fearmakers" which were all extremely recognisable in their day, and most essential to watch when dealing with a task of creating shadows.

Our piece, has a perticular short seuqence with a boy in a small abadoned shed, that will be hard to light - therefore the creation of the right shadow on his face and also around him are essential to create - as poor lighting results in poor marks, however if we can take on the restrictions we have and turn it into a positive - using the poor light to create great shadows..then it can get us marks..:)

As i researched the director, i also have noticed that he was very good at creating moods and atmospheres - ( i shall upload some pictures of shadow effects ) ...the atmosphere in our piece is very important, so hopefully we will be able to get our hands on some films of his..or watch them online...i will keep posted :)

Further Institutions.

Through further research we also came across the institutions- 'Spyglass Entertainement' and 'Dark Castle Entertainement'

Spyglass Entertainment has made films such as the Sixth Sense, which is a psychological horror/thriller. The company produces many different film genres.

Dark Castle Entertainment has made films such as Gothika, Ghostship and House of Wax. The institution mainly specialises in the horror genre and it is ever expanding towards psychological films. These two genres are what are film comes under. So Dark Castle Entertainment, along with New Line Cinema, could be the company we use for our film.

Still- lighting

In the opening few frames of our storyboard, we are tracking our little girl character to the barn, however we must not give away her identity. Although this is not completely similar to the shot we want, I still thought the use of lighting was used effectively to disguise who the character was. (Freddy Krueger- A nightmare on elm street)

Storyboarding

We all drew out our ideas of the shots we should use in out final storyboard. This is just one example of a storyboard and by the end of next week we will have picked out the best out of all 4 storyboards to create our final (LAMINATED) storyboard.

Director Interviews.

To look for inspiration, we decided to look out for videos on Youtube such as director interviews. I came accross a mini series called 'Masters of horror' and watched interviews from Wes Craven and John Carpenter.
Craven- "I have found a lot of compelling stories just in newspapers... or books- The Hills have eyes, the people under the stairs, nightmare on elm street" Wes Craven takes inspiration from everyday life stories to make into his films.
The video Contains an interview with robert england- freddy krueger in nightmare on elm street.
Wes Cravens inspiration from personal experiences - when he was a kid he looked out of his window when his parents were out the house and saw a man covered in soot and scabs, and an old hat... this comes accross in freddy kruegars character. continuously looking at him.

He doesnt even like making horror films, hes just so good at it.
Craven believes that his films are based on all the horrible things in the world that people think arent true, but they actually are.

In another video- "Wes Craven on being a film-maker"- He explains how he makes films that are different and that the audience have never seen before.

Make-Up

As we are trying to make this a very low budget film, we have tried to create our own blood to use.
However some of our shots consist of close up's of faces, that might need much more detail then just one type of blood. therefore we have purchased 2 make up kits, that consist of wax mould to add scars or deep cuts, making it extremely realistic.
We will soon practice on someone to make sure we are able to pull the make up off successfully ....AWESOME !

Which Company?

To make our opening convincing we have decided to include the credits of a production company, as we are making a horror with psychological aspects we decided to research into appropriate companies for our genre of films. After some light research on a few genres we decided to look at two in particular; New Line Cinema and Twisted Pictures

New Line Cinema is an American company producing a wide range of genres, from comedy, romance and horror; it has produced some famous films over the last twenty years, some of the most famous ones it has produced in the horror genre are:

A Nightmare on Elm Street

Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III

Freddy vs. Jason

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

Final Destination 3

The Number 23

We liked the fact that new line not only produced a variety of genres of films but also showed diversity within its genre

Twisted Pictures is also an american company but only works within the horror genre, it is responsible for the SAW franchise, a franchise that has been prominetent within horror over the last ten years creating:

Saw

Saw II

Saw III

Saw IV

Saw V

Although this franchise is so big, it seems to be the companies main focus, with little other large scale projects coming from it, therefore as a group we feel it is more appropriate to use the New Line Cinema as our company

Development Of Girl Image

We have decided to develop on the physical appearance of the girl in our film, from our drawings early on in the project as well as our development of hair styles we thought this picture portrayed the image we were going for quite well. I came across this character whilst watching Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory; this is the character Veruca Salt, upon seeing her in the film she instantly reminded me of our film, I think even in the way she holds herself within the photo shows strength and mixes the child-like innocence with the idea of being evil. We liked the juxptaposition of the paleness of the skin mixed with the brightness of the eyes and lips, it made a stand out character which is easy to remember.

Ring A Ring Of Roses

We wanted to create a sinister character for our child, to do this we thought we would mix the idea of death with that of childhood, after concidering our options we thought the best way to show this would be through the child actor singing 'Ring A Ring Of Roses'; Ring A Ring Of Roses, although a common childhood nursery rhyme is believed to be about the bubonic plague, yet this is only old wives tales

After researching this folk law we found this

"the idea was that the 'ring of roses' represented a round, red rash, which was thought to be a symptom of the black death, but this was factually incorrect 'A pocket full of posies' was believed to be a means by which people warded of the disease, thinking that illnesses were carried by foul smells. Some people have also suggested that the posy of flowers represents a funeral wreath.the next line of the poem is 'Atishoo! Atishoo!', which is claimed to describe the sneezing caused by the plague - except the bubonic plague doesn't cause sneezing, And 'We all fall down' is supposed to be the plague victims falling down dead."

although the tale seems to be factually incorrect the song is still associated with this incident and the lyrics themselves are horror-like as they denote death; therefore we feel it would work well in our opening

Editing + SFX

We have realised, while storyboarding, that we may wish to have some perticular SFX or editing techniques- whether it be 'black or white' or 'flashes' .. so as a group, we will one lunchtime having an 'Editing style' training - so everyone can have an idea, of exactly what we could add to make our production - even more spectacular !..
As with the SFX - Garageband on Apple - is an extremely good software, to create eery sounds, along with our idea of a Nursery rhyme that will be heard through the opening section of our piece- with garageband we are able to record tracks, and use techniques to get it the way we want...Again our group will designate a day on making everyone feel comfortable with SFX ...

ANTONIN ARTAUD AND BREATHING TECHNIQUES

Antonin Artuad is a world famous theatre practioner, he delivered a new style to theatre, and impacted alot on films- some of his perticular techniques has immersed itselfs into films, as they are very effective.
Moving into further detail on panic attacks, we decided to go into more detail on how to put it across on camera, Antonin Artuad, used a perticular method to portray fear, that could eventually lead to a panic attack.
He believed that you are infact easier to portray fear and being scared through breathing, rather than words.
As one of our members of the group, has used this technique before in a piece he has performed, we will be able to show our actor how to do it, hopefully ending up, with a very believeable panic attack !

Panic Attatck

As part of our opening we thought it would be important to show the boys unconfort in his new, strange environment and therefore decided that upon realising his situation the boy would have a panic attack. In order to make this convinsing we decided to research the symptoms of a panic attack online, after looking round we found these to be the clearest and most commom symptoms.

1. Rapid heart beat, pounding heart or palpitations
2. Sweating
3. Choking sensations or lump in throat
4. Smothering or shortness of breath sensations
5. Chest pain or discomfort
6. Nausea, bloating, indigestion or abdominal discomfort
7. Dizziness or unsteadiness
8. Feeling light-headed
9. Derealization (feeling unreal or dreamy)
10. Depersonalization (feeling outside yourself or like you don't exist)
11. Fear of losing control or going crazy
12. Paresthesias (numbness or tingling sensations) in face, extremities or body
13. Chills or hot flushes
14. Skin losing color
15. Blushing or skin blotches
16. Urgently needing to urinate or defecate
17. Inappropriate/Disturbed thoughts
18. Muscle pain, especially in neck or shoulders

Out of these we felt that the most likely symptoms to be able to recreate appropriatly are: Sweating, Chest pain, Rapid heart beat (sound) and Dizzeeness (hand held camera work)

Possible Location - Kitchen

Possible Location - during our opening we thought it was necessary to display the victims in the 'dolls house' to do this we are going to re-create a dolls house feel within the real world, to do so we have looked at different possible locations. This is Jacks Kitchen , we thought to use a kitchen as it is most representative of the home and therefore is easily identifiable; these photos show the kitchen as we would choose to show it within the opening, although this is how it would be arranged this is not the final image, we have decided to make it seem perfect by using cutlery, table cloths and cakes to make it feel like a stereotypical home feel.

Blood Development

For our film opening we are looking at using the idea of dead people in a dolls house, to create more fear in the scene we thought it would be interesting to show that one of the victims was only just recently killed, to show this best we thought it would be interesting to show blood slowly dripping out his mouth, here we have looked at this idea by creating different bloods. My little brother volunteered to do the acting but being young he seemed to move a lot but the essence of the idea is still shown within the videos and it is more focused on the actual blood than the acting its self. To create the blood we made ice cubes out of different liquids including: food colourings, coffee, icing sugar and high juice we decided to use ice cubes as it would be difficult for the actor to hold liquid in his mouth for a long time also it doesn't puff out the cheeks like liquid would.

blood experiment 1 - we liked this one, the dark red was reminiscent of a strong blood, and we thought the thickness was believable, the thickness of the blood meant it didn't just all spill out

blood experiment 2 - this one being just high juice, when being mixed with saliva created an over watery feel making the blood very unbeliveable

blood experiment 3 - we liked this one but felt that it was slightly too light in colour as well as it being too thin meaning it all spilt out at once

blood experiment 4- we liked the difference in texture within the blood, there were some really thin bits contrasted with thick lumpy parts, although this is the case we felt that the blood was too light in colour

blood experiment 5 - we liked this one but felt it was too thin in texture, also it had hardly frozen during the 3 days in the fridge meaning it was impractical to use

After looking at all the videos, we felt that the best results came in the form of experiment one, which we shall be using in our video

Research - Opening - The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 1974

As part of our opening clip we decided to use a series of images to create a flashback / insight into the events of the little girl, as inspiration we have looked at The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) which you can see in the link below, we have focused on the time 1.35-2.30 in which there is a series of images shown through the prospective of a camera, the flash reveals different parts of the body and as they increase the detail of the image becomes clearer revealing the body to the audience we thought this was done very effectively

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpLbegx4CV0

Out of the clip this was our favourite series of images:

We liked this especially as it was a quick reveal from darkness to the photo of the hand, we liked how it was only showed a section of the hand , as it is dark the flash lights creates the impression that the hand is red and is reminiscent of blood and danger. After watching this we liked the idea of the reveal of different elements using a series of close ups and fade to blacks but we didn't feel that the idea of using a camera worked well as it didn't really fit in with the idea of our storyline.

Turn of the screw opening analysis.

In class today we were also shown the opening 40 seconds of BBC 1's 'The turn of the screw'.
The opening is very effective in creating a sense of something going wrong psychologically within her. Here are some of the things we liked:

• Starting with a Mid shot of a pale looking young woman gazing into nothingness. We see a book on the windowsill which appears to be the Bible.
• Lighting is used effectively to light only half of her face.
• Slow, long shots followed by frantic, fast shots and cuts creates the sense that she is not in control.
• The camera cuts to two close up shots of her face and as this happens we hear non-diegetic rumbling of voices which appear to be coming from inside her head as she looks in a lot of discomfort.
• She blinks and just before this the rumbling speeds up and as she blinks we cut to quich shots of the sunlight coming through trees and leaves. Peaceful non diegetic music is being played.
• We hear the diegetic sound of a bird fluttering it's wings and this changes the mood as the music quickens and the shots become faster.
• We see a close up of a fake toy doll which is followed by the sound of a little girl singing. Another shot with a doll like young blond haired girl is then showed playing with the toy doll.
• We see a close up of a rocking horse moving back on forth, appears to be moving of its own accord. Shots continue to quicken in pace and the shots moving between the trees and up into the sky are slightly distorted and overlayed and this indicates that there may be something in the air edging closer and closer at an uncontrollable pace.
• We hear diegetic panting and the use of a handheld camera as someone anonymous runs towards an empty grave. They look down and scream horrificly.
• We see close ups of dirty maggots representing death and rot.
• The camera then cuts back to the young woman from the start opening her eyes and taking a deep breath. Camera cuts from close up from side to close up from front. In reverse from the first few close ups.

We decided to have a look and deconstruct some meanings in this opening because we thought it was so good at representing the psychological thriller genre and we think it could help us in creating our own opening.

Setback- Location

We have also been hit with a huge setback. Unfortunately, Jack's work whose warehouse we were going to use for filming, have pulled out on us due to health and safety reasons. This is a bit of a blow as we all had fantastic ideas involving the layout of the warehouse. However we are looking into other locations and so far we have brainstormed two ideas- 1. Using a garage, and 2. Using Will's dads barn.

We have also been thinking that the best bedroom to use for the waking up scene would be either Sofy's or Ash's.

Interesting cutting techniques & storyboarding

In our media lesson today we were all discusing the storyboarding of our opening sequence. After coming up with a solid base, we set about all creating our own ideas for the storyboard. This will enable us to pick out the best of everyones ideas to help make our final storyboard.

We were also talking about ways of cutting and mixing two shots together and we came up with an idea of slowly zooming into one door and then cutting to the outside of another door as it is opening. Kind of merging the two shots to make them flow better.
I saw another good example of this in Channel 4's Hollyoaks earlier- A woman lifted up a magazine to her face just at the endof the shot and then this cut to a completely different woman, with the camera on a close up of the same magazaine just as she is lowering it so we see her face.