My name is Ella Thompson and I am a member of Group 3. In my group I worked with Prudence Carter-Phillips (8128), Joshua Oranu-Noah (8054) and Gabriel Meytanis (8560). I have completed Brief 1: Film. To see my portfolio evidence, please click on the 3 labels on the right named AS Research and Planning, AS Construction, and AS Evaluation.
In order to successfully connote our genres we got inspiration from one of our references One Hour Photo. We liked how in One Hour Photo it was told from the perspective of the stalker, and how he became obsessed with the lives of one family through his occupation developing photos. The thriller element was connoted in One Hour Photo through the contrast between the seemingly ordinary every day life of the stalker and his dark secret stalking of the family. This inspired us in how we communicated our genre in our sequence, as we decided to make the main character a seemingly ordinary 18 year old girl who lives a double life.
One idea that directly inspired us from One Hour Photo that communicates the genre was the idea of the moodboard. This displays the disturbing psychological lengths that the stalker is willing to go to.
Main character of One Hour Photo and his "moodboard"
We plan to attract our primary target audience, fans of psychological thrillers, by making using conventions of the genre in our opening sequence to evoke feelings in the audience. For example we plan to the combination of tight, CU and ECU shots of Grace's eyes and mouth and sound effects of heavy breathing as she wakes up to create a sense of claustrophobia and unease.
Our primary audience of 15-24 year olds will be attracted through the use of familiar social media platforms throughout the opening sequence such as Twitter, as shown above. Furthermore the certification of the film will be a 15 which will address the target audience as they will be likely to watch films that are certificated specifically for them.
The main social groups that we chose to represent in our sequence are middle class British teenage girls. We have chosen to represent them through the use of an 18 year old female protagonist called Grace who is mixed race and British.
We have chosen to represent these social groups through the use of social media and the setting of our opening sequence.
Our opening sequence heavily revolves around the character's use of social media to carry out her stalking, and we decided to use social media that is popular with female teenagers such as Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. This is because teenagers are typically "addicted" to their smart phones and maintain active profiles on them, therefore in the opening sequence Grace, the protagonist, will regularly check the girl she's stalking's social media.
Use of Twitter in Cyberbully
The reference point we used as inspiration for this was the Channel 4 television film Cyberbully. The film is focused around the main character, a teenage girl's, constant use of social media to contact her friends and express her thoughts. The film goes on to show how she is stalked and terrorized through her social media.
Production Company: Our production company is called Bugle Films. It's a British independent film company that is based in London, and it specialises in films of the thriller and horror genres. We decided to create our own production company so that we could have a company which was specifically designed to produce films like ours.
Distribution Company:
The distribution company that we decided to use is Film4. This is because they are a British company that is based in London and have distributed many British independent films, including some that have target audiences to ours such as the Inbetweeners Movie.
The reference point that we used for our primary audience was the film Stalked at 17. We felt it was appropriate to use as inspiration as it is also a thriller film centered around stalking, and the certification of the film is a 15. Furthermore the film contains violent psychological themes to attract the target audience but enough to ensure it is rated only a 15.
Our Secondary Audience:
Fans of horror films
Fans of British indie films
We chose fans of horror films as our secondary audience because we wanted to incorporate elements into our opening sequence that would be scary and frightening. As our production and distribution companies and overall style of our opening sequence was typical of a British indie film, we decided to make the secondary audience also fans of British indie films.
In our first group meeting we decided on the times for our weekly meetings. We decided to meet each Monday and Thursday at the following times:
Week 1: •Monday 1:50-2:20pm and 4:00-4:30pm •Thursday 2:00-3:00pm
Week 2: •Monday 9:00-9:30am and 4:00-4:30pm •Thursday 11:30-12:30pm
We agreed to meet in the Media Department for the meetings and ensure that we have done individual research ourselves that we can bring together at the meetings. Furthermore, we have decided to set up Facebook and Whatsapp group chats so we can communicate effectively with each other and convey any ideas or questions what we may have.
Our sequence is called "Chloe" and it's genre is comedy. It is a 0:40 second long sequence of a teacher who walks into a room to complain to another teacher about a student, without knowing the student is also in the room.
1) Who did you work with and who did you manage the task between you?
I worked with Olamide, Phoebe and Alex for this task. We managed the task by working together equally during the planning process. We pitched our ideas and built upon the best idea, and did the paper work and planned the shoot as a group.We did it together as it was more efficient in our limited time frame. Personally, I was mainly involved in the shooting. As I was the only person in my group to not act, I was the cameraman and director for the majority of the shooting. All of us took part in editing the clip in pairs to create two final sequences. I worked with Olamide to edit.
My group and I
Me directing using the clapperboard while Alex is the cameraman
2) How did you plan your sequence? What processes did you use? What theories did you try and take into account?
We planned our sequence by discussing it as a group. During our discussion we created several pieces of paperwork:
Top down plan
Prop list
Shoot schedule
We also created a storyboard, script and character list during our planning.
In order to stick to our brief, we tried to take into account match on action, shot/reverse shot, eyeline matches and the 180 degree rule. These we incorporated into our storyboard. For our characters we tried to create stereotypical characters, for example Alex was the shy geeky teacher. We represented this by having him wear glasses and a shirt, which we included in the prop list. We deliberately included obvious jokes in the script to connote the comedy genre.
3) What technology did you use to complete the task, and how did you use it?
The technology we used to film were:
•Camera:
We used a Canon HFG30
We kept the camera on the automatic manual settings due to time restrictions. Instead we focused on the framing and sound of the shots.
•Tripod: we used the tripod to keep the camera steady and adjust the height of it, and the tripod arm to create smooth pans in our shot.
•Mic: we used this to pick up diagetic sound and dialogue in our shots, especially when the characters were far away.
•Headphones:the cameraman during the shots would wear these to ensure that the sound was being picked up clearly and there was no unwanted background noise.
•Clapperboard: we used this to indicate the shot and take number, and who was the cameraman and editor. This was useful when choosing what shots to use during the editing process.
The technology we used to edit were:
•a PC with dual-monitors
Olamide and I editing using Premier Pro
•Adobe Premiere Pro: we used various tools and techniques within Premiere Pro to edit our sequence. We used the drag and drop tool to move the clips we chose onto the timeline, cut them down to ensure they were a match on action and re-ordered them to follow the storyboard. We also used the razor tool to divide longer shots in order to create the shot/reverse shot.
4) What factors did you have to take into account when planning, shooting and editing?
The space in which we filmed. You can
see the small amount of space behind
the desk
There were many factors we had to take into account. Mainly, we had to stick to the brief and demonstrate continuity techniques. Therefore the creativity of the storyline that we could create was limited as we had to ensure that it included a sequence of dialogue between two characters. We had to take into account time restraints, as we were limited to only one hour each for planning, shooting and editing. This meant we could not create any long and complicated sequences in far fetched locations. The number of people in our group limited us - it meant that we could only have a maximum of three actors as someone had to be operating the camera. The filming location we used limited us because it it was a small classroom so sometimes it would be hard to set up the camera in the tight spaces between characters due to the lack of space. This was especially difficult when shooting OTS shots behind the desk.
5) How successful was your sequence? Please identify what worked well, and with hindsight, what would you improve/do differently?
Our sequence was successful because it followed the brief. We included the continuity techniques and demonstrated things such as varied shot types, a master shot and an eyeline match. The narrative of our sequence worked well, because it was simple, easy to understand and represented the comedy genre, but also allowed us to demonstrate continuity easily. Most of the shots worked well as we took around three or four takes of each shot so we were able to choose the best one during editing.
However some did not completely follow continuity: •The reaction shot of Alex at 0:07 doesn't have any background sound. This is a break in continuity as we can hear sound in the previous shot and following shot of Olamide walking towards him. We should have added a non-diagetic sound clip of Olamide's footsteps to fix this. •The MS of Phoebe at 0:34 shows her looking up and in front of her. However the next ELS at 0:36 of the three characters shows Phoebe looking at them. We found that we could not edit the whole clip out otherwise the storyline would not make sense.
6) What have you learned from completing this task? Looking ahead, how will this learning be significant when completing the rest of your foundation coursework, do you think?
From completing this task I have learned the importance of being thorough in the shooting process. I found that taking several takes of each shot and sometimes slightly altering the angle and framing allowed us more flexibility during editing as we could pick the perfect shot and usually didn't have to settle for a shot that was not right.
The learning from this preliminary exercise will be significant as I have learnt how to correctly use continuity techniques in a clip. This means that the title and opening of the film that I will create for my main task will have proper continuity. Furthermore I have improved my planning and editing skills which will be useful in the main task.
