The task set for us was produce the "opening sequence" of a film from the thriller genre. Roughly it was estimated the sequence would require 2-3 minutes of footage. Our project, titled "Project 228" begins showing our main protagonist (played by Nathan) walking under a bridge, we shot this from a distance (high-angle shot), to show the "228" on the brickwork of the bridge. We follow this character seeing repeated close-ups of his feet to show he is walking fast, which in turn displays that he's anxious. We also follow the character with the an extended "over the shoulder" shot to show the long, winding path he's walking down. It also shows the wilderness, and deserted area he's walking in.
As the video progresses, our protagonist stumbles into a big,open, derelict site. As he walks in the shot is instantly from a significant height, this is done to create the thought that he is being watched form a far. As he walks in this place, we see his steps get slowe, and note he is more cautious, this signifies that he is wary and aware of what's going on.
Towards the end of the video we see him battling throught the grass, and walking to a man (me) waiting for him. He's then handed a bag, and runs off instantly, this demonstrates he's working against his will. When being handed the bag, it's also the first time we see the main protagonists' face, throughout he has had his face down, connotating his nerves and reluctance to meet this man.
The music in the background, was carefully selected, and was chosen because of the recurring lyrics of "i can feel.. somethings happening" immediately creates suspense and anticipation, and the echo on "happening" only emphasises this. We felt that the music was a powerful tool in our video as it immeidately shows the viewer that it is a thriller and may make the viewer ponder what might happen.
Another way we attempted to craft the suspense of our video is threw the lighting. As our protagonist walks through the wilderness, the lighting created is dark, and meaky, this was done to reflect the mood and atmosphere of the video. It also allowed us to create a shot where Nathan walks down the long road, and fades away like sillouhette, only for the next shot to be close to him, this was our way of showing the audience that he can't get away.
We felt when making our project, the film would fit into the "Psychological thriller" genre, and would probably be targeted at the "15" certificate as it contains "psychological" traumatic scenes which wouldn't be deemed suitable for children younger than the specifed age, and with a stereotypical thriller containing violence and swearing, we followed the certificate on films such as "The life of David Gale" and "Phone Booth".
Prior to his course, like most teenagers, i used social networking and other web 2.0 phenomenons. However this course showed me programs such as "Adobe premiere pro" to edit our footage. I found this program a much more detailed program, allowing you to control more and really edit your video the way you want.
I think, watching our final project, we improved massively from a preliminary task, our preliminary was very short and had no narrative, and not much variation in shots. One thing we did in the preliminary that i thought was effective was th euse of lighting on the character sat down in the room already (me), he is edited so his face can't be seen.
Now this coursework is complete, i think i can safely say that we created a video that eradicated any fears we had about the software, after a lesson on using the program, it cleared up any fears we had about it.
All in all, i think we created a solid project and learnt substantial amounts about the production of a film, through the filming, editing and overall construction of a film. We had to research target audience, storyboard, research and plan. I think on the shole, i learnt invaluable knowledge on the production of a media text.
Friday 7 May 2010
Friday 24 April 2009
Research and planning.
After the nightmare we had previous, we started from scratch. We had lost Josh as a member of the group. So the 3 of us discussed what our film should be about, and thought about what film (s) we could make ours similar to. We decided to make it almost a cross between "Saw" and "Phone Booth".
"SAW" (2004)
Saw is a film about two men who wake up at opposite ends of a dirty, dis-used bathroom and are given the task to kill the other before 6.00. There lives are being controlled by the "Jigsaw Killer". We tried to adopt characteristics of the "Jigsaw Killer", for example the way he plays his mind-games, and how he is clever and manipulative in the way he finds a way to get his victms to kill each other. We thought the twisted, sadistic side of his character would work for our main character, and how he tortures his victms. We liked the idea that Saw had of the setting being dark, we thought it added to the overall feeling and emotion of the characters.
The saw franchise is proving to be one of the most successful in film history, with all 5 of the films acheiving a spot in the top 1,000 of the all-time US box office. All 5 films together has provided a total revenue of $668,179,508.
When making the 5th saw the budget was almost 10 times as much they had for the first.
Saw was graded a B+ on "Yahoo Movies"
"Phone Booth" (2002)
Phone Booth is about an arrogant New York publicist (Colin Farrell) who every day uses the same pay phone to call the woman he's cheating on his wife with. however when the phone rings in the booth, Stu naturally picked it up and finds out the caller is a visible sniper who knows everything about Stu, the caller has Stu as a hostage.
Again we had similarities to this film, too start with we used the idea of a man picking up a ringing phone and being terrorised by the caller. We also used the idea of the caller speaking down the phone, barking orders at him. We also like the idea of giving the victm a chance of escape but to give him a moral dilemma.
Phone Booth got $97,837,138, and is just outside the top 1,000 in all-time US box office history.
"SAW" (2004)
Saw is a film about two men who wake up at opposite ends of a dirty, dis-used bathroom and are given the task to kill the other before 6.00. There lives are being controlled by the "Jigsaw Killer". We tried to adopt characteristics of the "Jigsaw Killer", for example the way he plays his mind-games, and how he is clever and manipulative in the way he finds a way to get his victms to kill each other. We thought the twisted, sadistic side of his character would work for our main character, and how he tortures his victms. We liked the idea that Saw had of the setting being dark, we thought it added to the overall feeling and emotion of the characters.
The saw franchise is proving to be one of the most successful in film history, with all 5 of the films acheiving a spot in the top 1,000 of the all-time US box office. All 5 films together has provided a total revenue of $668,179,508.
When making the 5th saw the budget was almost 10 times as much they had for the first.
Saw was graded a B+ on "Yahoo Movies"
"Phone Booth" (2002)
Phone Booth is about an arrogant New York publicist (Colin Farrell) who every day uses the same pay phone to call the woman he's cheating on his wife with. however when the phone rings in the booth, Stu naturally picked it up and finds out the caller is a visible sniper who knows everything about Stu, the caller has Stu as a hostage.
Again we had similarities to this film, too start with we used the idea of a man picking up a ringing phone and being terrorised by the caller. We also used the idea of the caller speaking down the phone, barking orders at him. We also like the idea of giving the victm a chance of escape but to give him a moral dilemma.
Phone Booth got $97,837,138, and is just outside the top 1,000 in all-time US box office history.
Evaluation - BBFC
Every film, DVD, video game has an age rating, these are implemented to protect younger people from viewing a film with inappropriate content. It is a way of helping parents decide of a film is suitable for there children.
Our film
As our film aims to be a pyschological thriller, we decided it would probably be given a "15" certificate due to the swearing and through the manner of how a character in our film is terrorising the other. However in the clip actually shown, there isn't any acts of violence dispalyed, but the psychological element would probably make the clip fall into the 12A bracket.
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