Monday

Monday

Today I finished designing my logo for the opening and I feel it looks good as it doesn’t scream out to the audience so it doesn’t distract them from anything else that is happening on the screen at the time. The lettering ontop of the swords is quite dark so it doesn't hurt everyones eyes when they look at it and it allows them to read the company name and see the logo properly.

Sunday

Sunday

Today I finished most of my shots for the opening so on Tuesday I should be able to edit it to the extent of near completion for the first draft. I also re-took some shots as last time I tried filming the night scenes, it was getting too dark and we couldn’t see anything on the camera. But now we can and i feel it gives a better effect to the film as we are able to see everything that is on the screen.

 

Saturday

Saturday

Today filmed a bit but the shots weren’t working, this is because the weather wasn’t great and I couldn’t put the camera in the right places to get the best effect. This has slowed down production but i hope to film again to catch up with my planned time. 

I also got a little further in designing the swords for my logo by finishing the hilt of the swords and starting on the blade it self.

Friday

Friday

Today I started to design my Production Company Logo, I also decided that my Production Company would be called Darkfire Productions, I decided on the final design of two swords crossed over with the writing of my company on top of them.

I thought this design would work well as it is a simple design and doesn't have much to draw the veiwers eyes away from the opening it self.

Thursday

Thursday

Today I added two more sounds to my opening a heartbeat and a gunshot. I’ve added these sounds so it can build tension within the opening and make it more realistic at points. This will hopefully make the opening better.

With these effects added i hope to make my opening better and make the tension seem more hyper realistic than it normally would be. This will then cause the opening as a whole to become more dark and serious as the tone of it has been brought right down.

New Film Title

Change of Film Title

In lesson on Tuesday I spoke to miss about the storyboard and we decided on the final one along with changing the title of the opening. As people in the film would have died in different ways we thought it would be better to call the film ‘Game Of Chance’ rather than ‘Russian Roulette’ as in the game ‘Russian Roulette’ people die only in one way and there is no variety. I feel that this is an improvement to my work and suits the opening better.

Filming - Day 1

Filming – Day 1

On Sunday I started to film down Poles Lane, I filmed as much as I could on the day. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to film as much as I had hoped too because the whole place was practically waterlogged. I hope to film again this weekend as the weather looks a lot better and hopefully nothing will be full of water so I will be able to film all that I can.

Props for Opening

Props for Film Opening

There are two main props that I shall use throughout this film opening and they are a scary mask and a knife. If the film was to carry on past the opening then you would find out that these two items have a high amount of significance throughout the film.

The mask I find is important as it hides the killers’ identity and adds an essence of fear and intimidation to the opening which is what I hope to achieve.

The knife is also important as it is a weapon and is a vital part of the opening as I plan on zooming in onto the knife to show it is significant and that as the story developed it is one of the most important props in the film.

Music for Film Opening

Music for Film Opening

My film opening will have sound mainly created naturally or by myself. The only piece of music that I will use from another person is a piece of sad slow melodic piano music which I feel will make the opening more dramatic and set the scene. I have chosen this piece of music as it adds the sense of mystery and suspense into the opening. I have also decided to get rid of the rock music for the chase / running part of the opening as i couldn't find any music but also feel that it could work just as well without it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EeAUn78T1bE

Location Ideas

Location Ideas

For this first shot i thought it would be good to have in the opening as you can see the protagonist running into the darkness where the killer would be giving us a sense of foreshadowing.

With this shot i would shoot it so you can see the protagonist from behind so we can see where he is going and how far he has to go.

If i was to use this location i would have a high angle shot to show that the protagonist is weak from running and everything else that has happened in the film.

Within this shot i would have the antagonist down the lighter end of the tunnel to create a backlight to hide his identity.

With this shot i would have the camera on the floor so you can only see the protagonist's feet running across the camera.

With this shot and the shot below i plan to have the protagonist running down here to confront the antagonist and stand in the darker end of the tunnel so it may be easier to see the face of the protagonist.

With these shots i plan to have the antagonist sitting on the swing at night in 2030 to show that this destruction has gone on for a long time.

 

We are asked to find locations for the film opening that would be appropriate for the idea. I had the idea for the film opening back in the summer so I went and took a few photos back then, but I also went out and took some last night. I have chosen these photos and locations because I feel that an interesting variety of shots and camera locations are available and will make the opening better.

Mind Map / Planning of Russian-Roulette

Planning of Russian-Roulette

Yesterday in class we were asked to create a mind map of our idea, and write about it under the following headings:

·         Genre: Action and Adventure, Horror, Thriller

·         The Plot: Treatment

·         Costumes and Props: Mask, Knife, Black Jacket for Killer

·         Sound Style: Contrast between lullaby to the rock chase music

·         Stylistic Influences: The Dark Knight; the Joker and how his identity is hidden by a 'mask'

·         Visual Style: Dark to start with, jumpy cuts

·         Key Locations: Underpass, Playground, Town?

·         Key Characters (Names and Types): Cyrus: Good looking, Quiet, Smart
                                                                        Lily: Blonde, Beautiful.

After writing about my idea under these headings I learnt and understood more of what I would like to do and the ideas I may want to include. It also gave me a very basic structure of what this film opening will be like and what it is about.

Treatment for Russian-Roulette

Russian-Roulette

Seven people get invited to play a game for “money: £1,000,000”. But soon find out that they’re playing for their lives in an abandoned town with a killer who’s on the loose. The film is a hybrid genre consisting of Action and Adventure, Thriller and Horror. Each one of the characters has a criminal history and if they win the game it gets wiped forever. If they survive the week in the abandoned town then they win. But one by one each day the characters mysteriously disappear and are found dead in many different ways until there are only the three main characters left. The three main characters within this film are Steve, 40 an ex security guard, Lily, 18 who’s still a student and Cyrus, 20 who fixes computers for a living. On the 5^th day the three remaining characters find death certificates in a pile, each one of them has a picture of every character that was there and the way they died, even their own. On the 7^th and last day only one character is left, Cyrus; and ends up having a confrontation with the killer at many points throughout the day, but eventually has a face off under an underpass at the edge of town.

Film Opening Sequence Analysis

Film Opening Sequence Analysis

I find that Batman: The Dark Knight title sequence is one of the most effective title sequences I’ve ever seen. It starts off with the company logos and the Batman logo is all in black and dark blue which suggests to us that this film is going to be a dark film before it has even started. We then get led into a wide angle establishing shot of just the tops of a few buildings and skyscrapers which doesn’t give much of what is happening away, therefore building suspense.

The camera then zooms in to focus on one of the buildings' windows where a man (identity unknown) smashes the window with a rappel gun, which is then fired onto the building below. It then cuts to a medium long shot of the back of a man holding a clown mask and a bag. We then zoom in on the clown mask, which could suggest some importance. I consider the director at this point has done this to give clues that this man is the main villain of the film - the Joker. It is then shortly cut to a scene of two men from the skyscraper sliding down the wire onto the building. This is a very effective shot as it starts off with a crane shot following them down the wire then quickly cuts to a medium close up from the front as they land. This gives us a sense of being with these characters as they go through this sequence.

I find this sequence very effective overall as it doesn’t give away the plot at all, but it draws you into the film making you want to find out more. It includes subtle hints of different characters and there is no speech which makes each scene more powerful as you are just concentrating on the little details within this scene.

Report on the Preliminary Exercise

Media Preliminary Exercise: The Job Interveiw

 

 

Daniel Faint, Jimmy Beaton, Shannon Pratt, Megan McMillan and I filmed in Mr O’Sullivan’s office on the 9^th of October 2012 for our first preliminary exercise. The equipment we used for filming and editing for this exercise was a Canon Legria camcorder plus Adobe Premiere editing software. With this exercise we were only practicing a few skills, these were:

·         Match on Action,

·         The Rule of Thirds,

·         Shot Reverse Shot,

·         Hollywood Editing

·         180⁰ Rule.

I feel that the task went very well as we got all the shots that we wanted, variating shots and angles, and I think that it had a really good outcome. But I think the parts that didn’t go so well were how limited we were around the room as there wasn’t enough space to put the camera and tripod at times, but we managed and was able to come up with a good 30 second piece of work.

Preliminary Task Final Cut

 



 

 

Evaluation of the Preliminary Exercise

 

I feel that this went really well overall, the shots that we used had a wide range of variety from close ups to long shots. I feel though that with the shots we could have re-done a few as we accidently stepped over the 180^o line at one point, but the clip that happened in wasn’t shown in our version of the task.

 

The sound that was used in this task was quite loud and clear so in the interview part of the clip we heard every word that was said. But at the beginning part of the clip there was a lot of noise going on so if something was said you wouldn’t have been able to hear it because of the noisy background.

 

The editing that was used for this piece was very good in my opinion as the cuts were at the right places and the match on action was exactly perfect. We also used a dip to black to show that time had passed and the interview had begun.

 

I think that my current level of production is at a high intermediate level as I know a lot about media, editing and camera work but I feel that there is more that I could learn to make myself better.