Film Poster

This Is the Poser for our film we created on Photoshop. Our main inspiration was from the Grudges poser. The black around the eye symbolizes the hair, her own barrier from the outer world and the only thing that can cover her face and perhaps cover the wrong things she has done. To create the Poster, we changed the opacity levels of the original photo i took of vanessa on photoshop and then placed the hair from the grudge over the top using a different layer. The text says "it never forgives, it never forgets". The reason for this being is, Vanessa never forgave her elder family member for abusing her and she will never forget it. We used a quote from "Empire magazine" as they are a major magazine which looks at films using the quote"The most intense film of the year" which will automatically want the audience to watch it. Other texts we included were both mine and Kimberley's names and Vanessa Reynolds as she has the starring role in our film introduction. I am very happy with The Final result as I feel the photograph is very unnerving and has an almost ghostly element to it due to adjusting the opacity level.

Film poster inspiration

I want to create a cover for my film " The Common" using photoshop. I have been researching many different styles and formats to find exactly what I'm looking for. Here are some of the selected few of covers I would like my cover to be inspired by.

This is effective because of the black space on it. I want to use a similar idea on my poser.

Poster above stands out for me because of the catch unnerving slogan"it will get under your skin"

The simplicity of this poster attracts me to it whilst still portraying horror 

Experimenting with my clips

Above are the same sequence I created using iMovie, although one in colour, one using the black and white effect. I feel the black and white sequence creates the right atmopere I'm looking for. Without the colour aspect, it almost leaves the audience feeling unknowing and on edge as not everything in the picture is given away. The moody contrasting monochrome shades add dynamics.

To create this sequence, I merged some of the shots I filmed at portelet common until continuity was present. I didn't show the character throughout the sequence until the end, for the reason of i want the audience to really want to no who this unknown character is who has pushed an Innocent victim off a Cliff. i also didn't want to overpower the audience with shots of her face as it could perhaps look cheap and unprofessional. to give my sequence even more atmopshere i added music which created suspense, and also the sound of a heartbeat building up speed until the shot of Vanessa's face on screen. I then got the music to fade out gently unlike a sudden Holt which i don't think would work.

Experimenting

This Is one of the shots I filmed at Portelet common. I wanted to show the comparison of both black and white and the original. I personally really love the black and white because of the crispness of her white shirt among the less so bright foreground and background and feel the original green background isn't at all inspiring. The Subtitles colour could lead into anything using the black and white effect whilst the green background could only lead to a colour that complimented it, unlike a tacky colour that clashed with it. My work partner thinks the opposite of what I do, so I don't no what is going to happen.

This technique only uses 1 layer from the original shooting, and the other layer is from the shooting using the green-screen of kimberley walking. In "after affects" we adjusted the contrast and brightness, hue and saturation and then merged both layers together to create this effect.  to remove the green background, I used the plug in on "after effects" called key light. I then told it to take out the background colour green. 

Green Screen Test

Greenscreen Experimental

Today in media after experimenting with changing the opacity level in the 2 layers of shots, we wanted to try and produce a similar effect but differently. This enabled us to use the greenscreen as this was just to test out the procedure, Vanessa was not needed and we used Kimberley dressed in a white gown like Vanessa in our film introduction. I got Kimberley to walk on the spot in front of the greenscreen as I filmed her using the canon LX2. Below are the shots I filmed of Kimberley in front of the greenscreen and Kimberley and I talking about what we wanted to achieve in this Piece edited on iMovie.

Kimberley infront of greenscreen

Me filming kimberley walking infront of green screen

Test effects

Today we experimented with the program " After Effects". As mentioned in the past post,whenever I filmed a shot of vanessa engaging in movmenet, I took a shot of the location in the exact position, only just without Vanessa in so that in post production I would use both layers and adjusting the opacity to create an almost ghostly character which could appear and re-appear on and off the screen. For me I really love this effect.Not only will this keep the audience engrossed in whats happening but if done well with practise using " After Effects" it could look outstanding.

First shooting day

Today, myself and my partner Kimberley went to Portelet with our actress Vanessa to shoot shots 1, 7 and 8. I filmed shot 7 and 8 and Kimberley filmed shot 1. The weather today whilst shooting was dull and dismal with light patched of drizzle. We thought we would use the weather to our ability instead of against us. The crispness of the white sky created the atmosphere we were hoping for. As we need to shoot 5 more scenes at the common we will have to choose a day with very similar weather. As it is winter this shall not be to much as a challenge. We shot our 3 shots using the canon XL2 over a 3 hour period. The lengthy time was due to the variety of different angles shot. I Filmed shots of the area and then the exact same area again but with Vanessa in it so that in post production i can put the area shots behind the Vanessa shots and create an almost ghostly eerie character. This may turn out far to unprofessional for what were aiming for but once experimented using iMovie to try and create this effect, this could be exactly what we need for our film.

Eqipment we braught with us today were:

Canon LX2
Tripod ( for steady shots)
Stepladder ( my idea because i wanted shots from abouve vanessa)
Beanbags( so that the Canon LX2 was able to lie stabely flat on the floor angeling upwards)
Canon powershot A540 ( camera i braught to take photographs for my blog)
White Nighty

Vanessa and I with the Camera( which was covoured at the time due to drizzle)

A problem we faced during filming was the actress had to do it barefoot but she got thorns in her feet. To help reduce this problem I Transported her on my back from each shots, see below for photograph.

I supplied our actress with food and warm clothing to ensure her acting will be the best it could

Low angle shot

Used Beanbags to create a steady stand for another low shot

I am stood on the stepladder trying to shoot an areial veiw shot

Areial Shot

Filming Vanessa

What I need to Do to Be able to start filming

Today me and Kimberley decided on a date we will shoot storyboard shot 1, 7 and 8. we have organized our actress vanessa to take half a day out school on monday 17th of november. We will bring the Canon XL2 with tripod, Stepladder for high shots and a white nighty to the location of Portelet common. As our male actor will not be able to participate in the first shooting session at Portelet common we will have to plan another date where both female and male actress are able to participate. As Kimberley and I are doing half the films editing and filming each, I will be shooting shot 6,7,8,9 and 10.

Today I also rang up Le Quennevais sports centre to ask permission if we would be able to use their pool to shoot our underwater shots in the story board. This has Been booked for sunday 23rd of november at 11 am. As Shot 9 and 10 are underwater shots, I will be the one filming. I will be shooting our actor Max Holley falling into the pool unconsciously and slowly floating into the depths of the pool. I will be using The ......... to shoot these shots.

Arial shot of location

Today, both Kimberley and I went on an around island plane journey and took an arieal photo of Portelet Common.

Storyboard Animatic

This is my animatic

The Storyboard

This is the finished storyboard which I accomplished

shot 1

shot 2

shot 3

shot 4

shot 5

shot 6

shot 7


shot 8

Storyboard preparation

Me and Kimberley Dunne went to our location to shoot our storyboard shots

shot 1


shot 2


shot 3


shot 4


shot 5



shot 6



shot 7


shot 8

Shot 9

 Shot 10

Storyboard

These are photographs of me working on the storyboard. This is one of my allocated jobs in our group.

This Is the cartoon look im aiming for. I will sketch with fine line pen but I will add watercolour to it. I want m storboard to be bold, simple and eye catching.

Title

Kimberley and I want something that is short, quick and something you can remember. We want it to have a dramatic effect on the audience and by showing it at the end of the film introduction will leave the audience unnerved which is what we want.

A website we used to help us was www.appletrailers.com

some of these titles inspired me and we could use something similar.

this cover is so simple with only 1 word and a white background. It really works for me

the writing " today could be the last day of the rest of your life" is worrying and grabs my attention immediately.

The hills have eyes 2 cover looks like the long winding paths on top of our location at portelet common

some of the possible names we came up with so far are

The Common - simple but leaves you wondering what the film could be about

Cliff Hazard- my partner can't quite share the same enthusiasm as I do for this name. I think it could possibly not grab viewers to watch the film because it sounds almost geographical. I now also share lack of enthusiasm for this name.

Assigned jobs

Kimberley Dunne

- researching institutions for our film
- first half of films shooting and editing

Poppy Larbalestier

- storyboard
- second half of films shooting and editing

Shared Roles

- music
-costume and set design
- titles
-time keeping
- other requirements necessary for our film

introduction for our storyboard

Today me and my work partner Kimberley Dunne drew up a really quick rough idea of a story board to give us an idea of possible shots to include in our own. We scanned it into the computer to put on our blog to show you where our first initial very rough ideas came from.

brief idea of what the shots will include

shot 1- Vanessa walking through the common

shot 2- Vanessa looking at her innocent victim

shot 3- Vanessa about to render her victim unconscious with a rock

shot 4- Innocent victim left unconscious on the floor

shot 5 - Vanessa pushes her victim off the cliff to their death into the sea

shot 6- Shot of the body falling into the sea

shot 7 - Vanessa walking along base of cliff

shot 8 - Vanessa looking out to sea

shot 9 - Body lying lifeless floating in the sea

shot 10- Blank screen with our title

Tzvetan Todorov

I have been analysing Todorov's theory and I have decided I want to use it in my film introduction. My narrative shows an 11 year old girl who had been abandoned by her parents. She will roam the Portlet Common looking for a male to murder who resembles her elder brother who used to abuse her as a young child. She will wait until this male, the person she is going kill, is at the edge of the cliff looking at the veiw. She will push them off to their death into the sea. Our narrative will end here.

There are five stages to his theory

1. A state of equilibrium
2. A disruption of that order by an event
3. A recognition that the disorder has occurred
4. An attempt to repair the damage of the disruption
5. A return or restoration of a NEW equilibrium.

We will show stage 1 in our film of Totorov's theory using Vanessa's point of view shot and arial shots of Vannesa walking through the common and area underneath the cliff, minding her own business. She will be in a state of equilibrium.

Stage 2 will show Vanessa putting her innocent victim unconscious by hitting a rock over their head and then pushing them of the cliff.

Stage 3 will show the victims body land dead in the water.

Stage 4 and 5 will not be shown in my introduction but will be shown later on in the film if it was to be made. Stage 4 would show Vanessa becoming unstable, with the inability for her mind to be in a stable state, she will have no other choice than to throw herself of the cliff. Stage 5 would show one of Vanessa's victims surviving, carrying on the legacy so that the curse of Vanessa will never end.

The Ring

Preliminary Task final Edit Using iMovie

I am very satisfied with my final Preliminary task edit. I most importantly obeyed the 180 degree rule, included shot reverse shots, point of view shots and also demonstrated match on action. I successfully filmed it with the Canon XL2 using a tripod which I did not use in my first trial. There I used a video camera when making my first experimental piece of Kimberley Dunne walking down stairs. I used a tripod in my preliminary exercise to improve my unsteady camera work which I experienced from my initial filming back at the start of September.

Bourne Ultimatum ending

My work partner Kimberley Dunne and I both questioned the idea of showing the camera shot of the victim falling from the cliff to their death. I think it could swing both ways, either it would look really effective or on the other hand could look very fake like a doll dropping because the weights of the manikin won’t be realistic like the body’s weight. Kimberley and I both watched the borne ultimatum and a certain scene really inspired us. It is of the main character jumping of into a big river and a camera shot from underneath the water as the body hits the water. It looks as if the body is dead at first which is what we will want to show in our film. the body floated in the water slowly sinking. Our film would end with Vanessa pushing a person of the edge of the cliff. It would then end with a shot from under the water of the body landing into the sea. Then the screen will turn black. If we were to shoot this scene working in our school pool would be a more realistic approach. We would shine a light above the pool shining downwards which would highlight the body greatly. Kimberley and I have planned to do a tester shot of this idea in our school pool next week on Wednesday. We will be given a waterproof camera to do this in. it wont be of a great quality but we can granulate it once finished to give it a nice result. This will be the end of my film introduction.

Preliminary Task first draft

Yesterday I shot my preliminary task. I obeyed the 180 degree rule, included shot reverse shots and demonstrated match on action. The objective of this was to film a person opening a door, crossing a room and sitting down opposite another person, then they will exchange lines of dialogue. I decided to capture a sense of comedy into my preliminary task to liven the atmosphere from the contrast of a dull, plain room. I chose to dress my actresses in cat suits to create the overall look I was aiming for. I used iMovie Experimental to edit my camera shots to make my video flow continuously.

After analyzing my first draft, I decided it just wasn't interesting enough because of the lack of variety of camera shots. I decided to shoot again and add point of view shots, more shot reverse shots and continued to obey the 180 degree rule.

Music research continuing

I have been continuing my research into the music for my film introduction. I just wanted to let you hear a piece of music that unbelievably is meant to be scary and what could be expected of a horror movie with a young child in it. I really would not include anything this poor in my film introduction. It's far too weak for what I'm looking for. The sound of singing children is in my opinion clichéd and not scary at all.

In this next song I like certain parts of it but not others. I do quite like the beginning up to 0.25 and can imagine the subtitles appearing on and off the screen with flashes of disturbing images randomly appearing to shock the viewer. Part 1.19 until the end is also interesting. I can imagine that also at the end of my film, and then a sudden loud piercing sound and the screen turning black.

Clothing For My Film

This is a big question for both Kimberley and I. We need to decide whether we have Vanessa in the stereotypical ripped dirty clothes for a person living rough, or jeans and t-

shirt like a young child. I have thought about this very carefully and I want it to look natural. Vanessa will be living on Portelet Common which would be very muddy in the rainy season and so her clothes would get very dirty as a result. I think I will show Vanessa in clothes which don't look clean but I don't want the typical fake dirt look which we see in most contemporary homemade films. I don't want my film to look cheap and so will only put some dirt on the clothes, but only dirt which is from the area so as to look more authentic. My partner Kimberley and I haven't yet decided exactly where she will live, but a strong contender is the rock shack we found. She would possibly have some grass and soil stains on her clothes if she lived there because she would have to scramble over the grass and dirt. If we got Vanessa to live in the shrubbery she would be even filthier from the large soil areas she'd live in.

More Detail

What exactly would I like to show Vanessa wearing in my film introduction more specificly?

I had to think very thoroughly about this and trousers, t-shirt and a warm jumper is what I personally would think somebody would wear if they were living rough. The idea of Vanessa to wear rags has come into the equation but after serious thought, I just don't think that will look lifelike. As she is an 11 year old girl, jeans or trousers is the question I ask myself. I'm not sure I would like to have the murderer wearing jeans but perhaps trousers would look more interesting. Both my partner and I see Vanessa in white. I personally see her in that because white is the symbol of purity which is an obvious irony. I will therefore show her in a white shirt. Regarding a jumper, I am not sure yet. Perhaps a fleece of some sort which most young girls wear. I think a plain jumper may be also a good choice. I will discuss this with my partner.

My work partner Kimberley envisaged Vanessa wearing a white nightgown of some sort. I understand exactly why Kimberley envisages this. I’m still not sure though if that would look realistic, but the whole background story could be that she had run away in the middle of the night, in her nightgown. I think the shots would look really effective with Vanessa wearing a white nightgown because the white will stand out from the desolate dark gloomy tones of the common and because its so high, there is no doubt wind most of the time which will blow the gown around. Here is the girl from the ring. I feel I would want to show vanessa in a similar dress as this.

Researching Music

iMovie Experimental

With a video camera I filmed my work partner Kimberley walking down some stairs and up a road from many different angles. I then used iMovie Experimental for the first time and used it to blend and mix all of the different angles to make one smooth continuous piece. My camera work is far too disjointed at the moment but it will become much more steady with practise and the use of the tripod.  I will treat this as a learning curve. I will use a tripod for most of my camera shots in my movie introduction to give a professional finish. I enjoyed using iMovie Experimental and my piece above was of great help for my iMovie Experimental skills.

The Actress for my film Introduction

Today I took photographs of Vanessa, the actress we are going to include in our film. I wanted to recreate the photo of Mary Bell (a child killer) see below.

This is the photograph below I took of Vanessa which I edited on Photoshop. I think the photo that I took really captures her innocence whilst her eyes tell a different story - perhaps she is not as innocent as she looks. The slight smile represents the fact that she is perhaps proud of what she has done.


I wanted to show Vanessa in a desolate place. This field with long grass creates a sense of mystery. The long grass almost creates a barrier from the outside world psychologically.

Visit to Portelet Common

Kimberley Dunne, my work partner and I, visited Portelet Common to see if it would be the correct location for the introduction of our film. I took many photographs of the different aspects of the common to show my research in more than just text. Kimberley Dunne also recorded me and vice versa. Here are some of the photos.

Aerial view of the area beneath the common. I really love the contrast of everything in this photo . It will make my camera shots edgy.

An abandoned house (possible home for Vanessa)

Rock shack beneath cliff (possible home for Vanessa)

Cliff from which the victim would fall to their death

Shrubbery (the area is full of this which would make it ideal for Vanessa to hide)

This is the aerial shot I talk about in my video when I discuss Vanessa walking down the path and the camera shooting from this angle.

The long gravel paths leading up to the common (the paths along which the victim will unknowingly walk to their death)



On top of the common (I do not envisage much shooting taking place here)



Filmed by Kimberley Dunne, Edited By Poppy Larbalestier

In conclusion, Portelet Common will definitely be ideal for shooting the film introduction.