Group Post: Wilderness Woods

 

• On Feburary 6, 2013 our media group visited Wilderness Woods in East Sussex. 
• The purpose of the trip was to get a feel of how to use the cameras, by including as many different types of shots and camera techniques as we could to gain some knowledge and ideas for our final production.
• We shot a short chase/walking scene of two characters in the wood, and then a meeting. We found the close up shots of shoes as they walk past and the use of pull and push focus effective for establishing the woods and capturing the location.
• However we found it hard to maintain the same sound level throughout the clip with the ambient sound of wind changing throughout the day. To make sure we don't have this problem when shooting our final piece we plan to shoot most of our footage one one day to maintain the same sound and light levels, furthermore we are also able to change the sound level through changes that we can make in Premier.
• Overall I think we found the Wilderness Woods trip useful as none of our group members have had any experience of filming like this outside of school. Also we thought the use of the woods would fit our horror genre well and have decided to film in a shack and a wooded area.

Group Post: 1st Shoot Feedback

• Our first shoot was at Rook Birch Wood, Howgreen Lane, Hever, Kent.
• 11th February 2013.
• We drove to the location so were able to take all the props we needed.
• Two of us went to the location, Jaques Thornton and Robert St.Pierre.
• The lighting for our filming was perfect and was made even better with a few candles added. The location is very good for the genre of our title sequence and we used it very effectively in out first time filming.
• The shots we did involved a lot of establishing shots of the outside and inside of the location, it also involved lots of close up and extreme close up shots which showed lots of detail and portrayed our genre very well.
• Unfortunately we were unable to get all the people involved at the location for that day so we only filmed half of our title sequence. But we have arranged another filming day on the 2nd February 2013.
• Our story board was important but we did film other shots not involved on the story board because we believed we did not have a sufficient amount of shots. We also discovered some new interesting shots when at the location so decided to capture them and possibly involve them in our title sequence.
• On the 2nd of February we will be filming the remaining shots which include our other character. These will involves shots inside and outside. These shots are some of our A grade shots so we will be taking a lot of time to perfect them.

Group Post: Pitch

Group Post: Location Reccie

• 7th February
• Rook Birch Wood, How Green lane, Hever,  Kent
• We did the location reccie to confirm our location being suitable for our title sequence.
• We got the land owners permission then looked around the site and found some perfect props for our title sequence including an old empty cage. We then looked for areas in which we could use for our A grade shots.
• We believe we have found a perfect location and as of yet have found no problems with the site. It has everything we need and is easily accessible.



Group Post: Audience Research - Horror Questionnaire

Purpose and Methodology

This is our survey, which we hope to gain some knowledge and advice about what the audience are interested in regarding horror films. An analysis on the results will be up on the blog shortly. We have used the sight Survey Monkey to produce our questionairre and will send it out using web 2.0 media and social networking, furthermore it means we can get a variety of quantitative and qualitative which we can display in graphs once results have been collected.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/XHYYK7K

Results of the questionaire are on the pitch.

Group Post: Mood Board

The Mood Board was created by Rob St. Pierre and we as a group came up with the ideas for it. We felt each image link well with the theme we were trying to recreate in our film opening. For example at the top right there is a picture of a villain, we felt this mirrored our villain as he is psychopathic.



Group Post: Treatment

Genre - Horror/psychological thriller 

Location - Rook Birch Wood, How Green lane, Hever, Kent 

Characters - Mass murderer/serial killer/psychopathic killer 

Props/ideas

• Abandoned shed
• Metal cage
• Poster board
• Table covered in work tools
• Table covered in photos, bottles, pills, scissors, old pencils
• Chainsaw
• Bandages
• Dirty rags
• Blood Stains 

Titles

• Carved into wood
• Placed into clip post production
• Shown on table with the variety

Narrative

• Beginning of title sequence involves establishing shots of location.
• Tilt up shot of murder victim, from his feet to his head, found hanging from a tree integrated gradually throughout sequence.
• Murderer’s face not seen throughout clip.
• The murderer is not seen clearly, his hands and body will be briefly seen throughout the clip creating enigma.
• These shots will be mixed in with the tilt up of the murder victim.
• The murderer will be seen writing a suicide note for the victim like the many he has before.
• The murderer’s shed will contain his potentially deadly work tools sprawled across the table accompanied by pictures and newspaper cuttings of his previous victims.
• Throughout the sequence radio broadcast of police reports will be played to provide the audience with information of the current story line.
• Accompanying the radio reports will be pictures of past victims as well as old newspaper reports about the dead people that have been found.
• Final shot of radio being turned off.

Group Post: Title Font Research

Font Research:

• http://www.1001fonts.com/frusciantehand-font.html        
• http://www.1001fonts.com/denrito-font.html        
• http://www.1001fonts.com/scratch-my-back-font.html     
• http://www.1001fonts.com/tommys-first-alphabet-font.html       
• http://www.1001fonts.com/may-queen-font.html

In our research we found that we like all these fonts, as they are go with the idea that the murderer is writing a letter. All of these fonts look sketchy and handwritten to create a sense tension and realism.

TH: Technical Analysis

Technical Analysis: Inception (Nolan, 2010)

Shot	Duration	Camera Technique	Mise en Scene
1	12 seconds	Long Shot (LS) of the sea and waves, panning towards the shore.	Good lighting, the crashing of the wave’s only thing in the shot.
2	7 seconds	Close Up (CU) of the protagonist (Leonardo DiCaprio), a slight high angle.	He is wet and dirty, in a daze.
3	2 seconds	Mid Shot (MS) of a child on the beach. POV shot.	A child, playing in the sand. Despite not being able to see the face of the child we can tell he is enjoying himself.
4	3 seconds	Close Up (CU) again of the protagonist. A shot, reverse shot to show his reaction.	Clearly the child is related to the protagonist in some way. Still very wet and lying as if he is weak.
5	3 seconds	Long Shot (LS) of one child running toward the child in the original shot. Again POV Shot.	A girl running towards a boy, possibly her child. They are both clean and well dressed, juxtaposing the protagonist’s state.
6	4 seconds	Close Up (CU), however it’s a slightly different angle. But again seeing the reaction.	Same as shot 4.
7	2 seconds	Long Shot (LS) of the two children, again a POV shot.	Both start to run away out of sight.
8	5 seconds	Close Up (CU) same as shot 6.	Seeing his reaction. However he falls unconscious as they run away.
9	2 Seconds	Mid Shot (MS) of someone poking him (DiCaprio) with a gun, but no response.	The fact he has a gun shows authority, and he’s poking DiCaprio as if he could be a danger.
10	2 seconds	Mid Shot (MS) showing the guard and that he is suspicious.	He is dressed as a police officer/ guard again highlighting his authority.
11	2 seconds	Mid Shot (MS) the guard is again poking, however pushes up his jacket showing that he’s carrying a gun.	From this angle we can see how dirty DiCaprio actually is, and when we see his gun it shows he is there for a reason, not just washed up on the shore.
12	2 seconds	Same as shot 10.	The guard is speaking to someone else, in a different language.
13	5 seconds	An extreme long shot (XLS) showing the response of another guard. A pan shows us a huge house.	The guard is dressed in the same clothing showing the owner of the house is powerful. The house is decorated as if it’s from Asia.
14	9 Seconds	A cross cut to inside the house, a long shot (LS) where people are talking in another language. It zooms slowly onto the table in the centre of the room.	It is decorated very expensively, and there are guards, both these showing the owners power.
15	5 seconds	Zooms further into (a mid shot) the table where someone is sitting at the table (possibly the owner).	He looks old and fragile, however is dressed in a suit and tie showing his wealth and authority.
16	3 seconds	Close Up (CU) showing what DiCaprio was holding: a gun and a spinning item.	The gun makes the owner feel endangered; however the other item makes him seem intrigued as if he’s seen it before.
17	5 seconds	Mid shot (MS) showing the old man, slowly turning going to talk to some of his guards.	Same as shot 15.
18	6 seconds	Long shot (LS) showing the guards burst through the doors bringing in DiCaprio, who still looks weak.	DiCaprio is still as dirty and as weak, shown through the guards dragging him.
19	4 seconds	Motivated cut, into close up (CU), showing DiCaprio eating the camera is panning up towards his face.	He is eating incredibly quickly as if he hasn’t eaten for days.
20	3 seconds	Over-the-shoulder shot, an unfocused long shot showing the wealthy owner, and an in focus shot of DiCaprio who is dirty.	There is a clear juxtaposition between the classes.

 

Soundtrack:

•          Starts off with heavy music, progressively getting louder.
•          However as the first shot occurs, there is a sound mix where two layers are formed. The music fades out and the sound of the waves breaking takes over.
•          At shot 2, the sound of the waves breaking fades out slightly, this is so we can hear the sounds of the children’s laughter; presumably in the mind of the protagonist.
•          Another sound mix occurs during shots 4-6, with music becoming louder over the sound of the crashing waves.
•         At shot 10, dialogue is introduced; however it is in a foreign language but there are no subtitles creating a sense of mystery.
•          At shot 14 when we’re taken into the house more dialogue occurs, and this time there are subtitles to translate. However there is also non-diegetic sound which is getting faster and to a higher pitch creating tension.

Evaluation of Technical Analysis:

•          I believe watching the clips shot by shot, and seeing how they integrate into one another, have allowed me to see the micro details used in order to create verisimilitude.
•          I have learnt that the rule of thirds is needed in order to keep the audience interested and can now see the extent of how much it is used from studying the clip.
•          As well as this I can now interpret the sound mixing and how they link to the visuals more effectively to create tension or mystery.