Wednesday 20 January 2016

Update of the props

While continuing to develop our idea we made small changes in the story. We developed out idea so that the hands are tied to the headrest behind the protagonists head and rather than using rusty handcuffs we are going to used cable binders, since we thought tat these where more easily accessible to the criminal.



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Thursday 7 January 2016

Current location Plan

We are currently planing to film on a filed at Ewhurst. We already got Ian's verbal permission, however we are still working on getting a written letter of consent.

This is Ewhurst:

We would like to achieve an isolated effect like this:


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E-mailing Mike (backup actor)

Since both Ted and Jason haven't fully agreed to take the role, we all agreed to contact Mike. We asked Mike in person and also send him a written proposal. He luckily agreed to be our actor. So, incase Ted or Jason won't be available on the shooting day, we have Mike as a back up actor,who is suitable for both characters.




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Jason's and Ted's reply

These are Jason's and Ted's replies:
Jason:

Ted:
-
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Shot list + story board inspiration

I have now finished completing the shortlist:

This is our inspiration for our story board's presentation:

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Second try- emailing potential actors

Today I emailed Jason and Ted, to ask if they would be part our our project since nor Ezra or Simon can make it. We are now waiting for their replies. 





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e-mailing Ezra and Simon + their replies

I e-mailed both of our desired actors a request if they are willing to act in our sequence, with a synopsis of the story's Plot.

Simon:
-


Ezra:


These where there replies:

Simon:


Ezra:
Since Ezra didn't reply to our E-mail I addressed him on Campus and he said that it required quite some time to come to the decision, that he simply doesn't have enough time in the upcoming term. Although he would have really liked to do it, he can't neglect his students.

We thanked both of them sincerely, in person, and now continue our such for the cast.
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Location hunting

Today we went to have look at one of the locations on the school ground that we all agreed on might be suitable as a the location of our opening sequence.

This is the parking lot:




 The isolated look is what got us interested in it.
We also tried to pan around the car without getting anything else into the shot, 
which was kind of successful. 

This is our teachers car:
 (who already gave us permission to use it for our shoot if we required it)


 This is our ideal car:
 (found on the car park)

 We definitely count the car park as one of our options and especially as our backup location, however we are going to continue looking for different settings that are more suitable.

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Cast List

This is the Cast list I created.
I also created a short summary of the characters in the sequence.
However this is only our desired Cast.
This is not the final cast.


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Sugar Glass

Since we would like to create an effect/ the idea of the protagonist breaking the car window, without actually damaging the car during the shoot we are planing to use editing to trick around the actual action by using suggestive sounds and shots.

We asked the media department for advice on where we we could get a large, plain peace of glass from for the purpose of filming shard fall to the ground, bellow the car window. 
They suggested us to look at sugar glass since this would be the most appropriate material to use. 


The best option we found is to make it our selfs, since it is hard to find it online in a simple form. 
This is a tutorial on how to DIY it:


Ready made items like sugar glass bottles are easily found online and we could simply smash them to get a good amount of broken glass. 

Amazon is a possible distribiuter:


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Props intspiration

This is our idealised visual, inspiration of the props we would like to use:

Paper work



Photographs in brown envelopes


Coffee
Newspapers
(referencing recent crimes,
 which the detective investigates)



Sweaters


Rusty handcuffs





wedding ring

Matches




Gasoline Tanks


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Creating a checklist

To start of the second phase of the Pre-production we made a list of everything we needed for the shoot. And started splitting up the work.

  • Roberto is  going list and source the Props.
  • Jon is going to get the permission for the location.
  • Coco is going to draw the story board.
  • I am going to create the cast list and request their interest.


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'Green light'

Today, we got another chance to pitch our idea, with it's two versions, to Matt and Luke. We were all extremely happy once they responded in a positive way. They quickly created a tendency towards the 'Gasoline idea' rather then the 'Bomb idea'. Which then caused us to settle for this idea.

Now since we got 'Green light', the upcoming steps are the harder organizational tasks. Things we will have to complete in the next two weeks are:

  • Cast
  • Prop sourcing 
  • location & filming permission
  • Shot list
  • Story board
  • any extra requirements
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Luke's advice

During todays lesson we had a quick chat with Luke. We gave him a rough outline of our ideas and asked if we could continue to develop them for the upcoming Pitch or continuer brainstorming. He said that they are good basic ideas to work of. As advice he suggested we could incorporated text messages used as a count down, which would again be a vehicle for the thrilling theme of time pressure in a life or death situation.

He poped in the name of the movie 'Unfriended', published in 2014, where online chats are used to convey lots of the story line.



Although we considered Luke's suggestion, we decided not to take up the text message idea since we think the technology element doesn't really go with the story.

However already receiving some positive feedback in our chat strengthened our confidence and group spirit for the up coming Pitch.
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Idea development/Mood Board

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Wednesday 6 January 2016

Brainstorming for a new Idea

We made it our mission to all come up with three different new Ideas or elements for a thriller opening sequence until our next lesson.

The three Ideas I came up with were:

  1. A two strand sequence of a school quire performance and another student preparing for a mass shooting.
  2. A character about to hang them self in a room and a second parallel strand of the police driving to the house, raising the question if they will be there in time. Devices like goodbye letters could be used to create a background story for the character of introduce the themes of the film.
  3. The last think I thought was affective as an element was claustrophobia.
From our different ideas we carved out the key element of 'beating the time'. Next up we all agreed that this is most effective when used in combination with being locked in or away from something, being trapped

We then created two versions of our Idea. Having two options and letting Matt and Lucke decide on what Idea to work from would have us prepared incase they do not like one of them, since we all wanted to avoid having to start over again.
The two ideas are based around detective being trapped in a Car, with different spinoffs:
  1. The Idea we developed through out our brainstorming session is based around a Detective being locked in a car while the antagonist is poring gasoline over the car and the detective tries to brake free before he lights the fatal match.
  1. The idea is focused on the detectives character, who wakes up in his car and then starts to realize multiple signs of a bomb set in the car. These signs would be indicators like:
  •  the severe problems with radio signal 
  • his watch is 'going crazy' , etc.

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Matt and Luke's Feedback


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Pitch to Matt and Luke

We created a Power point to support our Pitch.






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Changing the Idea

After our chat with Mike we decided to slightly change our Idea to make it more realistic. We did this by adding in another character. We created a young 25-30 year old, well build and healthy character, who is his fathers companion in crime. Adding in this character resolves the issued of the elderly man being physically unfit and therefore easily overpowered by his victim.

We planned to stick to the beginning of the sequence however once the one line of dialogue comes in, that the elderly man says to his wife: "I'm going to bed honey."we would change this into: "I will check what Joe is up to. Good Night."
Once the man then walks into the basement, the audience is introduced to the character of the son. He will be standing bend over the victim  screaming at him. It seems as if he just finished one of the torturing sessions.
The older man walks up to a small fridge and takes out two beer bottles  and hands one to his son.
They cheers to their 'success'.

This character could look something like this:


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Pitching the Idea to Mike + Feedback


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Test shoot evaluation


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Test shoot and it's editing


Editing:
We edited the test shoot using iMovie. We transferred the videos from Roberto's phone on to his laptop so we would have a wider range of editing tools.
  • The end product ended up having highly fluctuating pace
  • we used a clean cuts most of the time and one dissolve transition
  • We also added a filter on to the end product, to accede some simple color correction




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The test shoot

On the shoot day we got started right away, we went to the canteen and asked to borrow two cups and two spoons. Next, we went to the common room. However we had to face the problem of the lights being broken, in our desired shooting area/location. We had to move our shoot since it was too dark.
We then shot as we planed it in advance, following the sorry board that was a great help. It allowed us to stay organized since it acted as a kind of checklist for us.  However, we also got some extra shots, simply to try things out and see how they look on camera/screen.

We shot a simplified version of our thriller opening sequence, which allowed us to cover most of its plot. However, we did not film the final basement scene, since we had difficulties with time management and finding an appropriate location.

Time management is definitely something we can improve on for our upcoming shoot.


These where our props for the day.




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