Plans for our first shoot

In class today we discussed which days we were all available to start filming. Myself, Tilly, Ellen, Claudie and our actress Amy are all able to meet up at my house on Sunday. Elliot cannot make it therefore we agreed we could start by filming the beginning of our introduction as it only includes Amy anyway. We had some time to spare in class so we were given permission to go to my house to set up the victim's MSN account. This would save us lots of time that could be taken out of our filming on Sunday. We chose a photograph for her display picture as a girl that contrasted her. Amy has black hair so the photo we picked was of a blonde girl. This way it would be obvious to the audience that Amy is lying about what she looks like.

Photos of our filming process

Plans for our Main Task

In our lesson today, we came up with possibilities for our main task. We shared each other's thoughts and came up with a storyline that included a bit of each of our ideas. We decided upon a young girl who pretends to be someone she's not over MSN Messenger and meets a guy, who is actually an older man, but she does not realise this. Little does she know he was been stalking her, he knows where she lives and he knows that she really looks like (not the girl she has in her display picture). In the end he turns up at her house, and our introduction will end as she notices him. Once this was decided, we started to plan who we wanted to act in our thriller introduction, and our shooting location(s). We thought of filming her walk home down an alleyway but I thought this was quite cliché so I suggested filming it down my road because it is private therefore we will not often get interrupted by passing cars or people, and there is two long roads in which I thought we could film the very beginning down, where we would have the girl walking back from school towards the camera, frequently fading in and out as she got closer and closer. We went to my house and tested out these shots by taking photos. Whilst we were there, we looked around my house to decide upon suitable rooms to set each scene in. For the part where the girl is on MSN, we were torn between two rooms. A room in the back of my house surrounded by glass windows, which we thought would be more frightening outside and could place her stalker outside of the room looking in. The other possibility was my study connected to the kitchen. This room had a more warm and welcoming feeling but it was linked onto the kitchen which made sense as she would not have to walk far once boiling the kettle which we want to include in our film. For this reason, we chose this room, because it was more practical and already contained a computer and desk.

CASTING for our main task:

School girl: 'Sophie' - Amy Williams
Stalker: 'Sam' - Elliot Williamson

COSTUME for our actor and actress:
School girl - school uniform.
Stalker - Normal clothes, perhaps a hoodie and jeans.

The school uniform will show the age of the girl, contrasting with the age of the man as it will become clear that he is not as young as the girl thinks he is.

The stalker will be wearing normal everyday clothes, anything else will be too obvious and "try hard". His attire will be dark, as he doesn't want to stand out.
The darkness of his clothing will emphasize his dark intentions.

Finding and Importing music

Music was a key part to any movie. Without it a film can be dull and boring. Music adds emotion and feelings, and so today Ellen and I tried to find a sound that would make the viewers of our Preliminary Task feel nervous and create tension. We started off by opening GarageBand, something neither of us had really worked with before but we were keen to learn. After listening to what we thought would fit into our film, we agreed upon the sound 'Pulse', which was a deep sort of drone. In order to upload it, we had to save it into iTunes then drag it into the chosen section of our film. The first time we used it was at the start. In the background there is distinct background noise and someone talking. We did not intend for this to be there but it actually worked out because it is based in a school and therefore there is bound to be caretakers, teachers or other pupils around. Because the sound is clearly in the distance, it made it seem as though there were people available to help, but she was unable to call for them which brough sympathy amongst the victim. A door then slam shuts, showing that her chance of help had gone, so this is where we placed our first clip of sound. The phone then starts ringing too but she is clearly unable to reach for it so we felt the music emphasized her helplessness. Our second clip of film is once the killer has walked away... There is a final zoom in high angle shot of the victim, so the sound here is used to show she is alone again and make the audience feel tense and anxious as to find out what will happen to her. We set the music to fade out on this bit as the killer walks away, leaving the audience unsure as to whether he is leaving or where he is going next. Music is not needed in the next section of our film because there is dialogue, and we didn't want music to distract the audience from what was being said. Finally, there is a ver short section of the sound at the end when the door slams shut; like the beginning of the film. The music emphasizes the sound of the door shut, and the closure of the scene as he walks away.
We used the same sound throughout our film because we wanted it to run smoothly, and if the audience felt tension from the first time they heard the sound, they would feel it again everytime they heard it again, knowing something is bound to happen. If we had used different sounds each time I feel it would have made our film look messy.

We saved it into our itune folder and then dragged it into a specific section of our film. We added it into three different sections of our film. It starts in the first shot, when the phone rings, then dies out after the phone stops ringing. It then begins again to coincide with the zooming in on the girls arm after being thrown down the stairs and continues through the section where the thriller is walking down the corridor.Eventually it restarts at the end when the credits skim across the screen, this is used to conclude the drama and tie up the horrific event which has taken place.I really like the music, it is not cliche and does not spoil the dramatic ambiance of the scenes. It is subtle and fades into the action to spook out the audience.

Final editing

Today we made the final additions to our preliminary task. Previously we had been working on our film almost every day, so we left it a few days and looked at it with a fresh mind. It was then clearer to see what needed to be added, and what needed to change. We noticed we lacked transitions between key areas in our film, such as after the first scene when the victim is on the stairs and at the start. Here we added a 'fade from black' transition. We chose black because it represents evil and darkness, which sums up the type of movie we were creating. After this, we added a 'fade to white' transition just before we see the killer walk down the corridor. White was appropriate for this as it contrasts with the black, representing the girl's innocence. If we had used black again it would have seemed like a closure, as black was used at the beginning too. So white also kept the scene flowing. The last transition was 'zoom out', which was used before the clip of the door slamming, making it zoom out through the glass as we see the killer walk into the distance.This transition merges the closing of the classroom door and a shot through the door of him walking away, which meant we didn't have to film him doing this as the transition ties the two scenes together making it apparent. It was my idea to do a final shot through the door because I felt this would be more original than another standard shot behind or infront of the actress. The lines on the door are in focus causing the killer to become blurred, which works well by showing that he is leaving and his job is done. To finish off, we added another 'fade to white' transition because black was not neccessary; although the victim was hurt, the twitch of her finger in the first scene meant it was not over. She was not dead, and so the white transition sort of represented "a light at the end of the tunnel". There was hope for her, this is why we chose white.