Coursework project: Ready to go!

Tomorrow we are planning to go out and film all the footage for our two minute film introduction at Patrick’s grandparent’s farm.  Tom has got all the equipment, such as the camera, tripod, lights, microphone, headphones, boom pole, laptop and clapperboard ready to go, and I will be bringing the scrapbook prop and SD card, as well as the storyboard.

We weren’t able to procure a boom pole for our microphone as there weren’t any spare ones, so Tom had to improvise and make his own; he made it out of a telescopic cleaning pole, and it holds the microphone and recorder securely.

After toiling away and completing the whole Pre-Productions process, I look forward to moving on to the Production process and actually filming our coursework piece after so much planning and research.

Coursework project: Digital storyboard – Patrick’s work

Over the past few lessons Patrick has been working hard to create a digital/cartoon storyboard for our two minute movie opening on the website Storyboard That:

We wanted to have a storyboard like this as well as a hand drawn one so we had a variation and also to give us a slightly more accurate one, as my drawings weren’t the best; a digital one is slightly clearer and easier to understand.

Coursework project: Finished scrapbook

I finished adding the pictures to our scrapbook that we are going to use as our main prop in our two minutes film opening.  We had already added the main pictures of the medieval drawings/photos and I added the photos of the two boys, Tom’s nephew and his friend, who are going to be acting in our piece.  We decided that we wanted a photo of the two boys together at the start of the scrapbook and then we had already decided that we wanted the boys faces stuck on to the main pictures in the book; I crudely cut out their faces and stuck them over the top of the faces in the pictures.
  
  

I have left the last page blank because that is where we are going to stick the photo of the two boys looking at the scrapbook when we start filming.

Coursework project: Shooting script

Over the past few weeks within the group we have been writing a shooting script to go with our storyboards.  This tells us what shots we are going to shoot and the rough length of each one.  We left the audio column empty apart from the dialogue, of which there isn’t much as it is a relatively silent piece in terms of audio; we plan to use more diegetic and non-diegetic sounds.

Coursework project: Music research

Last week Charles and I did research into various different sound clips of suspense and mystery music to try and find out what kind of music we want to use in our coursework piece.  We mainly looked at Soundcloud as that was the website that seemed to have the biggest library and also was a website that wasn’t blocked on the school system.  Both Patrick and Tom, neither of whom were present when Charles and I were doing the research, listened to all the music links that we gathered and highlighted the ones that they liked and didn’t like.

From here, now we have decided which sound clips we preferred, we can start to decided where in the piece we want the music to be and what music we will actually use, but this will be more key when it comes to editing after Christmas when we have filmed.

Coursework project: Camera settings and Adjustments – Tom’s work

As part of preparation for filming Tom, who is providing the camera, decided to look at the camera and the different settings that it has so that we will be more confident and we will know how to use the camera properly when actually filming our two minute film opening.  Tom looked at the 3 main manual settings of the camera, which are the ISO, the shutter speed and the aperture.

ISO
Tom first looked at the ISO settings. The ISO setting changes the camera’s sensitivity to light, therefore allowing more light to hit the sensor, or less, depending on the circumstances. This can be used along with the shutter speed, to change the amount of light let into the camera over a certain period of time, and can completely change how the footage looks.

Shutter Speed
The shutter speed changes the number of times the shutter opens and closes per second, to let the light into the camera, and onto the sensor. The faster the shutter speed, the more light let into the camera over a certain period of time, and the crisper the footage looks. This can sometimes look less professional as using a fast shutter speed looks unnatural compared with the view from the human eye. When recording, the shutter speed should be about twice the FPS of the film, therefore if you are recording at 24FPS, the shutter speed should be around 1/50th of a second.

Aperture
The aperture changes the size of the hole, at the front of the camera, that lets the light into the camera. Changing this setting changes the exposure of the video. The higher the aperture, the more light is let into the camera. The lower the aperture, the less light let into the camera. This can be a useful setting to change if filming in an area of low light or high intensity light. This allows for better control of the light in the shot, and makes lighting the scene not so much of a problem, as the aperture can be adjusted to compensate.

Coursework project: Sound equipment

For recording sound when filming our two minute movie opening we will hopefully be using the school’s sound equipment, provided by the media department, as we do not have our own.  Sound in movies is vital we want to be able to record all the diegetic sound possible when filming.  We need to be able to hear all the dialogue from the characters and all the noises created by their actions, such as the rustling of paper as they turn the pages of the scrapbook.

The microphone that we hope to use is a ‘Rode VideoMic’, which is relatively lightweight and record audio well:

The microphone will be attached to a ‘Rode Micro Boompole’:

Coursework project: Camera

For filming our two minute film introduction we will be using a camera that Tom is providing as it will be easier for us than borrowing one from school.  The camera, which is Tom’s dad’s, is a Nikon D7100 and he can also provide a telephoto lens, which will allow us to film over long distances and at much  better quality; this will be perfect for establishing shots of the farmhouse.  The camera also works well in low light conditions, which is perfect for filming the scenes in the bedroom where the level of light will be quite low in places.

Coursework project: Costume design for normal people

As well as doing research into and thinking about the costumes of killers in movies, we also thought about the costumes of regular people in movies and how they’re dressed.  Costumes are one of the most important elements of a film, including those of the most average and normal of characters.

We had decided from the very beginning that we were never going to do a historical or period movie, as for starters, the costumes would be near impossible for us to obtain with the resources we have, not to mention everything else like props and location.  But even in a movie set in the present day, like Moat Farm is, we still need to think carefully about how to present our characters and how they come across, especially the two boys who are the focus of the piece.  We decided that we wanted the boys’ clothing to have an element of white in them to portray innocence.  However, we didn’t want them to wear all white as it would look odd and out of place; we just thought that normal clothing for a 10 year old, such as jeans and a hooded jumper, with elements of white, maybe like a white t-shirt or something similar, would be perfect.

Coursework project: Killer costume design research – Patrick’s work

As our coursework piece, Moat Farm, is going to feature a killer of some sorts, we decided we need to do some research into how killers are presented in films.  Patrick did this research and discovered that in the mystery/closed mystery genre, the genre we are pursuing, the killers are all similarly masked and their identities hidden, and because of this it is hard to find actual pictures of them.  He then researched further but into the horror genre this time to get ideas of what our killer could look like, and decided that horror costumes/masks fit into these 3 categories:

The Anthro-Mask

Mike Myers – Halloween

The Strangers – The Strangers

 

The Collector – The Collector

These costumes all feature masks that hid the killers identity but leave their eyes visible, meaning that their emotions and reactions are also visible to the victim and the audience.  This idea humanises the killer, which is why it is called the ‘Anthro-Mask’, anthro stemming from the word anthropomorphic, which means ‘to humanise’.  This allows the audience to connect with the victim and that there is the possibility for them to be in the same situation.

The Gross Out Mask

Pig Mask – Saw

Leather Face – Texas Chainsaw Massacre

Jason Voorhees – Friday the 13th

These costumes and masks are designed to be frightening and scary to the audience using gore or horrific concepts.  Because of our chosen genre this type of costume would be unsuitable for our piece.

The Blank Slate Mask

Ghost Killer – Scream

Animal Killers – You’re Next

The Strangers – The Purge

This costume design with these masks are designed to completely hide the killers face and their identity.  This makes it impossible to read their facial expressions and know what they are thinking, and therefore making it impossible to know what their intentions are.  This is easily the scariest design as it creates a natural fear, that of the unknown.  We would love to use an idea like this for Moat Farm but with the little time we have and the time needed to make this kind of mask it makes it unsuitable.  Plus, it would be very hard to actually make a decent scary and convincing mask that would look good, even if we did have a lot of time.

We decided that it would probably be best and easiest to give our killer a costume based on the ‘Anthro- Mask’ because it will be the easiest design to create with the time and resources.  It will also make our killer look more realistic and will hide their identity, which is the effect that we want; we want them to be completely unknown.