Animatic Storyboard and Group Progress

During the process of story boarding, we decided we would make two versions of the storyboard, a photo storyboard and a animatic storyboard. The purpose of the photo story board is to show the pictures that the group went out and took which could be appropiate and taken into consideration when we are setting our film. The purpose of the anamtice storyboard is to show how we have planned the film and to show the drawings of the scenes we have done. We will film these drawings and speak over the top of them to explain what is happening.

The photo storyboard is now compeleted and has been uploaded. The animatic storyboard is still in progress but as a group we set the deadline for completeing this by the next time we meet. The reason it is not yet finished is because we had a few problems with the transitions which had been written on to drawings to show the transitions we would use. Members of the group disagreed on which transistions should be used so a group meeting was called to discuss this. We decided as a group that the fade transition should only be used to show a passing of time and not to go between film clips. The problem was resolved and we continued to work on the filming of the story board. The group is now back to working very well together.

Photo Storyboard

This presentation is an alternative to our animatic storyboard which will be posted after completion next week. It features photos of example locations and camera angles that we will use in our film. It also includes the approximate duration of each slide, although this could be subject to change when we have produced our final script.

Photo Storyboard
Jenny Carter- 4122

Similar Media Works Presentation

This is our similar works presentation

Similar Media Works

In order for the group as a whole to have a greater understanding of horror films and the way that they work, we needed to research all of the different aspects of the horror genre. This then enables us to have a wide range of knowledge that we can apply to our own horror film, and we can ensure that it is as effective as possible.

Our Similar Media Works Presentation required a lot of work, so as a group we broke up everything that we felt we needed to include so that we each had a small amount.

Jenny was given the task to create slides for: Audience Expectations,Editing techniques,Generic Symbols and a analysis of a film.

Abi was given the task to create slides for: Target Audience, Mise-en scene technical codes and a film analysis

Lauren was given the task to create slides for: Story line- Character-Setting, Technicals codes, Camera Angles and an analysis of a film.

Laura was given the task of creating slides for: Dictionary Definitions, Common Elements, Ideology and a film analysis.

It was all put together as a group and put onto our group blog.

Film Brief

Creating a film brief gave us an overview of exactly the type of piece we are creating and what we hope to achieve from it. It also meant that if needed, we could explain our idea to someone clearly and concisely as all relevent event information is included within the brief. In industry, if someone was to become ill or unavailable to complete the film, the film brief and storyboard would be integral in conveying the ideas to the individual taking over the project. In all, the film brief is vital to making both group members and other individuals aware of the exact content of the project.

Film Brief
Jenny Carter- 4122

Similar Media Works and Film Brief

At today's meeting we worked separately to complete tasks more efficiently with the intention of staying ahead of schedule. Abi and Laura worked on their sections of the Similar Media Works presentaion while Lauren began to put the presenation together with slides that had already been completed. I began typing up the film brief which Abi and I began to discuss and make notes on in at the last meeting.
We have planned for tomorrow's meeting to involve collating all the completed slides for the Similar Media Works presentation to create the final project and to film and produce the animatic storyboard. We will also be uploading the completed storyboard photo presentation- an alternative to our animatic storyboard which features photo examples of the type of location we intend using.
Our group seems to be making good use of our time so far which should then ease pressures of time-constraints when it comes to casting and location scouting. Hopefully we can continue to work at this efficency for all upcoming tasks.

Group Work Update

The group completed work of a very good quality on Friday the 20th of November. We are very much up to date with all the tasks that have been set as we are managing our time incredibly well.

We split up again so we could get the most amount of work done in the time given. We done the following tasks:
Write up of our horror remake
Gantt Chart Update
Photo story board presentation

These tasks are finished now and will be added to the blog.

For our storyboard we decided it would be best to do two, one as a photo storyboard that we would make as a power point presentation, showing pictures the group had gone out and taken of settings that look similar to that of which we would use in our film. The second story board will be an anamatic, it is hand drawn and we will film it with a voice over explaining what is going on.

Gantt Chart 2

Gannt Chart 2

Storyboard updates

The group got together once more to discuss where we wanted to take the progressing storyboards. We needed to decide several things in order to make even further progress with our storyboards to ensure that we have throughly planned out our film and it is all a lot easier for us when it comes to actually creating the film.

We again split up to work on seperate tasks so that we could make sure that we had covered all areas of the work being carried out and we could meet the deadlines with time to spare to make any amenments to the finished piece of work before posting it.

The Group at work:
Group Working

Horror Re-Make: The Shining 1960, Hallway Scene

As a group we were given the task to re-make a scene from a choice of horror films. We discussed all of the different options and decided that we wanted to re-make the hallway scene from The Shining. We chose this scene because we felt that it had lots of different camera angles and interesting techniques that we had not yet been able to experiment with. We wanted to experiment with these different angles and techniques because they are very common in horror films. This is because the genre of our project is horror. It is important that we know what kind of camera angles that are generic in horror films. We can then apply these techniques to our film to ensure that it is as effective as possible.

The group as a whole could also experiment with time and space management. We learnt about the importance of shot lists too which we can then apply to the actual filming and planning of our final piece. The group as a whole had a really good insight into just a few of the different things that we will need to think about and do before we can start to create a final film.

We had to get to grips with the editing software because it can be very slow and difficult to use when you have to work to a time scale. Through using the editing software again we were able to do further experiments with transitions and titles, which in the opening of our film with be key to its effectiveness. We were able to all take lots of ideas and thoughts from this process which we can then put into practise when it comes to the editing of our final film piece.

Overall we all learnt a lot about editing, filming techniques and generic horror elements which we can apply to our final piece and will be able to use this gained knowledge to ensure that the film is as good as it possibly can be.

The Shining Remakes

As Abi felt like she didnt have much input with the first remake that we created she created her own. This isnt a bad thing as we are able to compare and contrast the different remakes, commenting and looking at the different transitions and titles used. As a group we think that both these remakes helped us expand our filming and editing skills. We also learnt that we should plan our timings more carefully making sure that everyone has a chance at editing.

Final Storyboard boards

In the meeting today the group and I discussed the Final Storyboards that we will be completing before producing the script and final film. Using a text book and a handout that our teacher gave us we looked at sampler storyboards. These storyboards showed us what detail we need to add to ours and what information we have to include. We decided that as a group we will complete two storyboards.

Using the initial storyboard that we had completed previously we had already thought about what shot we are going to use and where. Knowing this the group split into two. Me, Laura and Jenny went out and started to take pictures that would be used on one of the storyboards. Taking pictures helped us visualise what shots we will use in the final film as we were able to think about what shots we would use and where we will film. After taking pictures I then started to hand draw the shots on paper and annotate them. Whist half the group Abi finished editing the Horror re-make.

Group Progress

Yesterday the group met to get through some more of the essential tasks which need completing. We thought it would work best and most effectivly if we split up so we could get more tasks done. We had to update our Gantt chart so it was up to date, write up a description of our horror film re-make and continue to edit our re-make.

We worked well as a group and a lot of work was done, the Gantt chart is now on the blog with the most updated copy. This will help us manage our time well and allow us to see who is meant to be doing what at a certain times. We will continue to update this as we get more tasks to do.

The re-make of the hallway scene from The Shinning is making good progress as we have all been working on it whenever we have spare time. We believe this task will be completed on time as we have managed the time well.

We also spoke more about our similar media works presentation, and we decided to split up each of the four films we have to analyse so each member of the group had to done one. We though this would work best as the work would get done more efficiently than doing all four as group. This will mean we can finish the presentation in less time and get on with other important task.

We are still working very well as a group and we will continue to complete tasks on time and meet deadlines.

Gantt Chart 1

Gantt Chart 1

Institute Logo

These images show the initial design for the institute logo’s. These were created on Photoshop using the basic editing techniques. These may be changed at a later date if the group decides that we don’t want to use them.

Rough Storyboard to fit narrative

Rough Storyboard 1
Rough Storyboard 2

Storyboarding and Narrative

Today we met as a group to discuss the narrative and therefore the plot of our piece in more detail. We brought forward our initial ideas from Monday's meeting and developed them through discussions.

We began by writing a narrative (see previous post) as a group so we were aware of the order in which the action of our piece will take place. Once our plot had taken shape and we were fully aware of when each scene took place, we were then able to look in more depth at elements of mise-en scene of our film such as the colours we will use as representations and the various camera angles we will use and what they will ultimately convey.

Abi began working on our draft storyboard initially, coinciding with the rest of the group working on the narrative. Lauren then added to the storyboard towards the end of the meeting.

We came up with more ideas for various elements to use within our piece which we discussed and included within our narrative and storyboard.
These included:

• A very fast montage of all previous scenes will be shown as the girl is murdered. This technique will add tension for the audience and alluding to the death rather than making it explicit is a typical convention of a psychological thriller/horror.

• When the girl is alone on the swing, some shots will be filmed from behind trees, filming by hand rather than using a tripod. This gives a sense of someone watching the girl (which ultimately is what is happening) and builds tension significantly.

• We decided that the girl should be blond and wearing light coloured clothing, conveying innocence and that the antagonist should wear dark colours and perhaps a hoodie as this sterotype would portray malicious intent.

Towards the end of the meeting we discussed which point of the piece would should display the institution logo. Our first though was that our piece should be a prelude to the main section of the film, therefore showing the institution logo at the end of the piece and seperating it from what is to come. We debated whether or not we should show the logo before or after the shot of the empty swing. After discussions we decided that we would show the logo at the beginning of the piece and again at the end but this time with 'element productions presents....' included within the logo and with the title (yet to be decided) following it.

Our next meetings will be used to work on our final storyboard and decide on a name for our piece. We are currently all working on sections of the 'Similar Media Works' presentation separately and once this is complete, will collate all our work combine it for our final presentation.

Narrative for our film

1. Institution clip, introducing the film.
2. Monologue of a news report over establishing shot showing forensic investigation of crime scene.
3. Couple arguing- Mid shot and eye line match.
4. Girl walks out of door, slamming behind her.
5. Table of notes on the escaped psychopath.
6. Psychopath running through the forest close up of feet.
7. Girl from couple sitting on swings alone.
8. Psychopath running through the forest close up of feet.
9. Psychopath looking through forest at girl sitting alone.
10. Psychopath approaches girl puts hand her on shoulder.
11. Montage of previous shots flashing quickly.
12. Empty swing, swinging leaving the audience to think about what has happened.
13. Titles roll.

Possible Names for the film

• The Mentalist
• The institution
• Swing

Similar Media Works Planning

Similar Media works planning

Similar Media Works

We need to research our genre of horror carefully so that we can see the typical elements of a horror film and include these in our film to ensure that it is as effect as possible. By doing some research it enables us to have a greater understanding of what we are doing and why the directors choose to include these elements. We will be able to understand the different camera angles, the mise-en-scene, the editing techniques, we will also be able to understand about the audience and their expectations. By having a greater knowledge of all of these areas we will be able to apply what we have learnt and use it in our film to ensure that it works as effectivly and is to the best standard possible.

We are currently working on our 'Similar Media Works' presentation in which we will research all of these different areas. We all sat down and discussed the key areas in which we feel needed to be covered for definate and then went over the outlining plan and added in any extra information that we feel should be included. We all worked well and managed to include all of our ideas and opinions so that we were all happy with the final plan for the presentation.

Once we had worked out our main plan for the presentation we broke off into two groups, in order to complete more tasks as not all four members of our group were required for each task, which needed to be completed. Jeni and Abi went to work on the gantt chart whilst also creating a youtube account for the group in order for us all to be able to upload videos.

Whilst Abi and Jeni were working on these tasks Lauren and I (Laura) worked on looking into the different areas of research that as a group we decided we needed to cover. Once we had taken a further look into these different ideas we decided that we should assign the different topics within the research to different memebers of our group so that the work load is shared. We created a greater element of organisation within the group.

By splitting into two different groups our group as a whole managed to complete more tasks and think more about what we needed to do to ensure that what we did do was done efficeintly and to a good standard.

Mindmap of ideas for our script

Brainstorm of Script

Script- Initial Ideas and Brainstorm

Within the group we discussed the initial script ideas. This was the first time that we had thought about what our opening scene was going to include and what it was going to be about. As a group we found this task hard. At first we were able to think about what filming techniques and elements that we wanted to include but we couldn’t think of a story line that included these elements and techniques.

We developed our ideas through discussions, allowing everyone in the group to speak and to listen to others and considered their ideas. Eventually we came to a rough decision that we all agreed on. This idea was constructed with all the groups input and ideas. Deciding on one idea did take some time but with all of the group’s contribution we were all happy with the idea that we had constructed. As a group we all thought we worked well.

Following our initial ideas we also thought about where we could possibly film and what props and costumes we could use. Although these ideas may change throughout the development of the project it gave us an idea to start with and something that we can build on.

As a group we discussed what we should put on our first group post and our first individual post. We talked about it as a group as we were all able to think about others ideas and what the best way to go about it was. We also started to think about a task list. We created a task list in our group, writing down and prioritising what tasks need to be completed, who by and when.