We took a long time deciding what Harriett was going to wear but in the end
we went for a casual look, but each item of clothing holds significance.
·The dark trainer shoes show that her character is quite
grungy and later in the film you would see that which is why her character isn’t
afraid to enter a scary looking house because she enjoys dark things
·The tight running trousers are to show the fact
that she is on a jog and that’s why she’s running past
·Her hoodie symbolises the coldness in the
weather and the fact that it’s a cold/windy morning which helps 'chill' the
audience without having to be there
·Her superman top has the most significance
firstly its shows her youth and secondly it signifies that her character will
play a hero role later in the film
When we went to visit our location I took pictures of the main aspects that we use in out film opening. I looked at lighting, angles, age of the rooms and the safety aspect. This are some pictures of the part of our location we can use for our film opening.
In this picture the background being more lit up captivating to the audience and makes the actor, Katie to become out of the dark and in to safety. It is a clear contrast in lighting and can be used to increase the tension of the piece.
This picture shows a main aspect we wish to use in our film opening which is a mirror, where we can use its reflection to show Lily at one point to terrify the audience, also we can use the reflection from the mirror of the light to contrast the darkness of the hallway.
This shot was effective as it shows the house being broken, wrecked and ruined. It gives the impression of abandonment and this shows the desired effect for our audience.
This is the front door from inside the building, this is a good place to film because the natural lighting is very strong and the ceiling, walls and floors are covered with dust, breaks and portrays a feeling of abandonment and loneliness which is what out film opening is based on.
This is really effective lighting and the position of the mirror and doll create an eerie, creepy atmosphere and scares the audience.
When we visited our location we took props with us and included them in a few shots, we used different lighting, camera angels and shots to create an effective piece to scare and increase the tension of the audience. We used a doll, teddy bear, mirror and a rocking horse as props and then used different location within the building with the props to scare the audience.
We believed some of the shots were effective, the lighting with the mirror and doll is really creepy and the slow pan increases the tension slowly, leading the audience to be on edge and feeling tense. The shot with the rocking horse was good but we put the horse in between the window frame so the lighting was not as good as it could be and so was not as effective.
We have decided that we want a child singing a nursery rhyme in the background of the opening titles. We feel that this will give it a twisted and uneasy feeling as we normally think of nursery rhymes as fun and happy things to sing. The inspiration behind us using a little girl singing is from 'The Women in Black' film opening because we like the use of the girls singing in the background. The song we have chosen is called 'Ring around a Rosy' These are the lyrics: Ring around the rosy A pocketful of posies ''Ashes, Ashes'' We all fall down We found this example of youtube of what we want it to sound like:
As you can hear the tone of her voice is quite creepy and because its slower it makes it much more eery. We are going to record a few girls, including our Actor Lily singing this and then we will choose the best one to put onto the soundtrack.
In our early brainstorms, we discussed the idea of using a nursery rhyme as a component of our score for our opening, as it would fit well with themes of children and innocence, and if we could warp and distort the nursery rhyme, it would support the fact that the little girl is also warped and twisted.
One of the props suggested was also a small, old music box, so I have also tried to incorperate this into the score.
I experimented using garage band, and began by recording the melody of the nusery rhyme ring a ring o roses using the onscreen keyboard, with the instrument set to grand piano (Default)
Ten I experimented by turning up the echo and reverb levels and the track below is with the reverb as high as it would go.
I also made the track more slick by correcting my timing mistakes by using the edit tool, which allows you to change the time, pitch and velocity of notes individually (see below)
I then tried adding another layer of a very low continious note, as a drone, as this is often used in the scores of horror films. I tried all of the piano types, and decided out of all them, retro bass was the best. So I added a long continious note on the bottom, however I discovered it is not possible to do a very long fade which is one of the things I wanted to try as I wanted to fade up so gradually the audience didn't notice when it began, as this would build the tension and sense of unease.
I then used the built in sampler tool, and recorded a note from a music box so I could play it using the keyboard and recorded the melody of ring a ring o roses using the music box instrument.
I also then used the small arrows above the keyboard to transpose it downward, so it wasn't as high pitched.
After showing these to the rest of the group we decided to begin with just the low music box for one verse, then repeat with the drone, then repeat with a child singing over the top, as this will link with our young girl character and make the score more relevant to the storyline, and will also help to slowly build up the tension throughout the opening, as because of our non-linear stucture we begin the story just before the climax in the narrative so there needs to be high tension.
Using a picture of our actress Lily we each made a film poster as a piece of homework. The task was to design a poster to promote our film opening and indicate to our audience the genre of film.
*Note: Tim Burton is not our co-director unfortunately
We have found a new location for our film opening, it is a Manor House at a Farm near Maidstone. This is also abandoned but contain a more safe and secure structure and also has good natural lighting and the building is also dated to where we wish to use.
This is pictures from outside the building and from one within the corridor. When we visit the location we shall venture inside and capture different rooms, shots, angles, lighting and possible spots to film Lily and Katie within.
When visiting our location to film our media we suffered problems which lead to not being able to film at the location, it had been boarded over so within the building there was no natural lighting, entrance or a sufficiently safe place to film with Lily.
We however were able to film from outside of the location with our young actress, Lily. We got some good shots, angles and effective clips of her and the location.
This was on the driveway leading up to the driveway and this were the shots we took showing the girl staring and following our main character, Katie.
This was outside of the door of the school and we thought this was effective as it shows the girl has moved and that she is there to scare and intrigue the other character. The shot of the location also show the broken elements of it, the doors, windows and building structure. This represents the girl also as being broken, lost and alone.
This is a great shot and angle because it shows the location really well but it also shows Lily very clearly holding a doll, which is one of our props. Her white dress also contrasts against the building to make her stand out.
After visiting our first location, we have realised that we need to take into consideration the safety aspects when we are filming. We have decided that we need to take certain precautions whilst filming to ensure the safety of the group and the actors. We are going to take a full first aid kit with us which will include;
ibuprofen
tweezers
alcohol wipes
antiseptic hand cleanser
medical adhesive tape
sterile gauze
elastic bandages
several sizes of adhesive bandages
bandage scissors
triangular bandages
instant cold packs
We will also need to make sure that we are all wrapped up warm as the set is outdoors and the weather is very cold. We will take spare blankets and warm drinks to keep the actors and the filming group warm through out the day.
Another thing we have now added to our filming sheet is the nearest hospital and the number to call incase there is an emergency. Also we have decided while walking round the building we shall wear hardhats incase of any falling degree that we could come across.
We will also make sure we have two fully charged and working phones incase we need to call in emergancy for any reason.
These are all safety precautions and shouldn't have to be used but they are there incase.
To obtain the best continuity possible, we decided we wanted to film all the footage we needed in one day of filming if possible. We are going to film on Sunday 3rd February and below is our schedule containing all of the timings and equipment we need.
Here is a video showing how the make up and hair will be done. I took a few pictures of Lily in the costume with the hair and makeup done which will be shown at the end of the video.
We were keen to use fake blood in our film opening, we thought we could use it to creep and scare our audience, we thought we could also use it as a colour element as we wanted to experiment with having the blood as the only colourful item.
So we made different batches of fake blood and tested them. We thought the less we made the more blood like it looked, as it was darker and thicker, however didn't spread on paper well so we experimented with different thickness and came to the conclusion to use a thinker substance made it look more blood like.
I wanted to show the props we thought to include in out film opening, we wanted them with the intent to scare the audience but also give the impression of victorian toys.
