Christmas Break

The blog will be taking a two week break due to the Christmas holidays.
We are all feeling very positive about the project and left it at a good stage today with positive feedback from Miss Thrasher and friends in the class. The soundtrack has been added and small things need to be changed here and there to make the sequence sharper, but all in all we are well on the way.
Really looking forward to more work on it next term,
Merry Christmas everyone!
-Alice, on behalf of the group.

Sounds

Yeh...that does sound good...but I'm thinkin when we get Laura in to do her dialogue, we could get Barney to try and scream? I dunno if he would b able to and whether it would be believable but we could try so that it's a bit more realistic. Oh and good idea to join..those free downloads will be really useful.

- Mel -

An update on Sounds

Sounds:
I've been on soundsnap.com again, and i'll link the sound of the man screams to the blog in case you two have a look at the blog tonight and can listen to them before tomorrow.
Click here for man Screaming
I was thinking 8th down, descibed as 'adult man scream' and we could have it loud and use key frames to make it quiet?
Ive joined the webiste and we get five free dowloads - so we can choose five sounds and we're away :) !
-Alice xxxx

Soundtrack

I've been looking on http://www.freeplaymusic.com/ and found some good ones.
I found one called 'abandoned 60' im not sure, it might be a bit too 'intense'
We'll see. Discuss this DEFFO tomorrow.
See you ... xxxxxxxxxxxxx
-Alicee
Oh - i've also been looking at sounds.
I found a mobile phone dialtone thingy
http://www.soundsnap.com/search/audio/mobile+phone+dial/score
i thought the last one on this page could work because it's really quick.
it might look a bit rubbish though, but we can try it out.
On a roll now, found this awesome knife picking up sound.
http://www.soundsnap.com/search/audio/picking+up+a+knife/score
The second one is the best. We could put this in to emphasise the movement.
These doorbell sounds are also quite cool. The third one down is spooky.
http://www.soundsnap.com/search/audio/doorbell/score

The Editing Process

Aarti and I have been busy editing and we have made great progress.
Today in the one free period we had together we were discussing the dialogue and we were having difficulties with differences in weather with the scenes with Barney outside.
ALSO - issues with the dialogue. The sound is terrible at the moment, there's a lot of camera noise in some shots, and little camera noise in other shots - i'm not sure why.
Sometime this week at lunchtime we will have to record dialogue, preferably when Mel is back and well again because i'm not around most lunchtimes this week due to the carol service and dentist appointments. So ... we need to get that done urgenetly.
Also - we need to really think about the soundtrack and try and get that sorted by the end of the week. Foley effects too, i was thinking we could have the "beeps" of her dialing the phone or something? And a scream at the end?
I really hope the soundtrack will help add to the eerie inside mood we were trying to create.
I really hope everthing will start coming together this week.
- posted by Alice on behalf of the group.

Samples...

These our some samples of our sheets used for planning, and during shooting:




- Posted by Mel, for the group -

The Third Shoot

Today we managed to finish shooting all of the outside Barney shots despite the poor weather.
Hopefully the footage will be fine, and we will be able to edit it into the sequence we've already started, next week.
When we edit we need to take care with putting the recorded dialogue to the image because we will need to get the timing right.
I was thinking we should record the sound of dialing on the phone as she dials the number.
We also need to re-record Laura's dialogue because we changed the time from 7:00 to 5:00.
We also need to record the two laughing together.
Since seeing the footage, i'm not sure if it will work having the laughter as she looks at the photo, but i think it would be a good idea to try it out.
-posted by Alice on behalf of the group

The clip from What lies beneath (at last!!)

Reflections on Teacher Feedback & on The Second Shoot

Today we managed to edit most of our sequence from the footage we shot last Saturday.
By doing this we were able to see which shots worked, and which didn't and we can therefore re-take the shots. At the end of the day, we were able to Show Miss B our sequence and she gave us useful feedback, suggesting ways of improving it and calming our nerves as we were very worried about a lot of our shots! Especially the outside shots of Barney.
Unfortunately, due to ill health, Barney was unable to come to the shoot tonight so we were unable to shoot what we had planned. Despite this, Miss was able to give us some advice on how to really improve our insdie shots of Laura.
Firstly, lighting. We all agreed that our shots look flat and we re-took these shots with lights from differnt angles in order to provide contrast. I think this was quite sucessful, and we managed to create intersting shadows with the bannisters in some of the shots and we'll see how effective these are when we capture on Monday. We also added candles to the Hallways shots and we think this really adds to the mise en scene.
Miss also had another really good suggestion - a steamy bathroom shot.
Initially we had the outside establishing shot, which then cut to the bathroom window, which then cut to an opening pan of the bedroom.
Miss said this would work, but then after watching the rest of the sequence we all decided that it would be a LOT more effective if we made Laura seem perfectly normal without revealing that she's slightly odd (by showing the candles and photoframe) until later on in the sequence.
To make this possible, she suggested including Steamy Bathroom shots! We managed to do these tonight, and we are all quite happy with the footage. We filmed through the shower screen her showering, with all the steam etc, and then her stepping out the shower. For continuity purposes, we had to make sure the back wall wasn't seen because the next shot is her leaving the bathroom and it's a differnt bathroom, where the walls are white - NOT bright blue.
Other shots we re-took are the last two shots, because we felt they were too dark.
We are lot happier with the footage now, and we plan to shoot the outisde shots with Barney next Saturday (13th) so we have all this week to edit the insdie sequence with Laura.

-posted by Alice on behalf of the group

Friday 5th

In today’s lesson we continued editing our sequence together concentrating mainly on the girl, walking out of the shower and getting ready, and a few of the kitchen shots. It was good as it helped us realize what shots need redoing due to continuity problems, or other things such as the shot being too dark, and objects in the background that shouldn’t be there. It was also helpful as we saw that some shots were unnecessary and took up a lot of time so we decided to get rid of them (for example picking up lipstick). We also played around with the sound testing our shower and doorbell sound bridges and we’re very pleased with the way they bring our shots together. Overall we found some shots like the pan of dressing table or putting on towel need to be a bit quicker so that it doesn’t get boring to watch.

Although we had planned to do a full reshoot of the street shots with Barney after school, and a few of Laura’s shots, unfortunately Barney became very ill and had to go home which was a bit of a problem as we need to reshoot nearly all his shots and we don’t have the weekend to do this. However, we managed to solve this problem deciding to use our back-up weekend, next Saturday to reshoot instead. We are still planning to go ahead with tonight’s shoot however so we can get all of Laura’s shots done.

Here’s a List of things we need to Re-shoot

-Establishing shots (2)
- Shot of upstairs corridor and bathroom door
-Barney walking in the park (towards, low level feet, pan through gate)
- LS of Barney walking down street
-CU of Barney on the phone
- Still of Barney walking into frame towards the front door
- Side of Barney at the door, waiting/ringing the doorbell

-CU of Laura’s scary smile (without lights on ceiling)
-Laura picking up knife from behind (more light)
-POV shot of the kitchen clock
-Laura stepping out of the shower
-Laura leaving bathroom

I’m sure today will go well as we are very clear on what we need to get done as we met at Lunch to make a shooting script, and we have done it all once before. We will definately get all Barney’s shots done next weekend.
-Aarti, for the group

In our lessons yesterday and today we watched through our footage and started to edit some of it. This helped us see the issues with the continuity of light in the outside shots, and a smudge on the camera that we didn't notice while watching the footage on the shoot, so therefore we're going to have to retake a lot of the shots of Barney. We're also going to have to retake the establishing shot. In Friday's lesson we're going to see if we can edit the part where Laura takes a match out of the box and lights it, as at the moment the way we have edited it, it doesn't work very well. If editing it differently doesn't work either we will have to reshoot those scenes of Laura as well.

- Mel, for the group -

Aarti

HEY, i found your media folder in the common room, so i handed it into the media block.
just though i'd let you know incase you were worried about it
:)
xxx

Yeah! that's a good idea...Laura suggested Vultra Christophis but I agree with the having normal names. Lets think about it by tomorrow. Here's a picture to help us match names to their faces:



-Aarti

Names for the Characters

I was thinking about what we could call the characters other than 'girl' and 'guy', I know we don't find out their names in the opening sequence but I still think we should give them names. But ye, I thought that Laura is actually a good name for the girl character, another reason why Laura is perfect for the role! And I thought we could call the guy like Daniel or Luke, because I think he should have a 'normal' name but it has to suit him and I think those names do. Let me know what you think.
- Mel -

First Shoot

Yesterday (Saturday 29th) we had our first real shoot and we had some big problems at the beginning because of loads of cars on the road, and other irritating background sound. The worst was heavy rain that you could really hear hitting the umbrella we were using to protect the equipment. Apart from this the shoot went quite well.
We solved the problem of the rain on the umbrella by recording some atmospheric sound of outside to replace the real sound of the outdoor shots. After having a well deserved break we got started on our indoor shots. These worked a lot better than the outdoor shots as we didn't have the weather, or other background sound, to worry about. The lighting all worked well for us and although it meant we left Alice's house at 10.15 (the shots took a lot longer than we initially thought they would) we managed to take all of our shots, exactly as we planned them, which will mean that if anything has gone wrong which we didn't notice while filming, we will have time to reshoot them on Friday.
We were also lucky to have actors who played their characters well and who didn't complain about being cold, although we had them outside in the rain (Barney had to film in the rain without an umbrella for quite a while), and who didn't complain about the filming taking longer than expected.
There are still some things that we need to do (which we will do as soon as possible this week):
- Recording the sound of Laura and Barney laughing together for when she 'hears' the picture
- Recording Barney's side of the dialogue
- Check the lighting, the footage for dialogue and her leaving the bathroom for continuity (we will do this in our lesson on Tuesday while we capture the footage)

- Mel, for the group -

Creating Our Own Track

Although we wished to use the dolly in order to create a track, it was too wide for the hallway we wished to film in. Instead we attempted to create our own track using a wheely chair. Here are a few pictures:

Alice is looking really enthusiastic about this track...

Off we go...

Laura posing nicely...
Oh dear! It didn't quite work haha

- By Aarti

More Pictures from the Shoot

Filming outside before the rain started

Aarti and Alice filming the 'atmospheric shower sound'

Filming the female character leaving the bath

Making sure Laura actually looked like she had just had a shower

Giving Laura some notes

- Mel -

Pictures from the First Shoot

The group :)

The candles, and 'shrine'. This is part of the opening pan.

Aarti enjoying her pizza on a well deserved break!

-Aliceee

Photo For Her Dressing Table

These are the shots that we decided look quite good, plus one that I think might work:

In the top two shots they look like a happy couple, which is how we wanted the shot to look.

In this shot (above) they look happy and are laughing which I think would work well if we decided to have her 'hear' the picture as it would mean the sound could directly relate to the shot, however I don't know if the picture would look as could when it is printed out, and in the first shot (two above) hearing them laugh would also relate to the shot.

UPDATE: The shot we chose to use to put on her dressing table is the first shot.

These are the other shots we took:
Although these shots would also work the others are better

- Mel -

An Early Storyboard of Shots

We have changed this storyboard slightly since the test-shoot for continuity purposes and made it more detailed. We completed our final storyboard today and I think it works much better now!
- Aarti

Meeting 28th November

In our meeting today we've ensured that we're completely sorted for our real shot tomorrow. We've taken the picture of the actors that will be in the photoframe on her dressing table and Mel will post these tonight. Also, we finished our storyboard and shooting script, including when we're taking breaks. We have also checked our equipment to make sure it's all ok, and everything's there. We've also agreed on who's bringing what to the shoot. (Mel: napkins, towel etc, Aarti: Photoframe), we're filming at Alice's house so everything she's providing will be at her house already. Now that we're ready, we're looking forward to the shoot and hopefully everything will go to plan.

Ye I thought of that aswel (paying for food for them) so thats fine with me. Also I think the dress with roses would be best but I'm thinking maybe we shouldn't have a ribbon. We don't really need it and I think that continuity is more important than the ribbon.
In the meeting we were having a few issues with the part of the sequence where she lights the candle and he rings the doorbell so hopefully we can sort that out tomorrow.

- Mel -

Costume

Tomorrow we also need to discuss costume properly.
It's all a bit hectic, but did we finally decide on the pink Roses dress for Laura? And then her just tying a ribbon behind her? The only difficulty with this, is that the ribbon may continually fall etc and would make continuity a bit more difficult. What colour ribbon would we want? I have red.
Also need to ask Barney to wear nice smart shoes and trousers. Wrap up warm with a coat etc :)
- Alice

The Script is good :) We'll print it off for Barney and Laura tomorrow.
I've told Laura about the short meeting at lunch, but not Barney yet.
How did the meeting go today? Sorry I couldn't be there :(
Tomorrow - we need to go over the storyboard, make sure everythings okay and we know what shots we are taking, then establish a shooting script!
Hopefully make this as detailed as possible, just to make Saturday go a lot smoother :)
Aarti and I were thinking of ordering pizza Mel, so if you bring some money and we'll pay for Laura and Barney to say thanks :) If that's okay with you?
I can't believe saturday is the real shoot!!
It's all come round so quickly, but everything's planned and ready and we've practised so BRING IT ON :D (hahahahaha)
-Alice

Meeting 27th November

We had a quick half hour meeting today(27th November),although Alice couldn't be there and got further ahead with the storyboard although we didn't manage to finish,and we had some issues of how to do the part of the sequence where he arrives at the house and she lights the candle and picks up the knife. This meant we didn't get a chance to start the shooting script but we have a lesson and a meeting tommorow. In the lesson and meeting we need to:
- Complete the storyboard
- Complete the shooting script
- Take a picture of the actors together
- Organise the props we need and sort out who's bringing them

- Mel - for the group

Sixth Meeting

In the lesson we captured our footage and got a chance to edit some of it. It helped us really think about the continuity of our sequence and we got to see which shots we prefered. This meant that we could start our final storyboard, which we started in our meeting at lunch.
In tommorows meeting we need to:
- Finish the storyboard
- Start the shooting script

Posted for the group by Mel

Final script:
Girl: "Darling - you were meant to be here at 8:00. You're two minutes late "
Guy: "Ahh gosh yes I know, Sorry I'll be there soon. I'm just at the bottom of your road."
Girl: "Okay - well ... It's almost time (small pause?) for dinner."
Guy: "Okay I''m on my way - Love you."
(both hang up)

Thanks for the ideas Alice, I wasn't quite sure what they should say lol, I did change it a bit so let me know what you think

- Mel -

Ye I think 3.30 is a good time for Barney to arrive. Laura arrive at 5/5.30? I love the idea of him saying 'love you' and her ignoring him, dunno if u did that intentionally or not but I think it would work really well. And I think if the pause after time would work but I think we should try it both ways, and in editing we'll see what looks better.

- Mel -

No problem :) I'll txt Barney to double check -
script yeahh, something really simple like:

"Darling - you're two minutes late. You were meant to be here at 7:00"
"Ahh gosh yes i know, Sorry i'll be there shortly. I'm just at the bottom of your road."
"Okay - well ... It's almost time - for dinner."
"Okay Darling, i'm on my way - Love you."
(both hang up)

Maybe a slight pause after time? Actually, i dunno. We'll talk about this tomorrow. And make it loads better. How long did we want it?

ALSO, we need to arrange times. What time do we want barney to arrive? What time do we want Laura to arrive? We need to sort this out cause it's not really fair if we give them really short notice. I was thinking Barney 3:30? We'll arrive before that to set everything up, but the light starts to fall at four, so we can start filming then. We'll have to do all the park shots at once, so if the light does fall slightly, then it's okay because he's moved on in his journey and it will make sence. Hopefully we'll get all those shots done in an hour and a half? We'll have to take at least two/three takes of everything for editing purposes.

I just realised we need to set up the picture that will go in the frame, sometime this week. Alice if you could talk to Laura and Barney and they could come to our meeting on Friday lunch and quickly pose for one. I'm going into Enfield on Friday anyway so we can take it on my camera and I'll print it like a proper photo in Boots.
Also we need a script for the actors, not that they say much but we could put a description of what they actually need to do actingwise as well. I'll do that now and we can give it to them when we take their picture.

- Mel -

More Photos of Test Shoot

Actors

Hi guys - as promised, here is the picture of Laura:

We have decided to cast Laura Christophis to play the role of the male female character (still need to come up with a name for her and the guy!) She goes to our school and we really feel she'd play the character well.

Why we think she would be good for the part:
Number One: She's available on the days! she's penciled in the dates we plan to shoot in her planner and is really enthusiastic about it all :)
Number Two: HER HAIR. her hair is awesome! And we can make it all huge and scary looking for her role. It would really add to the character.
Number Three: HER EYES. She has really prominant eyes, which we can definately use to our advantage. When lighting the candle she can look all wide eyed and .. yeah .. really really scary!
Number Four: She has lots of experience with drama. She did GCSE and was in Great Expectations last weekend. Also - she's been in previous media films for other students in previous years.
Number Five: She's really nice :) and she'll be really fun and easy to work with.

-By Alice

I just had an idea about the sequence. Not that important now but we could do a section of it that turns into black and white with just the red things in colour. Tbh I'm not quite sure how to do it but I thought it would look quite good.
Also I spoke to my cousin and he said that the burns on his face are quite bad and so he doesn't think he would be right for the park.
- Mel -

Female Character's Makeup/Hair

For the test shoot I did my hair and makeup how we imagined the female character's hair and make up to look. I think it looked really good but for the real thing I think her hair should look a bit more messy and the eyeliner should be a bit more over the top.

- Mel -

Test Shoot Pictures

- Mel -

BLK feedback

do hope the test went well girls - looking forward to seeing the footage :-)

can we have a group photo please? ...
oh one's just gone up, that was quick!

An Idea

High Angle shots of the girl would make her seem more vulnerable. It would make the Shock more Shocking when we reveal that she actually is the 'baddie'.

In the same way, we could have LA shots of the guy to make him seem more sinsiter & powerful and therefore much more likely to be a killer.

What do you think?

Heyy guys...sorry i didn't get a chance to check the blog yesterday but all the prop ideas sound really good...i've found a red handbag, really simple red jewelerry box thing, a red tie for the guy and two fake red roses =) haha we're all going a bit red mad! Also Alice i think your corridor shots are really good and it would make it more interesting to shoot that scene from all different angles!...See you guys tomorrow!!...oh yeah i've also got a camera now so can take pictures tomorrow of 'the process' etc lol

The Treatment

A girl is getting ready for a date, while simulataneously her boyfriend is walking down the street on the way to her house. Towards the end of the sequence we find that everything is not as innocent as it seems. There will be an underlying theme of obsession, which we will see hints of in the girls room. It will have a classic narative pattern with cross cutting between the girl and her boyfriend. There will be non diegetic sound in the form of a music track playing over part of the sequence, although this will not be all the way through, and will be broken up with diegetic sound including a shower, dialogue and footsteps. It is set in a house and along a street, and is quite dark and spooky. A key colour will be red and it will have low lighting. The overall look is quite dark and eerie but also elegant. This will be reflected in what the characters will be wearing, a smart dress and a suit. The female character is elegant and organised to the point of being obsessive and a control freak. The male character is quite nervous and eager to impress. There will be mostly still shots although there will be some pans and tracking shots. The sequence will show that he's feeling rushed but this will show through the acting and music rather than through the camera work. It will be a mostly continuous sequence of the girl but there will be some cross cutting to her boyfriend.

Posted By Group

omg yeah! that sounds wicked!! (the height order thingg)
We'll deffo try that out on Monday!
I bought four red candles. Got soo excited and texted you both. lol - the little things in life ...
they were only 50p each, so i bought four, which means we can use them in the test shoot on monday , therefore we can - try out the lighting, try out striking the match and using that light to show her face. etc. !!

I love the idea of high angle shots of her leaving the bathroom, I think that would look really good and will give it like a hint of unease even before we know we should be a bit uncomfortable if u get what I mean.
Also I was thinking we could organise the dressing table to make it really obvious that she's abit of a control freak. Like everything is in height order or something else thats really obvious.
- Mel -

Location Shots

Mel - those glasses are really good! :D much better than the ones i have.

I was thinking about the issues we had when storyboarding the bathroom scene and i've taken some pictures of that corridor area. I don't think i mentioned before that i have another staircase there. So we could get High Angle shots of her leaving the bathroom or walking into the bedroom. Or film it through bannisters or something. I've taken pictures and uploaded them, So if you both have a look and think about it, then on Monday we can try out diff shots and see which work/which don't.

Here they are:


Here's the clock and the fireplace in sara's room. I couldn't really take the picture properly because we have beds set up in her room atm with family coming to stay. (no worries, they'll be gone by monday) Do you think the clock works? We wouldn't have to have it on the fireplace, we could have it on the dresser, because it would match the wood. But do we think the clock works? Let me know.
"It's two minutes past eight ... "

Yep - here's the corridor. Door to your left is the bathroom, door to the right is Sara's room.

Ariel. Really high, looking directly down. It's a bit odd, but i thought i'd see what you thought.

Props

Yeh they do sound quite good. I just called my sister (I'm not home) and she's gonna take a pic of our wine glasses and I'll post the pic as soon as she sends it to me.

Here's the glasses:
I thought they would be quite good because they're those ones that suposedly fit half a bottle so when you only put a bit of wine in them they look really good.


- Mel -

Props

Ohhh wine glasses. Good point - ( i just this second posted a blog about props, and that was one thing i forgot to include! haha )
You can bring them if you want, but it's not absolutely necessary because for the test shoot i have loads of glasses, and you'll have all the equipment and stuff to bring.
I just looked in my cupboard & we have glasses with little bubbles in ( lol ) which i dont think would be suitable. And we also have glasses with like a swirl around them. Which are quite elegant and could work.

Those candlesticks are perfect, they'll look really good with red candles in them. And that knife is so good, I can really imagine the final shot now I've seen that and more of your kitchen.
Btw do u want me to bring the wine glasses for the test shoot? or should I not bother?
Thats so funny, just as you posted the props we needed I was writing the list out lol
- Mel -

Props

We discussed this yesterday in our meeting, but here is a list of things that we need to get/find somewhere in our house or to buy:
(please update the list, because i've more than likely forgotten some!! ) :)
1) White towel
2) Photo frame - picture of the girl and the guy. (More discussions on Actors needed. We can do this on Monday:) )
3) Red Nail varnish. I have a perfume bottle with a red lid. My sisters got a little red clock. etc , just general 'girly' things that we can put on the dressing table.
4) Phones - Aarti mentioned a more old fashioned house phone to fit in more with the 'elegance'. We'll see what we can do!
5) Red Necklace - if no one has one , then i was in M&S yesterday and they have like a whole array of red jewelerry. It's quite dear though, but if one of us likes it and will wear it again then that's something we can do.
6) Clothes - i spoke to Laura about the dress yesterday. We were talking about the one with the roses on that she wore to Rememberance day - but it's a zip up the side dress. And we wanted to have a shot of her tying it from the back ...
She mentioned a navy blue dress that has a ribbon at the back. Navy blue can be quite elegant?
I also have a black dress that i think would be really suitable, but i don't know if it will fit. We'll also discuss this on monday.
7) Red Lipstick - got this covered! :) haha, thanks Mel.
And i have really light foundation. Eye liner etc is easy to do.
Lots more discussion needed on the guy ...
8) Red Wine
9) Roses (we said we were going to put dried out roses in the fireplace as well -Mel-)
10) Some sort of knife
11) Matches
12) Wine Glasses! (-Mel-)

-Alice

Location - More on Alice's house.

I went around my house and re-took some of the pictures i took last time but didn't upload because the files were too big they took far too long to upload. So here they are -

When we were dicussing a high angle shot of the stairs? I should take some pictures of the stairs through the bannisters and from below as well.

These are the candle sticks i was talking about - I'm going into Enfield today so i will have a look for some red candles!


Hahahaha this pictures makes me laugh.

Street at night - as you can see it's quite well lit. But the reddy glow is due to the setting on my camera. So on Monday when we test shoot at night - we'll see if the footage is far too dark. HOPEFULLY!! it won't be! :)

I thought even the chairs in my kitchen are quite 'elegant' and would fit in well with the mise en scene.