Costumes

My task in the new film is costumes. As the action takes place at night in a dark park, the outfits of the characters won’t show up very clearly on camera. The characters are wearing regular every-day clothes that fits with the environment they are in. The costumes are important to create the personalities of the characters, and to make them appear realistic. That is what we were trying to do here, even though it is hard to see exactly what the characters are wearing. The characters does not change outfits throughout this film, because we are only doing the opening scenes and all the action takes place in one night.

Reasearch – the Stepfather

The opening credits of “the stepfather” shows a man changing his look completely in a dark bathroom. The music has a scary undertone, and creates a very tensed feeling that grabs the audience’s attention. The audience knows this is going to be a thriller film because of the tensed music, the shots and the cutting. The man is also filmed in an angle that makes him appear powerful. Then the man walks into the kitchen, now looking like a completely different person, and we see him doing daily things like making a cup of coffee. Christmas songs are playing in the background. Suddenly a dead boy sitting at the kitchen table comes into focus, and the music goes tensed again, but we can still hear the Christmas songs playing very low, as if they are far away. As the man walks into the living room, we can see several bodies lying at the floor and in the sofa. Knifes covered with blood are lying on the floor, and the sink is full of other tools and more blood. Then the man takes his suitcases and leaves the house. Al the time the music is very tensed and creepy.

Evaluation of the Preliminary Task.

Considering we had only a few hours to film our preliminary task and the decisions to change the charachters and costumes, i think the end result was as good as we could make it. Are original idea for this task was to have myself playing a clumsy investigator who takes his job seriously interrogating an old woman, played by Jenni Dack. We encountered many problems in finding the costumes and getting into character to play these roles. To sort this out we changed our idea to a serious investigator, now played by Jenni Dack, interrogating a french exchange student played by myself. We decided to keep the genre as a comedy/thriller spoof as it still fitted in with the dialogue we had written and rehearsed.
The story line for this task is that the investigator is looking into a murder and trying to solve it. This leads to her interrogating a french exchange student who is believed to be a suspect. The french exchange student doesn’t entirely understand the english language, resulting in the investigator becoming angrier and angrier and storming out,  leaving the suspect alone in the investigation room. We wrote this story line as it then created some short comical lines for the characters and fitted in with our spoof genre.
We used the shots that were needed for this task such as the shot reverse shot during the investigation, match on action when the investigator is coming down the corridor and then enters the investigation room and we used the 180 degree shot whilst both characters were sat at the table. We came across problems whilst filming these shots as we had to do it all by hand as we couldn’t find a tripod that worked so many of the shots came out shaky. When it came to editting the footage we noticed that we hadn’t succeeded in getting the full 180 degree shot due to not using a tripod.
We had to change our location as well because when we went to film the room we were going to use was not available so we had to use the board room at Sewell Park. This created many problems because the room was too big to make Jenni’s character seem menacing and give it the claustrophobic effect that you usually get from interrogation scenes.  We also noticed that many things in the background made it seem like it wasn’t a real investigation room and ruined the effect and feeling we were trying to create such as students art work. Another problem we encountered with the location was that it was in the center of the school during lesson time so in the background you can often here young children in the corridors.
We used minimal props because it made it easier to keep the continuity. all that was used was a folder for the investigator and a cup of drink and a bag for the suspect. During each shot we had to make sure we kept everything in the same place which was difficult when we had to move stuff around for the next shot. We experienced a lot of difficulties when it came to editing it all together as many of the shots were cut off to soon and did not match the next shot. We could of improved this by watching the footage back whilst filming and making sure they matched up.
Overall after all the difficulties we encountered i think we tryed our best and i am reasonably pleased with the end result.

Changes in the plan for Preliminary task.

We have had to of changed our original plan for our preliminary task as we have ran out of time to finish filming and editing it all.
Jenni Dack is now going to play the investigator.
The investigators character is now going to be serious and stern and smartly dressed and is going to be a woman.
Whitney McKernan (myself) is now going to play the suspect.
We have decided to change the character from an old woman to an exchange student which will probably be french.
We made this choice because we found difficulty on finding the costumes for the charachters in time to film it.
We are also going to have to find somewhere in Sewell Park to film it.

Planning for the Preliminary Task.

Plan:

Genre- Horror/comedy spoof
Investigation – investigator interrogating the suspected murderer

Costume and charachters:

Whitney McKernan (investigator) – Serious yet clumsy
Black mac
Grubby jeans
Gaffer tapped trainers
Selotaped glasses
Stained white shirt
Christmas tie
Dirt hanky
Comb over hair style

Jenni Dack (suspect) – old lady, hard of hearing, confused
Big flowery skirt
Blouse and Cardigan
Big Glasses
Hearing aids
Sandles
Long white sports socks
Walking stick
Large bag
Plastic head scarf

Location:

We are planning to film in a small drama room at Sprowston High School as it will give off an office feel and we can control the lighting here.

PLANNING: Ideas for the main task.

OBSESSION

Charachters:
Main girl- Karly
Boyfriend- Sam
Friend- Dannii
Stalker- Simon

Plot:
– At a party in the woods
– loud music and party lighting, people enjoying themselves, dark
– Drink spiking: boyfriend making drink and gets distracted, Stalker spikes the drink and gives it to KArly saying it is from her boyfriend.
– Stalker makes a move.
– Karly’s dialogue, having a go at him finding out about all the ways he has been stalking her.
– She walks off into the woods as you see the drugs take effect.
– He follows her.
– She starts to run.
– He runs after when music kicks in.
– Boyfriend asking the friend where she has gone.
– Realises whats happened and chases.
– Karly hides behind a tree.
– Sam calls her.
– Simon hears phone and goes towards the tree.
– Shot of Karly behind the tree holding a stick.
– When simon is near the tree and Karly comes round and smacks him in the chest.
– Goes down and grabs her leg which brings her down.
– Kicks him in the face (camera) and runs.
– Boyfriend running and shouting name and looking round.
– Hears her scream and runs in that direction.
– Back to Karly and Simon, she runs off, he gets up with bleeding nose and pulls out a knife.
– Boyfriend catches up.
– See fight scene in flashes.
– See simon covered in blood holding knife.
– Wipes hand across face leaving blood, breathing heavily.
– Line “let me show you how an obsession grows.”

Cast:
Karly- Whitney McKernan
Dannii- Lauren Kirby
Simon- Ben Cawdron
Sam- Tom Cowles

PLANNING: Costumes and Props for the Main task.

Costume:

Karly – hair up,
bright make up that stands out,
slim fitting grey printed teeshirt,
black skinny jeans or shorts and long black socks,
trainers,
hoody.

Sam– skinny jeans/ dark jeans,
white or printed teeshirt,
trainers,
black hoody.

Dannii– Skinny jeans,
long top,
cardigan,
hair down.

Simon – Baggy teeshirt,
dirty baggy jeans,
cap,
old hoody or jumper,
roughed shoes.

Props:

Fake knife
Fake blood
Strobe lights
Car
Music system
Alcohol bottles
Neon paint?
Glow sticks?
Smoke machine?
Lazers
Fake spiking drug
Fake drugs

Problems with two minute film:

When trying to film it became very difficult in the location as it was so dark. It was vital that it was dark so that we could successfully create tension and atmosphere to make it scary and gripping. When trying to capture certain shots such as shadows and car reflections is was difficult on the camera I attempted to use, as it did not pick up any of it. Therefore I became restricted as I had no other camera to use. The weather was also a problem as it was so cold it became hard to concentrate on what was being filmed because we were so focused on how cold our hands were. Also is began to sleet and rain which became a further distraction. As each one of us in our group do not live close enough together to just simply go out and film, this became a struggle.

Ideas for the location:

   

Here is one location idea for our two minute production. This is a local park which would work well and be perfect to shoot our thriller at.

Here is a shot from another local park that we could possibly film at. This park is full of climbing apperators that could be used to create a great deal of tension and atmosphere.

I went out around my local area and got some pictures of two good locatons that we could use. They are quiet areas but tension and atmosphere can easily be created by the use of props and objects in those surroundings.

Codes of a thriller

Low key lighting :  Creates a dark atmosphere and invokes mystery.

Tight spaces: Emphasises a characters mental state & the situation they are in.

Weather: Expresses emotion within a scene.

Dark & sinister characters: Adds to mystery and atmosphere within the film.

Hazy & unclear narrative: Allows the audience to figure out & interpret the story for themselves.

Weapons used as props: i.e. small hand gun, relates to real life situations .

Technical Language: Shows how people i.e. police are specialized in their fields.

Suspense > Antagonist : By not showing everything at once but by revealing small parts of information to keep the audience on their toes.

Unexpected story twists: Creates atmosphere and tension.