Our short film is about a young woman who when one night stays late at work to finish her work, finds herself trapped there, and fearful of being followed by someone. But actually it turns out that she knows the person who's following her from her teenage years. The two were best friends, always with each other, as if they were meant to be friends all their lives, until the friend gets the wrong impression and proposes to her. But as she declines, it sends the young teenager into a state of pshycological meltdown, and in later years resorts to murder, leading to his last victim.
The genre for our film is a pshycological thriller. I the sequence we made sure that you never saw the stalker, making the audience wonder who he is and when he appears, try to figure it out who he is. The reason we chose to use this type of genre was because it lets the audience try and figure out whats going on for themselves, rather than be told like with other film genres.
Our genre influenced our decisions among the group in different ways. One way in which it affected us was that we needed to change types of shots. I decided to use some first person shots and not to show the stalkers face to add suspense. A shot where this occurs in my film is near the end, at this point in the office I wanted to create a tense mood and make the audience feel uneasy. I think this works well because the shots link well together and with the performance of Sheridan as the woman, she justifies the mood of the shot sets the genre.
In the production of our short extract we were all given specific roles to add different ideas and techniques to the project. My role in the group initially was as cinematographer/cameraman. What I brought to the project was the ability to get us a good location and some unique shots. These were shots like the mirror shot at the beginning of the extract, this shot I thought of. The effect this shot has is it maks the viewer think more and makes them confused. The development of the narrative through my micro element was in the way of me being able to attract the audience in with a unique location, and the range of first person shots which shows the stalkers view without showing too much of him.
Like other people, we ourselves had our problems even some of them threatening to ruin the project. For example when we first shot, we didn't manage to get everyone together because of individual problems, but as we explained the situation we were able to film again. When we shot for the first time it all went well but when we went to upload I thought we needed to go back to re-shoot some pieces as it was not telling the narrative properly and lacked something.
When we re-shot, I decided that we needed to add more variations of shots, especially close ups. One complication occurred when Sheridan accidentally forget her second blouse, this added to a bit of a continuity error. Despite of this, the end product turned out well and you are not able to notice, and even if you do notice, it makes the viewer think why it is missing.
As we were working in groups we needed to converse ideas together to help create our film. In our group I worked alongside Sheridan to create the plot to our sequence. At first we were thinking about having the last scene on the rooftop, ending in one of their deaths. Although this was our main idea we had to change it, as when it came to filming we ran out of time, and when we filmed the second time it was a different time of day, adding to yet another continuity error.
After feedback from the other groups they commented saying that good points of our film was that the shots flowed well, and that we had a good use of props and costumes. These were essential to create the mood, and they succeeded to create the genre. Although we had good points we also had bad ones, they compiled of the diagetic sound being too quiet, and a barely noticeable jump cut..
Overall I wanted our audience to respond in a way that all thrillers make you feel; who is he, why is he there and most importantly what is going to happen next. I wanted this feel to carry out all through the film so that the audience was a little confused, adding to them wanting to know what was really going on. As like from the comments, it flows well and I hope other viewers feel the way about the film as my genre needs them to feel.
Camerawork - Camera movement- following the characters builds up suspense
Mise en scene - Clever use of the mirror in one shot to give a strange and confused feel to it. Good use of props and costumes, 0bviously an office building Use of elevator close and opening.
Sound - Suitable soundtrack - changes the mood as it progresses Diagetic sound is too quiet (overshadowed by sound)
Editing - Shots flow into each other well -no jump cuts only one point where it jumps a bit but its hardly noticable
Here listed is the costumes the characters will be wearing in our short sequence.
Sheridan - Blue blouse with white shirt, black trousers, black shoes (with heels), hair in a bun. Phil - Suit jacket, Blue jeans, yellow t-shirt Steve - Black coat (with hood), blue jeans
In the short film sequence which we will be filming on the 27th January we are planning on using only 3 characters, this is because of the context of the film, that the woman is on her own in the office with another guy, who then gets killed by the stalker. The three characters are as followss with names of people in the group who will be acting them.
Phil - Womans friend who gets killed Sheridan - Woman being followed Steve - Stalker
As we had a delay in our actual filming of our coursework, we decided to do a test run of our piece. I think that this worked well as it gave us some new ideas of shots, and also helped us change the plot slightly. Below is the test footage which we shot on the 26th January.
Because we have filmed some test footage we have had a chance to practise and rehearse. Also we have got some new ideas on what we can do with the stairs in our actual location. We filmed this test footage in college on a stair case so that we had a rough idea o what the location would be like. This has given us some ideas about costume because we know what you can and can't see on the camera because we want to disguise the psychopaths face.
We planned to film on the 25th January but we couldn't make it due to organisation and communication problems. We have now had to rearrange a new time to film. We have now got to film in an evening because we are all busy at the weekend. This has caused some problems with the location as there will be people around at this time. We can over come this by filming quite late in the evening. We have decided to film on Tuesday and if there are any problems with that we will film on Wednesday.
We have made a draft version of a theme tune which is something we can build on to make better once we have the footage to relate the soundtrack to. We have chosen to do a spooky thriller type soundtrack as it relates to the genre of our film, the soundtrack would be fast paced towards the end to go with the large amount transitions between shots.
Because the rough cut deadline is on the 29Th of January we only have one weekend in which to do it. We need the office blocks empty so we have better access which means we are unable to do it on a week day. The only day we are able to do it is this Sunday so we will book the camera for then. The final deadline is on the 5Th of February and hopefully it Will done by then.
For our short film extract, we will be using an office block to film in. This will be used to create different locations within a location, using the entrance, office and part of the roof to create the setting. I think that these different locations within the building would add a good effect as it would add a variety of different shots and show our ability to have different locations.
In their teenage years boy (psycho killer) and girl (Hostage) are best friends. The boy loves the girl but she doesn't know. He proposes to her after getting the wrong impression she says no and he later turns into a psychopath. He goes round killing people in weird twisted ways. After 10 years of being apart (In different city's) he finds her living in Cambridge. He goes to the office where she works and confronts her after watching her and killing the person she is with. She doesn't know it is the boy from teenage years. He pretends that he has killed the guy that proposed to her (him) And she breaks down and cries how much she loved him. He tells her that its okay because the guy that proposed is actually him, he takes of the mask. She says how much she doesn't want him any more because of all the killing. He kills himself.
In the group is: - Phil - Sheridan - Steven - Jamie
Phil
My role in the group is as the cameraman. For my role I will need to be aware of the aspects like lighting, the different locations I will need to shoot at and plus I will need to include a variety of different shots like close-up, extreme close-up etc.
