Planning Introduction:
On this page, it shows my planning and initial ideas to help contribute towards my thriller opening sequence for my AS media coursework. All work displayed on here for my production has been completed by me unless it was a group task then I shall note it down as a group task.
On this page, it shows my planning and initial ideas to help contribute towards my thriller opening sequence for my AS media coursework. All work displayed on here for my production has been completed by me unless it was a group task then I shall note it down as a group task.
In class we were giving the task to do individual research
to help conduct and plan out basic initial plots for a potential thriller
openings, with these we shall present each members individual ideas in our
group, so for the thriller opening I shall be working in the same group as I
did in my Preliminary, Abigail Bacon and Danielle Duffy. I shall present my
initial plans in this PowerPoint below to them and will share all our ideas
with the group and decide on a final idea that will be strong enough for an
effective thriller opening.
Initial Ideas for Thrilling Opening Sequence
Below were my ideas based on this task, I found this independent task adventurous as it allowed me to work independently creating my own ideas and plans to possible story plots
This was my ideas generated for the thriller opening
I found this task exciting to do and enjoyed it very much, it got me to think about different openings and sub genre that I thought can help generate an audience during the start and capture their attention. I looked into many different sub genres and based opening plots from them and not restricting myself to the one expected genre opening. With each idea I have weighed up the pros and cons to it and where or not it could be do able to shoot or not, I have also evaluated myself on how each idea went and what idea I thought went very well and with a little more developing could of be a potential plot opening for the sequence.
Groups Initial research Ideas
Below I've uploaded our groups initial ideas and plans for our Thriller opening sequence, including myself, Abby's and Danielle's plans and notes of our individual research that has been conducted on our own. I found that by presenting our own plans to one another was important as it will then allow us to gather our thoughts into one, allowing us to speak with confidence to one another about the pros and cons of each initial idea, taking what’s good and bad and inserting this into a plan that we can put forward for our final idea.
As we presented to one another, we got to discuss individual thoughts and feelings, many of which by thinking realistic and knowing what we can and can’t film also about characters, locations and timings and whether they can be accessible or not during filming, allowing our group to make decisions as to what filming footage can or cannot be accomplished with the use of the resources available to us as a group. This stage for me is defiantly the starting point of planning for our thriller opening, especially as it got us to discuss in a group with clear clarity and intellect about our project. I find that with a little bit of development and group work, this planning stage can be successful because as a group we can work with pure confidence and strength in producing an authentic thriller opening.
Finalizing ideas:
After a long discussion and debates with the group regarding our initial ideas, we were able to slowly narrow down plans that we thought would be suitable and best for our final idea, together we collaborated ideas together to come up with our own. Eliminating ideas that we thought may be hard to accomplish or tricky to shoot were scraped, yet we took elements from each idea that we thought were quite strong and included them in our thoughts for our developing plans.
Plans that were scraped were all discussed upon in a highly professional manner, we took each idea as if it was our own and evaluated and discussed wisely about how we could shoot this and what difficulties we could face in doing so, for example one idea that was scraped was using the school as our main location point as if we refer back to our prelim task we had a lot of unwanted sound from students passing corridors and in classrooms, forcing us to stay behind after school and even than we faced having unwanted background of tables and computers as it ruined the effect for us. For us, we felt we needed to work somewhere open but not held too much attention and would set in perfectly with the thriller theme, this is where we came upon the idea of having it outdoors.
Mood Board:
One of our first stages for planning was to create a mood board based off our chosen plot and genre for our final piece. This was a visual task and Abby Bacon created this, choosing appropriate images and placing them in an aesthetically pleasing order for a visual representation to be shown leading back to our final piece.
This helped our group a lot as it influenced us to generate ideas based on our plans for our thriller opening, from this mood board we got to look more into characters, locations, costume and props and how they're represented as well as opening titles inspiring ideas of fonts, sizes, colours and positioning to make it appeal to the target audience.
I found this mood board rather important and an excellent addition to add to the planning page, it is a lot more visual compared with the other tasks, yet it immediately informs you of what your looking for, it provides an excellent guide in which we can refer back to later, especially when we come to create the opening titles and discuss in detail about characters, costumes and props which than the visual representations seen on here can inform us of what audiences expect and can immediately identify.
Production Schedule
So as we had the idea in our heads it was time to make it, this is where team work really came in, there were many tasks to be completed for the group, so we decided to split the tasks up and share them out evenly and fairly so we would all make a contribution towards our plans to rise its prominent success. This is where the production schedule was a big importance, as it allowed us to be organised and prepared before we even begun to film the thriller sequence. Danielle Duffy decided to complete this task and make our groups schedule so we would have the ideas of what we need to do and in the time allocated. This schedule is perfect to refer back to throughout the time needed to create the tasks, without this schedule, I don't think that we would exactly know what each member needed to do, so this was a great organizer allowing each piece to be completed by the member of the group, instantly rising its success.
Production Schedule Piece was created by Danielle Duffy
I decided to take the tasks of completing the Thriller proposal, Character Profiles and casting also costume, props and equipment, annotating the script and finding the audio clips and sound effects from a source free website with permissions to use them. Abby Bacon took on the tasks of the Mood board, Location Reece and set your scene also permission slips from actors and locations, also test camera shots, technical diagrams and shot lists and Danielle Duffy took on the tasks of Risk Assessment, Production schedule, titles, shooting schedules and call sheets.
Proposal
I had chosen to create this task, I wanted to present our idea in a new media format in a clearly defined way to show all the analysis of our thriller opening, I analysed many aspects including important features we may or may not need to consider for our opening, things such as characters, locations and props and also technical aspects such as sound, camera and editing were also major involvements highlighted in this task. The proposal is key for us as it presents exactly what the group is intending to create for the final piece, its a guide book for us as it sets the guidelines of our plans and ideas of what we can also refer back to.
The proposal was created by myself
The proposal is a guideline that the group can always refer back to, it can influence more ideas and keep the group organised and in the know of what is happening. As we have outlined our desired plans and thoughts in this proposal we would know what to look for when we come to do future tasks so for example characters, props and locations mentioned in the proposal will outline the features we are looking for in each of these and can allow us to work from this. The proposal is an important aspect of the tasks as it outlines a basic idea of what our group is looking for in our desired plans and thoughts for our thriller opening.
Script
The script was a group effort, we felt it was vital to get all our responses and thoughts down together to help create the script, I believe we spent longest and hardest on this task as the script needed to be perfect suiting to everyone's taste whilst also using aspects to fully establish a thriller convention. It was the biggest task we faced as we wanted it to be perfect, it was essential as it provided us with actions, and dialogue for characters and how this should be expressed out loud. With this being completed the group can get on to annotating the script and also creating the shot log which can take us on to the storyboard.
This task was a group effort completed by all
Looking at the overall finish of our script I think it defiantly ties in with our thriller genre and captures key conventions used to establish this. The script will come in very handy when we begin to film as it provides the actors insights to what we're expecting to create the thriller opening, the script can be used as the guide for them and us as we begin to film and shoot scenes. I'm happy that we created the script together in the group as it allowed us to come together and discuss about the script coherently and in a professionalised manner, for me it felt like the group was brought closer together as we became confident in speaking about the pros and cons of each part and scene of the script. We shall now soon go on to start annotating the script and also creating the shot log.
Annotated Script
I annotated the script after it was complete, I annotated using Word as it allowed my to make additional notes along the side, I also annotated on top of the script as well with camera angles and shots showing what we could use throughout the thriller opening.
I found that annotating the script was rather important as it gave us a chance to mess about and play around with shot ideas before coming to create the shot log.
My annotated script is color coded, the colors are as presented:
Key Colours:
Scene Direction: Light Blue
Character Cue: Light Green
Dialogue: Pink
Actor Direction: Grey
Slug Line: Yellow
(Camera Shots annotated around script)
Annotated Script was created by myself
Shot List
By far the most important resource our group will need, referring back to our prelim this was the sheet that we had close by at all times, without the shot list we wouldn’t of been able to have created the prelim, partly because it was vital to have the shots all noted down, instead of wasting valuable time by looking through the annotated script for the shots in exact order and also so that we could mark it so we could keep track of where we were so we would not repeat shots or miss them. This handy resource provides a list of shots we would need in a clear and organised format. It is essential that a shot log was to be made for our production especially as we’re looking to roughly do the same amount of shots as we did for the prelim so organizing skills was key for our group and the shot log could provide us with just this.
The Shot List was created by Abby Bacon
Abby Bacon created the shot log and when finished, it
consisted of 145 shots altogether, so the key strength for us would have to be
our organisation as without it, the success of our thriller production would be
limited and lacking in depth, as this way we can go over the shot list and see
if there’s anything that needs added or changing before we go on to create the storyboards and
then filming.
Storyboards
This was a group task split into three ways to make the task seem fairer, this was one of the biggest tasks we had to complete due to the amount of shots capacity we had reaching up to 145 shots in total, so the storyboard task was broken into three equal amounts, consisting of:
Grace storyboards shots: 1 1-23/105145 Danielle Duffy's shots: 51-86 Abby Bacon shots: 24-50/87-104
I enjoy
story boarding as it allows me to see our production flourish in a visual way
through drawings and important annotations around it, it can tell me where
timings are and if edits, sound or dialogue would be used in a specific shot, I
found that along with the shot list, the storyboard can also prove its worth to
me, especially thinking back to the prelim task where I started editing our
shots for the You’re Fired task, the storyboards then were always close by to
me and always handy to refer back to, so I know that the storyboards will be
resourceful for me when I come to edit our thriller production soon as I can quickly
skim read my way through the storyboards without it written in a worded format.
Story boarding was completed by Abby Bacon, Danielle Duffy and Grace Crawford
The storyboards are vital to be completed as they show us a visual representation of what we want in each of our shots, especially as we have 145 shots to establish so this can easily give us a basic foundation plan of what we’re aiming for or even trying to achieve.
This was a good team effort that we’ve done together, especially as there was only three of us with limited time to finish each of the planning tasks due to time constructions and wanting to spend more time on production and post-production.
After we completed
the storyboards, Abby and myself sent our ones over to Danielle Duffy who
placed in (in order) on a slide share format so that we can view them in an
organised and dignified manner. This works best for us as they’re now displayed
on our blogs and we can access them anywhere. When we start filming our
production we will be taking all our storyboards down to our desired locations
in case we cannot get access to our blogs through our phones due to connection
loses, that way we can refer to both storyboards and shot list as we begin to
start filming our production.
This PowerPoint outlines the advantages and disadvantages towards our desired locations that we’re wanting to film at, this being the kitchen/diner at Abby’s house and Caddington Woods, this detailed analysis provides a rather important element towards our research for our production as it establishes the settings of our desired locations of where we’re filming for our opening sequence, and also allowing us chances to practice shoots before we even begin to film, allowing us to closely identify with any problems that may occur so we can acknowledge this and rectify or become aware of anything, this can be a great help and reference for when we come to make the risk assessment.
The Set your Scene task was created by Abby Bacon
In all, this
detailed PowerPoint has been a great resource for us to closely identify with for
our desired locations, this being in allowing us to think about anything we can
and cannot do, and also disadvantages that we may have to take into account for
when we begin to film so we can alter or slightly change our plans to avoid any
problems, so for example one of the disadvantages we had was filming in Abby’s
household, stating that we may have unwanted background noise due to the house being
in use by other users living in the household, so we may have to alter our
timings slightly and begin to film at a time when the house will be unoccupied
by household users, resulting in less background noise.
This was a
handy task to involve into our planning as it gave us great knowledge and plans
into what we may experience or should consider before we even begin to start
filming, therefore with this knowledge from this task set in place we can
develop upon and create a successful thriller production.
Following on from the Set your Location task, we than needed to create a Location Reece to locate the exact locations that our group was going to film at and also any problems that we may experience if we were to go forward with our plans to film there, potential problems such as weather, lighting and background noises have been noted and addressed so we are fully aware of what to expect if we were to begin filming and if we were to avoid any such problems.
The Location Reece gave us more of an in-depth analysis of what to be expecting and gave us more of an insight to whether or not the chosen location would be suitable or not to film in, details such as predicted weather forecasts, timings and lighting were all addressed in both locations so we would have a knowledge of this. Giving us ideas of whens best and suitable to film so it would fit inside the narrative but also not to let ourselves get into too much danger.
The first Location Reece was created by Abby Bacon
Below is the
second Location Reece based on Abby's house where we will be filming the
breakfast scene in her kitchen/diner.
The
second Location Reese was created by Abigail Bacon
In all I
found that both Location Reece’s were extremely helpful and important towards
our planning, not only will it aid us when we come to construct our Risk Assessment
but also it shows how suitable the locations are, allowing us to make final
decisions in whether we could film there or not and if so what problems can we
avoid to make filming an easy flow.
So our final
decision decided based on the Location Reece’s was that we are going to pursue
on to film in our two desired locations, the first being Abby’s house in the
kitchen/diner area and also Caddington woods where a vast majority of our
filming will be.
Character Profiles
We needed to
present all the characters that will star in our opening, all needing to be
analysed, reflecting on their inner and outer presence and also their context regarding
them as a person and also their personality as a whole, with also notes based
on their representation of how this may be represented to the audience.
This profile
is important to us as it allows us to discuss upon characters and who we aim
them to be, with this knowledge we can than begin to look for potential actors
who can fulfill this role for our opening and whom we can also direct during
filming.
This profile
can be seen upon as a guide guiding us to what we expect for the characters,
with this in mind we can go on to present them to audiences on camera so they
can closely identify and connect with.
Each
character seen on this profile is represented in different ways, so audiences
can easily establish between each character and make viewing easier, this ties
in with Steven Neale’s repetition and difference theory of having the same
established codes and conventions for the audience to easily identify and connect
with, making viewing easier if it’s a text that they can understand but despite
this we have also challenged a couple of these representations as well
to keep the
text fresh and initiative.
The Character Profiles was completed by myself
The character
profiles are highly efficient for us as it will provide a detailed guide of
each character cast, the profile will soon be important when we come to
create the props and costume research as it is through the characters personality’s that
we can decide how they express themselves through costume and the use of them handling props throughout the sequence, thanks to the analysis given to each one
It also can
give the cast a detailed analysis of their assigned character so that they can
read this and have an insight to how they should be acting throughout filming
so they can fit their character description efficiently.
Casting Profiles
It was
important to consider the actors whom be starring in our media production, that
way the actors cast will give us an idea of how they will bring our ideas of
characters to life, presenting an accurate requirement and descriptions needed
to fit the roles and certain representational views towards audiences.
We created
this as it gave us a starting point to bringing our characters to life, that
way we can go deeper in depth once we go to create the character profiles.
Props and Costumes
This planning piece focused on research for our essential costumes and props that we shall need to consider before we start to film, this task is very important as it ties in with the Mise en scene (everything you see in the shot), as it helps audience identify with the scenes and what they’re watching.
We also needed a knowledge of knowing what to bring for before we started filming, especially when we’re out in the woods where accessing props would be tricky due to the location that we’re in so it was essential that we prepped beforehand so we can bring everything down with us.
The kitchen/diner scene was relatively easy for props due to them already being accessible at any time, props such as the toaster, kettle, cups, plates and toast were easy to get a hold of for the scenes but the woods shots was where props were highly focused upon as this is where the plot was all brought together because of the relevant props needed.
Other theatrical makeup such as fake mud will also be taken down into the woods, this will than add a touch of dirtiness towards the actors, especially Grace where she finds the phone and she tries to get away, she is seen on the floor where normally bits of mud can be traced on her and she attempts to get away as fast as she can, this also adds a sense of realism towards audiences, making the narrative seem real.
The Props and Costume PowerPoint was created by myself
In all the prop and costume PowerPoint is a great way of establishing vital props and costumes that we need to make our thriller production seem and look real, soon I shall want to create a check list for the props we may need before we start filming, making sure that we do not forgot anything.
Risk Assessment:
The risk assessment was created to highlight all the potential hazards and health and safety to make us aware when filming for our production.
The risk assessment was constructed for many reasons, mainly of which to keep everyone involved in the production safe and fully aware of the dangers that may arise.
As our filming location was inside the woods, where a vast majority of shots will be filmed in we had to be aware of the common risks and dangers that may occur once there, things like falling branches or roots on the ground may cause any of us to be hit or tripped up and consequently injured by this, therefore resulting setbacks in our filming to tend to anyone injured.
The risk assessment is a handy guide to refer to before we start filming, our group will show a copy to the actors before they to start filming also so that we can all be aware of any potential hazards and avoid this to prevent any injuries or accidents.
I think that
the risk assessment is a vital resource to have once we’re filming, knowing
this we can keep the cast and ourselves all at safety and prevent injuries
during filming on camera and behind scenes, taking extreme costs and measures if we do so happen to meet anyone of these potential hazards, quickly restoring the problem in case anyone is hurt during the filming process.
I shall definitely
refer to my risk assessment once filming begins on set, especially once I’m
inside the woods and begin to act with Abby and Ellie, I do not want to place
myself in danger, especially as I’m one of the directors and producers where my
presence would be needed alongside Abby and Danielle’s, so it’s vital for me to
not get into any dangers that may arise.As head directors and producers, this being Abby, Danielle and myself, we also have a responsibility in looking after our actors who may not be aware of the dangers arisen when filming, so it’s our job to notify them using the risk assessment to not place them in any critical dangers that may involve them in taking the matter further up in hand, which we want to avoid at all costs.
Permission Slips for Locations and Actors
Below is the permission slips obtained by actors and locations that we will be using in our thriller opening, guaranteeing their presence and the use of locations and signing that they are ok with this to carry on forwards.
For actors we managed to get signatures from Ellie Fowler, Anastasia Woodhouse and Mark Bacon, initially signing their willingness and cooperation to go along with our thriller plans and being on camera for people to see.
In terms of location we successfully managed to get a signature from the owner of Abby’s house hold this being her parents allowing us to film the breakfast scene in their kitchen diner on the only account of not showing any personal items or photos within a shot.
However, although we set a long time looking up and researching online and at local residents, we could not find any clear ownership or indication of who owned Caddington Woods, so we were unable to discover nor gain a permission slip for this location.
However although Caddington woods is frequently used by members of the public, it can still be used for our thriller production just as long as we make the people using the woods at this time fully aware of our activities once inside the woods, so that they know this is all for a school project and nothing real, that way we can avoid any problems or inconvenience when we start filming.
I think that if we are considerate towards members of the public and very careful than we can film inside the woods, just taking into consideration of others that may be using the woods at the time, so we need to make sure that once filming we need to indicate or notify them what are intentions are.
So things like bright yellow jackets will be worn by Danielle Duffy and Anastasia Woodhouse as
Title Sequence:
Titles were made by Danielle Duffy
Test Footage
Test Footage was devised by Abby Bacon
Audio Permissions:
I was assigned the task of gathering potential audio music and sound effects that can be useful for our thriller opening sequence, as the genre was Thriller sub merged with other genres Mystery and Horror the music needed to be enigmatic, something that the audience couldn't understand but were spooked by the eeriness of the atmosphere combined with the shots.
My research for audio took me firstly to U tube, there were many music sources out there that would go so well with the opening sequence, here below are the ones I felt worked best with our narrative structure-each video will have individual credit and links to where you can find them as they were created by other people and uploaded onto U tube.
Audio 1: Dark Tension Rising Music (download and royalty free)
This music source was by the link to this songs soundtrack is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zvQoPyY2XE, with his Utube page link https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqsGQVl-_k5qGE-PwGKO5DA
This audio I found on U tube and found that it fitted perfectly in with our narrative, especially towards the audios end with the tension rising and handing on a high climax starting from 00:01:24 and ending at an high at 00:01:29, this would defiantly be one of the strongest background music I have found on Utube, composed by Mattia Cupelli (links to his Utube page are above), I think this audio would tie in greatly at the end or even during the middle where she discovers the bloody IPhone on the floor, the audio volume could start off low and increase louder to emphasize the situation the characters are in.
Audio 2: Suspenseful background Music-Brink-action instrumental intense dramatic film movie soundtrack
This music source was by , the utube link to this music soundtrack is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWaNW-aYhVY and the link to this studios page is https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdEEFrPBkT5WLeRCl2qsEJQ
This audio I found on Utube, and loved the downbeat to it, keeping audiences alert as if they should be expecting something at any moment, which is exactly what our group is aiming for as we want the sudden plot twist or the anti climax of the situation to deepen pulling them in.
For me it also creates an air of mystery and vigilance throughout the soundtrack.I noticed that when Audio 1 (above) is played at the same time as this audio, both tracks work so well together to give that suspense feeling and rising tension, I'm thinking maybe our group can edit them both audio soundtracks together on Premiere Pro and see if they collaborate well with our overall narrative.
Audio 3: Creepy Ambient Horror Suspense Music (Instrumental Scary Music)
This audio was found on utube composed by Peder. B Helland, the utube link to this soundtrack is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itPtO4EaEXU&index=5&list=PLyiH5bnBV4URC5DpBmofjOfdGQ0Af_WL2 and the link to his page is https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIIzc3b8U0_vtVScDEyFGew
I found that this could provide our group with great background music for our thriller opening, its low eerie tone is very low beat and can produce an isolated atmosphere, which could be perfect during the scenes where the characters are isolated and escape seems impossible
Audio 4-Pier to Nowhere (dark, eerie ambient music)- Charlie Spring
This soundtrack was found on utube by Karl Kevad, the link to this sounds soundtrack is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_ix8dHZhUE and the link to the utubers page is https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNEuHBaDCsouGDUbHdDSHNQ
Call Sheets
The call sheets were created by Danielle Duffy
Shooting Schedule
Danielle Duffy created the Shooting Schedule
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