Risk Assesment and Equipment Proof

When completing our shoot for our piece we soon discovered one of our risks would have to be overcome. This problem was the rain. We were aware that water damage could occur to the camera if the necessary precautions were not taken. To ensure this risk was demolished we covered the camera with a plastic bag whilst keeping the lens un-covered, and having someone hold an umbrella over the cameraman whilst he was filming to give double protection. Below is an image showing how we assessed the risk, and overcome it.

To take full advantage of equipment so we could gain a range of A grade shots, our group rented out the track and dolly to create a smooth effect of the camera moving along a certain focal point. Below is an image showing us using the track and dolly with a torch to create light on the focal point during the dark lighting.

Shooting Feedback

We filmed on Wednesday night at my house. We used a DSLR camera that was loaned to us from another student within the class. We then used a tripod, and a track and dolly within the production of our film. When we got to my house we aimed to modify the house as much as possible within reason in order to create the desired set. We did this through props such as dust sheets and photo frames, along with the darkening of the rooms. Once the location was appropriate to film we started to shoot.

By this point the actors were in costume and ready to film. Before the actors were needed, the shots used in the montage were filmed. For these we used the tripod in all of them along with a tracking shot of the front door. We then invited the actors (Alex Rogers, Fin Carroll and Ciara Mulcahy) to join us and we filmed the rest of the sequence. The actors all performed to a very high standard and we were very happy with their performance.

By using a DSLR, the lighting issues we originally faced were easily overcome. We hope that the shots will all come out nicely and that we have achieved some A grade shots. Moreover through careful editing, we hope to achieve a tense atmosphere, presenting a decrepit, desolate house. We aim to position the audience with the house and the hauntings within it. Instead of the focus being on a selection of characters, or one in particular, we want the house to be the main focus of the story. Thus our montage shots will show the isolated house in order to position the audience with the house.

Audience Research Analysis

WB "Walking Dead" Tiltles Anaylsis

This title sequence is very effective and uses many establishing shots in order to create the feel for the series. The opening two series used this title sequence. Personally I find it very effective how the images are only shown for a few seconds at a time. It is showing us how decrepit the world around them has become.

The titles shown within this title sequence are done very effective. All of them are presented in a very plain font and integrated within the images shown. At first they fade out along with the images but go on to cut out when the pictures on the screen do the same. As the image moves so do the titles. This makes it feel as if the titles are part of the image on the screen. I especially like this and would definitely try to emulate something of a similar nature.

Problem Solving

We have managed to borrow a DSLR camera so that will help massively with our shots that are in the dark. We are aiming to make the house as decrepit as possible by using dust sheets and placing leaves within the house. We are trying to show how this house has been abandoned for the past four or five years and is beginning to become quite decrepit. We also want to put some picture frames up that we can crack and place on the wall. We hope that this will add realism and add to the effect of the horror. Due to wanting to shoot in dark, we aim to use torches to in order to only see parts of the action. Thus this will cause the audience to feel on edge as they are unaware to see everything clearly.

Feedback 2 - Mrs Fernandez

Dan, Ross, Will
Well done on your planning work so far; you have shown real commitment to the filming project and have some very creative ideas, informed by your research.  At the moment, aspects of your planning are at high L3/  low L4, with Dan more consistent in the quality of research posted, however you are working well collaboratively and your practice tasks demonstrate a high level of technical skill and effective team work.  In order to work towards a level 4 grade you need to carefully consider / amend the following:

1. audience research needs to be posted - sample questionnaire and results analysis
2. Technical analysis posts (all 3) need to have a reflection at the bottom; what did you learn from the process that has informed your concept development?
3. Blog posts need to be smarted up - key words highlighted, subheadings in colour / underlined, images where possible
4. There has been quite a bit of discussion about the issues with set design for the inside of the house and the outside 'neatness' - in terms of establishing shots.  This discussion with your ideas in response need to be documented on blog with images, ideas for props / set dressing etc
5. The fact that your animatic is only 1.18 is of concern - this shows how useful the process of an animatic is in order to highlight issues with storyboarding.  You need to plan further shots BEFORE going filming this week and re-edit your animatic.  Always shoot more than you think you need.  Better to cut that be caught out with not enough footage.
6. Your animatic shoudl have titles in it
Ross / Will - make sure you are commenting and posting yourselves to show your individual contributions to aspects of production.

Titles and Credits

Recently I've been looking at titles and credits from established films to get ideas for our opening sequence.

 

One idea we liked as a group, is explaining how the events of the film are based on a true story. We think this adds a sense of realism to our story, and will complement the use of first-person shots.

 

 

Screenshot from The Strangers (Bertino, 2008)

We liked the idea of starting with this sort of thing, then fading into establishing shots of the house, showing the desolate, dusty rooms, with credits fading in, in an eerie font. This would set up our storyline of the abandoned house

Storyboard Animatic

The purpose for creating this storyboard  was to establish what shots we want to use in what order. Following this we performed a rough cut in order to test the accuracy of the storyboard. This storyboard will help us whilst we film as we will be able to see what shots we want to do in what order.

We feel that we have included a vast range of shots that will enable us to fulfil the criteria of A grade shots. Moreover, we have looked into templates we can add including the camera record overlay. We feel this could be used to great effect for the handi-cam shots and go a way to create further realism.

"Wakefield Manor" Typography Research

I looked into some fonts that we could use for our title.  Personally I like the second font shown as it is reasonably plain yet still chilling. Moreover I really like how there is a combination of larger and smaller capped letters. Through the use of Photoshop we may look to emulate a font like this, giving our own spin.

17/01/14 - Location Reccie and Practice Shots Feedback

On Friday we went to our location which is at my house and performed a full location reccie going through all the shots to gain a full understanding of what we will be doing when we shoot for real. We now know entirely what we have to do when we film in order to resolve the problem with making the house look old and the issues we have with lighting. We now feel confident going into filming as we all have a clear idea of what we want to achieve. Below is some evidence of what we have filmed.
Obviously we were just trying to see what shots would work and the lighting and mise-en-scene of the location weren't how we picture it to look when we film for real but its a start. A few of our shots will change slightly when we come to shoot due to seeing them and feeling we could create a more tense atmosphere by using slightly different camera angles. We aim to sought out our problem with lighting by using natural light and then darkening it later within editing.

17/01/14 - Practice Shooting Plan

On Friday we are planning to go to our location to not only complete a reccie, but also test whether the lighting we are planning to use in our opening, will appropriately work and look high quality when it is filmed and edited. After today's lesson we also discussed how we are going to create our location into being older than it actually is. This is our aim to create verisimilitude for the audience and we will do this through the use of props and pro-filmic effects.

Film Schedule

Prezi Used Within Our Pitch

RG: Institutional Context

Discuss the ways in which horror films are produced and distributed.

Industrial movies and independent movies are distributed by different companies according to whether they are industrial or independent, it is also the same for the production of these movies. Horror movies have different sub-genres and each sub-genre consists of it's own codes and conventions.

The Conjuring

Industrial companies have a much higher budget behind them in comparison to independent companies. Warner Bros. is an example of an industrial company as they are a subsidiary of the large company Time Warner Inc. Because of this they are able to produce movies of a much higher quality and distribute them to a wider audience with the budget they have. A recent horror movie that Warner Bros. has distributed is The Conjuring (Wan, 2013).

-The budget for The Conjuring was $20 million. This is a high budget and this is expected by a industrial company such as Warner Bros.
-Filming took place primarily at EUE/Screen Gem Studios as well as locations in and around Wilmington, North Carolina. Some filming also took place at the University of North Carolina Wilmington whilst the students were not there.
-Around 20 to 30 minutes of footage was cut from the original film, which initially ran for around 2 hours.

-The film was finally locked down with a final cut in December 2012. It was then released on the 19th of July 2013.
-It was released on DVD and Blu-Ray on the 22nd of October 2013 by Warner Bros. Home Entertainment.
-Both the DVD and Blu-Ray release included special features such as deleted scenes, and behind the scenes footage to give audiences an idea of how the movie was created.

-The film received $318,000,141 at the box office, meaning it was a huge success as the movie received nearly 15 times the budget.
-The first promotional images for The Conjuring were released in November 2012, introducing Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson as Ed and Lorraine Warren.
-A teaser trailer, previously shown at the 2012 New York Comic Con, kicked off the film's marketing campaign in February 2013.
-Throughout the films promotional stages it was heavily given the slogan of being "Based on a true story." In doing this, the companies aim was to scare audiences more.
-In having the trailer shown as the New York Comic Con, the movie was able to appeal to a mass audience and due to Warner Bros. being a industrial company, they were able to gain a slot to show this trailer at such a large event.

This movie was specifically good for me to research because it is a horror movie of the sub-genre Supernatural, and this is the genre of horror that my group are aiming to base our horror opening on.

Wake Wood
Horror movies generally cost less to produce and distribute than other genres of horror movies. This helps independent movie companies a lot as they have a low budget and can therefore create horror movies at quite an ease. An example of this is the horror movie distributed by Vertigo Films, Wake Wood (Keating, 2011).

-Although the budget for the movie was never actually announced, it can be presumed that it was very low because it was only released at 4 cinemas on it's opening weekend.
-Wake Wood was filmed in County Donegal, Ireland, and in Österlen, Scania, Sweden.
-Keating wished to work with the people behind the film, and he hired Chris Maris (the cinematographer on Frostbite) to shoot Wake Wood and Magnus Paulsson (Frostbite's producer) as co-producer. It was the first theatrical release from genre production company Hammer Films in thirty years.

-The film received a limited domestic release at 4 cinemas.
-It grossed £1,251 for the weekend of 25–27 March 2011.
-Momentum Pictures produced the Region 2 DVD that came out in March 2011. Dark Sky Films released the Region 1 DVD and Blu-ray Disc in June 2011.
-The film premiered at the 2009 Lund International Fantastic Film Festival in Sweden.
-It was released theatrically in UK cinemas on 25 March 2011 and it was released three days later on DVD in the UK on 28 March.

This movie was useful for me to research because the location of the movie is supposed to be unknown as it is set in a world. Much like our horror opening is planning to be set in an abandoned house which people know very little about.

Overall, it is clear the industrial movies and independent movies are distributed and produced very differently. This is mainly down to the fact that industrial companies have a much higher budget than independent companies so are able to inject more money into their movies to not only produce movies of a higher quality. But also, distribute them to a much wider audience in a higher variation of ways.

 

 

 

Pitch Reflection

After completing our pitch to the rest of our class and teachers, we received some good feedback about some issues we may face while filming.

The first of these was that me may have trouble with lighting. This is because we want to use dark lighting for the majority of our opening sequence, and the school camera we are planning to use tends to go grainy under dark conditions. Because of this we have decided to go on a practice shoot at our location, to test shots and lighting before we film.

Another point that was raised was the issue of trying to make our location (Will's house) look unused and desolate. This is a problem because Will and his family live there, and the house is in a good, working condition. We will over come this by only using areas of the house that we have cleared to make look unused, and because it will be dark anyway, it will be hard to justify whether the house is that used.

We also got a lot of positive feedback about our pitch. People particularly liked our detail and planning of the sound we had done, and think our concept works really well. It's not just a case of making sure the finished product is a good as we plan!

Filming Update

This Friday we are planning to film some practice shots and complete a reccie at our location. This is following feedback we received from our pitch which concerned lighting and whether the camera's will work in the dark lighting we aim to use for our opening. In this filming session we will aim to overcome any problems we may face when filming, and gain some images that we can use in our storyboard animatic.

Treatment - Wakefield Manor

It begins on a cold winter’s night. The rumors that have always been told about Wakefield Manor intrigues two teenage boys leading them to this abandoned house that these days nobody dares to enter. The last people who lived within this house were an old couple who both supposedly faced tragic deaths at the hands of the battered mother and child four years back. These two young men are attempting to make a little documentary of them walking through this haunted exhibit in order to fulfill everyone's curiosity and desire to see what is within those walls. As they break in and begin to search the premises the audience view flashes of past happenings within the house. As they begin to walk further into the house the door slams shut. This is then followed by the sound of a music box accompanied by a loud cry of a baby. The load noises continue and the two boy’s terror greatens. Following this, as one of the characters turns his torch on he views a mother and child sitting together on a step within a double take. As they walk slowly towards the loud noises, and the floorboards begin to creek, they enter an empty room that first seems to be completely vacant, filled with nothing but mould and dust; unfortunately this was not the case as their torches that are shining around the room find the writing of the name 'Betsy' imprinted on the back wall in blood, of what is seen to be the young babies bedroom. The two teenagers then encounter pure darkness as their torches turn off, unable to regain power. As this happens the crying of the baby and music box that was playing comes to a sudden stop. They begin to panic until finally the torches light up again only to hear a loud scream anchored by the visual of the distraught mothers face right in front of the lens.

Project Update

Dan- Finishing Prezi and working on script
Ross- Questionnaire
Will- Finishing treatment and working on pitch

WB Backstory For Pitch - Wakefield Manor

We are pleased to introduce you to our new film 'Wakefield Manor'. Through the work of Ross Galloway, Dan Wild and myself, we have formed a gripping tale of a young woman and her baby called Betsy that through a series of unfortunate circumstances are bound to a house that they shall never leave. This woman is bound to this house with her beloved bastard child that 109 years ago she killed with her bare hands. Following this she hung herself in the shame and horror of what she had done. This mother was psychologically scarred by her abusive partner and her shame of having a child out of wedlock caused her to make a decision that evidently has had disastrous consequences. For the first 3 months of young Betsy's life she was cared for and treated well. Nevertheless, not once did she leave this decrepit house. Finally on the 13th November 1904 the grief got to the young mother and Betsy was sentenced to an early grave. Through some unknown force, this young girl along with her mother have been bound to a house for the past hundred years, living as a myth. Time continued to pass and the pair remained. Families have since come and gone yet the tragic tale of the battered mother and child has always been deeply embedded into the minds of those who have lived within these walls. It is said that the screams of the poor mother being beaten by her partner can still occasionally be heard. Other stories consist of the cries of the young child along with the name "BETSY" appearing on the bare walls in a stain of blood. Throughout the past century there have even been sightings of the haunted pair within that house down Wakefield Avenue. The mother blames society, her abusive partner, and the world around for her daughters early death. This young lady being as psychologically damaged as she is feels nothing but hatred for the living. She wants every last living being to suffer like she did and feel the coldness of death. Now in the present day, a few curious teens test whether the stories are true. The myth of the battered mother and child comes alive in this twisted yarn that introduces you to the other side of the world we live in; filled with death, darkness, and despair.