Title Questionnaire

As my group was undersided about the title of our film; we decided to do a questionnaire and give it to ask some students in our school and this is our results:

Songbird: 3 votes
Mute: 7 votes
Silence: 3 votes
Silent: 0 votes
Other Title: 4 votes

From our results we found that 'Mute' was the most popular title so this is top of our list as we still need to decide as a group if that's our final title.

Filming - Day 2

Today was the second time filming and this time we was filming the main bulk of our opening sequence.

Actors: 

Hannah Riley - Playing 'Girl' 

Hafeum Saltan - Playing 'Man' 

Production: 

Megan Lawrence & Alice Percy - Directors 

Blake Challenger - Photographer 

Before and whilst filming me and my group was satisfied with what we was doing and thought it was going great. Unfortunately when we looked back at what we had filmed we found that the footage wasn't very good, it lacked imagination, direction and variety. We decided to scrap or initial idea and film something quite similar on another day. We won't waste that day though as we will use carefully selected footage in our final opening sequence as some parts were good. In conclusion, I think that we did rush into filming and didn't think much of the costume, setting, camera angles or actors but it was a learning lesson to us for the next time we film.

Pictures: 

Schedule (Third Filming) - Week Commencing 2nd December 2014

Schedule (Second Filming) - Week Commencing 15th December 2014

Filming - Day 1

Today we started filming for our opening sequence. We had planned to film on three days and each day filming something different. Today we filming our opening credits which went really well.

We stared of by filling a glass bowl with water and dropping blue food colouring into it to create a cloud like pattern. We did 3 takes on this as the first one didn't work, the second one made a weird sound when the syringe entered the water and the third cloud was too weak and didn't make a big impact. The final take was amazing! The blue cloud entered the water gracefully and fast. The cloud then started to rise up and cover the whole bowl which will give us enough space to put the actors names.

This is what the third cloud looked like, it wasn't very powerful and was quite dull. Although we didn't like it, it still was useful as we was going to give up but imagining it being more blue and big made us carry on and create some really good footage that even we thought looked professional.

These pictures are of Hannah being submerged in water. We really liked these shots as her hair looked really majestic and unique which is what we want our opening sequence to be. We filmed many scenes using Hannah under water and we used one of our groups  hand and arms to look like someone was washing her. Most of these clips were successful and will feature in our opening sequence but some won't and that is either because it didn't look right or we had made a mistake (talking in background, shaking camera or shadows in the way).

Conventional Horror Film Actress - Lin Shaye

Dead End (2003) 
Cast: Alexandra Holden, Ray Wise, Lin Shaye, Mick Cain
Director: Jean-Baptiste Andrea Producer: James Huth Written by: Fabrice Canepa 
Synopsis: For the past 20 years, Frank Harrington has grudgingly driven his family to celebrate Christmas with his mother-in-law. This year, he takes a shortcut. It's the biggest mistake of his life: The nightmare begins. A mysterious woman in white wanders through the forest, leaving death in her wake. A terrifying black car - its driver invisible - carries the victims into the heart of the night. Every road sign points to a destination they never reach. The survivors succumb to panic, to madness; deeply buried secrets burst to the surface, and Christmas turns into a living hell. (Taken from IMBD)

Insidious 1, Insidious: Chapter 2 & Insidious: Chapter 3 

Cast: Patrick Wilson, Rose Byrne, Barbara Hershey, Lin Shaye.
Directed by: James Wan Produced by: James Blum Written by: Leigh Whannell
Synopsis:  Insidious 1 & 2: A gripping story of a family in search of help for their son, Dalton, who fell into a coma after a mysterious incident in the attic. Little do they know that there is much more to this endless sleep than meets the eye as they explore the paranormal, and rediscover the past; the key to getting their son back once and for all. Insidious 3: A prequel set before the haunting of the Lambert family that reveals how gifted psychic Elise Rainier reluctantly agrees to use her ability to contact the dead in order to help a teenage girl who has been targeted by a dangerous supernatural entity. (Taken from IMBD)

Ouija (2014) 

Cast: Olivia Cooke, Ana Coto, Darren Kagasoff, Douglas Smith, Bianca Santos, Lin Shaye
Directed by: Stiles White Produced by: James Blum Written by: Juliet Snowden
Synopsis: A girl is mysteriously killed after recording herself playing with an ancient Ouija Board, which leads to a close group of friends to investigate this board. They later find out that some things aren't meant to be played with, especially the 'other side'. (Taken from IMBD)

Cameos 

• Alone in the Dark (1982) 
• A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) 
• Critters (1986) Critters 2 (1988) 
• Snakes on a Plane (2006) 
• Asylum (2008) 
• Big Ass Spider! (2013) 

Opening Sequence Storyboard

RGIEJGIAEJGIAJGIAEJ

Group Idea Plan

Title

Mute (Work in progress) 

Genre

Horror/Thriller

Age Rating

18

Synopsis 
A girl wakes up in a pure white room with no recollection of where she is. She has blue pen lines on your neck and body. There is faint sounds of two people talking in the background and also the sound of machines and surgical equipment. She walks around the room and sees pictures of her when she was young and medical diagrams of the body. A man walks in and starts speaking a different language to the girl. She tries to escape but he grabs her and she screams. The screen goes black.

Setting 
A pure white room which is one of our groups shed. The interior will have one simple bed in it, medical posters on a board, pictures of a string, a medical table with surgical equipment on them and a small birds cage hanging on a wire.

Characters 
Unknown Female (Age 16-18) - she will be quite pretty with brown sticked back hair. She will be wearing a large white t-shirt and black pants that the audience won't be able to see. She will walk around the room slowly and innocently to reflect her emotions and state of mind. She won't speak but only silently speak to herself and screams at the end.
Unknown Male (Age 40-50) - he will wear all black as it has connotations of being dark and evil. The only thing we will see of him is his hands, back of his head, shoes and side of face. There will be scars and dry blood on his hands and face. He will speak in a foreign language which will confuse the girl and also the audience. On his last line subtitles will appear on the screen because the line will be powerful and mysterious.

Audience 
The audience demographic for our film is white, working class, 18 year old men. This is because the bad people in the film are foreign and english people are the main characters so they would want to watch them win and survive. They will be 18 because thats the films age rating and they are working class because they want to escape from the world.

Opening Sequence Storyboard

To give myself, my group my peers and my teacher a better understanding of what me and my group want the opening sequence to look like, we made a storyboard to show each scene that we will include using drawing and explanations. Here's what we came up with: 

249286166-Media

249286171-media2

Possible Film Titles

These are the possible title ideas and fonts for our film that we have come up with as a result of our synopsis:

• Grace, Lily, Hope, Faith or Joy - a girls name which connotes innocence and kindness.
• Extortion - obtaining money, property or services by inflicting violence towards someone.
• Songbird - a bird which is kept in a cage all its life and its natural instinct is singing.
• Mute - another word for silence or silent.
• Crucifix - this tile was connected to our previous idea that we no longer want to do. 
• Silent - similar to mute 
• Nightingale - similar to 'Songbird' as its a singing bird
  
  
  
  
  

Production Logo Tests

For our opening sequence we was told we had to create a production logo for the start of it. My group came up with an idea to have a hand slamming on a window and then our production company tattooed onto the hand in editing. We filmed a few takes but in all of them there was something wrong. Here's one clip that went wrong:








Reason why it isn't good:

• the hand is in the wrong position so when we edit the production name onto the hand it will look weird and  not central.
• the top can be seen in the shot which will make it look really unprofessional.
• you can see the reflection of people walking past the window which again will make it look unprofessional.
• the background doesn't have any relation to our opening sequence or to the production logo.
• the hand was only flat on the window for less than 3 seconds which wont be enough time to add the production logo.
• the ambient sounds are not what we want the audience to here.

We then took all these points on board and made one last video that we really liked and thought we could work with. There's still some things we want to change but its a massive improvement on the first video. Here's the updated clip:

When editing we will:

• increase the light intensity to reflect our pure theme in the opening sequence.
• edit the production logo onto the hand.
• cut the first 5 seconds of the video because its quite long till the hand appears.
•  enhance the ambient sound of the wind and make it hyperbolic.

Audience Interaction - Movie Pitch Feedback

In class we did a presentation to show our initial idea for our opening sequence.  We explained and described our: plot, sound, costume and location. Our class and teacher left us some feedback on what we could do to improve and some questions on stuff that we should be wary of whilst filming.

We haven’t yet decided on a title however, we were given some suggestions. These are including: Shine, Clarity, Cleansed, Pure

“How will you be able to get hold of medical equipment?” – One of our friends parents is a doctor so we have been allowed to borrow it.

“Will you use music?”  We will experiment with different backing tracks to see if they are necessary.

Horror/Thriller Convention Actor - Patrick Wilson

Partick Wilson, famous for his portrayal in films like 'Hard Candy'(2005), 'Insidious' and 'The Conjuring', is an American actor who in my perception is a conventional horror/thriller film actor as he stars in many films under the same genre.

'Hard Candy' (2005) 

Cast: Patrick Wilson, Ellen Page, Sandra Oh, Odessa Rae.
Crew: Directed by: David Slade Written by: Brian Nelson Produced by: Paul Allen
Synopsis: For three weeks, 14-year-old Hayley Stark (Ellen page) has been chatting on-line with 'Lensmaster319', a 32-year old fashion photographer, named Jeff (Patrick Wilson). The two agree to meet at a coffee shop called Nighthawks. They hit it off, despite the massive age difference. Hayley appears to flirt with Jeff, and Jeff generally restrains himself, even admitting that he must wait 4-years until he can be with her. But his reservations are apparently not enough to decline when Hayley all but invites herself over to his house. Once at the house, manipulation becomes the name of the game, and the paedophile seems to be on the non-traditional side of it. (Taken from IMBD) 

Here's a short clip from the film:

This gif shows Jeff being violent towards Hayley which is conventional of a thriller film.













'Insidious' (2010) and 'Insidious: Chapter 2' (2013) 

Cast: Patrick Wilson, Rose Bryne, Lin Shaye, Ty Simpkins
Crew: Directed by: JamesWan Written by: Leigh Whannell Produced by: Jason Blum
Synopsis: A gripping story of a family in search of help for their son, Dalton, who fell into a coma after a mysterious incident in the attic. Little do they know that there is much more to this endless sleep than meets the eye as they explore the paranormal, and rediscover the past; the key to getting their son back once and for all. (Taken from IMBD).

Here's a short clip from the movie: 





This gin shows Josh suddenly turn into a grazed old woman. This shot will make the audience jump as they won't be expecting it to happen. Jumpy moments are conventional in a horror film as it gets the audiences hearts racing and if they have come to see a horror the film should make them scream.

'The Conjuring' (2013)

Cast: Vera Farmiga, Patrick Wilson, Ron Livingston, Lilli Taylor
Crew: Directed by: James Wan (The same man who directed 'Insidious'), Written by: Chad Hayes Produced by: Tony DeRosa-Grund
Synopsis: In 1971, Carolyn and Roger Perron move their family into a dilapidated Rhode Island farm house and soon strange things start happening around it with escalating nightmarish terror. In desperation, Carolyn contacts the noted paranormal investigators, Ed and Lorraine Warren, to examine the house. What the Warrens discover is a whole area steeped in a satanic haunting that is now targeting the Perron family wherever they go. To stop this evil, the Warrens will have to call upon all their skills and spiritual strength to defeat this spectral menace at its source that threatens to destroy everyone involved. (Taken from IMBD).

Here's a short clip of Patrick in this film:





This gif shows Ed totally oblivious to the hanging woman. This makes the audience feel helpless and nervous because they don't know what's going to happen next. This also creates enigma codes as the audience might think, 'who is she?' 'why is she being hanged?' 'is she a ghost?'.