Test shoot

We did a test shoot during our lesson to start experiment around our initial idea. We found it was really difficult to find a place that could be similar a maze so after a while we gave up with the rules of continuity and we just started shooting around school to play around using different shoots and perspectives. We filmed mainly in the three different locations around school, for us a group to see variety in location and see the best shots that could possibly work for the actual thriller. We trying filming outdoor as well as indoor to experiment even with the uses of props for example the mirror and have an vague idea of how difficult would it be to film mirrors and give the right angle. Obviously we didn’t the test shoot as serious as we should have done as we used different locations and the cast wasn’t what were planning onto use. We used a soundtrack to give a more dramatic and thrill effect to the sequence.

We didn’t use a professional editing app so the final results is not what we where expected but as group I still think that as a test shoot is a good start to analyse our the next steps.

Pitching

We presented our final initial idea; we received positive feedback from Mike, as he liked our idea. He said that the idea is effective as innovative, nobody came up with the idea of filming in a maze in Hurtwood before, so that will add something to our portfolio. Mike also appreciated the idea for costumes as we planned in detailed what the main character and the antagonist should wear (night suite with slipper and a total black suite with posh shoes and a hat). Our idea is seen as well thought in detailed wise and different. The only issues we found were the fact of filming at night time as it will give us less time to film, finding the location, the maze, that is near by or a back up location that could give the same effect in the case the maze won’t work as a possibility. Also filming at night is much more complicated than at daylight, as we won’t have professional lighting to give us enough brightness to show clearly the movements and face expression of the characters.

The positive aspects of our idea are hat is well planned and original, but still need farther development.

After Mike pitch we decided to look in details to some possible mazes where we could film the thriller and we started contacting them to make sure we were aware of all the possible problems and have enough information in case to give to the school. While we were looking we found that mazes are too far away from where we live so we came out with the idea of a vineyard, finding one closer and we decided to contact them and they reply positively that we could film at theirs with no problems. We also looked at mirrors that could have bought for a cheap prise and choose the perfect one, that we could possibly carry around and be full length. Finally we looked at possible casting for the thriller, as we wanted to have everything ready for Matt and Luke pitch the next couple of days.

Next step

The next step is, as a group, to organise our self and make more researches to develop our idea and trying to get few inspiration clips.

We will be looking for the location as we want to shoot in maze and it is not the easiest location we could ever find. Then we are going to look in deep to costumes and character as this is going to be the main part of the thriller, to end up with props and sound effects.

For sound we already look at some musical sound effects to add as a sound track to build the tension of the sequence. We thought that we could start the sequence with the wind blows effect and the add of few pleonastic sounds for examples steps of the girl, her breath and her hart beating could much more effective as silence is one of the best sound you could every use to build up intensity.

Than the non-diegetic sound will be low tone as we don’t want the audience to get too distracted by it.

Initial Group Idea

Primarily, we gathered all our individual ideas together and picked out the most original details from each persons ideas and considered ways to create a new, effective, successful story line and opening sequence.

Therefore, we happily decided to mainly use Jess’s idea as her thriller will be located in a maze, we wanted to film something creative and original, and realized a maze has never been used before within thrillers at hurtwood, so this could show imaginative aspects, variety and innovation where appropriate.

However, we liked Jess’s idea but we preferred Ella’s story line and her opening sequence, so we therefore mixed the two ideas together to create an effective build up of tension and suspense within our thriller to create a completely new thriller.

So our final initial idea consists of a girl that had a nightmare one night while she was in a maze and a scary man steadily followed her. The girl started to have a nightmare each night, but it was like telling a story so it was not a new nightmare but it carried on and on. During the day the girl is stressed about the situation and would start to get visions of her nightmare in her everyday life routines, for example, if there were a mirror at some point during the day she would see the exact same mirror as in her nightmare. The girl started becoming confused about what was happening but at the end she understood that her nightmare was her death and the vision was just signs of awareness that the moment was coming. This nightmare carries on for 6 days until the seventh day while she was sleeping in her dream, the nightmare actually becomes reality and she ends with her death so she never woke up.

The whole movie is based on this nightmare and her vision and the struggle she has to go through to try and understand those visions and the idea of trying to chase time as it was running by.

Harry Potter The Third Task

The opening sequence is the introduction of her nightmare.

Established shot of the location, the maze, then we will have an extreme zoom, so the camera enters into the maze and immediately follows the girl, who is trying to find her way out. This girl is standing in her night suite and she is really confused and frightened as it is all dark and smoky, she doesn’t understand why she is there and she holding a lantern to help clear the view. So we have many different shots of her walking in the maze.

Then we have a shot of her walking oppositely to the camera and while she is turning we have feet appearing in front of the camera and we are met with a figure that is starting following her.

So we got all this shots where we play to show contrast between the two figures and building up tension throughout the sequence. Then the girl starts to run as she realises that someone is following her and a wall and a full-length mirror standing in front of her stops her. The girl starts to look at her reflection and she notice how scared and terrified she is until she sees in the distance, in the mirror reflection, there is a figure of a man that was following her. Turning quickly around, there is nothing behind her, and confused, she turns really slow and instead of her reflection we have the mans reflection in the mirror instead. The girl gets so scared that she drops the lamp that suddenly switches off. Than we cut to her waking up all sweaty in her bed.

To get to this conclusion we had to discuss few things as we where so sure about the story line and the different shots. I believe as a group we work well as if we don’t get things we talk about it straight away and we are ready to listen at any new ideas to add to the content.

The main problems that we are going to come across is that we are all inexperienced and we are going to need to use all the time we have to organise this idea as well as possible and make more research to develop the idea into something more detailed and well studied.