Initial Idea presentation

Inspirational video, A beautiful Mind 

In class we had to present our initial idea for the opening sequence of a thriller and the story line. This is part of our course work project.

My initial idea was about Edmund Price a young, pretty man with schizophrenia problems. Edmund in the beginning of the movie is around 27, he is quite and shy, we don’t know what happen to his biological parents but he is not really close to his adoptive parents so he left to live by himself as soon as possible, he works in a small printing company not too far from where he lives and he met in a put Caroline a sweet confident students at university so much younger than him, they felt in love and decided to get married.

Five years later things started to change Edmund lost his job and lost completely contacts with his adoptive parents and also divorced with Caroline as she cheated on him.

Edmund was really stressed about his life and it seemed that nothing was going in the right way. Edmund was suffering, confusion was invading his mind as he couldn’t understand why all this was happening and what was he doing wrongly.

At age of 61 Edmund Price is in one of the biggest prisons of the world as considered a murder of many victims. He killed his biological parents as well as he adoptive one. He set fire to a printing company killing 50 employees and he murdered a young student called Caroline that used to work in a pub part time, he also killed many other victims, some still need to be found.

The opening sequence of this movie is set in the middle of the woods, there are going to be lots of different shots to show variety as well as the woods in different perspective. Silence would be the main diegetic sound as it will increase the intensity and silence is usually left out as a sound effect as not consider so important, but this is absolutely wrong as it is the most powerful sound you could ever have in a movie.

After the shots to set the scene there would be a wide shot showing a figure in the wood. Getting closer we can see that the figure is man standing by himself holding a picture and a neck less of a girls. Than the character starts a monologue and this would help the audience to understand something more of this character and have a general idea of what would happen next, however that is done with a purpose as the audience by the end of the all movie is something completely different you would expect, but it is done as well to make the audience thinking about it and having this at the back of their mind for the rest of the movie.

Then while the monologue gets more interesting a non-diegetic sound would start, soundtrack, to increase the intensity of the sequence. Then with a close up or a wide shot you can see a shape leaning on the floor just behind the main character. Then we have a close up and you cannot really understand what it is but can easily guess that is a dead body.

He then drops the photograph and the neck less on the body and burns them. At this stage the sound track get louder and louder and the sequence ends it with the character walking away or staring at the fire.

Overall the feedbacks I received from my class mates where positive and they liked my idea as it seems complicated but simple to do and you have the opportunity to play around with it lots and it is easily adaptive to create something really good out of it.

The only drawbacks of my opening sequence are that it is in the woods and it is something we keep seeing in Hurtwood house media as we surrounded by woods and the use of the fire at the end is too predictable and could cause problems to shoot as they would not allow use of fire for a school project for health and safety issues.

Preliminary Task 3

For this preliminary task we had to show continuity throughout our editing skill using four basic different shots that we recorded earlier on. This task not only wants to show us how much we have learnt so far but it wants to challenge us to think what we want to transmit to the audience as well as extra shot to show more details.

We wanted to show anger and mystery as we are working toward a thriller project.

This effect is shown is different ways thought out the scene, for examples to show the feeling of intension the actresses Hanna and Jess did a very passionate performance. Hanna showed the anger through her voice and face expression, the same with Jess as she showed frightened feeling with worried face expression and a low voice and insecure voice.

The mise-en scene for this task was not too complicated as our first filming task we wanted to keep it as simple as possible but interesting for the the audience eye.

The location was a class room and we moved all the tables and students' stuff to give us enough room the film all the sequence without any problems. We than used as props a hockey stick a the door, those objects helped the sequence to gain intensity specially between the two characters having and mysterious argument. The hockey was used as a potential harmful object for the next action. In the sequence we showed a close up of Hanna taking the hockey stick from Jess scared of and not only protecting her self from her but stopping her from doing something wrong. We didn't want the audience to be distracted from it during the dialogue between the two actresses but we decided to incorporated it as it shows a more detailed view of the sequence and differentiation of shots.
Even though this we incorporate this shot in the sequence i personally believe that is probably one of thawed elements if not the weakest of the all scene. This is because the shot has been filmed while Hanna is taking the stick horizontally and the next shot she is holding it vertically, this came across with the continuity and it became a distraction. The distraction effect wasn't minded too much as we already distract the audience from the surrounding with the close ups and this just gave a bit of time for the audience to focus on something different, showing all the props and saving us from a prediction from the viewers of the next shot.
The door was used as a sound effect as well as an entrance and exist for the sequence.
We add a close up of Jess' face expression with the door opening sound effect and straight after we have a close up of the door shutting mainly inly the handle is showed instead of the all door.

The four main shots where wide angle,  two over the shoulder and close ups.

The wide angle is most important shots as it sets the scene and if you have any problems later on editing the scene you can always use it as it won’t destroy the continuity. With over the shoulder shot we had to apply the 180 degrees rule and we had to draw the audience attention to the two characters. The over the shoulder shots of Jess worked really well as it show the general status of the character in comparison with the close up of Hanna that shows her opposite feelings and her face expression is completely different. We wanted to transmit the feeling of anger mainly from the acting and showing the details of the face expression so the close ups where our strongest point.

The use the close up for extras as well, we have a close up of the hockey stick taken from Jess’s hands and a close up of the door shutting.

This two scene added intensity and they draw the audience attention to something different than the characters as we didn’t want it the get bored or distracted from the surroundings.

The hockey stick close up didn’t work as well as we thought. It interrupts the continuity as we made a mistake and the hockey stick position. This is one mistake we won’t repeat for the thriller and we will look more careful when we film the shots to be clear, detailed and exactly the same to each of them.

The editing was the most difficult part, as we had to show the actual sequence.

We had few problems to show the continuity effect during the cutting as the we wanted to show diversity using the different shots but we wanted a clear sound effect as the conversation is the most important element of the all clip. I found editing challenging as it interrupts the flow of the sound but we learnt few tricks with adobe to edit the scene differently with the actual sound effect.

we used clear cut to do not draw the attention of the audience towards the editing put in the sequence generally.

Preliminary task 2 link

Horror Sounds

The Woman In Black (opening sequence)

The Woman In Black is a drama horror directed by James Watkins.

Arthur Kipps (Daniel Radcliffe), a lawyer, is recently widowed and grieving the loss of his wife when he is sent to a remote village to put a deceased eccentric's affairs in order. Soon after his arrival, it becomes clear that the villagers are hiding a terrible secrets.

The sound effects of the opening scene set the general movie in place.

The very first sound effect is a non-diegetic, the soundtrack. The soundtrack is a quiet, slow paste music compose mostly by piano sounds with electronic effects.

 

This soundtrack sets the all movie, as it is done purposely to create tension straight away to the audience. It show that this is movie is a horror and the style of the movie is going to be a slow paste to build up tension and the feeling of uncomforted even when not lots it is actually happening.  This soundtracks carries on for the all opening sequence getting louder throughout the scene.

Then around thirty seconds we have a clear pleonastic sound of a tea pot of ceramic against a tea mugs, this sound is repeated as the scene shows two mugs.

The sound track then covers up all the other sounds. This as part of the audience that watched this movie and analysed I believe created frustration as you could see objects and those three girls playing with their toys but you couldn’t hear anything apart the soundtrack.

At this point of the sequence ( one minute) the soundtrack changes getting louder and louder and sounds of bells are added into to it to give the sensation of time (in the past, timing running, it is time).

More pleonastic sounds appear then when the three girls possessed to mysterious creature get up and start walking towards the three windows.

The steps are over exaggerated, as they walk they step on their toys and tea set breaking them, this is highlighted with the pleonastic sounds.

The soundtrack never stopped so we can assume it is going to be a sound bridge for the next sequence.

When the three little girls trough them self down the windows  we can hear their mother’s scream.

The mother is not shown screaming we can only hear the loud desperate screaming .

The opening scene is of big impact as it set the all movie, we can clearly understand that this movie has a cruel storyline, it is going to be a horror as in the first few minutes the audience felt already strong emotions and has already and idea of the general movie. It is slow paste.

 

Annabelle (basement scene)

 

This is a slow paste scene and it start with the diegetic sound of the main character walking in the basement corridor. the step are pleonastic even though the location is completely silence. This make those sounds stands out even more.

There is the pleonastic sound of the character opening door and walking in this little cage to take some stuff.

Diegetic sound here is dominant and the silence effect creates the intensity throughout the all scene. There are long pauses of silence and the diegetic sound even though they are pleonastic create a quite environment that make the audience feeling uncomfortable as they know that this is established as a horror movie.

Then we have a the diegetic sound of a child laugh at the top of the other diegetic sounds. We cannot see the child and the character also interact with it as she looks surprised.

This sound carries on for few seconds until we can start feeling the worried and concerned of the character.

Then we have a pleonastic sound of a pram rolling at the end of the corridor. this sound is diegetic as we can see in the background this pram coming up from nowhere. The sounds stop and a child cry starts going off loudly and it seems as they are in a basement that it echoes as well. This is a pleonastic sound.

The character slowly start walking toward the pram and we have the pleonastic sounds of her steps. This gives intensity to the scene as after each step there is a pause but in the background the baby is still crying.

Ones the character gets close enough to the pram all the sounds for three seconds stop.

This moment is of high effect as the audience knows that something is about to happen. This horror shows that silence is one of the scariest sound you could ever find. The audience is always looking for sounds effect to make them feel something, but it comes up to the silence they need to work out what to feel, obviously the shots and the settings made the all scene intense and scary.

After those three seconds a hands comes out the prom and grab the character’s arm. The character then runs away.

 The is a big different between the two; The Woman In Black uses lots of non-diegetic sounds to build up intensity throughout the scene, Annabelle uses diegetic sounds and silence.

They both use pleonastic sounds for the same purpose, get the audience attention.