Progress update

Today we started to film and here is photo's of our actors, members of our group participating and our complete setting:

- Jo as 'Sam'.

- Joey as 'Robin'.

- Jake as the 'Hung-Helper'.

- Frankie on our setting when we finished setting up.

- Kelly on our setting whilst we were creating it.


- Frankie on our setting whilst it was being created.

- Our completed tree.

- Our setting.

- Stacey + makeup, probably very dangerous, however she handled all the make-up and the cast ended up looking brilliant.

Progress

On Friday 11th December I stayedbehind after school to try an.d finish the tree for our setting, I went up to the art department and asked for some paintbrushes and a palette; unfortunately they could not give me any until during lesson time. This minor set back gave me the idea to put the tree together temporarily to see how it looked, two parts of the tree are not yet painted. These sections are in the far left and right, hopefully we will finish these parts in Monday's lesson. Here is how the tree looks so far;

Progress Update

We started on organising our props and making our setting. We painted our setting, and got one of our possible four weapons sorted out. Here is some evidence that we got stuck into making our setting;

As you can see Frankie got well into it and had alot of fun creating our forest.

Storyboard

Our storyboard has been completed and can be found here:

http://fspicerjrcsmediablog.blogspot.com/2009/11/storyboard.html

Screenplay

SPICERRACK PRODUCTION

SAM: She Is an abused, scared, curious teen. She wears modern clothing. Her mum died when she was younger, since then her STEP-DAD has 'taken care' of her.

ROBIN: He's an abusive drunk, a very angry character, he is Sam's step dad. He wears tacky clothing.


HUNG-HELPER: He's a mentally unstable, informed character. Rope around neck, old fashioned clothing. The HUNG-HELPER has burn marks from the rope around his neck. He wears a puffy white shirt, black tracksuit bottoms with black socks over the edges (OLD FASHIONED LOOK) Black shoes, clothing is ripped. His hands and face are decaying: he is also wearing a pirate hat.


Blank screen- titles (participating persons), glass smashing.


INT. HOUSE/STAIRCASE-- EVENING.


SAM RUNS up the stairs HOLDING her face, her step-dad (ROBIN) FOLLOWS CLOSELY.

ROBIN.
Sam get your arse back here!


SAM BURSTS into her room and RUNS towards a wardrobe before closing the doors QUIETLY behind her. ROBIN STRIDES to the wardrobe and puts his hand on the door closest to the camera.

ROBIN.
(In a persuasive tone)
Sam
(PAUSE)
please
(PAUSE)
Just come out.


SAM.
(SCREAMING, GRIPPING something)
I'm never coming out!


ROBIN THUMPS the wardrobe.
ROBIN.
GET OUT!


SAM breathes SHAKILY and SNIFFS as ROBIN continues to THUMP, his THUMPS on the wardrobe door get QUIETER as SAM passes out- black out.


EXT. FOREST-- DAY TIME.


SAM is LAYING on the FOREST FLOOR, her eyes SNAP open and she sits BOLT UP RIGHT
looking around in a PANIC, SLOWLY she RISES and ROTATES SLOWLY. When she ends up at her starting point the HUNG-HELPER APPEARS, hung from a tree.


SAM.
(STUMBLES and LANDS on her backside, SCREAMING and STUTTERING)
Who are you?


HUNG-HELPER.
I'm highly strung.
(LITTLE LAUGH)
Who am I? Well there's a question I've heard many a time. I go by many names but enough about me Sam,
(DROPS FROM TREE)
Tell me about you.
(SLIGHT SMILE OFFERS her his HAND)


SAM STARES at the rope which is DRAGGING behind the HUNG-HELPER, who matches her gaze, GRABS the rope and out STRETCHES his arm whilst making STRANGLED noises. He GIVES her a SLIGHT SMILE and a WINK.


HUNG-HELPER.
Never mind that.
(HOLDS position, and SHAKES outstretched hand at her)
I have something for you, something to keep you safe, something from your memories.
(HOLDS out OTHER hand)

SAM TAKES his hand, DUSTS herself off and then LOOKS down at his other empty hand.


SAM.
There's nothing there.


The HUNG-HELPER looks at his own hand as his other DROPS to his side. He ROLLS his eyes and then checks himself over. As he MUTTERS to HIMSELF, he reaches out for SAM and she FLINCHES away. The HUNG-HELPER LEANS FORWARD and produces a photo from behind her ear and GIVES it to her.


SAM TAKES the photo of her mother and STARES at it for a moment before putting it away.

SAM.
Where am I?


HUNG-HELPER
Full of questions aren't you? Curiosity killed the cat, well it's a good job you're not a cat. My dear...
(PAUSE)
are you?
(TURNS SAM around to CHECK for tail.)


SAM.
(HANDS on HIPS)
That doesn't answer my question.


HUNG-HELPER.
(PULLS rope slightly AWAY from his neck as though LOOSENING it)
You are where you want to be.

SAM.
(HANDS STILL on HIPS)
And where's that?

HUNG-HELPER.
(BLANK expression)
You tell me.


SAM TUTS, turns on her heel and walks AWAY.


SAM.
(HAUGHTILY)
And by the way-


The HUNG-HELPER has DISAPPEARED. SAM SIGHS and ROLLS her eyes before TURNING BACK AROUND and STARTING to WALK.


ROBIN.
(CHANTING- OFF SCREEN.)
SAAM, SAAM, SAAM.


FLASH BACK.


INT. BEDROOM-- EVENING.


SAM is LAYING on the FLOOR SURROUNDED by PARAMEDICS and FAMILY ALL TRYING to TALK to her, it all seems like a MUMBLE as she FADES BACK into the FANTASY WORLD.


ROBIN.
You think you can get away from me?


ROBIN DISAPPEARS and REAPPEARS where ever she TURNS- each time he HOLDS a different weapon.


ROBIN.
But you never will.


ROBIN DISAPPEARS and REAPPEARS where ever she TURNS- each time he HOLDS a different weapon.


ROBIN.
I'll always be here.


ROBIN DISAPPEARS and REAPPEARS where ever she TURNS- each time he HOLDS a different weapon. He APPEARS BEHIND her. ROBIN PULLS SAM'S hair from behind.


ROBIN.
(WHISPERS)
Waiting.


SAM RELEASES SAM'S hair, SAM WHIPS around and LASHES out to find ROBIN has DISAPPEARED once more. ROBIN'S LAUGHTER ECHOES.


LAUGHTER becomes LOUDER and SAM DROPS to the FLOOR, HOLDING her ears, ROCKING to and fro, a white light blanks out the screen.


(Note to selves CONTRAST SCENE- make brighter.)


EXT. FOREST-- CONTINUOUS.


SAM is SPRAWLED on the FOREST FLOOR, COVERED in BLOOD

More Genre Research

Vladimir Propp researched into Fairy tales to try and work out what the 'rules' of myths were. He argued that all narratives worked in a linear way: meaning that they all followed a set pattern. He found that there were certain types of characters to be found in all Fairy tales (archetypes) and organised these character's into categories. These are Propp's seven character archetypes;
1. The villain
2. The donor – this person gives the hero information or an object to help him on his way.
3. The helper – often magical in nature, such as a talking animal, helps the hero.
4. The princess and her father – For Propp these two often serve the same purpose in regard to their function within the story. Whether being sought after by the hero, or setting the hero on his quest, unmasking the false hero or providing the hero with his reward, both characters often fill the same space.
5. The dispatcher – this character informs the hero of what is needed, or the lack, and sends him off on his journey.
6. The hero
7. The false hero – tries to take the hero's place either by taking credit for his actions or trying to marry the princess.
Due to the fact that we only film two minutes we were not able to fit these seven characters into our film but if we were to make a whole film then we would be more than likely to stick to Propp's archetypes and use them all.

However, during our two minutes we plan to use these characters:
The Hero – Although Sam's situation in the real world is much different from the fantasy world she visits. She fits the role of the hero because her mission involves destroying the Villain who would end up putting any other life in the Fantasy world in danger- he is her own personal enemy.
The donor and the helper- Comes in the form of The 'Hung Helper' (hence his self-explanatory name) He aids Sam during her time in the Fantasy world and even gives her something which makes him a donor. The Hung-helper could also be the dispatcher along with his other two roles as he could keep Sam informed and tell her what she needs to do or what she needs to get.
The villain - crucial to every fantasy. The villain shall be Sam's step-father in the real world which makes the situation personal for the hero. In the fantasy world, Sam's Step father (Robin) would be an exaggerated version of himself. He will present a challenge for Sam and provide the necessary danger to qualify as a Villian.

Main Task Treatment

A teenager who is being abused by one of their parents ends up taking refuge in a wardrobe and locking themselves in. This teenager wakes up in a fantasy world, and sees the 'hung helper', a conversation is held between the two until the 'hung helper' disappears. The 'hung helper' is replaced by the 'bad guy' who is an exaggerated version of the teenagers abusive parent. There is then a confrontation from which the teenager escapes the threat of being hurt. As the teenager explores they get a flash of the real world they left behind, (reality-someone is sobbing in background). Teenager encounters some other characters who try to help the teenager get away from/kill the abusive parent, but the parents takes out each of the characters one by one and has an evil tree as an accomplice, who helps the parent trap the abused teenager and kill them. The abused teenager dies in the fantasy world as well as in real life; to end the film there would be a flash of white and then a short piece with the abused teenager in a coma, this then fades to a black screen and all that is heard is a part of a song singing 'wake up' and then as the song fades a long beep as though to insinuate the abused teenager is dead.

Genre Research

In order to make desicions towards our main task we had to decide on a genre and then research around the genre to get an idea of what we could possibly include. We chose fantasy as our genre, here are some examples of fantasy films;

Harry Potter
Lord of the Rings
Labyrinth
Pirates of the Caribbean

We each chose two films and made notes on the films opening sequence, the 4 key areas (Camera, Sound, Editing/SFX, mise-en-scene), and similarities within the genre. I chose to do Harry Potter and the Order of the Pheonix and Labyrinth.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Pheonix

Opening Sequence:

The titles are dark and include whispering in the background to give it a more eerie feeling; this then goes onto a birds-eye-view of the countryside. A transition leads onto a scene where Harry is on a swing whilst looking at a family. I can connote from this that since he is smiling he is either slightly jealous or emotional due to him not having any parents. Dudley (harry's cousin) then comes along with his friends and starts to mock Harry about his loss of parents; Harry then gets angry and threatens Dudely with his wand which we can see makes Dudley scared as he knows what Harry can do. As Harry threatens Dudley the couds above become darker and thicker, so much so that it starts to rain heavily; this is shown as a birds-eye-view with Harry and Dudley running home. As they enter a passageway Harry notices that it becomes colder, suddenly out of nowhere a dementor appears and grabs Harry whilst Dudley runs. Another dementor appears and Dudley falss to the floor. The dementors do what they do best (sucking the happiness out of their victims) but Harry then reaches for his wand and casts a spell to get rid of them. Dudley is in shock when taken home and tells his parents that Harry did it; after this a letter appears from the Ministry of Magic saying that Harry has been expelled from Hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry.

The Four Key Areas:

Camera;
Dolly shot of countryside
Flat angle on Harry throughout
Birds-eye-view of Harry and Dudley running
High angle on Harry when Dementors arrive

Sound;
Diagetic music
Ambient music and noises when Dementors appear and when Mrs. Figg talks about 'you know who'

Editing/SFX;
The dementors are special effects
Lights from wand are special effects

Mise-en-scene;
Casual, nowadays clothing
Taditional, old fashioned wallpaper in Dursleys home
Graffiti on subway walls
Mrs. Figg wears stereotypical old lady clothes


Labyrinth:


Opening Sequence:

The titles are small are light blue; the transition between titles is an animated owl flying through the screen. The music in the background is David Bowie who incidently is in the film itself. An owl flies through the screen as another transition from titles to beginning scene where Sarah is running onto the screen with a dog in a park. She then starts to recites some lines from a fictional book called 'Labyrinth' but is interrupted when it starts to rain and so she runs home with her dog. When she gets home she meets her step-mother and birth father who are all dressed up as they are ready to go out. Sarah gets angry and storms off upstairs, as she sits down in front of her mirror she recites the same lines again. Again she is interrupted but this time by her little brother, Toby, who is crying due to the thunderstorm. Since he interrupted her she gets angry and says some 'magical' lines of which would apparently make the Goblin King take Toby to his castle; after this she walks out and turns the light off. Toby stops crying and this worries Sarah so she goes to check on him, but he is not in his crib. She is given a big fright when an owl comes through the window and starts flying around her. This owl then transforms into the Goblin King of whom tells Sarah where Toby is. He then disappears as Sarah intends to go through the Labyrinth to find her younger brother.

The Four Key Areas:

Camera;
Flat angle on Sarah
Pan movement on Sarah as she runs home
Over-the-shoulder shot with Sarah and Goblin King

Sound;
Diagetic music
Non-diagetic clock chime
Ambient noise when Goblin King enters and when Toby goes missing

Editing/SFX;
Owl turning into Goblin King (SFX)
Glass ball turning into snake (SFX)
Glass ball appears out of nowhere (SFX)

Msie-en-scene;
Old fashion dress over jeans (Sarah)
Posh home (Sarah's parents)
Powerful stirct look for Goblin King
Goblins are scruffy


Similarities within Genre:

There is a set location for the characters to end up in.
All fantasy films include 'magical creatures'.
There is always a leader of the group and/or an extremely helpful person.

Limitations;

However, even though these films may influence our piece there are some limitations that we have identified. For example; the use of special effects could cause trouble as we do not have the full range of equipment needed to do so. Another limitation could be down to mise-en-scene. By this i mean that it may not be possible to create the costumes required for the character because of financial issues or being unable to gather the right resources.

Prelim Evaluation

1. Explain in detail, the process you went through to create your preliminary.
Firstly, as a group we discussed ideas of what our prelim would be about and decided on a concept we all agreed on. Once we had chosen our concept each member of the group helped with creating both the script and the storyboard. Afterwards, we scouted locations which would be best to film- we took a few photos on our phones to get a rough idea about how these locations would look on camera. On seeing the quality of the locations on camera we decided which we ones we should use. In our chosen location, we discussed a filming schedule based on the one our teacher set in class, before actually filming.

2. Explain the creative decisions you made during the process.
Before scouting locations we already had some chosen places in mind: the Sixth Form Common Room and the Science lab. We chose the science lab because it was the only room where the windows opened which was necessary for out piece. However when it came to filming our prelim we decided that the Sixth Form Common Room did not back up continuity (the colour of the walls were not the same as the science lab). Also since the windows in the Common Room did not open we decided to choose the Science lab where we could change and set outeverything so it matched our storyboard. We also decided that during our preli mwe should show the difference in status between the mother and her son. We denoted this by using camera angles. The son was filmed from a high angle so that the audience would look down at him, which would make him look small and denote a lower status; mother was filmed from a low angle and this forced the viewer to look upwards, instantly giving her status. The editing we used helped us in our creativity, our script and titled inspired us to add certain sounds (The title 'Grounded' encouraged us to use the sound of bars slamming).

3. Evaluate your preliminary. What could be changed? Improved? What is already good about it?
During our prelim we did notice that we could have improved our piece. We noticed that we had a few jump cuts which we hadn’t noticed at first, but became more noticable as we went through our prelim. We realised that we couldmistake by cutting out so not rectify this problem as it had already appeared. Also, we made one other mistake due to cutting out some speech. During Jake’s speech he says “I was walking the... cat”, we made the mistake by cutting out the word ‘cat’. Again, this could not be recitfied as it was already done.

Some things that were good about our piece was that how we showed the different status’ of each character by using high and low angle camera shots. Furthermore, we stuck to the 180° rule during the conversations between mother and son, making sure that we were both still visible. Finally, it was agreed that we did the match-on-action quite well as it was barely noticable. We did this when Jake (the son) ju mped down from the window and landed on the floor. The jumping part was match-on-action. This could be called covert editing because the audience would not be aware of it as it is ti med and cut very well.

4. Think about things you would do differently next time? What will change when your final piece is done? And why?
If we got the chance to re-film the prelim i would change the location in order for it to look more homely and convincing, whether that would involved rearranging the furniture to the suit the genre chosen or a complete change of location.I think we could have used a wider range of props so that they were suitable and corresponded to the genre as well as the concept. During editing we could have been much more precise, our lack of precision caused errors in our preliminary: cutting off speech and the jump-cuts. When planning our final piece we will plan our shooting and scout locationsso they suit the genre chosen, as well as being more careful with the editing so that our overall our film is better quality and is more realistic to its genre and concept.

5. What new skills have you developed during the process of planning your preliminaries?
During the filming of our prelim i learnt how to operate a camera, before filming I didn't know how to operate one properlyas i hadn’t had much practice. I also learnt that some places did not look as good as others on camera and this made me realise how important the quality of a place looks on camera because if the quality is low then the filming would look ametuerish and that wouldn't make for a good film. I also realised that filming isn't as easy as it seems, whilst filming I quickly realised that the planning we had done previously helped us to order and produce our thoughts more efficiently . Without the plan our prelim would not have gone as well as it did, as we would have many complications to resolve.

Welcome!

Welcome to my blog, updates will be done when appropriate. Thanks for the visit, Stacey. :)