Video evaluation of the practice of the final shoot

Rough draft of final scene

Complications that arose during the practice:
Firstly we ran out of time during the shoot; we were supposed to at least complete rough drafts of two scenes of our opening, but in the end only managed to complete one. This was due to time wasting and the fact that two of the people in our group had other commitments during that afternoon. However now I believe we  have a better handle on this scene and don't think we'll experience the same amount of time wasting as in this one.
                Another issue that occurred during the shoot was that Dan didn't suit his acting role as well as could be hoped. He had a hard time saying his lines like a human being and so we have decided to change the actor that will be playing this role to Jamie Fraser Smith, who has had previous acting experience (also he has a dog).
                A third issue was that the tracking shots and pans weren't very smooth and so some new method will need to be devised to make them better. However there is little we can do to mend this.

Our Film Idea

The story that we have decided to use as a basis for our film is that the murderer is a reporter who is creating his own dark stories to be reported on. His back story is that he has grown mad because of lack of any kind of interesting occurrence in the area he works as a reporter in. His prospects had dried up years ago soon after moved to this town and he has now given up on any rational path in life ;he's taken to murdering people in cold blood just so he has a story to write. The only feature that he has in common with his murderous blood thirsty side however when he is his everyday golly self is his fondness for whistling while he walks. This is something that will prove to be his undoing later in the movie, however this is something that doesn't necessarily need much time spent thinking about as it isn't the part of the movie we are filming.
                   The opening part of the film that we are creating acts mostly as a method of introducing the main character of the movie to the audience through the presentation of one of his acts of murder. The victim of which is a poor teenager that has come to the murderers house to try and kill him as revenge for his friend who were killed by him, however fails magnificently to do so as he is the first person to be murdered in front of the audience of the film, but not the first victim. This teen character will be better explained later in the film by the murderer when he is looking back on his actions. I think that by jumping into the action like this will make the thriller opening more interesting and engaging
                   The final scene of the film opening includes a random civilian friend of the murderer who happens to walk by him in an alleyway while taking his dog out for a walk. The reporter is already hugely respected locally for giving such descriptive tails about the murders that have been occurring, even more descriptive than the police that have been investigating them. So this is the topic that the man brings up as he talks to the journalist serial killer, describing to the reporters surprise that a detective was murdered only the night before, deep in the woods. The two men part and the murderer begins to whistle in the same fashion he did the night before as he pursued his victim.
                                                     
THE END.

infogram for props

Props | Infographics

Risk assessment

Saturday shoot called off

The weekend shoot was cancelled because of a thunderstorm and lack of equipment. We had seen the weather report prior to the day but thought that we could finish shooting before the rain started, however this didn't happen. Although the rain wasn't the main problem on the day; the main problem was that the person we were expecting to provide the cameras had forgotten to charge them up over night. To prevent this from happening again I will make sure that we have back up cameras for the next shoot we attempt so that if the person supplying our cameras forgets to charge them again, we can still shoot. Another problem we had when we last shot was that the supplier of the cameras took a long time to get the footage back to us. To make sure this doesn't happen again we will take the footage of the cameras straight after shooting. Apart from the equipment and weather, everything was set to happen, so even though it was a disappointment, at least we could practice bringing all the components together. The next shoot will have much more planning.

Script for final scene (made with 'www.celtx.com)

-Didn't need a script for any of the other scenes as there will be minimal dialogue. (We later decided to miss out this scene as it was more effective without it.)

Textual analysis of Se7en

Target audience and reasoning

Target audience of Thriller | Infographics

Audience feedback on its way

Before Christmas we presented our text's idea to the class via presentation and it was recorded onto one of the schools cameras. We haven't yet been able to remove the video of our presentation from the camera and put it on our blog, however we will soon have it and put it up with the various different changes to our plans we made because of it.

Plan for shoot practice (15/1/14)

Props: Red light source, pick axe, Fake blood, old clothes, a ladder, a torch, a fake gun (borrowed from drama department), smoke machine (If it is fixed by then, the one we were going to borrow has been sent for repairs), paper with address scribbled on it, a dog (I have one),

Transport to location: None needed, the location we are shooting at is at walking distance from our school.

Weather report: A chance of rain (Umbrella required for equipment in case it rains)

Cast: Me, Dan Hornigold, Tom Fagan, Declan Berry

Plan for the day:

·         The first scene we will shoot will be the last, as this will mean we will have the maximum amount of daylight for that scene. It will be in an alleyway next to the church near my house. The alleyway shouldn’t be too busy as pedestrians don’t usual go that way but if it becomes too much of a problem then we can relocate the shoot. This will be the scene that is set the day after the murder has taken place, when the murder is to be made into an everyday character through the casual small talk to a dog walker.

·         The second scene will be the attack in the house of the murderer. This will be based in my back garden and the kitchen of my house so there shouldn’t be any disruptions apart from maybe background noise.

·         The third scene will be chase scene through the woods. The location for which will be a small wooden area near my house. Train tracks do sit right next to the wooded area however and so may cause some disruption to filming; this can be counteracted by going deeper into the wood. The wood does have a few dog walkers sometimes, but as we will be shooting as its getting dark, this shouldn’t be a problem.

·         The fourth scene will be the victim lying at the tree suffering amnesia about the attack that went on, slowly recalling what had happened and then getting attacked by the murderer with a pick axe.

Health and safety considerations:

·         My dog may be a tad unhappy around some of the people helping with the shoot and so I’ll make sure that they have all met her before we film the scene with her in it. If it does become a problem then we can just leave her out of the scene.

·         As there won’t be any actual fighting in the house there are no problems related with that, however as the victim will be running away from the house trip hazards will have to be considered. This may not be a problem because the victim is supposed to be injured at this point and so he will be limping, but this is still something to take into account.

·         Running through the woods may prove a bit dangerous for our actor as it tends to be a bit muddy down there sometimes, to counteract this we will make sure that the actor has good tread on his shoes so he won’t slip.

·         He will be pretending to hit his head, obviously, and so this will also not be a problem.

·         Other than myself wielding the pick axe with caution I believe that is everything covered.

General notes:

·         As we don’t have that much daylight afterschool we will have to as quick as possible, this is perfectly fine as this is only a practice shoot. (The actual shoots will be on the weekend as this will allow us much more time to get the shots we want.)

·         We will not have the correct costume for the shoot as it requires being destroyed with fake blood and rips to make the victim look injured.

·         We will be documenting the changes we are going to make to the production process as we get along with it on either a separate camera or the same one we will be using for actual practice.

·         It will get edited together roughly and will be great practice to edit before we get onto our real footage.

·         Me and Dan will be trying to obtain all the necessary props this weekend, however we might not be able to get all of them for the practice. This isn’t a problem though.

The transition we will be using throughout our piece

Added scene

Due to the feedback we received during our presentation of our idea to the class, we have decided that it is necessary for us to add an extra scene to the extract in order to avoid the piece looking like a concluded story. In this scene the murderer will be displayed as a normal everyday individual and will be identified as a man of a normal profession by some local people or person. An idea that I have is that a casual dog walker will walk by the murder as he is walking through the woods, the murderer will be in high spirits and betray nothing as the dog owner broaches the topic of the missing detective. This will all happen after a main title which will occur when the murder happens. To link the murderer and the everyday version of the murderer we have decided that he will be whistling the same tune as he murders the victim as he is when he meets the dog walker or possibly when he walks away from the dog walker. As well as this the things the murderer says will hint at his alter-ego.
(We later decided that this wasn't that important and preferred to make the character more mysterious)