Storyboarding

    Today Richy and I discussed together the general plot details of the film opening on how it's going to play out and at the same time Richy was drawing the storyboard along the way as well. This storyboard will be one of the last storyboard of the film opening.

Initial Plans of My Film Opening

     This week we finally began planning for the real coursework with the people we enjoy working with, I of course chose Richy who we recently worked with for the 1 minute challenge as my partner for this. The reason being that Richy would be the main actor and I would be the one behind the camera most of the time and work on the post production process.

     On Tuesday Mr Harrison gave us a brief detail of what we should plan and we would then get straight into it in our group. Here is our plan for the Tuesday:

This was when we discussed about the possible sub genres of thriller, we first thought of 3 and star eliminating down to 1. At the end we went with crime thriller

This was a brief storyboard that was done under 10 minute by Richy

     On Wednesday Richy and I was working on the pre-visualisation. One of them was the mood board and the other was looking for the music; the music was from a Japanese detective anime series which had licence free music and some other possible music.

    Finally, on Thursday we discussed the storyboard, location, camera angles and post production process more in depth.

Audience Segmentation

Definition:  a process of dividing people into homogeneous subgroups based upon defined criterion such as product usage, demographics, psychographics, communication behaviors and media use.

EXAMPLES:

- Gender
- Age
- Lifestyle
- Ethnicity/ Race
- Income
- Interests 
- Social class
- Personality

We then paired up and were set on a task of matching the jobs with social class as seen by the sheet below. 

    This is the sheet after we've completed the task

Understanding of Thriller Sub Genre [Psychological + Supernatural]

     For the past 2 days, the class was grouped into random people to work with for a small project about the understanding of sub genres of a thriller. We get to choose two from a list of sub genres. These were action, psychological, supernatural, spy, crime and film noir.

    My group consist of Bamm Bamm, Bing and myself; we discussed together about what two sub genres we should do, at the end Bamm Bamm came up with the idea of combining two into one which were Psychological and Supernatural. While we were discussing the story line and the location, at the same time Bamm Bamm was designing the storyboard as well.

     Along the way, we must also gather some information of what conventions are there in both of these sub genres of thriller.

Conventions of Psychological Thriller:

Conventions of Supernatural Thriller:

Combining the edge-of-your-seat tension of the classic thriller with such basic horror oriented ingredients as ghosts, the occult and psychic phenomenon, the supernatural thriller combines the best of both worlds in creating a frightening but often restrained film that will have audiences hearts pounding and palms sweating. Generally eschewing the more graphic elements of the horror film in favor of sustaining a mood of menace and unpredictability, supernatural thrillers often find the protagonists either battling a malevolent paranormal force or trapped in a situation seemingly influenced or controlled by an otherworldly entity beyond their comprehension

     We were thinking of taking a photo of the two sheets next together and upload the picture to this blog straight away, however Bamm Bamm stopped us and showed an app that amazed me called FastScan; it's basically an app where you take a photo of any sheet of paper and it'll convert it into a pdf or a picture that we can save and use for many purpose like the photo shown above.

     Once we downloaded the app and put the file into Google Drive, me and the other two went out and film for the first group which was quite amazing. We follow the story line exactly including the alternate ending, but when edited we felt like the alternate ending doesn't quite fit in so we cut it out instead. The POV shot when the girl fell down (which is actually me who film it) we went to the drama room to get borrow a cushion from the teacher for safety reasons in order to protect my back from the fall.

     The editing process took three to four hours for putting all sound effects and soundtrack in the right place, the soundtrack used was called Awkward meeting from the YouTube audio library and I must put a tiny thing in crediting the creator in the description as well. Other than that the other sounds and green screen effects such as the blood and the glitch effect were all presets from Youtube and from a website called freeSFX. I also look for tutorials on how to make text look glitchy and that happens to work out pretty cool in the final product at the very end.

     The screenshot below is the color grading options I used in order to create a feeling of it being in the afternoon before the sun sets and gave it a darker tone overall.

Here is the final video:

     PS. There is one sound effect which can only be heard with mono ( Phone speaker, Internal TV speaker) audio source but can only be heard through stereo (Speakers and Headphones) audio devices.

Warp Stabilizer

     Today, a friend of mind suggest me to use a tool on Premiere Pro to help me stabilise shaky footage, it was called Warp Stabilizer; Therefore I tried it right away on the tollway while going home. It was just a case of dragging and dropping the effect on to the clip and that's it! Other than the fact that we must wait for the tool to analyse all the frames of the clip which can take a while to do so. However, when shooting a shaking camera shot, make sure all subjects are in the centre of the frame as possible, due to the fact that Warp Stabilizer will shrink the video a little bit.

This is the video unstabilized

This is the video with warp stabilizer applied

Conventional Credit Structure

     Understanding credit sequence is an important part of a film opening, the sequence in which what name appears first is very important; we started off with the distributor, then followed by the production team that filmed the movie. This was then followed up with the main actors in the film and then the title screen.

     We were then introduced to the co-stars of the film which are actors that I slightly less important than the main actors then followed up with the people behind the scenes which goes from casting to costume designer, music. film editors, production designer, director of photography, producers, writer and finally the director of the film

     At the end we learnt that opening credits started off with the Movie studio > Production company > Stars > Title > Co-stars/Supporting cast > Talent > Director

Zodiac Scene Recreation

Zodiac Scene Recreation

After watching the film Zodiac, we were given a task to recreate and study the scene when one of the suspect meets the detectives. I got together with Richy and we started to analyse this specific scene together and pull out a total of 5 important scenes and recreated them in the Sixth Form meeting room. Using PAINT.NET, I used a duplicating technique that I've seen done once on the internet, it turns out to be really effective and I definitely enjoyed it

Here are the recreations:

  In this long shot we found our first obstacle that is I forgot to bring my tripod with me; this means that for all shots I must be perfectly still in order for it to be easy to post process. Camera options must be locked and on manual at all time in order to retain the same lighting as throughout the project as well. This shot was probably the hardest one due to there being 4 subjects in one shot, this means that it'll be harder to move things around and erase each layer without affecting the others; but at the end, I managed to fit everything in together really nicely and both I and Richy we both were both proud of it.

 

   This scene we had a good amount of attention of detail. We started of with separating the chairs and we thought that will be it; Richy being the person that he was, he grabbed the whiteboard marker and draw on the movable whiteboard the vending machine and writing Hot Foods on it, since he was drawing, I glimpse over at the screenshot and saw that there's a pencil sharpener on the desk as well, so I ran into the classroom and grabbed the pencil sharpener and ran out. Unfortunately the pencil sharpener was broken and it couldn't retain open but we did get it as close as possible. 

     As for the post process, this shot only took me 2-3 minute to finish up the duplicating method.

       This low angle shot both of us agreed on being the most accurate but has less attention on detail, we were thinking of going to add a clock in post process but turns out to look really weird and deleted it. Other than that, we nailed it pretty good, from the way one of the detectives looked at the suspect's foot to the unfocused leg.

     I kinda messed up on the leg but it's very unnoticeable so I didn't make any changes in case it looks even worst.

   This close up shot of the watch was quite rushed due this was the last shot we did and it was nearly break time which was at 20 past 9. All I need to do was line up the shot to the widescreen template I've created and blur up the background a bit because the depth of field was too shallow.

     I've added in the word Zodiac into the watch really quickly in post process and if I had some more time I think I could make it looked more real but that's all the time I had.

This three shot was really hard to replicate in many factors. For one, I must stay legit at the same spot while holding a heavy camera in my hands and communicating to Richy at the same time which is on the other side and we could barely talk to each other so we must use sign language and I can only move my head slightly to avoid any movement. Once I finish taking one shot, I would nod slightly for Richy to indicate that he can move now.

     The post process is actually not too bad as the first one and I am really proud of this one of my skill to be able to stand perfectly still and getting the shots. My reflections were really irritating me and at the end I was thinking to find some gates texture and overlay them but decided against it.

   
     Overall, this project had been really enjoyable to film and learning to do the duplicating technique really is something new and something that I'll be doing more of in the future. MrHarrison said that the recreation were actually scarier than the film itself!

Why Do We Watch Scary Film!?

Why do we watch scary film?

Aristotle

We are drawn to violent/ scary/ negative imagery to experience and release the feeling of aggression.

Dolf Zillman

By experiencing negative/ scary imagery we intensify the positive feeling when the negative is removed.

E.g. Roller coaster ride

Glenn D. Walter
3 Factors for film to be scary:

1)    Narrative: use of micro elements; manipulation of information.

2)      Relevance: the fears explained by the audience have to be relevant to the audience; they have to believe

      3)      Unrealism: have to know it’s not real; we have to feel safe 

Camera Work in The Film Heat

Camerawork in Heat

   For our very first homework, we get to watch a 10 minute clip from the film Heat and analyse the camera angle used

This is a very high angle shot; this is to show the audience the layout and the overview of the bank so that the audience gets an idea of where the robber is in other parts of the heist.

This is a mid-close up shot, this shot shows the audience that the guard is vulnerable  and cannot do anything about the robber because the guard had been wrapped with some sort of handcuff. This was then followed up with this guard being kicked in the back.

This is a bird’s eye view shot; this is used in order to show the aspect of the environment that the hostages are frightened. It also shows that the robber is taking the briefcase from the counter.

This is a low angle shot; this is to show that the robber has control and has the power over all the hostages. This shows the audience that he is strong and powerful.

This long shot shows a cop being shot to death by one of the bank robbers and showing the damage in the surrounding environment as well. This is then followed up with a high angle shot of the same cop falling to his death.

This close up shot shows the audience that the driver for the bank robbers got shot and that he’s dead, following with a long shot of the car going forward accelerating without any control and crashing into another car.

This is a handheld shot, this emphasize that the cop is in a hurry to chase the robber holding the hostage. This also makes the audience feel as if they’re in the chase alongside him.

This panning shot combined with a shallow depth of field makes the audience more focused in the foreground, rather than getting distracted by the background elements in order to let the audience follow the main characters.

Theory of Shapes

The Theory of Shapes

     Today in class, we were given 3 particular shapes; a triangle, a square and a circle we then discussed it with the person next to us about what kinds of connotations (feeling) and denotation (literal) meanings do these shapes give us. These are some of them:

Triangle:

- Anger 

- Bermuda Triangle

- Dangerous
- Death
 - Evil
 - Harmful
 - Illuminati
 -  Pain
 - Sharp
 - Triforce
 - Violent
 - Uncaring

 Square:

 - Block

 - Boring

 - Box

 - Building

 - Confident 

 - Mature

 - Minecraft

 - Repetitive 

 - Strong

 - Strict

 - Square Enix

 - Trapped

 - Window

Circle:

- Coin 

- Fat

 - Friendly

 - Fun

 - Gentle

 - Globe

 - Harmless

 - Innocent

 - Kind

 - Pacman mouth closed

 - Soothing

 - Trustable

 - Ubisoft

 - World

     Once we finished with the task, we all get to watch an opening of  the TV drama "Dexter" and applied the theory of shapes to the opening. We were told beforehand that this was about a guy who help police investigate murders but himself was also a serial murderer and the opening was about his daily routine.

    Connotation: Feeling of someone getting silently being murdered.

    Denotation: A mosquito sucking out blood from someone's arm

   Connotation: Feeling of murderer cleaning up after murdering someone

   Denotation: Extreme close up of Dexter cleaning up the small wound of the razor blade cutting his      skin with a small tissue

   Connotation: Feeling of cutting with a triangle knife which gives audience feeling of harmful, evil and death to a circular shape such as the egg yolk and the blood orange.

   Denotation: Dexter cutting up meat for breakfast

   Connotation: Gives audience a feeling of someone being stranded to death with a rope

   Denotation: Dexter doing his shoe laces 

   Connotation: Sense of suffocation and insecure

   Denotation: Dexter putting on his tank top

How fear influenced movies

Today in class we discussed the idea of fears, we each gave an example 3 types of fear which are in a personal way, fears of what parents thing of you and fears of what the society the world has on the world

What are you scared of in a “Personal” way?

Ø  Clowns

Ø  Losing

Ø  People Leaving

Ø  The Sea

Ø  Heights (Vertigo)

Ø  Zombies

Ø  Piano doesn’t exist

Ø  Darkness

Ø  Frogs and geckos

Ø  Bad Driver

Ø  Claustrophobic

Ø  Cold Pizza

Ø  Death

What are your parents scared that’s going to happen to you?

Ø  Diabetes

Ø  Losing you

Ø  Safety

Ø  Being on internet

Ø  Health

Ø  Concerns

Ø  Drugs

Ø  Alcoholic

Ø  Making bad decisions

What are societies scared of?

Ø  AI

Ø  Leakage of information

Ø  Diversity

Ø  Immigrants

Ø  Chaos

Ø  Environment

Ø  Political

Ø  Change

Ø  Nuclear

Ø  ISIS

Ø  Virus

     Most of these fears are represent in a film at least once in filming industry, this is because film plays upon the fears of humans, if they are not scary people will not watch them. 

Convention Thrillers

Today we looked at the conventions in thriller, we are allowed to look through websites for furthere detail, this is the presentation I found on the conventions of thriller

Children of Men Opening Analysis

Today we were grouped together as a 3 then were set on a task to identify the codes and enigma code of the opening of the movie "Children of Men".

      Firstly, we know that this fictional world is a world of disruption through the micro elements of sound by the sound of the news report. we were then introduced to a group shot with the TV in the background which shows exactly what is being shown to the people in the film. We were then given a hint that this is the future when the news reporter mentioned that the youngest man on earth was born in 2009 then followed up with a handheld shot sort of like somebody is filming the TV which gives audiences a sense of being in the situation when we were confirmed that this is the future because the death was in the year 2027. The majority of the film opening tend to focus more towards the diegetic sound more than the non diegetic sound; this might be the choice in order for audience to feel more like they are in the situation of this fictional world.

      The man, who we seen in the first scene to have walked in and order a coffee who doesn't seem to care about the situation, he walks out the shop with a tracking handheld shot following him. The confirmation of the exact date and location was then confirmed through the subtext when the man walked out and we see a long panning shot of the environment. The evidence that this is the future is that we see vehicles such as Tuk-Tuks, tricycles and some more foreign vehicles that are not typically found in London which suggest that London has been occupied by many other cultures. However, evidence that suggest that it is still London was through the mis en scene of double deckers, post box that the man places his coffee on and European cars.

     We were then introduced to the disruption of equilibrium through the last 20 seconds of the opening which was when the mid shot of the man pouring what looks to be sugar into the his cup of coffee then several buildings to the right side of him exploded which causes everyone to panic. The handheld shot was definitely very effective as it shows the audience how a real person would act in the case of this situation which emerges the audience more into the film. 

First Day With Adobe Illustrator

Today in silent study, it was my first time that I've got to use Adobe Illustrator since I've got nothing to do, that's why I decided to try it out. It seems really complicated at first, but when I look at the tutorial and try it myself I start to get the gist of it and start to get used to pen tool pretty quickly.

This is the first tutorial I watched:

Didn't quite get to the shadow part, but tried playing with the pen tool a lot and see what shapes I can produce. I asked some friends of their opinion on my monster; most of them said that it's pretty cute, teachers says that a very good one for a first attempt.

Here is a screenshot of the project:

Wasn't quite satisfied with how everything was symmetrical even though I'm OCD and so I went home and did a game character known as "Pikmin" and I adore it ever since I was young. This one took me 1-2 hour to finish. I gotta say that I'm pretty proud of the final result except one thing, I did it in a 400x400 pixels canvas which is really small. Also found out how to export it to a JPG file!

The color palette to the right are flat colors which makes things look simple, but I really want to add some vibrancy into the artwork; therefore I went on the color wheel and use other types of colors. To be honest, this is a really good piece for the second try. Pictures on the top and to the left are images that I use to combine into this piece of work.

Hoping to do some more work on Adobe Illustrator, maybe text next time...

Micro Elements

What are Micro Elements?

Micro elements are essentially what makes a film through the four elements of cinematography, editing, sound and mis-en-scene (props)

Cinematography

camera angles, positions, colour grading, corrections, depth of field, composition, effects, movements and lighting. Basically anything that are scene visually through the eyes.

Editing

How has the sequence been constructed in order to create meaning? continuity editing, sound continuity editing, cuttng, parallel, action, eyeline match, quick cuts

Sound 

Types of sound: Diegetic, non diegetic, in sync, dialogue, commentary, voice overs, soundtrack/score, theme, ambient


Mis-en-scene

Props, costume, facial expressions, performance, interactions