Lighting Experiments

This is using just the key light which creates dark shadows and looks quite evil which is good to create the mood for a horror film. It would be a good type of lighting to use in the house for our horror film as it creates quite a dark mood and puts the audience in the right mood for a horror film.

This is using the key light and the fill light which makes the lighting very even with hardly any shadows but makes it also very dull and boring. It makes the character blend into the background too much.

 Here is all 3 lights used (Key light, Fill light and back light) which creates makes the character stand out a lot and makes the character feel very important in the scene. It also has minimum shadows and is very evenly lit, this type of lighting is good to show happiness which is not so good for a horror film.

 This picture is using the back light only, this creates a lot of shadows on the face and makes the character look very important. This type of lighting isn't that good for our horror film as it wouldn't look right in a house.

 This type of lighting is using the key light and the back light and it creates some good shadows and defines the face more. It gives a sign of importance which is good for a horror film because it makes the scene look a bit gritty and dark.

 This scene is lit by the fill light on the left and a back light, it makes the character almost look like he has two sides because half of his face is dark while the other is lit well. This is good for showing emotions as the shadows are very sharp and express facial emotions a lot more.

Three Point Lighting

Key Light: The key light is the main source of illumination on the character, it's placed traditionally at a 45 degree angle from where the camera is facing. It's set at this angle to add definition to the side of the face and shoulders. It can make the a lot of dark shadows on the face and make the scene look very 'gritty'. Which could be very good for an evil character in a horror film.

Fill Light:
This light fills in the shadows on the character that has been created by a key light. This is placed traditionally 45 degrees from the camera again, but on the opposite side. The fill light also has to be less intense than the key light so it doesn't compete with it, this can be done by moving the light further away or using a bulb with less voltage.  The fill light gives the character a much more even look, it softens the shadows not completely gets rid of them. This leaves a very natural even appearance.

Back Light:
This light is placed behind the character to make them stand out from the background and only spills onto the character. The light is placed above and out of the frame so it is not visible by the camera. The back light makes the audience focus their attention on the subject, which is good when the character is doing something important that the audience needs to see.  It causes the subject to have a slight glow and importance to the rest of the scene.

How to Apply Old Age Makeup to the Forehead

This video demonstrates how to apply make up to your forehead to make the character seem worried and tired. Which is how a character from a psychological horror is likely to looks after been haunted. The make-up is quite subtle, but thats really all thats needed.

Makeup & Costume for our characters!

When dressing the female in our film, we will put her in white in the same way this victim has, to represent purity of the character. This way the audience will feel sympathy when she starts to get haunted. Also, to make her look frightened during the film, we will add some pale powder to her face. This will show that she has lost all the life and colour from her face that she had in the beginning. 

The actress will be blonde and young, showing that perhaps she isn't psychically strong, and wouldn't be able to fend for herself. This is appropriate for this type of horror film, as it follows the conventions as one in the media today.

The male character will be dressed plainly too, to show that he's a nice guy. Not as much camera time will be spent on him, so there wont be much make-up use on him.

Make up analysis

Make-up in psychological horror films isn't as dramatic as it would be in a zombie or vampire film, but it cans still have connotations of what the character is like, or why they're in this situation. The woman in this picture is wearing a white top to symbolize purity and innocence, this could make the audience feel empathy for her because she hasn't done anything wrong. The male on the other hand is wearing dark, scruffy clothes, which could imply that perhaps he deserves what's going to happen to him.
Also the surrounding is important to the film, because of the minimal make-up. It might represent what's happening on the inside of the characters minds, that they're mentally cracking and breaking like the theme of these pictures.

Storyboarding

This os the first side of the storyboard, its shows the couple parked up in their car, just about to take boxes into their new house, they're happy and excited about moving in, they make jokes whilst carrying the fragile boxes into the house. 

                                 The main character in the second side of the storyboard notices something strange happening in the church; she's a bit worried. Her partner shouts her to come up the stairs to look at something weird he's found.

When they open the remains of an old burnt book, loud bangs start to come from the cupboard under the stairs, so they run to investigate. The scene cuts when they reach for the door to see what's behind.

Script

This is the script that we have written for the opening few minutes of our horror film, it contains dialogue and stage directions so that the actors know how to behave and what to say when recording.

MOVING PICTURES (STORYBOARDING) THE SIXTH SENSE

What is the purpose of storyboarding?

The purpose is so that the director and actors know how the scene will progress and how the shots will flow into the next one. When everything is on paper its easier to see all of the ideas and alter anything that doesnt seem to fit.

How can you show lighting?
You can show lighting by using different sources of light with different shot types to see which lighting goes with the shot.

Camera movement?
They use camera movement to make sure the audience doesn't lose interest in the film. They use different takes to make sure they get the right shot. They plan it all out on paper before they take the shot and they will use which flows best with the film.

Angles?
The angles of a shot can show the audience the state of mind that the character. For example a high angle shot can symbolize vulnerability and give a sense of loneliness.

Script Examples

Content

The description in this script is very in-depth, it uses a variety of string adjectives to communicate exact details. 'There blades are thin, curved, gleaming sharp.' This gives the director the right idea of exactly how the writers want the film to look, it also gives the actors the right idea of how to act in the situation.

In this script there is no dialogue as its simply describing the setting and the actors movements.

Layout

The script is laid out in a way that clear and easy to read, the font and size is consistent throughout. Its centered in the middle of the page, but has editing decisions in the left like 'FADE TO BLACK.' The script has initials placed next to the subtitles like '(V.O)' for a voice over.

Recee Shots

These shots are of inside the house that we are filming, eveything has been emptied and sheets have been put over the things that cant be moved as if its an empty house.
The inside of the house will also be filled with cardboard boxes as props to imply they have just moved in recently.

Test Shots For Characters

LEAH

 This is the main female character (Leah) for the horror film, she's twenty years old so she is suitable for the representations of a young adult in a relationship. She is in a relationship with the character below and is the main victim in the haunting.

STUART

This character (Stuart) is the boyfriend of Leah, who are moving into a house together, he isn't featured as frequently in the film as leah, but it follows the conventions of modern day horror films

PITCH

To do...

We need to find a Bible that we are able to burn for our film. This possibly involves buying one off amazon!




next thing to do will be to sort out our main characters, by taking different test shot. Test shots also need to be taken of lots of different types of churches, and the inside of the house. Other locations like gardens and empty rooms need to be taken.

The inside of the house we're using for our piece needs to be emptied before we can film to make sure that the house looks like someone's jut moved in.

Narrative Ideas For A Film

1. In terms of characters we should mainly focus on a man and a woman, in their mid 20s. As the psychological films we watched focused on two characters of the opposite sex, who were normally a new married couple. One character (usually the male) doesn't believe in the strange events that happen, he just seems to use shrug off most bizarre events. Whereas the woman worries a lot and tries to find a source to the events (Paranormal Activity 2). There is normally a child or baby included too as a victim quite commonly like in 'Insidious' or 'Paranormal Activity'.

2. Most openings were the characters moving into a new environment where they are not fully familiar with their surroundings. Therefore they are more vulnerable, such as in Paranormal Activity they have just settled in a new house and straight away strange things begin to happen. Where as in the orphanage, an image of an old fashioned children playing in the garden, images of twisted scarecrows in the garden give the impression that its not as happy as it seems. Classical music is playing in the background, as it slowly build momentum and tension in the audience.

3. Costumes in psychological films tend to be pretty basic and casual. In 'Insidious' and 'Paranormal Activity' the family are just trying to live a normal life so naturally they wear normal clothes. This is a common technique in psychological films because it makes the viewer believe that everything is normal until strange events unfold and you instantly realise that something paranormal is happening. So clothing is basic, casual to make the audience realise who are the victims.

4. The lighting and setting in the films we watched was dark most of the time too create fear. The threat most commonly happens at night therefore there isn't a lot of lighting. The setting is quite commonly inside a house or in 'The Orphanage' obviously it is in an orphanage.

Psychological horror film wordle

Wordle's of three films plots.

Here are our Wordle's from the plots of 'The Orphanage', 'Paranormal Activity', 'Insidious'.

Paranormal Activity:

Insidious:

The Orphanage:

Kyle Cooper title designer

Kyle Cooper considers a great title sequence is for that the title sequence flows into the film. The font provides information for the film such as in 'Seven' the font was a scruffy handwriting style which made the audience understand that the film has a rough edge too it. As there is a serial killer writing messily into books and sticking in pictures.
You can use metaphor and theme to help create your title sequence by using conventions in the sub genre to tell you about the film.

Threat Title Sequence

Title Sequence Sheet

Seven Titles Sequences

How does the title sequence introduce us to the character in seven and what do we know about the character?

From the opening titles, the character has been portrayed to be quite ritualistic and maybe quite obsessive by the way that they shaves of their fingertips with a razor so they can be sure that no evidence is left on whatever they are making. The character seems to be creating a sinister shrine that includes a lot of unusual clippings of text and images.

What shot types are dominant and why?


The shot types that were the most dominant would probably be the constant action of the character writing and editing the shrine in close up, so that their face isn't seen. This creates a mystery about the character.

What editing and font has been used and why?


The font and editing flow into each other people they're quite rough and untidy. This gives us the impression that even though the character is organized in what they are creating, their thoughts might be unclear or scattered around in messy way.

Kyle's textual analysis homework

Ben's textual analysis homework

Paige's textual analysis homework

Final coursework group

The group we're are in consists of three members:
Kyle Nequest
Ben Bushell
Paige Smith

We all picked Psychological as our preferred sub genre and have similar movie interests therefore we decided we would make a good group.

We are picking psychological for our film to make as we find psychological films very popular nowadays and seem to scare many people. We also think it will be fun to make a psychological film because we enjoy them types of films.

Self Evaluation - Kyle Nequest

Use Of Camera:
I think our use of camera was quite good, as all the shots were steady because we used a tripod. All our shots were framed appropriately, we also used a variety of shot types such as close ups, long shots and low angle shots. Our use of composition was average and could of been improved by thinking of the 'Rule of Thirds' a bit more when composing a shot.

Use Of Editing:
Our use of continuity is okay but not great as not all the shots flow smoothly as we had to cut some bits where we didn't film for long enough and just had to remove the shot, but apart from that the majority of the film has a nice flow. We didn't use any transitions to put our shots together as most transitions look cheesey and would of ruined the flow, also there wasn't any in the clip we were re-making therefore we didn't need to use them.

Selection Of Content:
I think we chose the appropriate costume as we didn't need make-up or many props for our clip as the original actor was dressed fairly normal. I believe our choice of location was quite good and similar to some shots in the original clip. I think the actor was okay as he only had to run and not do much acting therefore it wasn't very hard.

Self-Assessment:
I helped contribute to the film by doing most of the editing and helping out with setting up shots by following the storyboard, I also was the only actor in the film. We could of improved the film by taking more time and setting shots up a lot better and making sure that we film enough content and get 100% coverage as we ended some of our recordings too early. We could of also picked a more exciting film to record as the section we picked was quite dull and uninformative. When I come to do my final coursework film I will make sure I think out everything by taking more time on storyboards and setting up shots. I will also make sure I film everything twice so I have lots of clips to work with in case some mess up or have horrible background sounds. I will also make sure my final coursework film is a lot more exciting.

-Kyle Nequest

Assignment For Our Film Re-make - Ben Bushell

I would say that as I was the camera man, I used the tripod to keep the shots steady. So the camera wasn't all over the place. I think that we could frame a shot appropriately because we used our story board and got our shots in as well as we could. We used a variety of shots, like the reverse shot and low angle shot. We used composition techniques like the rule of third, and put hardly any space in some shots.

Some of the shots flow together, we missed out a couple of shots so it doesn't make sense. We didn't use any transitions accept from fade out for the end.

We didn't need costume, props or make up. We used an appropriate location for our re-make because it had places where we needed our shots to be. Our actor (Kyle Nequest) just had to run around so he was appropriate for our re-make.

I helped finish our film by drawing the story board, picking the location and I was the camera man. We could have watched the original film before re-making because we missed a few shots. Also I could have angled some shots correctly, and shot every shot twice for more coverage. Next time when it comes to coursework films I will angle shots correctly and get each shot more coverage. To make sense to the audience of what we are doing.

Psychological 2

Click here to watch video on youtube
This is the film we aimed to re-make. 

Assessment Film - Ben Bushell & Kyle Nequest

This is our 30 second re-make of the film 'Pendant'.

It's strengths are that some shots had really good composition yet other shots didn't. Our last shot was well composed as it was in a tight area and the ghostly character was a lot more visible than the other shot. We also had a few camera problems such as accidently pressing zoom while recording, angling the shots right, moving the camera into the low shot and stopping recording too early. 

We also had limited time so we had to rush some shots and didn't have chance to film everything twice and achieve full coverage. It was a public area therefore many members of the public got in the way of shots and made it harder for us to film. It was also extremely windy which affected the noise on the video and made it distort. We should of thought about our storyboard more as it was hard to follow on the day, the original film doesn't make a lot of sense because we didn't watch the video enough times to understand every shot. We also picked quite a boring section of the film which doesn't tell much of the story. 

We also forgot to focus the camera on a lot of shots for example in the shot where the ghostly character walks tree to tree it is hard to see who or what it is because it was pixelated. Next time we film we will make sure we have more time and to film every shot twice to get maximum coverage. We will also draw and write out our storyboards in more detail. 

Film Production: Recee Sheet - Ben Bushell

Pictures located on this post: http://bilborough80085.blogspot.com/2011/10/these-are-few-pictures-of-destination.html

Test Shot/ Character Design

We didn't need makeup as our character is based on a normal man, not a ghost or any supernatural form. Therefore we only needed to change clothing for the character.

Film Production: Recee Sheet - Kyle Nequest

These are a few pictures of a destination we thought we could film our short film. There is some public usage and there will be enough light to shoot our short film. We will not need any power supply because we should finish before the camera dies.
-Ben Bushell & Kyle Nequest

Storyboard project

Our shots were well framed as we used the rule of third, this helped us shoot our clips as good as we could have got them to be. Our close up when the noise is made, we had this shot lined up with the grid lines. Our project jumped a little bit. Our actor (Kyle Nequest) could not put on a scared face so we had to re-shoot this scene. Other than that our continuity was alright. The strengths about our project is we angled our shots with the grid, and re-shoot every time we messed up. Our weaknesses are that we couldn't stick to the story board, also our camera man (Ben Bushell) couldn't  always use the rule of third, because he didn't use the grid all the time, so some of the shots were not angled correctly.

Test Shot/ Character Design

 Before:                                                                                                    After:

Practical Continuity & Coverage Preliminary Excercise

Today we filmed a Practical Continuity & Coverage Preliminary Exercise by filming a short sequence of a character walking down a corridor and asking another character what time it is using various camera angles and shots.

We achieved seamless editing as the film doesn't jump and plays smoothly with good continuity. By using the skills we learnt last week we remembered to double check all the scenes and make sure that we hadn't left any scenes out at all. We framed all of our shots and angles correctly such as mid-shots, over the shoulder shots and close ups. We included the right amount of shots that we planned to film. It could be improved by possibly making sure that the character is in the exact same place as the last shot so it looks even smoother, also a better location could improve the film. 

-Ben Bushell & Kyle Nequest

Stair Sequence Corrected

Here we added the missing scene to our stair sequence. We're happy with the outcome as it looks a lot smoother than before.

-Kyle Nequest & Ben Bushell

Practical Continuity & Coverage Excercise

Here we attempted to film a stairs sequence using a range of camera angles and shots. We framed the majority of our shots correctly, some shots such as when we missed out the 'over the shoulder' shot and when he checks his watch it should of been a mid-shot but we missed out the waist. Our peace is quite fast and has a good pace to it. It could be improved by using a better location and doing a few takes to make sure we got the right camera angles and shots. The video does make sense as it shows a guy walking up the stairs and realising he is late so he rushes out the door.
Enjoy!

-Kyle Nequest & Ben Bushell

Just set up!

Just set up our new blog!

-Kyle Nequest & Ben Bushell