Advertisement Update (Jodie)

Today I recieved a package through my door from the chariy Mind. This is what it contained;

It contained 3 A5 posters, 2 A4 and 1 A3. These will be extremely useful in our Mise en Scene and I am very thankful towards Mind for sending them free of charge. There was also a request in the package to possibly see our film opening when it is done. Here is a close up of the A3 poster;

I think this poster will work really well in our opening because the main thing you read is "1 in 4" and in the actual opening audience sees 4 characters; The protagonist, the girl in the CSI photos, the woman that is run into and the man who enters the public toilets. This was not done on purpose as i had not seen the posters before they were sent to me.

The next step is to identify a place where we can put this poster without it looking out of place and the audience can clearly read it even if it is for a brief amount of time. I also need to contact the National Blood Service again because I have heard no reply from them.

Lighting (Kathy)

Three point lighting is a technique commonly used in films, adverts photos etc. It creates a sense of depth on people by making them look 3D.
It is made up of 3 lights (suprisingly) one placed behind the subject and the other two at 45 degree angle roughly on each side.

KEY lighting- primary to illuminate a subject positioned at 15-45 degree from one side of the camera and down by about the same so its above the subject. This represents the primary source of light stimulating the sun, a window, a light bulb etc.

FILL lighting- after the key light is positioned there is a shadow on one side of the subject. The fill is meant to reduce this and should be placed opposite the key light but needs to be half the brightness and must not be at the same angle otherwise it will look unnatural.

BACK lighting- this is placed behind the subject opposite the camera, but at a higher angle to avoid the light shining straight at the camera lense. It creates a glow on the back of the subject and separates them from the backround. It also prevents te subject from looking 2D, it is also known as the "hallo effect"

Mood
For a comedy- turn up fill to create a more evenly lit set, and a jolly atmosphere
Dramatic- turn down fill to increase shadow and build up the suspense and tension

this is where i got the information http://filmstudies.suite101.com/article.cfm/threepoint_lighting

Sound Effects (Jakob)

The opening of our film involves the sound effects of footsteps, heavy breathing and a heartbeat. After searching and listening on various websites, including www.a1freesoundeffects.com, www.youtube.com and www.pacdv.com/sounds, my final decision is to use footstep and heartbeat sound samples located at www.sound-effects.com, despite the small charge. I believe that the heavy breathing will be more realistic and effective if recorded directly by our lead actor himself.

In addition, the opening features deep, pacey music that eventually crescendos, in a similar style to the music in the opening of Se7en, as well as frantic, overlapped, whispering voices to convey thoughts, guilt and panic. Both of these will be recorded at Blizzard Record studios on the 30th of January, after which i will post all sound samples.

Update on Advertisement (Jodie)

Previously i mentioned that I would be contacting Mind and the National Blood Service t osee if they could send us some psoters to use in our mise en scene

The National Blood Service emailed saying they have fowarded my enquiry to the right department but i was in contact with Mind straight away and they have sent out psoters of various size today.

This will be extrememly helpful as it will save time and effort creating our own psoter for the charity and I feel this is the most important organisation to advertise within our opening considering we are focusing on pyschological disorders.

Creating Bruises (Kathy)

so... to the topic of bruises!!! I started off by experimenting with watercoloured pencils, makeup and then a mix of the two.

Makeup- i used eyeshadow and eyeliner to try and create the same kind of effect, however the eyeliner was harder to smudge, and therefore didnt get the same bruise effect, although the eyehadows were easier to mix together than the pencils.

Watercolours- i got some water and the pencils and put: blue, black, purple, green, yellow onto my hand, and mixed them a bit, i then added more of these colours to build up on the shading, and to make it look more realisic.

Both- mixted together i think it was the best, as you have a wider variety of colours or shades of colours. The makeup was easier to get off as it is designed to come off easily, however the watercolours were harder to get off, and left a red mark and almost a bruise!

The makeup didnt show up on its own, so by adding the watercolours on top make it darker and therefore more realistic. I then finished it off by putting a final layer of eyeshadow to dry the watercolours. I found this to be the best effect and seeing as people kept asking me what i had done, im guessing it was pretty effective!

Females within Psychological Thrillers (Thea)

Taken From Fight Club
This shows the main female character from the night club. In the film she is percieved and explictily named as the one who destroyed eveyrthing. This may explain why she is wearing and styled as the stereotype of a 'femme fatal'. She has dark hair and emphasised dark eyes with contrasting pale skin and red lips. Although, this is a very effective and eye catching look, i feel it would not be appropriate to style/base our female character on her as we want the audience to feel pity for the female that was killed and not to blame her for looking overtly sexual or that it was in any way her fault.

Taken From Gothika
This displays the lead character from Gothika who has been placed in a mental asylum for women. her clothes and hair reflect this as she has very plain coloured clothes without a design or pattern to them. Her hair looks ruly and unstyled (as it would be in such a place) and it appears she does not put effort into her appearance.
This look would be better then the one from fight club as it is more simplistic and less overtly sexual. Her hair is dark with blends into her surroundings and everything about her look and outfit makes her very ordinary and she would not necessarily stand out. However, i feel that her look is too messy and untamed for our project as we want someone to look as if it would be believeable for someone to be obsessed with them mainly for their looks.

Taken From the others
this is a still taken from the others and Nicole Kidman is the main character, one of whom the audience is at times lead to feel sorry for. her pale skin and very blonde hair contrast dramatically with the setting she is in and with her outfit. it almost seems that her outfit and setting were not made for her and that she is out of place being there. Her hair appears to be have a natural yet enhanced with styling look to it and it does not appear to high maintenance. her make up is very simple and it looks as though she is not wearing too much which makes her look naturally attractive. This look could be very effective within our clip as it looks groomed yet not too unnatural. It seems simple yet elegant and the outfit contrasting with her skin and hair makes her stand out more.

Taken From Thirteen
This still focus's mainly on her eyes, which have been lined with dark eyeliner. Yet again the darkness of her eye make up contrast with her pale skin and her blonde hair. Her hair and make up look as though she has 'let it slip' and look rather messy as the hair is pulled back and the make up is smudged. This is representative of her life at this point in the film. This look is effective for displaying turmoil and lack of control. This could be useful for our character as it would be a very stressful event to be murdered! She will probably have been crying at some point so any eye make up she may have been wearing would have been smudged. So this look could be very effective for authenticity.

From What Lies Beneath
Her hair is a darker blonde compared to the other blondes I have looked at. her hair has been scrapped back behind her ears which could represent some form of frustration she is feeling at this point. Her hair is past shoulder length, which most of the other females I have looked at are (apart from fight club). this may be to reflect their feminitity and display how they are different to men. Her eyes look tired as though she has had little sleep and her whole appearance shows there is some type of stress going on currently. She is older than the other characters I have looked at and this is reflected by her tweed blazer style jacket she is wearing which is normally associated with age. Our character will be younger,looking probably around 18-20ish so would be wearing more fashionable clothes.




Will discuss with group which look is most effective and how we could achieve this is our clip (perhaps use of wigs or contact lenses or paintshop pro to manipulate the colours to show a further contrast?)

Still of police photograph used from 'The cell' (Thea)

Another thing that came from this research was that I managed to find a litterally one second clip of use of police/forensic photographs in the opening trailer from ' The cell'.
It shows a close up of what I think is a young girl/young womans eyes where there has been some form of violence or damage to them. This is very useful to our film project as we are planning to use police photographs in our clip to display the victims dead body but we wanted to use close ups to make the audience uncertain of what the pictures were of and what had happened. I would say that this photograph has been edited to make the eyes look more blue and the skin more pale to contrast with the colour of her eyes to make it more effective and eye catching.
We could achieve this in our project through either contact lenses or the use of photoshop pro which would hopefully not be too difficult.

Police photography advice clip (Thea)

I was looking into information about police photography as within the first section of our two minute clip we will be using police/forensic photographs of a dead body to set the storyline/main feature of the film. Although this clip does not show examples of police photographs used within film or television it was useful for reminding that police photographs cannot be biased and must show anything that could be important such as bruises cuts etc which we already had planned.
Although we are not displaying a police report/profile of the situation we must still make the photographs look authentic and believeable to be able to be used as evidence.

Advertisement Placement (Jodie)

As our filming opening is most definately going to be filmed at a train station, I (Jodie) went to Tonbridge station to see how they used advertisement there and where it is placed. I also looked at what type of things they actually advertise too. Here is a slide show of the photos I took around the station;

What was being advertised;
- Train Company Promotions
- Cinema and Theater Showings
- Cafes
- Finding a Job
- Tv channels
- Travel

None of these relate to our media opening and therefore could not be used to our advantage. However by keeping them in our mise en scene shows the authenticity of our location. But one thing I noticed is the size of each of the posters and how large they are. If we wanted to put some of our posters up we would need to get large sized ones to make them look natural. This may take a lot of money to create and therefore we need to consider other ways of displaying them.

Without a trace analysis (Thea)

I (Thea) have began to look at how photographs used by police are displayed within TV drama and film. This is a clip from Without a Trace, Season 6.

At the very beginning of this clip, the police hand over a close up of face of one of the suspects. It is in full colour, as this could affect how they are identified (the colour of their eyes may be important for example). It is full sized on an A4 peice of paper, which I assume is to make it easier for the person trying to identify this person. The lighting is rather dim in the background although all their faces are quite easy to see.The photos seem to be on some form of shiny laminated paper/photo paper, probably to protect it from being ripped or something.
The still from the CCTV image 00:58 is in black and white which would indicate that stills taken from things filming in black and white cannot be changed to colour.
But when possible (at the beginning)colour is used. The still is only a third of the page and takes centre. Proabably because if they had streched that still it would have disturbed the photograph making it unclear.


Will continue to look at more uses of photographs within TV and film.