Update On Advertisement 2 (Jodie)

A couple of weeks ago I emailed The National Blood Service to see if they would be willing to send us some of their psoters to put in our Mise en Scene. But I never recived a definate reply, just an email back saying they have fowarded my request to the right department. However yesterday I recieved these in the post;


I recived 6 induvidual A4 posters. Here are a few of them close up;



The posters will work well in our mise en scene as the sentance "Give Blood" really stands out and it's the first part the audience will notice. This is effective as it is suggesting that the protagonist should give the blood on his hands. Also the posters mention saving peoples live's where as our opening suggests that the protagonist has just killed soemone therefore it is contrapuntual the story line.

However a problem with using any of the posters is their size becasue they are quite small to notice unless we put them near something which is constantly in shot such as the sink in the public toilet scene.

CSI photos (Kathy)

I emailed Sgt Mark Ginsberg for some information about CSI photos as the information on the information on the web is very limiting and we want our photos to look as realistic as possible. The information he gave me is therefore more reliable than the internet, and we can use this in our final pictures. The information he provided was:

The photos are 10" by 6", along the 10" side it is plain and blank, however the 6" side has a 1 cm white edge, with a small kent police logo in one corner and a number for the photo in the other (photo reference number)

The photos are bound together with a white glossy cover which has the exhibit label, and the kent police logo again.

He also said he would let us see some actual photos if we wanted, and that he would send me some labels which we could then stick on our photos, to make them realistic and so we didnt have to copy the style that they use.

CSI Equipment (Kathy)

The camera is obviously the most important piece of equipment, so we need to have a professional camera to make them look authentic.
I have investigated into how the photos can look like proper CSI photos, and because of confidentiality etc, it is hard to find out information on the internet. Therefore i have emailed a police sargent who i did some work experience with, and asked for him more information. I got a reply today, with a detailed explanation and an invitation to go and view some proper ones.

Another piece of equpiment is colour spray paint, which is used to mark out a crime scene (mainly car accidents) but is also used on grass, and therefore forests.
Evidence tape- is used to keep out the public and stop contamination in the crime scene.
Number markers- are used to recall exact location of evidence, such as impressions, and the positioning of items found.
Suveyors tape measure- Professional long tape, steel blade with inch and eighth inch graduations – metric consecutive cm and mm on reverse.

A beautiful mind analysis (Thea)

Whilst looking at the magazines avaliable for media students and whilst reading Total Film I came across an advertisement for the film 'A Beautiful Mind ' (released 2002).
The plot was described as; "A true story drama focusing on '50s mathematical boy wonder John Nash (played by russel Crowe). At the age of 21 he cracked the groundbreaking game theory of economics, but by the age of 30 had been diagnosed as having paranoid schizophrenia. He then faced a decades-long striggle to regain his reuptation, cumulating in him finally winning the Noble peace prize for mathematics in 1994."

I thought this would be an excellent film to try and analyse further as the protagonist within our production has some sort of paranoia/psychological difficulty.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3sl5INu7CU Looking at clip 2:12-2:22 Was unable to embed this as it has been disabled by request!
I know that this is a music video for a song with the film as the mise en scene. However, looking at clip 2:12-2:22, It is clear that he is struggling further with his schizophrenia as he starts to hear voices in his head. This is displayed excellently as it is unclear of what is being said and the panning affect around his head creatings a 'spinning' effect for the audience which reflects how this protagonist feels his life is perhaps 'spinning' out of control. This technique would be excellent when filming the POV shot or the part where the voices are for our protagonist as these angles would reflect the chaos that he is feeling.

Typography (Jodie)

An area that I decided look at is the typography of the opening credits. Credits are vital to telling the audience what type of film they are about to see for example colourful, bold writing is normally associated with comedies. Taking this into consideration we need to decide what type of font will suit our psychological thrillers. It order to see what type of font is used in this genre I first looked at related films and made a note of their aesthetics.

Gothika
This is quite a simple title credit as it is a clear white font on a black background. The font itself seems quite formal refering to the serious issues that may be dealt in the film. Also the font has a old fashioned feel to it to suggest it was set in a earlier period of time. The white on black is effective as it stands out and attracts the eye. Also by using a larger letter at the beginning and end of the word, this makes it seem balanced which is aesthetically pleasing.
Se7en
I like this typography as it looks like a form of handwriting. This suggests the film is like a visual diary or that it will be from a particular persons point of view. Also the handwriting seems quite scribbled which may be a child's handwriting or someone with a difficulty in writing. This difficulty may related to a psychological problem which is often found in psychological thrillers.
The Beach
The first thing I noticed about this font is that the different shades of blue outlining the title gives the impression the word is under water as it makes a wave effect. This is used to emphesise the theme of water within the film. Also both the blue and white contrast greatly with the black making it clearly stand out.
The Butterfly Effect
Although I could not screen shot it, the typography is across a picture of a butterfly which gradually morphs into a brain scan. This was very effective as it sums up the story line of the film in two pictures. The butterfly was chosen so symbolise the theory being focused on and the brain scan to represent the character mental disability. The shade of blue used for the images creates and calming but cold affect on the audience which could resemble the different moods the audience will feel within the film. The font used is in a lighter shade to stand out against the imagery and the use of the capitals shows the butterfly effect's importance in the film.
Thirteen
This typography also uses the white on black effect to make the wording clear. However it is quite interesting as it uses a font which looks like the stereotypical type writer font. The font itself is usually used in textual documetns and is quite monotoned through equal spacing and denisty of colour. This could represent that the film consist of a serious of balanced events or characters. The boldness of the word is also quite striking and overpowering to show some form of domiance.
The Machinist
This is one of the few bits of typography which has a picture as the back ground. I find it intersting as it implies that the "machinist" is the character in the background and therefore acts as an introduction. However the picture in the background is still quite dark therefore the title is clear to read. I like how although the audience is looking out to the city, the reflection in the window is telling the story of one of its civilians. This makes the two images compliment one and other. Also an establishing shot of the city is often a code and convention of a thriller.
Silence of the Lambs
These credits are different to the rest as it uses three colours isntead of two. The red of red emphesises the word silence. As red is a code and convention of blood and death it suggests the silence being refered to is a result of a death or murder. This could be a technique we use in our own film title if it is longer than one word.

Overall from my research I can conclude that psychological thrillers nearly always use light shaded fonts against a dark or black background. Any extra colour, normally blue or red, is used to hlighlight specific words or themes within the film. Also any imagery used is to give a brief insight into the story line or notable features of the main character. By sticking to these codes and conventions of psychological thriller fonts, our typography will be well suited to our own film opening

Also as another part of research we as group went on the Apple Macs and experimented with the differnt fonts they have on iMovie. We discovered that it had many different fonts we could chose from which the size and shape could be altered. Once we have picked a film title we can experiemnt what typography to get the best result for our own movie opening. Screen shots of possible options will be posted at a later date.

Dialogue (Kathy)

Dialogue is only a small part of acting as most of the emotions are shown through body language (about 65%) and speech (7%). So although speech is thought to be an important role in films or theatre, you get a lot more information by watching what and how the actor moves/ acts.


We feel dialogue is very important, as it can either make the opening unprofessional, or it can be very effective. We started to think of all the dialogue we needed and tried to limit this, so we only used the dialogue that was necessary.

I have started to look at police calls (see emergency call post) and started to put this duologue together, and by deciding what the employee has said it was therefore easier to decide what the dog walker says. The most important part of the dialogue, is the vocal emotion as we need to find a serious, calm and slightly older sounding voice for the police employee, and a more panicky and distressed voice for the dog walker, which means the voice of the character has to show all the emotions through speech which is hard to accomplish.

First of all: police- "this is the police, how may we help you?"

caller- "hi, erm, ive found a body... its a girl" (hysterical)

police- "can you tell me where you are?"

caller- "in the woods, near tonbridge station, its in a clearing"

police- "can you stay with the body?"

caller- "yeah i guess, please hurry though"

police- "we will be there in 10 minutes"

Primary Research (Jakob)

Once we had decided on the genre of our film, we felt that the next step was to conduct some primary research. We created a questionnaire to find out what our audience associated with psychological thrillers, and alaso what they liked and disliked about the genre. In addition, we put in a few questions that were directly related to our opening in order to help us with our own project.

We received a total number of 21 responses aged between 16 and 56. Thirty eight percent were male.

The interview
After looking at the questionnaire responses we realised we had a lack of males from the higher age category therefore we decided to interview someone who fits into this category, Mr Gilkes.

The Facebook Group
In order to reach a wider spread of results we created a facebook so that we could get our questionnaires completed efficiently by various people (Not just those in our 6th form). The facebook group also provided an area for people to give their general opinion or comments.

THE GENRE

What do you think of when you read the phrase ‘psychological thriller?
Intense paranoia, messes with the mind, dark, weird, disturbing, mind playing, jumpy, gripping, music and dialogue creates suspense and tension

How Often Do you watch Psychological thrillers ?
Rarely = 10 Sometimes = 6 Often = 4 Never = 1

What Do you like about Psychological thrillers ?
Storyline = 9 Issues = 7 Characters = 5 Camera Angles = 3
Other = relates to real life, construction, psychological effects, theatrical dramatisation

What do you not like about Psychological thrillers ?
Story = 9 Confusion = 8 Issues = 2
Other = characters unbelievable, being made jump

Our storyline incorporates nearly all of the things people associate with psychological thrillers, for example intense paranoia, messing with the mind, jumpy and gripping, dark, and with music and dialogue creating suspense and tension.
Because it is only an opening, the storyline in our film cannot be very drawn out our explicit but we feel the part included is strong. In addition our film focuses on characterisation, an aspect that people cited as important.

THE STORYLINE

Do you prefer a simple storyline with chronological events or ones with twists?

Simple = 2 twists = 19

Do you find flashbacks effective? Why?

Yes = 15 No = 3

Why = help establish sequence of events, easier to understand, further depth, good to know characters, enables audience to look at the past, builds an idea of what is to come, allows tension to build towards the end

What time of day is most predictable in a psychological thriller ?
Morning = 5 Afternoon= 2 Evening = 7 Night = 11

Our film does not have a simple chronoligical storyline. We wanted to include flashbacks, and after looking at other films and discussing ways for us to do this, we have instead inserted crime scene photographs into our film which have the same narrative effect.

We plan to film during the daytime, subverting people's expectations of the genre and adding to the unnaturalness of the scene. In addition this would make filming easier as we could, for the most part, use natural light.

CHARACTER AND TITLES

What gender and age would you most empathise with in terms on main character
Male = 7 Female = 14
<16= 20 =" 11" 25=" 5" 30=" 2" 35 =" 1">

Do you prefer films with one word titles or longer
One word = 15 Middle = 5 Longer = 3

Although most people said they would emphasise with a female lead, most people were also female. People tended to say they would emphasise most with a character of their own gender, and as we feel a male character would seem more likely to have killed someone, we are using a male main character.
Most people would also emphasise most with a character their own age, and as our target audience is between about 16 and 24, that will be our character's age. Furthermore, it will create a sense of innocence and vulnerability contrapuntal to the blood on his hands.
The title of our film is as yet undecided, but chances are we will go with our audience's preferences and make it one word.

Our narrative

What do you expect to see when you go into a public toilet ?
Graffiti, wet muddy floor, broken toilet seats and doors, dark , dingy, glass everywhere, grimy mirrors, cold looking, cracked mirror, metal sinks, not much lighting, soap if lucky, bland, advertising, toilet roll everywhere, smell.

What do you expect when you think of a mental illness?

Hallucinations= 10 Paranoia = 6 Anger = 2 Depression =7

Other = mood swings, memory loss, incoherent speaking.

this links to our narrative as one of our main scenes is inside a public toilet, and we wanted to make it to be clearly a public toilet. What's more, by using or finding a place with all or most of these conventions, the horrible, dingy conditions will be emphasised.

We also want it to be clear that our character has a mental disorder. We are including Hallucinations, paranoia and anger in our opening. The ways we will portray these things on film can be found in our blog, 'Psychological Disorders'

Analysing a Still (Silence of the Lambs)(Jodie)

While looking for typography within the film Silence of the Lambs, I discovered this over the shoulder shot of Clarice looking at a CSI photo of a set of teeth;


I thought this shot would very useful to analyse because it is the perfect type of shot we need in the beginning of the opening when our CSI photos are first being presented to the audience.

What I find most effective about the still is the lighting. By using minimal light it puts emphasis on the photo which makes it stand out from it's background. By putting it under a spotlight, detail in the picture is easier to see. Also the lighting used puts the person looking at the photo into a dark sillouette. This creates mystery to the person who is looking at picture which is what we are trying to create in our own film opening as all the audience will see is the hand which picks up the photos. By doing this the audience is more likely to be interested in the film as they may wish to find out who this sillouette is.

The use of camera angles is effective too as by using an over the shoulder shot, it gives a feel that the audience are behind this person looking at the photo with them. This creates a feel of being involved in the film and being naother character. We can link this back to audience theory, emphasising on escapism, as by being invovled the film lets the audience forget about the real world.

Therefore when we film our opening I feel we should look at the use of spotlights as well as incorporating an over the shoulder shot when looking at the CSI photos as I feel that both of these will make the scene feel authentic as well as interesting for the audience.

Cuts etc (Kathy)

I have researched into different techniques into making scars, cuts etc. I went on youtube (where you can find everything!) and found several videos.
They all used the same technique: they use skin-tite which is a silcone rubber used specially for masks, wounds and scars. It bends so it is easy to shape, and only comes off when pulled.

Mix equal parts of silcone, add pigment which is already mixed with B, then add thi-vex which will thicken it.
Use a tongue depressor, and form a line of skin-tite along back of hand. Dip a brush into alcohol and blend sides of wound onto skin. Carve a line down middle to create a wound gash mark.
Let it set for 5-7 minutes. Use paint or makeup to colour wound to make it look like blood, and darker shades of makup to blend with skin. You can then move your wrist with the wound moving with it.
To remove, pull away from skin using baby oil, or makeup remover to help assist the removal.




I also tried to make one out of wax, however it drys too quickly and becomes brittle (and may burn your hand...) so this makes it hard to mould even though i started to shape it as soon as it went on the skin.

More Crime Scene Photography (Jakob)

Our film includes crime scene photographs, and as well as researching the lighting and effects to use to make these realistic, it is equally important to make sure we have the right photographs in the first place.

science.howstuffworks.com says 'There are three types of photographs a CSI takes to document the crime scene: overviews, mid-views, and close-ups'. To be authentic, our film should probably include a variety of these, as opposed to just one, etc.

'Overview shots are the widest possible views of the entire scene'. We include this, in a shot of the crime scene tape which leaves the body vague contributing to the mystery and suspense of the film.

'mid-shots show key pieces of evidence in context', for example, location in the scene or distance from other evidence.

'close-ups are of individual pieces of evidence, showing any serial numbers or other identifying characteristics. For these pictures, the CSI uses a tripod and professional lighting techniques to achieve the best possible detail and clarity -- these photos in particular will provide the forensics lab with views to assist in analyzing the evidence. The CSI also takes a second set of close-up shots that includes a ruler for scale'. This type of shot is the one most important to us, allowing us to convey injury and death whilst retaining mystery and suspense. We included close-ups of a foot, a hand, and finally the eyes. We have researched what professional lighting techniques to use to make these realistic, and by including a ruler in at least one of these shots we can add to the proffesional feel. In addition, we need to include a reason for the detective to have taken these photos, so we will add in some important pieces of evidence on these photos, for instance cuts or bruises.

Codes and Conventions (Kathy)

These are the main codes and conventions, all of which are used some point during a thriller unless the director/ playwright decides to break them. We are using all of these, exept flash backs.

•Suprises & Twists
•Plays With Viewers Mind
•Quick Cuts & Change Of Camera Angles
•Music To Add Tension
•Use Of Lighting To Create Shadows
•Mirrors
•Stairs
•From Killers Point Of View
•Flash Backs
•Pass Of Time Sequences
•Make Audience Think

AS well as this, the victim is always female and the protagonist a dominant male, with some connection to the victim, which again we are doing, so all in all we are sticking to the codes and conventions.

Youtube Directors (Kathy)

I went on youtube to find out what directors of psychological thrillers thought about each film, and why they chose to do each code and convention.

Brad Anderson (The Machinest)- responded to script, thought it was dark and sureal, writing is not very detailed- only 85 pages can read in 30 mins, and it stuck with him. The script was like a puzzle, can be interpreted differently- wanted it to be more about suspence and like Hitchcocks work.

Alfred Hitchcock- wanted to shock people, people are frightened of the same things they were yesterday e.g. red riding hood, becasue "fright complex is rooted into every individual" wanted to scare women because 80% of audience in cinema are women. Men have little to do with choice of film. Cinema films are the same everywhere and can be played at the same time in several different countries, and is therefore vast. Same audience is responding to same things.

David Lynch (Lost Highway)- saw somthing in the eyes of the character, the feamle role is more important than the male, use existing music to create tension in film, music has to live in the story- listens to loads of music before deciding the perfect piece to go in the film.

Christopher Nolan (The Dark Knight)- dark, followed story, criminal response, looked at audience to get response, be convinced the film is what you would want to see, need to able to critisise work. Watch with real audience- good gage for next project.

These 4 directors of psychological thriller movies all spoke about scaring people and how different people could interpret a script without explicit directions from the writer, none of them went into codes and conventions in depth although some are clear from the information given e.g. dark, wanting to shock audience, and some wanted to break conventions by having dominant role to be female.

Camera angles and shots (Thea)

I have been looking at use of camera and shots for our production.
As we are using handheld POV shots for when the protagonist see's blood on his hand I thought it was useful to look at the film 'cloverfield' as it is shot using hand held camera and many POV shots.

The continous use of hand held camera makes the audience feel confused and sometimes dizzy (and even sick! as I did when trying to watch this film!). However, the good effect of this use of camera shot is that the audience is mainly limited to the view that the person holding the camera has. This is also effective when trying to portray unrealistic events due to the fact it makes the audience feel as though they are witnessing these events first hand even though they are not.
The quick editing starting at 0:48 is really effective for drawing the audience into the scene as they are unsure of what they have seen and are keen to find out the full picture.
The change in the lighting is especially effective as the audience is not always able to get a clear picture of the events which makes the scene more interesting.
The camera going in and out of focus is great for confusing the viewer and creating a feeling of uneasiness and amateurness to the clip.

Some of these techniques will be effective to use within our POV shots from the protagonists viewpoint. The blurring and lack of focus will help to display how confused and un-focused he feels during the situation. The fast editing technique will be excellent to reflect the urgency that the storyline has.

Final Location - Woods

We looked at several possiblilities of wood location for example: Woodlands walk in Tonbridge, Pontoise Park in Sevenoaks and discused the pros and cons of them. We ruled out the places near a main road, as there would be a lot of people and it may have been distressing especially if they had young children with them, as we found out! Secondly the woods needed to have a clearing small enough to take photos of a body, but yet still look like woods were a murder could take place.

After settling on our final location for our photos, we decided to go with our "dead" girl (Kathy) to our location " Pontoise Park" which is located on Pontoise Close in Sevenoaks. We decided this would be the best place because it was deserted therefore would be quiet and the wooded area had a clearing which we used for our CSI scene.
We set up our scene as if the girl had fallen over the tree branch that was on the floor, and took photos from different angles, whilst also doing close ups of the parts of the body that had been damaged. The area was muddy an there were leaves everywhere, therefore we had to make the body look dirty, as if she had been in a stuggle and is if she had been there for hours, so mud and leaves were thrown apon the body along with mud under her nails and on her hands.

Costumes and Props (Kathy)

For our opening we need: crime scene tape, handbag, dress for dead girl, high heels, table, lamp, suit for policeman (detective/ CID), posters

Firstly we needed to find some crime scene tape, which we did by looking on the internet sites, and in shops, which was all accessable and reasonably cheap, and then we discovered that the science department had some left over from when the Additional Appplied group last year did forensics.

The handbag we thought wasnt very important, apart from it needing to be a shoulder handbag so that it can be pulled close to the woman when the protagonist is going past.

The dress for the dead girl needed to be a party style dress, and preferably white, however jodie found a dress that was perfect but yellow, however the photos are in black and white, and after experimenting the dress looked white in the black and white camera setting.

The high heels needed to obviously go well with the dress, and also the heel needed to be easy to break, we searched a few charity shops and found a pair of black heels that would contrast with the white look on the dress.

The lamp and table are being used to film the photos. We are going to use jodies dining table, as it is dark mahogany and fitted best with an authentic look relating to CID, the lamp makes it look more mysterious and dingy yet so you can see the photos.

The suit again isnt important, as you can only see the man's arm and sleeve. We thought it was more important that the hands of the man looked older, so that it was more authentic.

For the posters jodie sent off for the mind ones and the rest we got from the internet or made from scratch. All these posters link into the opening in some way for example the give blood relates to the blood on the protagonists hand, along with the Macbeth theatrical poster.

emergancy calls (Kathy)

I started to research into what people say when answering an emergancy call, however obviously i couldnt get this information 1st hand, so i looked at youtube clips and watched serveral episodes of crimewatch.
The majority of the calls said: "This is the emergancy services which service do you require... This is the police, how can we help you?" which was helpful as we can now use some of this dialogue in the police call for our film opening.

In the crimewatch episodes they say "hello, this is the police.... calm down, can you tell me where you are?... i cant understand you, can you tell me whats happened?"

So basically they say whatever they can to calm the caller down so they can gather all the information they need to send out the police as soon as they can. This information i found was all repetitive, and hard to find becuase the calls are only posted if they are hoaxes and so the ones i found were all the same calls.
All the calls have well spoken and easy to hear and understand people on the other end of the phone so that the victim/ witness can concentrate on giving information rather than trying to understand the employee.

Psychological Thrillers (Jakob)

This post is a bit late, but as part of our initial research we analysed and deconstructed some films and film openings (see blog 'Movie Night'). After looking on the internet (eg list sites and review sites) and talking to some film fans (eg the Blockbuster staff), i made up a list of top psychological thrillers:

The Beach
Disturbia
The ButterFly Effect
Donnie Darko
Don't Look Now
Flatliners
Gothika
Hard Candy
Hide and Seek
Jaws
Psycho
Rear Window
The Sixth Sense
Straw Dogs
Se7en
Thr3e
The Machinist
Fight Club
Gaslight
Donkey Punch
Memento

Forensic photos - lighting (Thea)

Whilst trying to research the specifications of forensic photographs such as date, colour and a border etc (which proving quite difficult!), I stumbled across this clip on youtube which goes into further detail about how to use lighting effectively within forensic photographs.
This will be especially useful when taking the crime scene photographs of the victim as we will want to make the photos look as authentic and shocking as possible.

Permission to film (Thea)

I have contacted the southeastern train services and have requested to speak to the manager of Orpington station who apparently oversees things regarding Sevenoaks and Tonbridge station. I was informed to do this after enquiring about how to obtain permission to film from Sevenoaks and Tonbridge station staff.

This is a copy of the letter I posted (Tuesday 19th January 2010);

To whom it may concern,

I am writing, on behalf of my media coursework group, to enquire about the possibility for using either Sevenoaks or Tonbridge train station public toilets as the location for a Media A/s Coursework project. We are planning to start filming for the two minute film opening as part of our Media A/s level syllabus as soon as possible, although at the latest by the middle of February.
We have created a storyline of which we need a public toilet as the location, which has twist taps and a mirror above the sink. We have scouted many locations and both the toilets at Sevenoaks and Tonbridge meet the criteria that we are looking for. We are able to film at off-peak times or at weekends if this would be easier and more convenient. We would need around two hours, maybe less, to film enough footage for our coursework.
We will not be displaying that it is a South-eastern train service toilet, wherever if this is possible. If you have any queries or questions please do not hesitate to contact myself or Mrs Hollis or Ms Watts, our Media A/s Level teachers at;
Weald of Kent girls Grammar School
Tudeley Lane
Tonbridge
Kent
TN9 2JP

Phone: 01732 373500

Yours faithfully,

Thea Hagley

However, on 25th January 2010, I still had not had any reply. Acting on this, I rang the customer services number (the only one I could get hold of) in the hope of speaking to the Orpington manager directly in order to get a response.
Unfortunately, I spent about 20-30 minutes on the phone only to be consistently placed on hold and then passed from one department to another. I was then told the manager was in a meeting and to wait for them to contact me.
This still has not yet happened.

Therfore, as a group we have decided to film at Tonbridge Rail Station anyway as it is the perfect location for our film opening. We will try to be inconspictous in order to lessen the chance of causing an inconvenience.

What We Need for Filming (Jodie)

The Crime Scene Photos

• The body
• The costume (dress,shoes,tights,jewellery)
• make up for bruises and cuts
• general make up for girls face
• nail varnish (which will be chipped) if needed
  
• camera + photographer
• face wipes
• scissors for cutting dress (if need be)
• fake blood
• photopaper
• editing software
• blanket (so dead body can keep warm while not taking photos :D)
• soil/dirt for under her fingernails
  

Filming The Photos

• The photos printed out
• dark coloured desk/table
• lighting
• camera
• Jodie's dad wearing suit jacket and shirt
  
• tripod
• plugs/plug sockets

Filming the Running

• Protagonist actor
• protagonist costume
• make up
  
• fake blood
• camera
• tripod
• any extra lighting + plus battery packs
• umbrella if raining + towel
  
• train pass to get through barriers
  
• woman being ran into (wearing normal own clothes)
• hand bag for woman
• posters
  

Filming in Public Toilets

• Protagonist and costume (focus on continuety)
• guy walking in (will be wearing own clothes)
• lots of fake blood
• posters
• camera
• tripod
• towel (incase water gets on lense)
  
• extra lighting if needed
  
• stool for high angle shots ?

Sound

• script
• phones to record phone convisation effect (if needed be)
• instruments
• music studio
• dog walker voice
• police voice
• whispers voice
• protagonist voice
• specific sound effects eg heartbeat, footsteps
  

Schedule (Thea) updated by kathy

Monday 1st Febuary 2010 07:30 pm
Practise filming of the toilet scene/section at Tonbridge station public toilets, and filming of the tunnel. Checking the lighting.

Friday 5th Febuary 2010 09:30 am
Filming of the toilet scene at tonbridge station, as we cant film the outside during the day because we are setting the scene during the night.

Saturday 6th Febuary 2010 11:00 am
Meeting at jodies house to prepare Kathy for the photographs of the victim.
Take photographs at woods down the road from Jodie's house.
Go to Kate's house to review photographs and manipulate them with paintshop pro.
Print them off.

Saturday 6th Febuary 2010 07:30 pm
Film Jodies Dad inspecting the photographs printed earlier that day.

Sunday 7th February 20:00pm
Filming of the protagonist running along the platform, the running through the tunnel and the match-on action shot of the protagonist going into the toilet.

Monday 8th Febuary 2010 -Thursday 25th Febuary 2010
Editing will take place along with any final touches or refilming necessary.


Wednesday 3rd March 2010 19:00pm
Filming at Tonbridge station- tunnel scene

Friday 5th March 18:00pm
Toilet scene at Sevenoaks toilets

Dead Body Costuming (Jodie)

Now the group is focusing on costuming for our characters, we came together to decide what type of outfit the dead body in the CSI photos will be wearing. We felt that this is the most important costume out of all 4 because costuming can resemble a person's personality. This is crucial to get across to the audience because it may explain the motive as to why they were killed or it could confuse which could be a hook to watch the rest of the film. It gives a clear indicator as to what the girl was like before shes died.

After conducting our research of females with psycholigcal thrillers, we have decided to break the tradition codes and conventions of it and wanted use someone who has dark hair and eyes. By not sticking to the codes and conventions it can make the opening more interesting because it does not fulfil audience expectation.

As for the actual costume we decided that the body will be wearing formal wear such as a nice dress and heels. We thought this could be really effective as it could hint to the reason why the body was killed in the first place as well as make the audience question the reason for with outfit. Luckily while looking through old clothes, I came across this dress;

I thought this dress could work quite well as it looks quite formal and it is a good length and size. Also as it is a light colour, when we make a stab wound on the stomach the blood will easily show up but we need to test what mixture of fake blood looks most realistic on this type of material. We idealy would like a white dress as a code and convention of the girls innocence and to emphesise on the fact that was merely a victim. However when experementing with the black and white function on my camera I found that it does look white in this setting;

Therefore this dress can work really well because when the audience sees the CSI photos they will be in black white and therefore they will presume this dress is white. However we need to look into other parts of the costume such as shoes, make up or even bits of jewellery which could be sentimentle. But overall the main costume has been sorted.

References to Macbeth (Jakob)

As you may have noticed, Certain aspects of our project, for example the imaginary blood on the hands which cannot be washed off, are similar to parts of Shakespeare's 'Macbeth'. We have decided to exploit these similarities, creating an effective atmosphere.

One way in which we could do this is through the Mise en Scene. Already we are using 'Mind' posters, and we could put up 'Macbeth' posters or advertisements in the background.

However, the better, subtler, more effective way to do this is through the sound. Our film opening includes frantic, overlapped whispering, portraying our protagonist's panicked stream of thought. The dialogue, consisting of phrases such as 'she cant be dead' and 'this isn't happening', could contain some quotations. Reading the play, i have selected certain lines and phrases from Lady Macbeth's own hallucinogenic episode. We will use 'where is she now', originally in reference to the murdered Lady Macduff, and 'will these hands never be clean'. In addition, i believe 'yet here's a spot' will prove more effective than the more famous, sloganised 'Out, damned spot'.

Dead Body Positioning (Jodie)

While storyboarding our group realised that we do not know the position which we want the dead body in our CSI photos to be in. This is crucial to look into as we need to take photos of certain parts of the body to highlight the injuries it has recieved from the murderer. Therefore our group came together and took pictures of possible positions which are displayed below. Please excuse the length of my dress :)

We chose these positions by seeing where we landed if we were doing a mock falling down. of course we couldn't actually fall down because it would hurt however to get an authetic position we could try on a soft surface like a matress. But from these photos we established that body should not be facing the floor as we need a close up of the neck to show the bruising. I feel the picture bottom left would not work as the legs would not still be up at an angle if the body was dead however i couldnt lower them myself because it started to hurt. The picture top left could be effective as it looks as if the body has been pushed back and all the close ups we want to take can be seen. The main issue is getting a close up of the hands so a photo of dirt under the finger nails can be taken so as a group we need to decide what position the hands will be in.