Storyboard- For Our Initial Idea;

Gantt Chart;

As we come closer to the filming stages my group devised a week-by-week chart in order to keep on the tight schedule and make sure we include everything needed on our blogs.

Week Beginning:

22 Feb- Keep blog updated, finish audience research (questionnaires), storyboards, voice record opinions on intial idea

1st Mar-Finish storyboards, sounds, typography, lighting, scripts, recreations of characters from exsisting horror/thrillers, shooting schedule

8th Mar- Filming, video diary of filming (podcast), weather updates, changes in storyboard and schedule

15th Mar-Editing stages, final blog touches

29th Mar-5th Apr- HALF TERM finishing blog, guides on how to use macs, cameras and how to edit.

12th Apr- Editing

19th Apr- Evaluation

26th Apr- Evaluation

FRIDAY 30TH APRIL- DEADLINE

Initial Ideas;

In order to decide what initial idea was best our group analysed the results from the audience research (questionnaires and interviews), advantages and disadvantages of filming locations and additional information such as props, production rules and health and safety. We then decided Idea One was more appropriate and had more potential because I personally visualised the process and the post-production I saw success then communicated this thought to the group. Idea Two and Idea Three were very brief but don't have the opportunity to expand and would be very short pieces of film. The timing of the final film opening piece should aim to be a minimum 1 minute and maximum 2 minutes.

Planning Outline for Final Piece

Before drawing up out storyboards our group sat down and decided step-by-step what would happen within the film opening. In chronological order the story follows as:

• Long shot of the moon with an voice over of a poem by a little girl, the long shot then pans to the car.
• The shot cuts to inside the car with an over the shoulder shot of the stalker taking/looking at photos. This is also a point of view shot of the stalker watching the girl close her curtains.
• Cuts to medium shot of girl in her bedroom preparing for sleep as she walks away from her window unaware of the man outside.
• Close up of web-cam from laptop.
• Point of view shot from web-cam (edited in final process to look from web-cam) shows she's being watched.
• Girl gets into bed and zooms into her eyes. The shot is then graphic matched.
• Shows girl in her nightmare in a coffin.
• Cuts back to reality where girl is restless in bed.
• Cuts back to coffin as she expresses her emotions by winking with evil laughter whilst coming out of the coffin towards the camera. But then collapses back into coffin, she is now dead.

THESE CUTS ARE QUICK TO BUILD UP TENSION AND PACE WITHIN THE FILM OPENING TO REACH A CLIMAX.

• Eyes are then graphic matched when she comes out of the nightmare, the girl is in bed when her eyes suddenly open (this is to thrill then audience).
• Girls actions followed with tracking and match on action shots as she sits up in bed. The non-diegetic sounds of the poem has now ended.
• A gun is then put to the girls head, the gunman's identity is hidden and only his hand with the gun can be seen.
• Girl begins to protest and beg for mercy.
• Cuts to black frame parallel to the gun shot.
• 2nd gun shot and title appear within a sequence of each other.

BEGINNING OF FILM

• An over the shoulder shot shows the stalker picking up a camera.
• Shows half the LCD screen of camera and man's face.
• The LCD screen shows a picture of the girl.
• Zooms into the LCD screen photo then juxtaposes the photo into reality.

Initial Ideas;

Idea One

• A girl in her bedroom suffers from a nightmare.
• Flashbacks and match on action shots to show suffering.
• Stalker effect from someone watching over her.
• The scene in bedroom switches between reality and abnormality- It is unable to determine which is which.
• Voice over(possible poem) suggests eerie atmosphere and begins to untangle the story.
• Possible panning shot of creepy toys however this may not be included due to the age of the audience.
• A number of locations and different time setting connotes to confuse audiences and juxtapose.

Idea Two

• Main character is a male.
• Voice over of character.
• Characters running (diegetic) takes over voice over (non-diegetic) to produce the sounds of panic.
• Running will take place in an urban location.
• Running climaxes as he arrives at a shop to get milk- this creates false panic for audience, gives thrill.
• An event happens to move the story along into the next scene.
• Dark, evening setting.

Idea Three

• Garage setting in an urban location.
• Use of speeding up on editing e.g. fast paced walking.
• Male character with baseball bat doing tricks with strong sounds to go with the blows as he swings it around. This sets an enigma.
• Dark, evening setting.

Intial Ideas;

Camera Experiments;

The advantages in media technology have allowed us to use gadgets such as a camera wheel which looks similar to a steering wheel in a car. This gadget keeps the camera steady so shots like panning and tracking can remain clear. In this video we demonstrated these shots by shooting a panning and tracking shots.

Our Examples are:

• Panning the scenery which could be used as an establishing shot
• Tracking shot of the boy running
• Point of view/tracking shot of someone getting up from off the ground and then panning the camera to suggest the location.

Audience Research- Questionnaires;

Further research into audience reception of thriller films I decided to interview 20 people of different age ranges using a questionnaire.
1. What is your age?
2. Which media products promotes films to you?
3. Do you think most mainstream horror/thriller films have similar plots and outcomes?
4. Do low budget films create a unique outcome compared to mainstream films
5. Does the name of the film influence you to go and watch it
6. What is your favourite sub-genre of thriller?
7. Can you usually predict the outcome of the film due to the stereotypical conventions
8. In your opinion, do you think thrillers end in tragedy
9. Have you heard of Film Noir?

Question One was basically to ask what range of people are participating in my survey. This shows that we arrange a similar amount of people from different age ranges to collect rich data of opinions on the questions we have selected.

Question Two was to find what type of advertising was most eye catching to promote a film. The pie chart shows the majority are influenced by trailers and I think this is because they can be visually brilliant. Trailers only show the exciting moment in the film advertised so they can attract their target audiences to consider watching it at their local cinema. One result which I found disappointing was the lack of promotion through Internet/social networking. Considering the numerous amount of people using websites such as http://www.facebook.com/ and http://www.twitter.com/ I would of thought most advertisement (and because it is cheaper) would of been done through this.

Question Three shows that mainstream films are more likely to all have similar conventions unlike niche films. This is something we have to take into consideration when deciding who should market our film opening.

*spelling mistake on graph: outcoe is suppose to say outcome.
Question Four tells us low budget films have different responses to those with large Hollywood budgets. This is because when working on a budget actors, setting and props have to be taken into consideration in pre-production due to money issues. Although it has been proven that even niche films can succeed across the globe such as Slumdog Millionaire winning 8 Oscars and another 100 wins elsewhere.

Question Five shows that before the film trailer is even seen by an audience the majority are influence just by the title. In order to be successful with this tactic my group must come up with a unique name to influence our target audience to consider watching this film. To do this we must brainstorm different ideas about how our film opening would be percieved.

Question Six shows the popularity of genres such as crime and action. Our genre thriller will be using a crime storyline however only little action is weaved into the opening. I think the crime genre is a good choice because it involves many twists in the plot which will make our opening more interesting to the target audience

Question Seven shows that even though stereotypical conventions are known internationally when involved in films that are unpredictable. It would be useful to change the convention and make them unique to what they have originally be branded as.

Question Eight implies that people will be surprised if thriller ends in tradegy therefore as part of our film opening we could show tradegy to make our audience want to find out how the storyline got to that point.

Question Nine shows that our participants haven't heard of Film Noir and this could still benefit our film opening if we included it. Using conventions of Film Noir would create an interesting reaction to our audience as they will experience something never seen to them before.