Preliminary Task- Filming

Today we filmed for the preliminary task, in this task we were told to focus on and demonstrate Match on Action and the 180 Degree Rule. This was a relatively straightforward task however, we wanted to challenge ourselves and do something a little bit different. We came up with the idea of having different scenarios where we could have a bit of fun and make it entertaining to watch. We thought it would make a change to the norm where someone walks through a door and has a ten second conversation with someone.
We first thought of a scenario where two people would have an awkward conversation, with us looking at developing convincing facial expressions in relation to someone who has actually been in that situation. We thought that this would help to develop our characters for the real thing.
The second scenario involved a disruptive student and a librarian who was getting extremely agitated by his immature conduct.
The third and final scenario was based around speed dating, between a male (Tom) and a female (Me). It involved another awkward exchange in eye contact between two characters using the 180 degree rule. 

We will start to edit the raw footage when we get back after Christmas.

Questionnaire Results

Below are the results to the questionnaire.

 

The purpose of the questionnaire was to find out what people thought of our ideas with our film and if our film sounds good on paper.

 

The questionnaire was put up on the 2/12/15 and was emailed out to the other students in our media class to complete.

Below is a hyperlink to the survey so you can have a look at it and complete it yourself.

 

The survey

 

Progress Report

Tom put together a report stating our original ideas for our production.

After doing the initial research, I have come up with a few ideas for the plot, camerawork and editing of my production. The ideas that I have got have all been thought of with our textual analysis' in thought, as they helped us come up with these ideas.

Our initial idea for the plot of our production is something that would work with an action/horror hybrid as the genre, so we are aiming to produce a horror film opening, but with some aspects of action in there. The plot idea we have is to start off with the protagonist tied to a chair, which is in a dark room, with only a light on him. We wanted the light to either be a spotlight or light from a television screen, as part of the opening is the protagonist being forced to watch a news report that talks about the murderer, which would give the audience an insight to the back story of the film. The protagonist is then going to manage to slowly move backwards to a counter in the corner of the room, with various torture instruments on it. The protagonist will then pick up a knife and cut slowly cut himself free and escape from the antagonist.

When we make the production, we will need things like knives, scissors and other sharp objects that would make the counter look like it has a realistic torture set on it. As this would be a health and safety risk, we would make sure we handle everything with care, and that we make sure that we do not include them in any other shots then one that looks at the table, all other shots will be done with some sort of model that looks like a knife or scissors. Other props we will need is an old wooden chair and an old TV. We want these props to make the room look older and less clean. The TV that we use should also be old so it doesn't look like the antagonist would have the newest technology in a torture room. We would also use fake blood around the place too so that the torture room looks like it has been used before the protagonist. Another shot we would like to do is a shot of the antagonist pouring gasoline into the room, to burn the protagonist to death. The way we are going to do this is with a gasoline can, but instead of gasoline, we will pour water, with a little bit of apple juice in it to give it a slightly yellow hint, like gasoline.

Some of the shots we want to do will be easy to pull off with the sort of technology we have access to. We will mostly keep the camera fixed to one point, but it can pan and tilt for different shots. Our establishing shot will be a shot along the floor, looking at the protagonist in the chair, looking lifeless, as the camera slowly moves into the room. We can also use a GoPro to get any POV shots if we would want any. POV shots are good to use as they show what the character can see. We also want to do an over the shoulder shot of the protagonist looking at the TV as it plays the news report. The camera that I will use for the rest of the footage will either be a camcorder or a camera.

For our production, we do not want to make it like a normal and generic horror film, with monsters and other things, with a weak and vulnerable female in it, and the action genre conventions help us slip away from that, as it allows us to have a stronger and more defensive protagonist that will not easily be killed.

Research Appliaction

Directing and Story Writing

 I feel that, in this case, applying some of Quentin Tarantino's methods would be beneficiary, as his style allows the audience to engage with the characters while maintaining a non linear storyline in order to keep them attentive as there is no wasted run time, only necessary character building and the occasional well choreographed fight scene. This has inspired us to make our horror/action short confrom to less of the cliched techniques of horror in general, instead. 
Applying techniques created and inspired by highly rated directors can allow our short production to less generic and to stand out in it's own right.