Choice Of Actors

 

Choice Of Actors

 

Our choice for actors was quite straight forward, because there is only two people in our group, Alex and myself, so it was really straight forward to pick the actors because it was either between me or Alex. Alex didn't really want to be in the film so i stepped up to do it, I find it quite fun to act and to be a part of the film.   

        In the film I play a character called Harry - the stalker of a girl. The film is set in a house with three scenes exterior and the rest of the scenes in the interior part of the house.

Second Day Of Filming

Second day of filming

The second day of filming was productive, we managed to film the scene where 'Harry' is walking up the stairs in the house of the girl that he is stalking, the first time we had filmed this we had filmed it in a medium shot, but then Miss had told us that there wasn't enough close-ups in the film, so when we had filmed it for the second time, Alex(cameraman) had placed the camera on the stairs in a position where i could still walk around it, and Alex could get the shot of my face during the close-up.
      The next thing we did, in the same evening, was the scene when 'Harry' enters the girls bedroom and switches on the light, then has a look around, the first time we had done this we did not include a P.O.V(Point.Of.View) shot or any close-ups, so Miss had told us to take the shots again including a P.O.V shot so we took again with the P.O.V shot and me and Alex found it quite aesthetically pleasing, we have not yet showed Miss, but it is on the camera ready to upload to 'Imovie' and Blogger.

Costumes For The Production

Costumes For The Production

Here is the costume for the character 'Harry' for the production of Intrusion;

First Day Of Filming

First Day Of Filming

 

   The first day of filming did not quite go to plan, because we had to change location from the farmhouse to my Dads house. In doing that we had to change the storyboard, that itself was quite a struggle, we tried to keep it the same in some parts, e.g long shot/pan of the back of the house and shots of windows doors and possible enterences. When we got inside of the house to do the intreior filming, we didn't have to change that much the only things we really have to change is the putting the dress on the bed, because my brother or my dad did not have a dress, we had to use a teddy bear instead, which i thought was still a little creepy, can you imagine walking into your house and finding a teddy bear on the pillows of your bed, with the douvet folded over, and also a picture of you face down on a wooden chest of draws. 
    I know we may have done some things wrong or made some errors, but at the end of the day we are not A grade students, looking back over it i can see one thing wrong already, when 'Harry' was 'jumping' out the window, you can still see me sitting on the window ledge/sill just sat there when the film cuts out at the end, because i did not really want to jump 9-10 ft off the window ledge on to concrete flooring.
    There was also some small mistakes on the cameraman's end too, in one of the shots where i(Harry) opens the wardrobe to have a look inside and you can see him in the mirror as i open it, because you can't really stand anywhere in front of the wardrobe without being spotted in the mirror's on the front of the wardrobe.
     There was also another mistake that we had made, there was a dog teddy sat up on a chest of draws, we had filmed a scene where 'Harry' is going through some important documents of the girl 'Harry' is stalking, but in the next scene 'Harry' is going through the girls wardrobe and finds the same dog teddy in the wardrobe and puts it on the bed, but in fact it is the same dog teddy as the one on the chest of draws. So we will have to film that scene again as it's a continuity error.
         
Here are some shots of us in action;
   

here is the cameraman Alex

here is the character 'Harry' in action

Things That Went Wrong In The Production

Things that went wrong in the production

  Overall i thought the production  and the filming went quite well, we did a number of things that we thought went quite well e.g long shots, pans, close up's and continuity shots.

     We also did a few things that went drastically wrong. We were meant to film at my familys farmhouse location, we had done all the storyboard and the shot list for it, but then the location(farmhouse) was off limits, so we had to change location quick. So we ended up deciding to do it down my dad's, it went well but we did have to change a lot on the storyboard but we kept the shot list the same.

Shot List

Shot List

Here is the picture of the shot list of the production 'Intrusion'.

Storyboard

Storyboard

  

This is the first page of our storyboard;

The first picture shows; the house that the stalker is going into, this will be a long shot so we can fit the house all in to the shot.

The second picture shows; the stalker opening the side gate into the house, we will shoot this as a medium shot.

The third picture shows; the stalkers hand on the gate, as he opens it inwards, this will be shot as a  close-up.

The fourth picture shows; the stalker with his hands pressed against the glass so he can gain a better view inside of the house, this will be an interior shot and as a medium shot.

The fifth picture shows; a series of possible entrances that the stalker may try and gain access too, this will be a medium shot.

The sixth picture shows; the stalker as he walks past the front door and window, as he looks for an entrance, this will be another interior shot and a medium shot.

On the second sheet it shows the following six pictures;

The first one shows; the stalker standing against the patio doors, another interior shot and a medium shot.

The second one shows; a shot of the corridor leading to the stairs, this will be a medium-long shot.

The third one shows; the stalker climbing the up the stairs, this will be a medium-close up.

The fourth picture shows; the stalkers hand on a door to a room we're not sure which room this is yet, this will be a close-up of his hand opening the door.

The fifth one shows; inside of the room, it appears to be a bedroom. There is a bed and a wardrobe in the room, this will be a medium shot.

The sixth one shows; possible cross cuts of various things in the room, pictures, clothes drawers e.t.c.

This is the final sheet there are six more pictures on here;

The first one shows; the stalker with his back towards the camera and holding a picture frame with a picture in there above his shoulders, this will be a medium-close up.

The second picture shows; the stalker going through the persons wardrobe and picking out a dress, this will be a medium shot.

The third one shows; the dress sprawled out on the bed, this will be a medium-close up.

The fourth picture shows; the stalker reacting to a noise that he has heard coming from downstairs, this will be a close-up of the stalkers face.

The fifth picture shows; the stalker going to jump out of the window as he hears footsteps coming up the stairs, this will be a medium-long shot.

The sixth picture shows; a possible ending of the door handle being pressed down; this will be a medium-long shot, if we decide to do it.

Research Into Titles

Research Into Titles

Typography
  Here are a few different typography titles that we will be using in our production of 'Intrusion';

If i had to chose one to have for our film title, i would choose either the last one because it looks like that it has been painted on a wall or a surface with a paint brush, with quite long brush strokes, which makes it look quite spooky, if i didn't choose that one, i would choose the third one down from the top, because it looks like it has been written in blood or some substance because you can see the writing itself is dripping in something, also i think that would be a good title to have for a Psychological Thriller. 
   We chose 'Intrusion' as a title because intrusion means "An occasion or an event when someone goes into a place where they are uninvited or unwelcome to be".


Font

  In film titles, font's are very important, it gives you a idea of what the film will turn out to be. Many different styles of fonts are used in films for example, The colour of the font e.g if it's a slime green colour and in Gothic print it's most likely to be a horror, but if it's light blue or another light colour and in bubble writing so it's most likely to be aimed at kids.

Music
  Music also plays a big part in titles, if it's when the titles are appearing or in the background. If there is sinister music or children's nursery rhymes playing in the background of the titles appearing, it's most likely to be a 'Horror' or a 'Thriller'. If there is happy tune or a modern 'POP' song playing when the titles appear, it's most likely to be aimed at kids or early teenagers, the genre of the movie will most likely be an 'Action' or an 'Adventure' movie.

Film Openings;

This is the trailer of the film 'Chapter 27', the film was premied at 'The Sundance Film Festival' in 2008. This film is about a deranged fan of 'The Beatles' band. The fan's name was Mark David Chapman. The film is about how he watched and stalked John Lennon one of the lead singer's of 'The Beatles', the 'stalker' eventually ended up killing John (by shooting him in the back four times) outside a New York apartment in December 1980.

Log line for the film

Log Line For The Film

She thought she was safe......she thought she was secure.......until.

Thriller openings that have influenced our decision

Thriller openings

Thriller openings that have influenced our decision are 'The Fall', here is the trailer from the T.V programme;
'The Fall' is about an investigator carrying out an investigation into murders three women who have all been strangled by a mysterious figure who stalks it's victims.

There was another programme that has influenced our choice it's called 'Stalker' here is the trailer from the show;

'Stalker' is an american T.V show a stalker who's victims are all in the L.A.P.D 'Threat Assessment Unit'. There are 5 main character's who all work in the same department, there are four detectives and one attorney. 

Film Survey Results

 

Film Survey Results

 This survey was created on 'Survey Monkey'. For my survey i asked ten questions to the people of my media class,

 and these were the results:





                      In question 6, “Do you think that the protagonist should appear in the opening sequence?” 9 people said ‘Yes’ and 1 person said ‘No’. 

    I will relate this to my filming process an include it in my opening sequence, because the protagonist is the main character.



 In question 5, “what is your favourite genre” 40% said that thriller was their favourite genre, 30% said comedy, 10% said romance, 20% said horror and 8% said 'sci-fi'.
        In this question 20% of the people chose horror, so we will make the genre of our film horror to suit the public.

In question 7 “Should the titles appear: Right away, at the end of the first scene or some way in?” 60% said ‘Straight away’ and 40% said ‘At the end of the first scene’ and 0% said ‘Some way in’.

    In this question 60% said that the titles should appear straight away, so in our film we will make the titles appear straight away.

In question 8 “How important is the music in the opening titles: Very Important, Important, Relevant or Not important what so ever?” 0% said ‘Very important’, 30% said ‘Important’, 50% said ‘Relevant’ and 20% said ‘Not important what so ever’.
      in this question 50% said that music in the opening titles is relevant, so we will make a decision on this in the process of editing the film.

In question 9, “What part do you like best about thrillers: Enigma codes, low lighting, suspension or the jumpy bits?” 20% said ‘Enigma Codes’, 20% said ‘Low lighting’, 30% said ‘Suspension’ and 30% said ‘Jumpy bits’.
     In question 9, all the results were quite similar, e.g enigma codes 20%, low lighting 20% and 30% said suspension. So we have come to a conclusion that all of these are equally important and we will include all of these in our production.

In question 10 “Which is your favourite type of thriller?” the options were ‘Psychological Thriller’, ‘Sci-Fi Thriller’ and ‘Horror Thriller’, 20% said ‘Psychological Thriller’, 30% said ‘Sci-Fi Thriller’ and 50% said ‘Horror Thriller’.
   In this question about "your favourite thriller" 50% chose horror thriller, so as it's our most chosen  genre, we have come to a conclusion that our production will be a horror thriller.



Theorists in media

Theorists in media

   Propp's Theory

     Vladimir Propp came up with a theory, when he was studying texts and productions, he came up with "7 broad character types" in a 100 tales that he had analysed. here are the list of seven that he had come up with;

1. The villain (struggles against the hero)
2. The donor (prepares the hero)
3. The helper (helps the hero along the quest/journey)
4. The princess ( person whom the hero marries)
5. The false hero ( he/she was good at the beginning, but then turned evil as the story went on)
6. The dispatcher ( the one who sends the hero off)
7. The hero ( AKA the winner and the one who weds the princess)
   
   In our film we will just have one of these, which will be 'The Villain'(struggles against the hero) but we will not have the hero in our film because he/she will not fit in to our script.

Vladimir Propp(Theorist)

    Levi Strauss Theory

Levi Strauss believed that "all narratives could be reduced down to binary opposites".

E.G
Old-New

Light-Dark

Weak and Strong
   In our film we will just use the one of these. Which will be light and dark, because we dont want to see the stalkers face at the start of the film, so we shall make that dark. As the film goes on we will be able to see the stalkers face, so with this happening we shall make the stalkers face light, so you can see his face and the facial expressions. 

Claude Levi-Strauss(Theorist)

Todorov's Theory

There are five steps to Todorov's theory;

1. A state of equilibrium (All is well/ as it should be)
2. A disruption in the equilibrium by a certain event
3. A realisation of the event that has just occurred
4. An attempt to restore the damage by the event that had occurred
5. A return or restoration of a NEW equilibrium   

A film that follows these steps perfectly is "Die Hard"

Tzvetan Todorov(Theorist)





Barthes Theory

Barthes created 5 codes which are woven into ANY narrative. These codes are;

'The Hermeneutic Code(HER)'

'The Fall'

"The Fall"

The inspiration for our movie idea was "The Fall" this is a British drama/thriller about an investigator carrying out an investigation into murders three women who have all been strangled by a mysterious figure who stalks it's victims. I chose this because our thriller is going to be about a stalker.

This is a clip from 'The Fall'       

Analysis of "Silence of the lambs"

Analysis of

"Silence Of The Lambs" opening sequence

The first shot is an establishing shot of some trees, we know that the scene is set in a forest, because it shows in the bottom right corner "Woods near Quantico, VA". Slowly the camera pans down to a woman climbing a rope, the high-angle shot makes it looks like we are looking down on her. Enigma codes are created in this film because we are wondering why the woman is in the woods on her own.

             There is a tracking shot following the woman we seen climbing the rope, it seems that someone is following her from the P.O.V shot of the camera, the scene is quite dark which makes the woman seem even more isolated. We see her climbing a "scramble net" on an assault course, we see that she is very sweaty, which make us think that she has been running for a long time.

       We see someone running over to her in a yellow jacket calling her name, then we see that he is in the F.B.I. So we make the assumption that she is to in the F.B.I , and it turns out that she is on a training exercise.

    The camera pans down and we see five signs on a tree which say "HURT, AGONY, PAIN, LOVE-IT" the fifth one is blank. this plays an important role, because it acts as a narrative hook, which makes want to watch the film and find out what the signs mean.



The opening sequence to

'Silence Of  The Lambs'