Holly Neiland 2014/15 AS Media Studies @ECS: 2014

Friday, 26 December 2014

Props: The swing

Here is a picture (stolen from google) of what we want our spooky swing to look like. we've decided to all pitch in £4 to order a similar swing off amazon. Our initial idea was to use a normal playground swing, however after some research and visits to our location it became evident the swing would look alien and odd when contrasted with the old victorian mise-en-scene and the monotone atmosphere.

I MUST emphasis 'practice'

So finally it is here, our completed PRACTICE opening two minutes. I must emphasise the fact that it is just a practice as, as a group we are fully aware of its crappy-ness. It's main purpose was to familiarise ourselves with the locations, props and camera angles. However during the filming it raised to us that in some aspects we needed to alter our ideas. An example of this would be the modification to the pan after which the 'girl' would disappear into the forrest. it became clear we would not be able to pan diagonally with ease due to our tripod. (as seen within our bloopers) so we decided to just pan sideways.

BLOPPERS!!

Wednesday, 3 December 2014

Test film vlog

On sunday. we decided to visit the park and start practicing our filming. Despite not filming in the specific place we're going to, we haven't yet purchased our 'old' looking swing, so had to settle for the tuckers park swing. We got some really good shots, but we also got some REALLY rubbish ones!

From our filming experience we came across many things we hadn't thought of before. Firstly the difficulty in panning upwards and diagonally, as seen in our 'bloopers' video. We also decided as a group that the teddy bear prop used came across rather childish and not professional, because of this we've come up with using a, just as creepy doll, hopefully a china doll. Much like the dolls used in The woman in blacks opening scene. Thankfully i have an old collection of many. Down below is our vlog we recorded on the day and soon to be uploaded our practice opening minutes and our bloopers.

Wednesday, 19 November 2014

The Selfish Giant

Today in lesson, as a class, we watched 'The Selfish Giant.' What an incredibly predictable yet extremely distressing ending. What I thought was very clever, was despite it being clear 'Swifty' was dead, the use long paced shots and the lack of non diegetic music, made us feel as grievous and as heart broken as poor old Arbor having lost his best friend.

The scene illustrated with the photo below was by far one of the most powerful moments in the film. The flashback of the first opening minutes when Swifty was seen comforting Arbor by holding his hand, was replayed whilst Arbor was mourning the death of his companion in the same location; underneath his bed.

It's one of the only films I've watched that uses camera angles, editing and mise-en-scene to create real verisimilitude of real life, especially in England. It being set in Bradford and all. Such as cheap and damaged clothing, and the long paced establishing shots of the landscape.

Monday, 27 October 2014

Inspiration: The Babadook.

How TERRIFYING does this movie look! It uses the innocent idea of a simple children's book and transforms it into this source of evil! Using the child's voice to cry out the repeated chorus of 'nin nin nin nin' sent chills down my back, definitely something I would like to interoperate in our opening.

Actress? Check.

This is my beautiful niece Keeley.

She will be acting as the child in our two minute movie opening.

Initially I thought she would be perfect for many reasons, but mainly her age. Being eight years old allows her to be mature enough to understand what she is doing, as well as being at that extremely 'creepy' age, She did however find it troubling to hold eye contact with the camera without smirking whilst taking these photos, so that will be something to work on.

PITCH

So in our previous lesson we gave our pitch. Explaining our reasons for our genre choice (Horror!) which include mutual group interest, as well as our research showing us horror is extremely popular with the age group 15-25. We have been inspired by films such as Chucky and Annabelle, as they use the young and children toy's to convey fear and apprehension.

Our narrative is very simple; it doesn’t hold a strong plot which gives us a larger opportunity to experiment with elements such as camera angles. Our current idea consists of a young girl (acted by my niece) sitting on a swing set located at my local park; Tukers. Diajetic sounds of the creaking of the swing are heard however the near silence is broken by a sinister non diajetic audio, most likely a menacing children’s lullaby. The next scene is of the child walking towards the woods in hilly fields, dragging behind her a deranged teddy bear. A long shot taking in the whole setting, as well as a close up of the teddy hopefully will create an extremely sinister ambience. The camera then pans slowly to the left, a thrilling child’s scream will then be heard drawing in the viewer’s attention as they wonder whose scream it is that can be heard. Using the movement of clouds to show a time lapse, the camera will then pan back to its original position to show Janadhi walking her dog in the same footsteps the child was towards the trees. The camera will then follow Janadhi into the forest. Seen hanging from a tree, will the child’s teddy bear ripped, soaked in mud, blood and what not. The camera would then focus solely on the hanging teddy bear, whilst Janadhi becomes a blur walking further into the ‘haunted’ woodland, we will then fade to black.