Working as a team; Daniel, Lizzie and I made a psychological thriller. We would have made it for an audience of teenagers. The BBFC age certificate would have been as low as possible to allow as much of our film's demographic to see the film. We thought that an age certificate of 15 would be suitable for our film. I had thought ahead to the rest of the plot of the film. I thought that the girl could spend her dreams escaping the doctor and carrying out each dream as an instruction, making them a reality. Only then to accidentally kill the doctor and then find out that he was her father, treating her for a psychological break. This plot-twist would be an unhappy ending to the film. Endings of psychological thrillers tend not to end well for the main protagonist. If we had made the film as a whole, we would have built on this convention rather than challenge it.
Another reason for the age rating we would give our film, is that the people whom this film is intended, would be able to see it. Our audience seeing the film, would have to be engaged and we used a three-piece method to keep their attention firmly on the film. The first element would be, that the demographic would be able to sympathise with our protagonist, who looks around sixteen or seventeen, due to being a similar age they would be able to relate to how they would feel in our protagonist's situation. Secondly, we wanted to draw the audience in by first using a chase scene to engage them, it would also intrigue them, as to who is chasing her and why. We would then build on this intrigue with the rest of the opening, showing the protagonist's personality and character, this would then build on the empathy felt by the demographic towards the heroine of the narrative. The third element would be the exciting aspect of our film opening, the audience would be excited at the prospect of what will happen if the girl is caught. The audience's hearts will be racing as they watch our protagonist flee the sinister doctor. Yet another convention of thriller that we used was a plot-twist, after being drawn in by the dream the audience would feel temporarily let down by the girl waking up, only to be intrigued again at whom the doctor is to her and where she is.
Our film opening represents that young people can be fragile and naïve, but also shows a second side, the rebellious and taking control element to them. Our intention was to not only represent the youth but also to see our protagonist as a role model. The fact we have chosen a young adolescent girl is challenging the usual conventions of thriller, we wanted an original aspect to our film and it also provided a potentially stronger link to our demographic. The film's opening conveys a possibly didactic story, to be wary of the older generation, particularly men. In a way, the dream sequence is reminiscent of fairy tales and cautionary tales from childhood, this is the fact that young girls should be wary of older men, no matter who they are. However, if we had carried on the film the way we had intended it would also show that you should not act unless you understand what is going on. However, it would not be made explicit as to whether the doctor was her father, much like the ending of Shutter Island (Dir. Martin Scorsese 2010), the audience would be left wondering. Making the film re-watchable, the audience would be constantly trying to find anything that would point to the answer. One thing that we know is the man is a doctor, but it doesn't always mean you can trust him, this is due to the implied violence in the bedroom scene (knife falling). Implied violence is a convention of psychological thriller that we decided to use in our films opening, we had been inspired by the film Sucker Punch (dir. Zack Snyder 2011) to use this convention but also to have a young female protagonist. Some could argue that our film shows women to be weak, but I would argue that even in the opening you can see the strength and defiance of the girl trying to escape this enigmatic doctor, men are represented as being dangerous as well as misunderstood. If we would have made the entire film we would have developed these concepts of psychological thrillers for men and challenged conventions of women in thrillers.
At the beginning of producing our main task, we initially thought that we would have approached an independent institute to distribute our film such as Warp Films, they distributed Shane Meadows' "This Is England" or Film4 who helped to distribute films such as Slumdog Millionaire (Dir. Danny Boyle, Loveleen Tandan 2008). However, as we had progressed to the editing and adding the music, we thought that a larger "Hollywood" studio would be better to distribute our film. Such as Universal Pictures, or a good institution to approach would be 20th Century Fox, this is due to them belonging to the News Corporation. As a conglomerate, they would be able to use vertical and horizontal integration to distribute our film, using subsidiaries such as Sky, MySpace and The Sun. We thought our film was more suitable for Hollywood as it doesn't offer as deeper meanings or social criticisms as many independent films and as an opening sequence our film generally develops rather than challenges conventions of thriller films.
I have learnt a lot about the film-making process, before this task I had never filmed or edited a film piece. So it was entirely a new experience, I have learned how to edit together shots using fades and dissolves as well as cuts. I now know how to add a filter effect to isolated sequences of film. While also learning from the preliminary how to edit a whole film into greyscale. I have gained experience with adding a soundtrack to a piece of media. Also, I have learned how to use a digital camcorder and tripod to film a variety of shots, such as zooming, panning and Point of View shots. We also gained a good concept of how long it takes to film and edit a small sequence. Having learnt this, next time we make a film, we would be able to schedule the filming and editing more accurately. Another thing I learnt to do was add opening credits/titles on top of the film (main task) and also ending credits at the end of a short film (preliminary). I already knew about team work before making these films, but I learned just how important communication is, sometimes when discussing ideas for our films, we would be totally in sync and know exactly how we wanted our film to look and what vibe we wanted to give it. I learned a lot more about the subtle differences in how costumes can change the feeling of the film, when buying the night dress, Lizzie took photos of a variety of types and we all decided which would fit our film the most. Furthermore, I also learned about how match-on-action is essential to make a film look realistic, if someone leaves a scene, and then enters a new scene at even a slightly different pace, it can ruin the lifelike quality the film has. Films need to be as real as possible for an audience, so that the film is enjoyable but also so that it serves as a form of escapism for the audience. They forget about any problems that they had prior to watching the film and become entangled in a whole new character, plot and problems.
In our preliminary task we were afraid of using complex shots and we did not venture far from the storyboard. But, through that experience we learned how to film a more fluid conversation, by filming the whole scene from one side and then again from the other side. It made editing easier, having edited the preliminary. Throughout we have become more ambitious with our shots (such as the reverse dolly-zoom) and although they may not have turned out as we had envisioned them, we still learned a lot from the experience. We had developed the convention of using a reverse dolly zoom (Goodfellas dir. Martin Scorsese 1990) but, we had used it as a Point of View shot, making it shaky to convey the protagonist's fear and adrenaline rush. We were ambitious enough to formulate our own camera technique and editing, we used a shot we called "The invisible camera". This involved filming the subject until they covered the lens of the camera and then turn the camera around in the opposite direction and have them starting walking from the camera lens, away. We put a fade to black between these shots, to make it look as though Lizzie had covered the lens completely- the result looks sophisticated and makes the editing flow seamlessly. After making our preliminary, we had become comfortable with filming a lot more, so for our main piece we were not afraid to research and use a variety of locations for filming. When making our preliminary, we suddenly became more aware of how important continuity is, how we need to make sure we keep as many continuity errors out of the films as possible. In our preliminary task, I found myself to be impatient with the people acting, when they struggled to get into character or could not stop laughing, I tended to shout at them. But, after doing more filming work, and acting in the preliminary myself, I know how hard it can be to get into the mind set of the character, so I became more understanding and patient.
Overall, I learned a lot about the film making process, the editing, filming and pre-production. I'm very happy with the finished film that we made as a group, especially because along with the preliminary, it was my first ever time making a film. Even though some of our ideas we scheduled did not go according to plan, I learned as much from what we got right, as what we didn't get right. I think that our films serve their purposes well, the preliminary is a comedic parody (as intended) and our psychological thriller opening is a lot more serious. The opening for "Parallel" not only engages audiences, but it makes sure to keep their avid and undivided attention. As well as looking professional, both pieces of media are original and have their own quirks and unique selling points, such as a young female protagonist. We had tried to use complex camera shots such as the reverse dolly zoom and even came up with our own unique ideas for camera shots and editing ("The invisible camera" shot/sequence). We were extremely thorough when making our films, scrutinizing differences in costumes and even doing a survey on our film title to make sure, that the title would attract our demographic. The preliminary and the main task document our journey and progress in filming and editing techniques.
Our Task: We had to make short opening sequence (2 minutes) for a thriller film. There had to be the usage of: a 180 degree shot, match on action and shot/reverse shot. Original Narrative/Plot:
All of three of us knew that we were going to make a psychological thriller. But, we needed an original and intriguing plot, we started off with the idea of a young girl escaping an orphanage or stealing something from a manor house. Or another idea we had was the girl could be being experimented on, by a doctor trying to find a way to give her a supernatural sixth sense. We liked the idea of having her exchange and eye with a dead person, gaining the ability to see ghosts. We wanted to have a montage covering the different senses, so I collected some possible video footage to represent the different senses.
The idea of a female protagonist came from Sucker Punch (dir. Zack Snyder 2011), we then progressed on and wanted the narrative to consist of the girl being chased by the man. This would have kept the audience interested and on the edge of their seats. We knew that most thrillers contain a plot twist, especially psychological thrillers, so we wanted to include a mini-twist in our opening. We would have the girl being chased down the drive-way of a manor house and through a graveyard (where she would encounter a ghost) and forest. Until she came through a tunnel (signifying her journey), bursting into the light at the end of the tunnel and then waking up. The whole chase would have been a dream to show how badly she wanted to escape the sinister male antagonist. We then proceeded to think about locations, actors and props for this narrative, I found a tunnel near where I lived so investigated it. I gathered some images of the tunnel from both sides:
But, after assessing the area and discussing with Daniel and Lizzie, we decided that the tunnel would be too unsafe for anyone to be running through, the water and flooring made it difficult to walk through. So we decided that we would have to get rid of the tunnel from our narrative. This meant we had to have a rethink of our narrative, we began to think about combining a dark nightmare with a sickly sweet and fake reality. Reversing the usual arrangement of a dream-reality plot. So we began thinking of new alternatives for our opening sequence.
New Narrative/Plot:
We came up with the idea of having the chase and nightmare scene followed by the girl waking up and being brought breakfast in a cosy yet clinical room by a mysterious, unidentified man wearing a doctor's coat. This would have a good combination of excitement- from the chase scene, the twist of the girl waking up and the intrigue created by the unseen doctor figure. We then thought about how to get the clinical room, Lizzie suggested her room, it was a pale blue and white room and once tidied of any personal belongings and photographs it looked very clinical. We decided to take out the graveyard and driveway sequence but thought instead of using a manor house near the woods as the establishing shot. A forest was easy enough to find for our opening scene, so we then we set about making sure that our locations were convincing enough to immerse the audience in the story.
Locations:
-This was the manor house we planned on using for our opening sequence, suggesting that this is where our protagonist is being kept captive, until her 'escape' in her dream. We liked the elegant look but the bricks were darkened by soot, this gave a more sinister look to the house and this was exactly the kind of manor house we wanted, not an obviously malevolent building but a subtly unsettling building.
-This was the path through the woods nearby, that we planned on using. We chose the woods nearby because it would look more organic, the forest had to look like it belonged near the manor house. Otherwise, the audience might lose a bit of their attention if it doesn't look realistic. We would have to make sure not to use the exact same area to film, it would be obvious if we kept using the same bit of the track, after filming each shot we would have to move further down the path, this meant the continuity would be right as well.
- This is Lizzie's room, we planned on using it because the colours used in the room were both homely and could be constreud as clinical, we would have to eradicate all the personal aspects of the room such as photographs etc. Once made bare this room would serve as a convincing home-hospital for our main protagonist - a prison.
We wanted to use bathroom to include a mirror as a reflective surface, mirrors or reflective surfaces are common in thrillers, particularly psychological thrillers. They show a character's self-reflection and their own inner-turmoil, that they are experiencing. Bathrooms are difficult to film in, they are usually smaller than most rooms which makes it a challenge to frame the shot. But, we wanted to include the mirror aspect. We were still going to include it, if at all possible, despite any difficulties we might come across.
Actors/Costumes:
Protagonist: We chose Lizzie to star as our protagonist, she would obviously be available to film and she has an innocent appearance, similar to the protagonist of Sucker Punch- BabyDoll. Except Lizzie's is a more natural blonde, pale skin and clear blue eyes. As a costume we wanted the chase scene to look warped so we planned on having Lizzie run barefoot in a night-gown. Lizzie was extremely committed and so she agreed, providing we made sure the floor would be safe. We wanted to have a clinical looking night-gown, so Lizzie managed to buy one that was white with pale blue polka-dots. The blue and white linking with Lizzie's own features and the room used. We were going to have Lizzie wearing the night-gown once she woke in her clinical room, this was to provide a link between dreams and reality, it would be organic to use the night-gown if she had just woken up from her dream.
Antagonist: We soon reached a dilemma when looking for a man to play the part of the doctor. We thought that we would have to rethink our plot yet again. However, Lizzie had a brainwave. She suggested her 6ft3" cousin to play the part and also use a convention of thriller- hidden identity. Have him wear a doctor's surgical mask in the dream sequence. This would look frightening and keep the audience wondering who he was. We would also not film him from above the shoulder (or from behind), thus sustaining his hidden identity. We looked around on the internet at Doctor's jackets/coats to buy for our costume. We chose the first coat because it looked more authentic and it had no oddly placed pockets.
Storyboard:
We knew that our first shot, would be the animation of our logo. This would then fade into our establishing shot. We originally planned to have it zooming in on the forest that we would be filming the chase scene in. But, we then changed it after Lizzie went location scouting and decided to have it zooming in on a manor house and then panning across (while still zooming in). We would then have to edit the institute titles over the top such as "Eden Pictures Presents" and "A WhiteStag Production". We would then cut to a low angle shot/close up of Lizzie's foot running past a fixed camera. This would be a very dramatic first shot in the chase scene. Then cutting away to a point of view shot, but we then changed the order of the running sequence to make it flow better. It would start off with a low angle shot of Lizzie running through the shot before cutting into a Point of View shot of Lizzie running on the forest track. We then cut to a shot of Lizzie running into the frame, this time it was a level shot. We missed the long-shot tracking (panning) shot of Lizzie running through the trees. This was due to us losing light, finding a suitable place to do the pan and we were concerned that our opening would over-run. We then cut instead to the point of view shot of Lizzie's pursuer, all of the point of view shots we did were using a handheld camera so they were purposefully shaky. We combined shot 8 and 9, this was again for timing and so when it came to editing it would not look so choppy. We had cut to a point of view shot of Lizzie running towards and then into the bush. This was then followed by a cut to shot 10 of Lizzie clambering into the bush, this was to try and show Lizzie's character's vulnerability and her fear of her pursuer.
We then had a cut to a pan from the edge of the tree to a close-up of Lizzie's face, then a cut to an extreme close up of her trembling lips, this was so the audience would see how cold it was, her fear and adrenaline. In contrast to the 11th shot our 13th shot would be a tracking shot of Lizzie peering out from behind the tree, this would then cut to a reverse dolly zoom of the empty track, we decided to have our antagonist doctor to stand in as the focus of the reverse dolly zoom. We then would cut to a mid-shot of Lizzie standing up and walking away from the tree, quickly cutting to a mid to close-up and 180 degree shot of Lizzie almost walking into the Doctor's chest, we tweaked this so that you could see a bit of the surgical mask, this would add an unnerving effect.We then planned to have a jump cut to our first interior shot, a close-up of Lizzie opening her eyes, we would have the music ending with the previous shot, bringing the audience to an abrupt reality. This would quickly cut to Lizzie sitting up, linking to a montage of breakfast being prepared, we decided to leave the making of the montage till the editing process. But, we got the idea of having a breakfast montage from the opening credits of the TV series- Dexter. Except we wanted to have cuts to keep the pace rather than the use of fades. This would cut to the door opening, we decided to film it from the doctor's side coming into the room, it made more sense after just having seen the breakfast prepared.
This was followed by a cut to a mid shot of the doctor entering the room from Lizzie's side of the door, we decided to keep this as it linked the two character's together. We then had a 180 degree shot of Lizzie sitting opposite the doctor, his head being out of the shot due to him being taller, thus keeping hidden identity and also showing his power over her. This would then cut to and over the shoulder shot of Lizzie looking at the doctor, still not showing his face, while he asks "So how are you feeling this morning?" this was then going to be followed by Lizzie's reply but then we moved the shot of the Doctor dropping the knife, this seemed more natural. We cut to Lizzie's reply being over the Doctor's shoulder "I'm okay, still a bit tired though". We then chose to cut to the close-up of the Doctor's hand picking up the knife, subtly implying violence to come. Whilst saying "Oh, I'm so clumsy! I'll go get you another one!". We then added an extra shot of the Doctor going down, cutting to the close up and then back to the doctor sitting back up. This was to keep the film flowing better. We then kept shots 27 and 28 the way they were in the storyboard. Having the doctor standing up from the 180 degree shot, showing his hegemonic nature and also having an over the shoulder shot of Lizzie watching him leave, this was to suggest she was wary of him and watching him leave. We then decided to have a long shot of Lizzie moving the tray and climbing out of bed, this was altered at a slightly odd angle to show something is not quite right. We changed shot 30 from being a long shot of Lizzie leaving the room to having a high angle shot of lizzie's lower half leaving the room, to show Lizzie's character taking control of her situation. We had used 30 for Lizzie leaving the room, shot 31 now seemed to be pointless so we took it out, then kept the 180 degree mid shot of Lizzie leaving out of the door, but the layout of the corridor is different to that of the house.
We kept the two shots (33 and 34) that made up the "Invisible Camera" sequence, it appears as though Lizzie walks through the camera, this is to add smoothness for when it came to editing and also showed Lizzie's Characters unwavering journey for freedom. We then kept the pan of Lizzie walking across the bathroom, to add a smoothness to her movement and then cut to a close-up of the tap being turned on, followed by the noise of running water. This would then cut to a high angle of Lizzie showing her self-doubt and fragility. We then wanted to have it look as though Lizzie looks up in the mirror to see the doctor looming behind her, just like in the dream sequence. We made sure to keep this shot. before cutting to a reaction shot of Lizzie for the final shot before the title of the film.
Title of the Film:
We needed to come up with a suitable and enigmatic title for our psychological thriller. So we brainstormed for a while, until we came up with a name each. Lizzie came up with the name 'Parallel' suggesting her dreams mirror what she does or wants to do in real life. I came up with the name 'The Imagining" this suggests that the girl's imagination is her salvation and Daniel came up with the name "The Witching Hour" this suggests the girl is hunted and is in a dark time in her life. We all liked The Witching Hour the most, but decided to research into our demographic, we went around our college asking people... "Going off of the title alone, which film would you likely choose to see at the Cinema?"
Parallel seemed to be the most popular, this is probably to do with being easy to remember and short and snappy. We actually really liked this title and was very reminiscent of the one word titles of some of Alfred Hitchcock's films. For example "Psycho", "Frenzy" and "Vertigo"
Filming- 6th April 2013:
We did not film in chronological order, we filmed the indoor scenes, during the morning and afternoon and then began filming outside, for the dream sequence in late afternoon through to the evening. The indoor scenes took a long time to film, we went through some changes on the storyboard to give us a variety of shots and angles on a scene, this was to ensure when it came to editing we would be able to select the best shots to include in our final film. We also had to make a few screenplay alterations on the spot, some of the lines sounded too robotic, so Alex and Lizzie had to improvise their lines to make them sound more natural. Even though Lizzie was usually on the actor's side of the camera's lens, she seized any chance she got to film or direct a shot. Often, offering advice to fellow Co-Star Alex and helping to position a shot or suggesting an idea to Daniel (the Director), or me (the Assistant Director).
The Breakfast montage was filmed relatively quickly, but it still presented challenges. When filming the toast popping up, everyone had to duck down or stand further away due to the reflective surface of the toaster. There was other challenges, such as when cooking the food, we had to make sure that Alex's hands weren't obscuring the shot and we constantly had to make sure that the shot was framed correctly and did not look amateur, we wanted our film to live up to the name of our production company: Eden Pictures.
We took a long time to film the scene in the room, this was due to the experimentation of shots. We weren't afraid of changing our shots from our storyboard, we knew it was there to give us a structure and guide as to what shots we needed. It took a long while to get Alex to drop the knife convincingly, we did not want it to appear too staged. We recorded his line separately to add onto the shots later, this was so his voice could be across three quick shots as smoothly as possible.
After we had finished filming the inside scenes, we went and set-up our equipment at our outdoor-location. We had to wait till the sun had begun to set, then it was really a race against time. We would not have a long time to film. Lizzie and Alex were very professional and tried to get their performances right each time. But some angles, worked better than others. We attempted the reverse-dolly zoom that was in the storyboard, we used a variety of ways to do it. Walking backwards with the camera, zooming in on the camera whilst being pulled back on the bike. We did not need the shot perfectly steady because it was also a Point of View shot, from our female protagonist. It needed a certain level of shakiness to show her panic at the doctor's closeness. From a costume perspective, when filming outside, for the dream sequence Alex wore the Doctor's mask. On its own it had an unnerving quality and it also looked even more so in low light conditions. We filmed the establishing shot when it was a bit lighter, this was so no detail in the house would be lost. Also, because we knew that we would not have much time filming, racing against time, we could add a filter or an effect to the dream sequence, so the audience know something is not quite right. We tried several positions to film the establishing shot, trying to stay as central as possible, but also we when we zoomed we had to have it slowly increasing in speed, this proved to be very difficult and took several attempts. But, we soon got a good take and rushed to the forest, where we filmed the chase scene. The copse of trees the camera zooms in on is not part of the forest we were filming in. However, we liked the fact that at first you think the house is the focus of the shot but the camera zooms and pans to the 'forest' at the side of the manor house. We made sure to choose a location close by, so it was believable that those trees were in fact the forest that our protagonist runs through.
Once we were in the forest we quickly got the shots set up and Lizzie was ready for her scenes. But, we made sure that once we had finished a shot we put Lizzie's coat and wellies on so she wasn't cold for a prolonged period of time. Occasionally we would ask her to reshoot a shot because you could tell she wasn't running at full- like her life depended on it. Again we wanted to make our film as realistic as possible and Lizzie's acting had to remain convincing. It never took Lizzie long to get into the mind-set of the character's situation, probably because she was actually running around in the cold, so she could sympathise. We had to find some good areas of the forest to use, once we had used one area we could not use it again, this would ruin the continuity of our film opening. We had to scout around for some good shrubbery for Lizzie to duck into, the only shrubbery around were holly-bushes. This meant I had to hold the holly back to film the inside the bush shots and to protect Lizzie's feet from the fallen holly leaves, I laid down my coat and scattered some fern leaves on it to blend it in. We missed out on a couple of shots from our storyboard due to time constraints, but we managed to film the most important ones. Also, we were also worried that if we had some of those shots our film's opening sequence would be too long. We did not know how long the breakfast montage would take-up of the film's opening.
Editing- 15th April-1st May:
We had originally planned to edit after we had finished filming. However, due to computer complications, we could not edit. So we reviewed all of the days footage, and made sure we had at least one good take of each shot. After that we called it a "wrap" where the filming was concerned. When we got back into college, we began to go through each shot individually and picked the takes we liked most of each shot. We then loaded them into Adobe Premiere and began cutting out bloopers and false takes. We then edited together the montage and made sure it ran smoothly. After this we had to edit together the bedroom scene, we made sure the shot/reverse shot ran smoothly and the match on action worked. The short sequence of Lizzie walking down the hallway to the bathroom encompassed a shot we dubbed "The invisible camera". This involved Lizzie walking towards the camera until she blocked the lens and then, turned the camera and had her walking away from the camera on the other side. It looked a bit odd at first so we decided to add a fade to black in-between the two shots. This seemed to work really effectively. We edited the chase scene in a different order to the storyboard this was so they ran smoother together, we also timed the music we used to certain movement on the screen. The first big drum being in time with the credit "A White Stag Production" and another drum beat being in time with Lizzie's foot coming onto the ground. We had to make sure the music complimented what was happening, otherwise it would look almost comical. We added a colour filter to make the dream look more surreal, it drained some areas to grayscale and then increased colour in other areas. We timed the last boom with Lizzie's eyes opening, this accentuated the fact that Lizzie's pupils shrink. Adding to the drama. We had added the credits at strategic points, we wanted them to fade in and out, this was to make it look more professional, but to be fading in and out rather quickly. This was so they matched the music and the action going on in the rest of the shot. We decided to have the music come in again for a couple of seconds at the end, to make it more dramatic, we also edited together a couple of snippets from the chase scene before the titles. This made an odd glitchy effect that we were really happy with and also served as a flashback effect.
Here is some of the unedited footage we got:
Overall I was very happy with the final film, the editing was smooth and professional and the the overall story was original and unique. All stages of production had worked well, I would have liked to have more time filming to try and get some of the shots we missed and improve the technique of the dolly zoom.
