Final Version of Stolen

The clip above is the final version of Stolen, although it was much more of a challenge than I thought due to the issues we had with casting and music I am really pleased with the outcome. By completing the evaluative questions at the end of the project, it enabled us to refine certain aspects of the production but also to develop our knowledge and understanding of what target audiences of our age want to see. If I were to repeat the same process there would be slight alterations with the way we prepared the scenes although that would be due to the experience we now have.

Preliminary Task

Preliminary Task 
From 20 to 40 seconds
This task is to show my knowledge of different filming techniques and action shots. Through this short bit of filming we each had to include:
- match on action
- shot reverse shot
- showing you understand the 180 degree rule
My shot was the second one shown in this clip. I starred Fred Morris to be the main role in this short film, I also wanted to include a very short bit of dialogue to show a shot reverse shot but also being aware of not breaking the 180 degree rule. It is a rough bit of filming and editing but was only to show simple editing and each of the points we had been told to include. 

Evaluation Question 3

Response to Evaluation Question 3 from Alleyn's School Media Studies Department

AC

Evaluation Question 7

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progress from it to the final product? 

Sound 
- The preliminary task did not require me to create foley sound or a soundtrack meaning I had no  prior experience in dubbing sounds over scenes and alter the volume of certain dialogue or music. 
- During the process in creating the final product I was able to develop my skills in recording and merging sound into moving image
- Making mistakes due to not positioning the boom correctly and not recording at the right time enabled me to watch out for these mistakes when we were shooting the final product 
- Needless to say, we still had some issues in recording sound for some of the shots which we later realised while editing, we were able to manipulate certain aspects and fill in the gaps 
- By shooting the preliminary task it allowed me to build on the basic skills I obtained 
- Finding copyright free music was harder than I thought as we had to look for certain music which would build up suspense through out the scene at the right pace
- In the end I think that the soundtrack we manipulated came to be very effective and blinded the film together making it look more professional, this was the last thing we did to the film

Editing 
- Whilst editing the preliminary task was fairly minimalistic it still got me developing skills and knowledge 
- It gave me a look into how to create continuity editing and the best angles to make it work
- Although I did not like being in front of the camera, I found it interesting developing my own short clip through Final Cut Pro
- These skills meant that when it was time to edit our own opening I was familiar with the program creating a base of understanding I could work on and gain confidence 

- Editing was much easier and quicker the second time as there was a more structured storyline making it clear what had to be inserted 

Camera-work 
- The filming meant that I was able to understand more of the terminology which I had learned 
- An example of this would be the 180-degree rule which became instinctive whilst filming the opening due to the prior experience creating the preliminary task
- Due to me focusing mainly on rules and trying to get to grips with the camera I was less able to experiment with the lens and different angles to create a certain representation of a character
- Through out our final product we films a lot of the same scenes from different angles, playing around with the natural light and how we could incorporate this to become more effective
- Due to our experimentation and variation of shots it also made editing the film a lot easier as we did not have to re-film anything which was shot and we were able to create rough cuts using different footage to see what worked best 

Mise-en-scene 
- As the preliminary task was completed at school it meant that we were not able to play with make-up and costume as we did not have to think about the representation of each character 
- This meant that in the final product we were allowed to experiment with different clothing and make-up on the girl showing her crying 
- The costumes were carefully thought out before we started filming as we had to have a character which resembled the man in the forest without the actor being there
- This factor meant that we chose for him to wear a black puffer jacket which was made significant as he walked into the house
- Without previous experience with how the editing and storytelling worked it was a challenge for us to resemble his character without him being there although watching the scene without that knowledge, it seemed to look realistic 
- While filming the final product, we had to make sure that the lighting and location was scenic and stayed the same through out the scene 
- Filming on different days made this difficult, although, it created a challenge which we had to overcome 
- We collected toys for the bedroom creating an innocent look of the teenage girl suggesting a lonely, underdeveloped mind
- Small aspects which made up the scene took a lot more planning and thought than what I expected although due to the character of the girl being the same age as us, it made it much easier to create this scene 

The main thing I have gotten out of the preliminary task through to the final product would be confidence. The more I got used to Final Cut Pro, the more I was discovering different types of titles and ways to cut the film. This made the whole process of developing the opening more interesting and different as we experimented with the title sequence and final touches. By doing the preliminary task it meant that filming and editing became a lot easier giving us time to look at different ways to show the title sequence and fit in different music for the soundtrack. 

EB

Evaluation Question 6

I

IW

Evaluation Question 5

EB

Evaluation Question 4

STOLEN 

Gender: 

F 11

M 10

We attracted both male and females to come and watch the film and received good feedback from both genders. These show positive results as it means that both males and females can relate to the characters. Having both genders watch our film stops bias results as well as helping us expand our target audience.

Age:

0-15 0

15-25  17

25-40  2

40-60  2

Having some people who were over the age of our target audience allowed us to know wether more people would be interested in viewing our film. The results show that we achieved reaching to our target audience of elder teens and early adults as they are the most likely to go to the cinema with their friends.

We decided to make our final product a 15 classification meaning that no-one under 15 years old is allowed to see it at the cinema or to rent the film. This means that the majority of the target audience is able to watch this film. Strong violence and discriminatory language or behaviour is often seen in these. The classification means that you have the ability to include 'strong threat and horror as long as there is no sustained focus on sadistic or sexualised threat'. 

What is your favourite film genre?

Thriller  7

Comedy  7

Romantic  0

Sci-Fi  2

None  1

Crime Drama  1

Spy  1 

Surreal  1

Epic  1

These results suggest the film is hitting the target audience as thriller was one of the most popular genres put down. This allows us to get an idea of how many people would watch the film which is helped by the crossover of crime as well.

What would be your preferred thriller plot?

Murder  8 

Fiction  4

Kidnapping  0

Revenge  2

Psychotic  6

These results suggest that our plot in the film is not as popular as other thriller films as ours central around the girl getting kidnapped. Although, there have previously been popular thrillers showing people being kidnapped and is a regular theme which crops up through out thrillers.

Do you go to the cinema regularly? 

Not at all  1

Sometimes  17

All the time  3

These results are what to be expected due to web 2.0 and on demand access.

Do you prefer watching movies at home or in the cinema? 

Home  10

Cinema  11

This 50/50 split is to be expected.

Would you prefer to see the protagonist as male or female? 

Male  5

Female  7

Don’t mind  9

It's good that the don't mind is so high.

Was the ident realistic?

Yes  18

No  0

Did you understand the opening?

Yes  20

No  1

Did the opening leave you asking questions?

Yes  21

No  0

Would you want to watch the rest of this film? 

Yes  20

No  1

Improvements? 

Louder music 

Shot of man through forest

EB

Evaluation Question 2

AC

Evaluation Question 1

( full screen to see full tags)

1. IDENT - We used the convention of having an ident at the start of our film, as this is what is expected to introduce and start the film.  We did a quite graphic, arty ident which is also conventional of an ident, swell as involving an animation aspect
2. SHOT REVERSE SHOT - We also used the shot reverse shot which is sued a lot in real media products, as we thought this would be a good shot to use as it establishes Maddie, and then shows that she's running, and where she is. It also encapsulates the audience as the point of view shot included in the shot reverse, gives you her perspective and increases the anticipation.
3. ENIGMA - We started our film with a clip of Maddie running through the forest that suddenly stops to go to the titles, which creates an enigma, also by how it suddenly cuts to her in a bedroom.  We chose to do this as we've seen this in many other thrillers, and it gives a snapshot o whats happened to the person without having to go in to much detail, so mystery is created.  So we used this form of a real media product as we really liked the effect it creates in films.  
4. TITLES - Like the ident, we definitely wanted titles in our film including the title 'Stolen' as it was a good way to break up the forest scene and the bedroom scene, and again we have seen this in real media products and the title also gives a hint into what happens to the girl as she is 'stolen'.   It also made our film look more professional and realistic, as you would expect to see titles.
5. ATMOSPHERIC MUSIC - Music is commonly expected in films and although this uses the convention, we decided to challenge the convention some films have of the music building from jolly music to serious as this sometimes makes the antagonist more creepy as the music is so happy.  We decided to go for high drama music from the start of the film to indicate the genre and set the scene.
6. LOW ANGLE SHOT OF MYSTERIOUS NEW CHARACTER - The low angle makes the antagonist look more powerful and this still has an effect even when its just a shot of his car pulling up into the driveway.  The cross cut to the car establishes a new character which slowly explains why the girl is in the bedroom, and if we hadn't done this and used the convention of slowing unveiling new characters, then our film would be very one sided and there would be no progression in the film.
7. REACTION SHOT OF GIRL+ POINT OF VIEW SHOT - Similarly to the establishing shot of the new character, the protagonist, we used a reaction shot of the girl looking shocked at the car.  We saw this composition of shots in our film research and wanted to use it as it slowly unveils the plot without the characters having to say it.  Then we also used a point of view shot as this , similarly to in the forest, creates tension.
8. CONTINUITY - We used continuity when Conor, the protagonist, unlocks the door and enters it as otherwise the shot would stand out and be very noticeable as he could open the door and then unlock that as that doesn't make sense.  This is sort of a convention, but we don't feel like we intentionally used this because we saw it in films, but more because otherwise the film would be messy
9. DARK LIGHTING, FACE OBSCURE - This is a classic convention used in thrillers, as the darkness creates fright and the obscurity of his face, makes him seem more daunting and mysterious.  However we challenged this convention in a sense that we did it subtly, as it was caused by there being dark lighting in the hallway, instead of us using a bright light and a blackout.
10. CREEPILY NORMAL ACTIONS - Although i have seen this in a few thrillers, where the 'murderer' leads a normal life and goes home and makes breakfast for example, it is common in thrillers for the antagonist to be very stereotypically angry and sharpen their knives for example.  But we wanted to challenge this and confuse the audience, so we made the antagonist drive home in an expensive car to a nice spacious house and sit down to watch the cricket, as this means it makes the audience question why he would feel the need to kidnap a girl, and this makes them think of what happens next and keeps them wanting more.
11. DISTRESSED ACTION BY PROTAGONIST - We wanted to create the idea that Maddie had been at this house for quite some time instead of it being a recent kidnapping, but we felt like the protagonist needed to show some signs of distress as it is common in thrillers, for the protagonist to be screaming or cry in, so we mad Maddie get angry and shout, but not in a very intense way which again makes the audience question how many times she has got mad, and how long she's been there.
12. NO VIOLENCE OR WEAPONS USED - A large way we challenged conventions of a thriller, was how we didn't use any weapons or violence, especially towards the protagonist.  We wanted our film to be very realistic, and as we wouldn't be able to do proper gore scenes, with fake blood etc. we thought we should leave that out, but also we chose on purpose to leave it out, and use the enigma of the angry man storming upstairs at the end as this leaves the question of is he/her going to be violent towards each other.

IW

Experimenting with sound

After putting the main part of our film together we were planning on having a boy in our school create a short soundtrack for us which would have been produced specifically for the scene although due to the amount of work he had and the time limit we were under this was not possible.

This meant that I had to look for a copyright free piece of music which would be easy to loop and manipulate to fix our film. These are some of the things I found in the process which we debated over:

(how do I put the sound in?)

After agreeing on one track I was then able to adjust the music making it fit in with the scene and help build more tension.

Storyboard

By creating a storyboard it allowed us to have a vision of the film before we started shooting, enabling all of us to match up ideas and know what types of cuts and angles we wanted. We created two different storyboards as the film and ideas changed due to the equipment and actors we had available. It also let change our ideas and develop them further. Through our time filming we stuck very closely to the storyboard we created as it allowed us to stay on track making the days of filming much quicker. Although, we did take the same shots from different angles which will differ from the original storyboard.

Here is the animated storyboard created, we have used the same time gaps which we wrote from our scene creating a realistic view of what is going on in the scene.

EB

Creating the Ident

In my last blog post i mentioned how I was intending on using Movavi which is a screenshot recording app, but after trying it out and seeing the many factors i had to take into account( such as the cursor being in the recording, and also it being hard to edit the speed because of its format), I instead thought it would be easier to use Motion.  I had never used it before and it was a different type of software which at first was quite overwhelming to use, as there were many different tools etc.  I started by drawing the final design of the ident on illustrator and after we were happy with how it would look I put it into motion.  Then i used a pen tool and recorded drawing over the doodle in white.  This covered up the design, but then i used the Behaviour 'write-on' which meant that when it played the lines were revealed instead of covered up.  I found this very tricky and time consuming though as i had to perfectly draw over the lines in a thin pen, so if i messed up one small part of the line i would have to start the whole doodle again.  As the doodle is all one line this meant this was a challenge.  I then changed the speed of the doodle, so it was all fluid, as sometimes i would take a break doing the line, and finally when i was happy with the final product, i exported it to put it on FinalCut.  When it was on FinalCut i trimmed it down to get rid of the the extra blank screens at the start and beginning, and thought it would be a nice idea to add a sound of a pencil scribble, which I've  seen before in animations.  I was happy with that as it otherwise i think the ident would have felt abit empty and dull otherwise.  Overall i was happy with the finished product and found it satisfying that what i had pictured in my mind was actually created.

                ( Here is the ident off Motion, without the music or it being slowed down)

IW

Vox-pop

I filmed a vox-pop to help with the audience research for our thriller.  We chose some one between the age of 15-25 to use as we found that to be our target age through our initial audience research post.

It helped us find out what films and what type of thrillers people prefer. It gave us more depth and more of an idea of for the audience research for our own thriller. It also tells us what would make some one want to watch a thriller and what makes a more interesting thriller.  It was important to ask both closed questions and open questions to get a better idea of the our target audience.

AC

Final Cut

The clip above shows the final cut for our opening for a thriller. I found that begin able to put the titles and ident in helped a lot with the finishing of the film making it look much more finished and professional. Having to change actress was extremely hard and unexpected but I think that we handled this issue well and enabled us to rethink some of the shots we used before and either change or replicated the position of the shots making the second time round a lot quicker to film. Through the process of shooting this short clip I learned a lot about the whole process and let me develop my skills to a higher level.

Facebook page

The best way to get feedback and keep people updated with what we do is through a Facebook page we created at the beginning of this project, first showing the ideas for the location, asking for peoples input. We shared two different rough cuts of the film onto this site as well meaning that the followers were able to share and discuss different ideas for the soundtrack. The issue we found with having a Facebook page with our friends was that the feedback was limited as people would be too embarrassed or shy to comment. It was still helpful to us to post them as we knew how many people were watching and to promote our title sequence.

These are some screenshots from the Facebook page:



After these photos we have put up the final copy of the film and have changed the name from 'The following' to 'Stolen' as we thought it made for a more dramatic feel.

EB

Rough Cut

This is where we managed to get up to before the girl who stars in this dropped out. We decided to re-film half of the shot only using another girl as it was the easiest and best working solution. The scenes we used with the man do not have to be re-shot due to there only being one shot with the man and the girl in the same shot although we filmed this in different ways allowing us to film a shot reverse shot suggesting they are responding to each other. We have not synced the sound taken from the boom or inserted a soundtrack meaning that we need to focus on the filming but nothing else.

EB

Casting, Archaetypes, Certain look of characters

Possible Archetypes for the girl 

• Child: Could be a literal child or just living like one. Ex: Wally McDoogle, Peter Pan 
• Innocent: someone who is inexperienced and exposed to evil. Ex: Dorothy Gale 
• Slave: Does not belong to himself. Ex: Dobby the house elf 
• Survivor: Pulls through no matter what happens, doesn’t give up
• Victim: Was hurt by someone or lives in fear that someone will hurt him. Ex: Claireece “Precious” Jones

Possible Archetypes for the man

• Introvert: Lives inside his shell to prevent anyone from seeing the real him. Ex: Gabriella Montez (High School Musical)
• Manipulator: Plays with people and situations to get what he wants. Ex: Scarlett O’Hara
• Masquerader: Pretends to be something he is not
• Monster: A depraved beast. Ex: Gollum, Grendel (Beowulf)
• Temptress: Uses power to make others weak. Ex: Megara (Hercules)
• Tyrant: wants be in control at all times. Ex: Captain Hook
• Villain: wants to destroy/trap the hero. Ex: Evil Queen in Snow White

AC

Idents

An ident is a image that a television channel or film production company uses to identify its self. It is made up of text of the name of the company. It is usually and animation or another form of moving image. It is usually shown before a film starts. They can be of a movie studio or production company

Examples of film production company indents:

 

It is important that an indent has very clear to read text. There is often a lot of movement, making a more exciting logo. There should be an iterating movement in the animation of the ident. For example, the stars circling in the Paramount ident and the female lifts up her torch, referencing the Statue of Liberty in the Columbia ident. They often have a very epic to them, for example, lions, show lights, mountains. They last from bout 15-25 seconds long each.

 However we want a more modern and sleek feeling to ours. Rather than the more traditional ones such as '20th century fox' and 'columbia'. We like the sleeker look of 'Metro Goldwyn Mayer'. It looks good with the black background contrasting with the gold logo. We can put a lot of effort in this ident by putting in sound effects, music and animation. We want to make sure ours isn't to long that it will get boring for the audience. We could have loud, dramatic and kind of epic music to make it more exciting. Or we could have a sleeker feel by having it simpler and just have sound effects in time with text. This would make a very short ident.

Often independent production companies, often have slightly more themed indents. This is because these companies specialise in making certain types of films, e.g. thrillers. The independent production company, 

Gunslinger make social realism films. This is their ident;

As our film is dark psychological thriller and we want out ident to set the theme of the film. As idents are played at the very beginning of the film, they do have the power to set the film. This means that we don't want a ident that gives a very happy and relax feel. Darker colours and red will work to our advantage.

AC

Editing so far

So far we have shot the first section of the scene which is situated inside meaning that we can get on with editing while we decide a time and day to carry on with more footage.
The editing of the film has been interesting and easier that I thought although there have been a couple of debated on how to show certain things and when to cut to the next frame.  The best part about this part of the project is that you are able to merge together separate clips creating a story as it all comes together.
The thing I am finding particularly difficult at the moment is editing the sound as it is hard to connect the film to the sound although every time we filmed a clip we used the method of clapping before hand making it a lot easier to match the sound taken from the video recording to the sound on the camera. A lot of the sound in this opening is atmospheric and sound of movement. I didn't realise how important this sound was as there is very little dialogue used.
So far we have not managed to match music to the film although we are setting up a meeting with Aletia as she is able to create simple musical soundtracks to use as a subtle background noise. The crucial thing about this is increasing the intensity of the music at the right points in time to fit the scene and build suspense. If this is wrong it is very noticeable and can be distracting.

Planning ahead

Next, we were planning on filming the rest of the indoor scenes on the following weekend although the girl which we are using is not able to film on this day meaning that we need to work are;ind her schedule. Our plan is to film through out the week hoping that we can get to my house from school in time before it starts to get dark.

Although this is not ideal, we might have to film the indoor scenes in the weekend afterwards. We are bale to film the outdoor scene in the woods through the week. This means that we can edit all of the wood scene before we continue filming in the house getting a lot of the editing out of the way and so we can foes on the soundtrack.

Days Filming

We started filming last Sunday at around 1pm shooting all of the scene which is located inside. We were unable to complete all of the footage although we completed all of the shots which Conor starred in making it much easier to shoot the rest of it. There were some difficulties with some of the equipment that we wanted so we did not have any lights. Although this was not ideal my house has lots of windows allowing natural light in making the scene more realistic and less set up. In this case I think that this factor did not effect our filming too badly. The  only issue that we had with the lighting is that we did not take into account that at around 4pm it gets significantly darker meaning that we had to end filming early.
We were not supplied with a boom pole making parts of the scene difficult regarding the sound although listening back on it, it seems to have worked fine. The main hurdle which we did not anticipate would be not noticing the boom coming in and out of shot which was made obvious when blowing up some of the footage on the computer.
Over all the filming was smooth and easy to do, we shot everything at least twice using different angles and making sure that we only needed to film more and not go back to other things we previously shot saving a lot of time. We spent from 1 till 5 in the evening. It was interesting to direct and shoot a film as you have a vision in your head which you are attempting to portray on the camera.

Final Shot List below

Initial Shot List

Click on the link below to see our initial shot list…

Practical lesson

Five points to remember when filming -
- be aware of possible reflections meaning that in the shot you are unable to see people in the background or the camera
- record at least 30 seconds of atmospheric sound before you record
- make sure that there isn't a loud noise when shooting things especially outside
- when filming outside be aware of where the light is coming from, if the light is shinning into the camera it will overpower the shot
- make sure that the boom is close enough but not in the frame when filming

Style and Tone

As our film is a physiological thriller, this means we want it to feel very realistic.  This is why we have chosen to do it in an everyday house, with no overdramatic unrealistic props.  We don't want the horror thrill side to the film to be exaggerated either, for example by using over dramatic sound or by the way we dress the kidnapper, just so it doesn't make the style seem cheesy and cliche.  We want the clip to have a social realist genre, and emulate a realistic tone, making it more creepy, as from films we have seen in the past, the scariest are when it seems as if it can happen to you.  

We took inspiration from films like Lovely Bones, which we have referenced also in the costume ideas, The Call, and also Prisoners.  These films all have a similar kidnapping scene in common which seems realistic as ones on a field, one in a carpark, and one on a street.  So we thought we would reference these films and see what tones they emulate as they carry the tone we want.  

(picture above from the kidnapping scene of The Call)

The Disappearance of Alice Creed is also a kidnapping film which emulates the style we want.  In the poster for it i thought it showed the tone of the film well.  The colour palette of the film is also useful to us as the pale greyish colours give a sense of gloom that would be useful to use and gives the film a general mood to it.    It also has a all British cast, which gives it the urban feel we want so we think this will be  useful film to refer to

IW