Update on today's filming

Unfortunately we were unable to film what we planned to today.  This was due to our location not being available for us today.  However, we will be filming on Monday 29th October.  We are planning to film all of the inside scenes with Jason and Ella as well as the master shots of them outside the house.  Once this has been filmed, we will only have the party scene to film and we will be ready to start editing and adding titles.
Instead of the filming today, we completed our animated storyboard and did some shot experimentation, both will be posted shortly.

Filming Can now begin!

We are now ready to start filming our feature trailer as we have completed all the planning for it, including the filming schedules which will be posted onto the blog soon.

Our first filming session will take place tomorrow, October 25th.  We will be filming the inside scenes where Jason and Ella start noticing paranormal activities. 

Shot experimentation

Below is a montage video of experimentations of the difficult shot in the bathroom that we are planning to use in our trailer. We are still not sure how we are going to master the shot, At the moment the idea is to make it 3 separate cuts. However if this becomes too difficult we may find a different way of filming this particular scene.

Storyboard

We have now completed creating our storyboard in pages.  Now we have done this, we will be animating it using iMovie and then adding an idea of sound we will use in the actual trailer. However this will not be the official soundtrack we are using in the final piece.

In our storyboard where the shots say "HOW LONG WOULD YOU LIVE?" in between each word we will have a series of fast cuts. These will be of Ella and Jason running, flicking lights, Ella being dragged along the floor and the scary figure in the garden. We have not presented these in our storyboard incase we decide to do different fast cuts. However we will update our blog with any details of changes to our storyboard.

Casting shots

We have taken casting shots of Alice (the protagonist), Kirsty, Lily, Jessie and Ellis who all play the other characters that take part in the experiment. Kirsty as well as playing that role also plays the role of the masked figure.

Alice Foster

Ellis Simmonds

Kirsty Smart

Location shots

It is very important for us to take location shots so we can clearly see if the location idea we have will work with our film idea.  Below are our location shots including a shot of the outside of the house, a shot of the main room we will be filming in and a shot of the bathroom.

Transcript

This is our final transcript for our feature trailer: 

MUSICAL SCORE FADES IN

JASON AND ELLA WALK HAND IN HAND, HUGGING

(ECHOED LAUGHTER)

FLASHBACK TO PARTY

SPIRITUAL GUY: Highcliff Manor... Stay away 

SHOT OF HOUSE APPEARS 

SPIRITUAL GUY: No one can explain what happened

QUICK SHOT OF DEAD BODIES FLASHING 

SPIRITUAL GUY: No one comes out alive 

ELLA AND JSAON OUTSIDE HIGHCLIFF MANOR 

ELLA: Bet ya £10 you can't last the night!

TEXT: SOME PLACES

JASON: Race ya!

INSIDE HIGHCLIFF MANOR

ELLA: Bathroom, be right back 

TEXT: ARE BETTER LEFT ALONE

ELLA: JASON!

JASON RUNNING TO ELLA 

ELLA CRYING : There was something there!

FLASHBACK TO ELLA SEEING SCARY FIGURE

ELLA: I saw it, I swear!

JASON: Don't be stupid it's all in your head

(TV TURNS ON)

JASON: What the..?

ELLA: It's unplugged!

(BANG FROM UPSTAIRS) 

ELLA: What's happening 

JASON: Lets get out of here 

(DOOR LOCKS) 

(LIGHTS GO OUT)

(HEAVY BREATHING AND HEARTBEAT IS HEARD) 

(LOUD FOOTSTEPS) 

(ELLA SCREAMS) 

FAST CUTS OF DIFFERENT SHOTS 

TEXT: HOW
              LONG
                 WOULD
            YOU
             LAST 

JASON: ELLA!  

JASON LIGHTS A MATCH

SCARY FIGURE APPEARS 

TEXT: WHAT LIES WITHIN

TEXT: OCTOBER 31st 

Storyboard

We will be creating our storyboard in Pages and then animating it using iMovie.   This is the first 6 shots of our trailer which include the 3 production logos we will be using.  Each including a musical score in the background.  

As you can see from this screenshot of the start of our storyboard, the second production logo is going to be animated, but the second and third will not.  

More screenshots of our storyboard in pages will be posted shortly.

Location shots and casting shots (plan)

Location shots 
We are currently trying to sort out where the location of our trailer is going to be.  We did have this planned out, but we found out last minute that we were unable to use this location.  We are now trying to find a different location that will work for our trailer.  We are hoping to have it organised this week and once we have, we will upload the pictures.

Casting shots
As we have many people in our trailer we have not yet finished taking all of the casting shots.  However, we are in the process of taking them now and should be finished soon.  Once we are, the pictures will be uploaded and we will explain why we have chosen that person to act in our trailer.

Creating our production logo for I-STUDIOS

We created our final production logo in Photoshop CS5, and are now in the stages of putting it together in iMovie. We are having a few issues in iMovie with regards to our production logo not looking realistic. We are animating the eye so it looks as if it is blinking, however this is proving to be difficult as the single images stop and start between each transition and not making it a continuous scene. Below are the separate images for the 3 stages in our production logo as well as the editing techniques we used in Photoshop.

Channel mixer:

Red: +40

Green: +40

Blue: +20

Brightness: -4

Contrast: 40

Exposure: -0.31

Offset: 0.0079

Gamma Correction: 1.0

Canvas size: Height- 59.83

                     Width- 100.47

Green Rating Card

Whilst looking at different Trailers for our influences, we noticed that on most of the trailers there was a green screen telling us that the trailer was suitable for all audiences. We didn't really know much about the background of this and if there were other rating certificates that could come up so we have researched into it and this post is about what we found out from our research.

There are three colours you might see before most movie trailers, red, yellow, and green. The most commonly seen one is the green rating card. Before April of 2009, a green background meant that the preview was approved for all audiences.  Since April of 2009, the MPAA now states that the green card is for “appropriate audiences”. This means it is appropriate for all audiences to watch.

A yellow rating card indicates the preview is for age-appropriate Internet viewers.  This yellow rating card is only used on the Internet though, not in cinemas.

The red rating card indicates that content in the preview is only appropriate for certain audiences, such as older teenagers, 18+.  These previews can only be shown in the cinema if the whole audience is of the appropriate age.

We were not sure which rating card we were going to use. We were debating between either the green or red, as we felt that some aspects of our trailer would not be suitable for all audiences.  However, we have decided to use the green rating card as our target audience is males and females under 25. There is no gore, swearing or anything similar shown in our film, the only scary features will be the innuendos that something gory or bad has happened to leave the audience in suspense. The green card will be shown at the start of the trailer for approximately 4 seconds.

Target Audience

After deciding that our film would be a Supernatural Thriller, we then had to decide what target audience would be best for our film. The genre of supernatural thriller is widely used in film today, over the last couple of years since 'Paranormal Activity' many other films have come out based around the idea of poltergeists and unusual phenomena  As well as 'Paranormal Activity' becoming a series of films with the follow on of 2,3 and 4 due to be released October this year, there have also been other films such as 'The Devil Inside', 'The Pact' and 'Insidious'. However as there are so many of these films around and being released prior to Halloween we may find it difficult in releasing our film to a mainstream audience and therefore need to take this into account. Below we have presented what target audiences and why would be best for our film in a mind map.