Shooting

After shooting, we had the rule of thirds discussion with Mr Andrews, where we realised that lots our footage has been shot in the wrong way. We will have to reshoot this after test block.

Changing Story

Arfter one lesson of filming, we have decided to go in a different direction to what we were originally doing. The original idea was to have a girl in a test, and as she daydreams, she is provided of the answers. We have, however, decided to change our story to a girl on her way to a test. All footage we have can be used with this new idea, and we only have a few lessons to go of filming before we are at the editing stage.

Prop List

Scene One:

Stationery

Test paper

Timer clock

Test style desks

Chairs

Scene Two:

Coins

Table

Chairs

Scene Three:

Same as scene one (no timer clock)

Scene Four:

To be completed

Scene Five:

Same as scene one and three

Scene Six:

Playing cards

Sleeping bags

Background items

Scene Seven:

Same as scene one, three and five

Location list

Scene 1:

· Classroom (Rosemary Hughes room)

Scene 2:

· Dark room (History rooms)

Scene 3:

· Classroom (Rosemary Hughes room)

Scene 4:

· Park (Junior School)

Scene 5:

· Classroom (Rosemary Hughes room)

Scene 6:

· Assembly hall (On stage)

Scene 7:

· Classroom (Rosemary Hughes room)

Group Selection

For the next task, I am in a group with Emily and Alicia. We have decided to use Alicia's script, titled 'The Wondering Mind'. I am happy with this group because we are all going to be able to work together and co-operate. Other the next lessons, we are aiming to organise our shot lists, production schedule, prop list and location list. I think this task is going to be interesting because I have never created a film before and am interested to see how everything turns out. We have decided that Emily will be our actress and Alicia our director, while I film. Emily and I are going to go over the treatment and storyboards in the next couple of days as well. We are going to change it and add our personal touches so the film was written by al of us, not just Alicia.

Horror Film History Overview

Horror is an ancient art form. We have tried to terrify each other with tales which trigger the less logical parts of our imaginations for as long as we've told stories. From the ballads of the ancient world to modern urban myths, audiences willingly offer themselves up to sadistic storytellers to be scared witless, and they are happy to pay for the privilege. Theories abound as to why this is so; do we derive basic thrills from triggering the rush of adrenalin which fear brings, or do horror stories serve a wider moral purpose, reinforcing the rules and taboos of our society and showing the macabre fate of those who transgress?

Horror movies have long served both purposes. They deliver thrills by the hearseload, as well as telling us stories of the dark, forbidden side of life (and death) - cautionary tales for grown ups. They also provide a revealing mirror image of the anxieties of their time. Nosferatu (1922) is not simply a tale of vampirism, but offers heart-rending images of a town beleaguered by premature and random deaths, echoes of the Great War and the Great Flu Epidemic fatalities. At the other end of the century Blade (1998) is not just a tale of vampirism either, but reflects a fear of the powerful yet irresponsible elements in society, echoes down the corridor indeed of the seemingly impunitive behaviour of those at the top.

Exert From 'Horror Film: Why We Like to Watch, http://www.horrorfilmhistory.com/

Reflection and Evaluation - Storyboard/Treatment

My latest creative media assignment involved developing a storyline and creating a genre film treatment and storyboard from this.

One of the things which took me quite a while was the actual creation of my storyline. I couldn't decide what type of film to make, although I did know that I wanted either a comedy or a horror film. Originally, I was going to make a rewrite of the fairy tale snow white. I created a draft of the storyline, but I decided that I didn't want to continue with the story. I decided instead that I wanted to create a horror film and then build the suspense to a climax, where it turns out that the 'scary' thing or the protagonist is not scary at all. I also had difficulty when creating my storyboards because I am not very good at drawing and the end result consisted of basic stick figures.

My final film was about a girl who arrives at school one day and finds it abandoned. She doesn't understand why no one was at school, and after being increasingly worried at scared, it turns out that the entire school was just waiting to throw a surprise party for her. The aim with this film, is to build up suspense, and keep building the suspense up until the resolution, when everything anticlimaxes.

Planning and research helped me with the assignment because I had a better understanding of what was necessary. I researched the horror genre and looked at the different elements which make the genre unique. I created a genre recipe about the horror genre. In class, we also looked at different storyboards and discussed what was needed to have effective storyboards. We did the same with treatments, analyzing the different aspects and what we had to do.

I planned out my treatment in dot points before I started, to try and give myself an idea of what to do before I actually started. We also looked at lots of different things in class, different bits a pieces, such as synopsis' and short clips of these. I attempted (Not very well) to use perspective when drawing my storyboards. I had never done this before, however, and the result was not as desired.

One of the class pieces we looked at was a synopsis from the film 'The Prestige'. We then discussed this as a class, watching the relevant snippet of the film and comparing the ideas and the differences from the treatment and our interpretation, to how it actually looked. The storyboard template I used for the assignment was the standard one provided for all students on blackboard. It was a good template, and allowed me to effectively show what I wanted and include all the relevant pieces of information.

During the unit, surprisingly, I have improved upon my limited drawing ability. I now have an idea about how to draw in perspective, whch I didn't know anything about before. Prior to this task, I had no idea how to do a storyboard or treatment. I knowknow how to do both of these things. I know how to set them out and how to write about each section and each shot. This will be very useful for the rest of my creative media schooling, as well as any other film industry I might do.



I am satisfied with my finished product, although there are some areas that I know could use improvement. I managed my time quite effectively, more so with the treatment than the storyboards. I finished by treatments very early, and I was over confidet and left my storyboarding a little late. Having said this, I didn't leave the task to the night before and finished it on time. If I did this task over again, I would like to work on the layout of my storyboards. The storyboards were not overly neat (limited drawing ability) but I thik I could have improved the set out a bit and taken more time on each individual drawing. If I did the entire task over, I would spend more time planning and reserarchng to make sure that I knew exactly what I was doing before I actually started.