What we did today 13.12.11

Today we began editing our screenplay, we rewrote our treatments and we listened to some of ReeceA's music who will be the composer doing the music for our film. We have asked Reece to produce some music for us and asked his permission to use some of his already available music

Audience Research Reflection

Overall I think our audience research went well, our focus group was focused and alert and interested in our questions and even more so in replying to them, the only place I felt we didn't get a so good reply on was the internet survey's as they were unmanageable and some people relied in a manner that was inappropriate and not useful to us in our research. As well as this I think we could have put our survey's together better as some people didn't understand the layout of our questions properly and so struggled to answer some of them.
I also think we should have pushed more for survey's to be filled in before the lesson as we ended up using two hours we could've used for further work getting survey's filled, also most of those survey's were mostly filled by adults which isn't entirely a help to us.

At the moment we are editing our screenplay, changing somethings and adding some more humour; we are working quite well as a team at the moment though now and again one of us lags behind and we have to pick them up again and get them to rejoin us in working. This is not only their fault but our fault as well I think as sometimes we can get so caught up in what were doing we forget to think about what we have left for everyone else to do. This will be something we will work on.

Action Comedy Treatment Re-Write

Hall Monitor


A original screen-play by Andrew Bryan, Olivia Barry, Chris Adegoke and Daniel Wright.

13.12.11

The Production Company BiggerBoat Productions presents a 12A aimed Action-Comedy film that tells the tale of a British school that has decided to run a Hall monitor program, their hall monitor Alex is an anal busy-body who takes his job far too seriously, he and his side-kick a lower grader (who is only in it for the grade-points and thinks his boss is a moron) must stop the imminent sabotage of the school Prom.
   As the story unfolds it is discovered that it is Alex's love interest that has committed the attempted sabotage in order to get him to notice her. Through the stopping of the sabotage of the prom our lead finally gets the respect he craves and recognition he feels he has worked for but also realises what an idiot he has been and that their is more to life than being a hall monitor.

The film will be like MallCop, meets HotFuzz

Our key focus is to make a funny laugh-a minute comedy that entertains and draws in the audiences, it will be open for all audiences from 12 upwards and so will be a 12A, this will give us more room than a PG rating to make jokes suitable for older audiences.

The feedback we got from our focus group was to not make is family orientated but just younger teen upwards film and so to raise the rating so that we could add in better humour than just slap-stick alone. We also were told to give the love-interest a bigger role overall in the film so that the audience can know who she is before the end reveal.

Survey Results Graphs

We used the website Survey Monkey to collect these results and will ulitmately collate them with the rest of our findings to gain an idea of what changes we will make to our idea.

From this graph we can see that most of the people answering our survey are teenagers, this suggests that we should aim our film at that that kind of audience base. On refelection I think we should used a better age range for measurment as 11-20 is too wide.  

From this graph we can see that the largest percentage of people replying o our survey were male so this suggests we should aim our film more at a male audience.

Their age and this graphs suggest that those answering our survey are still in education, this means they will have little disposable income as they will not be working but may get allowance so could still see our film in cinemas. The lack of disposable income for expensive cinema tickets might suggest that our film would do better in DVD sales as they are cheaper and can be bought as gifts.

From this graph we can see that our surveyees most enjoy the genres of horror and science-fiction, due to that fact that our film is neither of these we may have to find a way to work some factors of those things into our film. Luckily a high majority of people also said the7 liked comedy. 

Many surveyess said what they most liked about their genres was enjoying laughter, escaping reality and good effects so we'll have to find a way to encompass all of these things in our opening two-mintues/film.

Many people said they found out about new films from the internet this suggest that we should advertise through the internet, this is a good thing as our opening two minutes will be posted their anyway.

Most people also said they visited the cinema with family, this works well with our initial idea of making the film family friendly we will  need to maike sure we aim some of our humour to adults.

Many said they enjoyed foreign films with subtitles, this tells us that they are open to more exotic cinema and are possibly more cultured, this will give us more freedom with our humour than if we were just aiming it at people who are a little more narrow minded.

Most people said they enjoyed watching films, wathcing televison and rading novels, the fact that they enjoy reading novels suggest that they may like complex plots and well developed characters- this we will have to take into account when structuring and writing our plot and script. Also the fact that they like watching films and television tells us that they will have a pretty good understanding of what to expect from our film- whether they realise they do or not- and so we will have to find someway to surprise them.

Many of the films our audience had seen recently were comedy films, young adults films or acton films, this sits us in quite good stead as our film is a collection of these things.

Overall I think this survey has been good in assuring us of some things that we all ready knew and in that we are largly going in the right direction but also informing us of some things that we will need to change like making our plot more complex etc. However I think if I were to do this survey again I would try and make it more relevant to our actual film in the hopes we could get some more refined information from it.

Focus group invite Time changes

We have made changes to the time the focus group will meet at my home that time has gone from seven in the evening to three in the evening as this is an easier time for everyone to meet and people have made changes in their schedules to fit it in so their is less need for it to be so late. The interviewers will now be Daniel, Andrew, Chris and I, and the interviewees Ryan, Andy, Lesley, Robert and Gabriel.

Interview Questions and Answers

These are the questions and answers that we got in our interview with two people (they answered together) upon telling them our idea:

1. After hearing our idea, do you think it fits the genre we are asking for, and why?

Ans:  More aimed at a PG or 12 than a 'All' (family film)

2. What aspect, if any, would you like to change?

 Ans: Suitable for the genre, careful for toilet humour, language and innuendos, slapstick element should be included, vertical tutoring (school should be in classes of grade not year)

3. Is this a film you would particularly like to see?

Ans: Yes, if the trailer was good

4. What do you think about the setting of the film?

Ans:  Good setting

5. Do you think this idea would only appeal to the younger part of the family audience?

Ans:  Yes.


These answers will be eventually compiled with our questionnaire results and focus group results to give us an overall idea of what changes we will need to make to our final film idea.

From these results we will begin to  consider changing the target audience of our film.

Summary of our Research: Focus group questions+Interview Questions

These are the core questions we have decided to ask our focus group, of course more questions will grow naturally as we gain new insight into their thoughts and new points of view so we have tried to keep our main questions brief.

1. What do you think of the overall idea, is it original or have you seen it done before?
2. What do you think could be improved with the idea? Are there any concepts that you don't think would work or need improving?
3. Is this what you would expect of a film of this genre?
4. What sort of things would you expect to see in terms of costumes, props, set etc.?
5. Would you go out of your way to see the film?
6. Do you think our opening sequence would draw in the audience well?

These are the questions Chris will use when interviewing others outside of our focus group, he has decided to take this as his responsibility as I wrote and sent the letters and am in charge of organising the focus group and Andrew wrote the questions for the focus group so it is Chris's responsibility to cover this aspect of the research.
Before he would ask these questions he would inform the interviewee of our idea and opening sequence.

1.  After hearing our idea, do you think it fits the genre we are aiming for, how and if not why?
2.  Do you think the angle of having a girl doing something desperate to be noticed by a guy is a scenario that is expected? 
3. What aspect if any would you change if you had the chance?
4. Is this a film you would particularly like to view?
5. What do think about the setting of the film?
6. Is this idea would only appeal to the younger part of the family audience?
7. Do you feel that the opening two minutes that we discussed would engage your interest?

Focus Group Invite Letter

Here is a copy of the invite letter I have sent round through email to the necessary recipients so as to invite them to join is for our research focus group.

Predicted Target Audience

Our predicted Target Audience would be families. These families would consist of a father and mother of around early 20's to 40's with two children of the ages 7 to 15, they would have a household pet, the father would work almost full time and the mother part time or perhaps not at all staying at home to look after the children. The famly would own one or two cars and a semi-detached house in a relatively nice environment. Both children would still be in education. The parents would listen to most of their music on the radio or CDs where as the children would either listen to what ever their parents played or hear music from friends or music shows or the internet- this music would mostly be very current. The sort of films they would go to see would be 'Arthur Christmas' or 'High School musical' (for example). The parents would read newspapers and free magazines from train stations and the children kids magazines.


For our focus group we will probably use my family and my mothers boyfriends son and he if they are available and we will hold the focus group in my home. This will mean that the focus group will consist of a wide range of base ages, two teenage boys, an older woman, two middle aged men and a middle ages woman. This will cover the bandwidths we might miss out on when using an internet related questionnaire and also will cover the range of family members as the group will consist of a whole a half of families.

My Questionnaire Questions

These are the questions I came up with alone that I then submitted to the group to be looked though judged and submitted into the final questionnaire:

1. What genre of television show do you most commonly watch? Please tick one

Social Drama, Crime Drama, Science fiction, Comedy, Horror, Political Drama, Soap-opera

2. How often do you watch films?

Everyday, Every few days, Every few weeks, Every few months, Every few years


3. How do you find out about films?

Friends, Family, Billboards, Television, Movie Theatre, Magazies/Newspapers, Radio

4. How old are you?

5-10, 11-20, 21-30, 31-40, 41-50, 51-60, 61-70, 71+


5. Do you visit the cinema more with...

Friends, Family, Partner, Alone

Movie Idea Survey

Click here to take survey

Action-Comedy Opening Sequence Research

Hot fuzz Opening

Starring: Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Martin Freeman

Directed: Edgar Wright

Written by: Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg

Released: 2007

Genre: Action Comedy Mystery 

Rating: 15

• Opens with police whistles and bells sound as titles of company plays through the sounds are joined by the sound of police sirens whining
• Long shot, gates open near us, yellow lighting, camera slowly pans in and up
• Continuing shot of man walking towards us, titles come up in white text at the bottom of the screen
• Close up of Pegg's face head and shoulders, he is angry/frowning he whips up his police badge and introduces himself: Police Constable Nicholas Angel
• Quick cutting montage of him walking, looking angry and going through police school whilst he voiceover introduces himself, he tells us about himself in school and how he got to this point- being the best cop there is
• He tells us about his strengths as a cop and we see him in practice exercises excelling at what he does
• He tells us through voiceover that he is good at dealing with tough and dangerous situations 
• He tells us how he graduates with distinction and is top of his class
• He tells us how he continues to train in advanced cycling and advanced driving
• Also does lots of other activities such as chess, fencing, martial arts racing- he excels at all of these and holds the met record for 100 metre dash. This is all still in montage to humorous sounding music- 'Goody two shoes'
• Montage cuts in between thing she has done and him walking though a big shiny police station with purpose
• He receives a bravery award while working with a special armed forces unit

• All during the montage we cut between close ups and long shots that pan and zoom quickly

• During the advanced cycling and advanced driving scene Simon Pegg looks to camera this is a kind of self parody and one we've seen also in Copout

• Also when he shows us his police badge the face he is pulling in his photo is exactly the same as the face he is pulling in that particular scene

All of these humorous touches are very subtle also like Copout the beginning has very quick cutting

From this opening sequence I will take the ideas of playing your main character straight/him being funny without realising it, and the use of montage and voice over as an introduction and of the main character being just too good for their job.

Genre conventions:

• Self parodying 
• Self voiceover
• Use of humourous music that contradicts whats happening on screen

Action-Comedy Opening Sequence Research

This video has the first few seconds missing but the other opening video has cut out most of the interrogation so, Cop Out Opening Sequence

Starring: Bruce Willis, Tracy Morgan, Juan Carlos Hernandez

Directed: Kevin Smith

Written by: Rob Cullen, Mark Cullen

Release: 2010

Genre: Action Comedy Drama

Rating: 15

• Cop out opens with the two leads played by Bruce Willis andTracy Morgan walking down a corridor in a police station to No Sleep Till Brooklyn they argue about who gets to interrogate a drugs criminal
• Tracy Morgan precedes to burst into the interrogation room pretending to be a criminal who is trying to escape and has killed a cop, he proceeds to quote hundreds of movies at the criminal screaming at him Bruce behind the screen names the films they're from
• E.g "They cal me Mr Tibbs!" "Nobody puts baby in a corner!" "Godzilla is coming!! Godzilla is coming!" "Were gonna need a bigger boat!" "Tell us about ze chicken." "The forbidden zone was once a paradise!"
• He scares the information out of the criminal and they find out that he is just a middle man

I think that this opening scene is a very good one not just because it's hilariously funny with all of it's shameless movie references (Particularly it's quoting Bruce Willis's DieHard films) but also it's quick cutting and setting up of the characters as not only Cops who are good friends and have worked together for years and are good friends but also cops who don't quite work by the rules.

I think what I'll take away from this film is it's use of music and self knowledge in the way it quotes other films.

Genre Conventions:

• Self parodying
• Humorous music
• It's funny
• Swearing
• Shouting/loud

Treatment Feedback Video

Treatment Feedback

We put our film and opening sequence ideas to our class and teachers today and this is the feedback we received:

• Make the film more self aware
• Take inspiration from the real life superheroes and from super hero parody films
• Too Americanised
• Overall re-think our opening sequence- which we are now doing.

 Re-done Opening sequence based on our feedback so far:

• Hall monitor entering school
• He is pulled over by head teacher who addresses him to tell him to tone down his behaviour- he's just a hall monitor
• Slow pan round the head teacher there's a kid littering!
• Hallmonitor throws the teacher aside with a cry of 'Stop! Justice!' the head teachers papers fly up into the air and he falls to one side 
• HallMonitor begins to furiously speedwalk towards 'criminal' student sees him and begins to run away
• Speedwalk chase scene begins on his way Hall Monitor fulfils and safe guards several school rules like stopping people from chewing gum, littering, reporting poor behaviour, breaking up fights etc
• Freeze frame dramatic title screen

What we did well:

• Our overall idea was quite good
• Our research was apparent
• We had a good idea of the conventions

 Possible Problems

•  Getting permission to film at Eastbury maybe a problem and taking the equipment their also if we decide we want to use that as a filming site.
• Getting our timing correct with Andrew's friends who will help us film

 Opportunities

• We can make advantage of Andrew's older friends media skills
• Due to the ages of our characters actors will be easy to find
• I go to both Eastbury and Jo Richardson so I know how to get there and some of the teachers there so should be able to convince them to let us film.

HALLMONITOR!

It's not the size of the badge it's the man that wears it

                    THE MOST AMAZING MOVIE NOT COMING TO A CINEMA NEAR YOUU!!!!
                            (But you will get to see the first two mintues if you keep an eye one youtube.)


Just a little picutre I created to go along with our Hall Monitor film idea.

Action Comedy Treatment

     Hall Monitor


An original screenplay by Andrew Bryan, Daniel Wright, Chris Adegoke and Olivia Barry

21.11.11

By the Production Company: BiggerBoat presents a Family focused Action-Comedy about a hall monitor who takes his job far too seriously. He teams up with a fellow student his sidekick, who thinks his boss is a moron, in order to stop the sabotage of the school Prom and keep general peace.

As the story unfolds it is discovered that it is Alex's love interest that has committed the attempted sabotage in order to get him to notice her. Through the stopping of the sabotage of the prom our lead finally gets the respect he craves and recognition he feels he has worked for but also realises what an idiot he has been and that their is more to life than being a hall monitor.

This film will be like Hot Fuzz meets Mall Cop.

Our key focus is to make a family orientated fun comedy-action film that gets laughs that is directed towards a family/young person (12+) audience.

Action-Comedy Film idea

Land of the Rising Son

Setting World War two- Japan

• The top army squadron are captured in Japan
• The son of the Cammander of the group has always been a let down to his father
• He has joined the army to try and make him proud
• When he hears of what happenned to his father he takes his squadron in training to Japan! Sadly theyre the must useless squadron around
• The army have sent their own team of elite soldiers unbenknowst to our heroes
• Commanders son and his allies must travel across Japan to find his last known coordinates and look for his father
• Whilst avoiding the Japanese and the other American elites/Birtish elites who think theyre the enemy
• Crazy shenanigans along the way occur as our heroes really are crap and ntrained
• Somehow they succeed and rescue not only our heroes father but the others at the prison encampment and take them to safety!
• Our bumbling hero is now an actual hero!

I imagine it to be kinda like Tropic Thunder just with poeople who are meant to be real soldeirs.

(and yes I realise this would most probably be impossible to make but I really can't think of any other ideas right now- maybe I'll come up with another later)

Genre Research Horror: 2 minute beginnings

Evil Dead 2:

• Introduction to Necronomicon
• Background swirling mist
• Necronomicon flies in- Made of human flesh it comes alive its eyes and mouth open
• A parade of evil ghostly monster fly form the mist vortex towards the screen
• Opens to red blood sea
• Books pages get inked with blood filled with pictures of monsters and creatures
• "In the year 1300 AD the book disappeared"
• Fades to black as book disappears
• Black screen, mist reverses to form white text words
• White text disappears we see int he distance the end of a tunnel, it rushes closer
• We exit the tunnel we were in
• Man and woman in car- both attractive- introduce that they are going o a cabin in a wood that's very secluded (this fits genre conventions very well cabins in woods are very often used as the settings for horror films) 
• Its a very bright day and it appears safe - this is also very conventional as horror films like to lure the audience into a feeling of safety before revealing the terror
• Cut them crossing long bridge it is now dark/night time
• Cut to a creepy old cabin int he woods, it is dark the cabin like the necronomicon also appears to have eyes and a face

The similarities between the dreaded evil thing and the falling of night time also the stressing that they will be alone are all very common conventions used in the horror film as omens that bad things are gonna come. Also the use of a black background and white text are very common in horror films.


Nosferatu

• Black background white text
• Introduce makers of film and actors in it and who they play/cast list 
• Gentle pleasant music plays int he background
• Fades to black
• Text- white on black introduction to the villain of the film who he is and a little about him
• Also information on the story

Again you can see the horror conventions, the white on black text, the introduction to the evil thing/villain the creation of a pleasant atmosphere before the realisation of the danger.

Genre Research Horror

Gonna have to upload this without the pictures sadly as Scirbd is rubbish and doesn't seem to want to accept they exist. Just so you know the pictures were awesome. (If I can get it to work I'll repost it)

Horror Genre Research

Genre Convention Research: Peer Assessment review

This post is in referral to my previous one with the 2 minute opening scenes for the Gangster movie.

Idea 1:

My peers liked how I used the twist of having a young character as you will find in the traditional Gangster movie most of the characters are older males.They also liked my idea of using title cards with white text as this applies with convention and helps build tension by cutting up the scenes making the audience wait longer to find out what's happening. My peers also liked the way I jumped straight into action with the shooting as it fits the genre which is known for it's violence and it sets the tone for the film, also it fits the stereotype of the Gangster that we see in other films- as killers.
Overall this idea was my peers favourite.

Idea 2:


My peers also thought this idea was good, they liked the rotation of the camera around the feet as they walked though they thought that I ought to be careful when filming as I would not want it to look amateur.  They also liked the way it was set in a church they thought that it was non- hegemonic in the way that Italian American Gangster are stereotyped as often being quite religious yet this man is taking money from a priest.

Idea 3.


My peers also liked idea three, they thought the dialogue related well to the genre in what they were talking about and the way they were talking. They also felt the choice of language relates to genre and they liked the way it sets out a few of the main characters in the story- the 'hero' and the 'villain'. They also liked the way it displays typical conventions of a gangster film through its choice of shot- like that in 'The Godfather'- and it's choice of lighting and mise-en-scene. They did however warn that I would have to be careful that it might get a bit boring with no action and that to keep it from getting boring I would really need to think about my choice f shots, mise-en-scene and lighting carefully and make sure I had a really good actor to keep the scene interesting.


Overall my peers thought that Idea One was their favourite and I must admit it is my favourite to, they felt it was the more interesting one with the more interesting use of shots, cutting and action and also felt it had the most interesting introduction to story.

2 minute opening scenes

2 minute opening scenes for a Gangster film:


1.

We open from black to see a woman sitting in her home, awake, it is late. Music quietly in background- Non-diegetic. She is waiting up for someone. She is quite an older woman late 40's, 50's. On the mantle piece is a picture of a young man in his twenties, camera pans to his face. He is smiling and happy
Black title card, name of company making movie, white text.
We skip to two men in italian suits walking down the street late at night, they enter a bar. Low lighting, still at night. There is a young man sitting at the counter- the same man as in the photos- he is hunched over his drink he turns round to look as they enter. Everyone in the bar stops what they are doing. The young man turns and gets up from his stool. Raising his hands.
 Black screen white text name of actors
We skip back to the same two men walking down another street, one is cleaning his hands with a handkercheif.
Black title screen, white text actors name.
We cut back to the bar, everyone is frozen then begin to hurriedly make their exit. The young man is standing facing the two gentlemen who have entered, he looks afraid.
Black title screen, white text another name
The two gentlemen stopp outside a door of a suburban house in America. One pulls out some flowers (white lillies?). He places them on the doorstep then rings the bell
Black card white name
The same gentlemen, at the bar, pulls out a gun, the young man tries to reach for his own gun in his jacket but he's too slow and he's shot, he flops to the ground, banging off of the bar. Slow-motion.
Black title card, white name
The older woman opens the door to her house, she see's no one. She looks down at the ground and sees the flowers. She drops to the floor and grabs them up pulling them to her chest, she begins to cry and scream in anguish.
Camera swoops up into the air pulling away from her house so we can see her from afar. Name of movie comes up. Music reaches crescendo.

2.

Fade in from black, a pair of expensive balck shoes clack on the ground, walking, camera draws round so we are watching him from behind his feet, he jogs up some stone steps. Pan back as a man in an expensive back italian suit pushes open heavy wooden doors.
Skip to long shot, aisles in a church people on their knees praying, name comes up white text
He walks through the aisles
Hands polishing a gun
Same hands holding a bible, name of actor comes up white text
From behind following man in suite walking through church
The father, an Italian american priest nods to him
Her enters the confesson box and leans over the grate
The priest on the other side looks through and sees his face, we see only his eyes. Middle aged man.
The preist reaches into the folds of his uniform and pulls out some folded up dollar notes, he passes them through the grate
"Thank you father." The man on the other side does the father son and the holy spirit blessing sign on himself. He gets out and walks away from the confession box towards camera. we see him in full, slowmotion. Title of the film comes up. Music reaches crescendo.

3.

Fades from black to an extreme close up of the mans eyes, italian amrerican accent. reverse creep begins

"Albachinni, he sent friends to see me, I he told me I had to pay him his rent he told me that it was business, told me I was his new friend and friends do favours for eachother. I told him where to go. The next thing I know my cafe's gone! Burnt to the ground! There ain't nothing left! Then they come to my home- my home! They tell me I gotta pay my rent I say for what! I ain't got no business anymore!  They tell me I gotta pay! I say I already pay you and they laugh. The next day I go'tah pick up my daughter from school and there they are and the bastards standin' there holding my daughters hand! My daughters hand and there ain't nothin' I can do about it! He knows where I live, he knows how tah get to mah daughter! What am I gonna do? So  think, I'll come to the only man that I know who can do sumthin' I'll go to the big man himself. I'll come to you sir. Look, I guess what'am tryi'n to ask is, will you help me get rid of that bastard? Help me protect my daughter?"
 Long shot of the man he sits behind a big desk, sliver of light creeping in behind him from a slightly parted green curtain.
In front of him a pair of hands link (close to the screen) we realise we are seeing an over the shoulder shot but he figure we are shooting over the shoulder from is so dark we could not see them.

"I am glad that you brought this to my attention. As you should well know I do not like that this young man seems to think that he can... bully my friends, and you are my friend aren't you Romano?"

"Of course I am."


- I reckon that's probably more thna two minutes, so I'll stop here.

Preliminary Task

We started our project by brainstorming ideas- basically we just shouted out when we had one and discussed its merits and faults as a group, when we had one that struck a chord with all of us and made us all laugh I sat down to begin a script whilst Jamie and Daniel discussed and figured out dialogue. Our resulting script was so well thought out and planned in the way of shot directions that we didn't need to do a storyboard as all of the shots and angles were written into the script. As I wrote I paused to ask Daniel and Jamie what the dialogue was so that I could add it in. Once I had finished the first detailed script we wrote up a script that had only the dialogue so we could use it for the actors (Daniel and Jamie) when filming, and the more detailed script could be used by me and Chris in Directing and Shooting.

Here is the first script:

Homeless man 1 (Leo)- Jamie Vanlint
Homeless man 2 (Chester)- Daniel Wright

Shot 1: HM1 walks down stree checks if anyone is there, camera follows him panning across, longshot slight high angle
Shot 2: close up HM1 face flat angle, he looks right then left
Shot 3: Flat angle shot, mid-close up of bin as he jumps in feet first
Shot 4: Close up of top of bin, HM1 eyes as he dissapears down into bin
Shot 5: Mid-close up of feet as he lands down in front of door slight high angle flat shot
Shot 6: extreme close up/close up of HM1's hand as he turns door handle, zoom out to mid-shot as he goes through door
Shot 7: Match on action him entering through door, midshot, flat angle
Shot 8: Match on action him closing door from inside room flat angle
Shot 9: Over the shoulder slight high angle shot of HM2 over HM1's shoulder, HM2 is seated and has his back to camera/HM1
 HM2: We've been expecting you Leo
Shot 10: Close up of HM2 as he spin goes to over the shoulder shot reverse shot, long/mid shopt of HM1 in background
Shot 11: Low angle close up of HM1
HM1: What have you got for me Chester?
Shot 12: (Extreme) Low angle of HM2 as he rises from his seat
HM2: It's a code nine
Shot 13: Dramatic zoom from close up to extreme close up of HM1's face (eyes, nose part of mouth), shocked expression
HM1: Half a portion of chips
Shot 14: Extreme close up flat angle shot of HM2's face
HM2: And a savaloy
Shot 15: Slight low angle of HM!, neck and head
HM1: That's impossible!
Shot 16: over the shoulder shot of HM1 in foreground HM2 in background mid shot slight high angle
HM2: One of these opportunities comes around once in a lifetime!
Shot 17: Shot reverse shot, over HM2's shoulder, HM1 in background
HM1: I'll never make it in time!
Shot 18: Shot reverse shot, over HM1's shoulder, head and chest of HM2
HM2: Just leave. (points towards door)
HM1: I can't-
Shot 19: Close up slight low angle shot, HM2
HM2: I said leave! (points at door again)
Shot 20: Extreme close up door handle, HM1 grabs it
HM2: Wait...
Shot 21: Extreme close up HM1's hand, it slides off door handle
Shot 22: Over the shoulder shot HM1
HM2: I'm coming with you
Shot 23: Flat angle mid-close up of HM1 and HM2, they clasp hands dramatically in a show of brotherhood
Shot 24: Mid-long shot of door flat angle as HM1 opens it and he and HM2 run otu in bin bag capes
Shot 25: Match on action of them mid-shot running round corner from door, Camera follows them as they run
Shot 26: Match on action again this time they are running towards camera They jump past camera pans with them, low angle shot. They run off into distance

Ending Credits

Shot 27: Close up of fish and chips and half a savaloy, Hand reaches in and grabs the savaloy. Single shot zoom out and pan back to show HM1 and HM2 sitting down eating chips and savaloy mid-long shot of them both. HM2 is not wearing his hat
HM1: Didn't you have a hat?
Shot 28: Still same shot, HM2 reaches up to touch his head. Both look up dramatically to camera, Dramatic zoom into HM2's horrified face


The second script is only dialogue and goes like this:

 HM2: We've been expecting you Leo
 HM1: What have you got for me Chester?
 HM2: It's a code nine
 HM1: Half a portion of chips
 HM2: And a savaloy
 HM1: That's impossible!
 HM2: One of these opportunities comes around once in a lifetime!
 HM1: I'll never make it in time!
 HM2: Just leave.
 HM1: I can't-
 HM2: I said leave! .... Wait.... I'm coming with you


This simplified script allowed the actors to quickly and easily check what their lines were rather than have to search through all of the confusing shot directions. I used the more detailed script to direct, frame and angle shots, as did Chris our other camera person. This made our filming more efficient and we were able to shoot all of our film in less than two hours- except for the ending scene which was a later idea and was filmed by Daniel Crosby when Daniel and Jamie had some free time.

The Credits go as such:

Leo- Jamie Vanlint
Chester- Daniel Wright
Director (and camera person though I do not appear in the credits as such)- Olivia Barry
Camera man- Chris Adegoke

Daniel Crosby also did additional filming as I previously mentioned.

I did the main rushes when it came to editing, though I also began to do more detailed editing as I was going, and Chris did the final cut. Daniel and Jamie added effects like the grey and found and inserted the sound.

Through this excercise I think I learnt that the best way to enter a filming situation is to plan out what angle (etc) shots you want before you go in so there's is no confusion or time wasting. Also to play out the shots several times without the camera running so as to get an idea what the shot will look like in frame before filming. I also learnt that I am quite a good director but shouldn't be so monopolising with editing as I feel I wasn't very fair on Chris and I pushed him out of the way alot as I can be quite impatient and pinickity. As well as this I think we may need to record dialogue seperatley and overlay it onto the film next time as the sound is too quite on this preliminary film.

I also learnt that I need to rein in ideas and not be so grandeous in my story telling so as to not go over the briefed time.

I thoroughly enjoyed this excercise though I htink the bit i enjoyed most was the filming as we had loads of fun and had loads of film for a blooper reel. We were all very at ease with eachother as were all friends and I was very lucky with the group I was put with.

Preliminary Task

For our Preliminary task we did a one minute twenty seven second video called Savaloy and chips:




The Brief we were given was for:

-The video is to be 30 seconds long
-It must have Match on Match action
-It must have Shot reverse shot
-It must have 180% rule
-It must have dialogue
-Someone must walk through a door, across a room and someone must sit down in a chair

As you can see from the length of our video we did not stick to the first point of the brief, we felt we could deliver a better story and viewing enjoyment if we made it longer, also when we took our script to our teacher and asked him if it was okay to go over 30 seconds he said that that would be fine.
 We did however stick to the rest of the brief, here are some examples of

Match on Action:

As Jamie reaches for the door, enters through the door and closes it from the other side.

Shot reverse shot/ 180 degree rule:

Daniel over Jamies shoulder and Jamie over Daniels shoulder!

The tools we used in iMovie were:

- Crop to cut out a chair that snuck into shot when Jamie had to jump off of it onto the floor to give the idea that he was falling down from above:

-We Fade out sound and Fade in sound with the song Omen by Prodigy:

              Here the sound Fades in as they clasp hands in a heroic way:

             And Fades out as the ending credits finish and the final additional credits scene begins

-We also added music, the Mission Impossible theme and Omen by the Prodigy for our running scene by downloading the music from Youtube into iTunes and then using iMovie to select and drag the music in and crop it to the right length for our shots.

- As well as this we used Split clip to et rid of a piece of dialogue that we wanted in the next clip and that if we hadn't split the clip and then cropped the second half would've been repeated.

- Finally we added a grey and seedy effect to the first shot like it was being filmed through a CCTV camera, though I think this would've looked better had we had cut the clip more to make it look more jerky so that it looked more like it was from a CC Tv camera.

Let the Right One

Warning! Risk of probable spelling mistakes!

Let the Right One In (In my case it was not this film)

Though I wouldn’t describe myself as your conventional horror fan I couldn’t say that I wasn’t; Horror and Science Fiction would be the most watched on a pie chart of my film time though it would be that self same pie chart that would reveal that my taste for gore and the macabre wouldn’t be in equal amounts to my taste for actual scares, I am more a fan of the old B-movie classics; Re-Animator, Evil Dead, Wish Master and From Beyond, which, though they are classed as Horror films, do not tend to be that frightening. It is because of this that I find the world of Horror films can be surprisingly closed off to me, gone are the classic frighteners like The Ring or Alien (simply because of the Facehuggers) to be replaced with films which are simply largely unheard of by my generation. Surprisingly, however, I did not find this closed enjoyment of Let the Right In off to me at all simply because I have another interest in movies- the foreign film. I enjoy watching foreign films and more so when they are subtitled so I found myself easily understanding and the film and appreciating it without effort. The language ‘barrier’ was no barrier to me at all (nor was the film particularly horrifying, in fact it struck me more as a’ coming of age’ story than as anything else). The only reason I did not enjoy the film was simply because I did not ‘like’ it, I didn’t find any of the characters sustainable sympathetic or likeable and I found the story not sweet but unpleasant, there is no closure as we know that though Eli has saved Oskar from the bullies she is bringing him into a life of overall misery and self imposed slavery- just look at what happened to Hakan! Also what about Oskar’s mother! She loved him and raised him yet he never trusted her enough to tell her about his problems and now has abandoned her without thought of the agony she will go for looking for her missing only son!

But I digress as at this point I am but to discuss how the general audience may be attracted to this film and not my personal feelings towards it. And so I will go onto its trailers appeal. My brother and I watched this film and both agreed we didn’t enjoy it; we then watched the trailer for it and felt quite differently. The trailer includes a very clever use of music, dialogue and silence.  It begins with a very piercing single note which leads into an eerie and growing piece of music, when the action begins (a montage of clips from pretty much every action scene in the film) the music grows in intensity and begins to stop and start accompanying the scenes on screen, this helps make the film seem more exciting or action packed. There is no dialogue, only sound effects such as the sound of Eli drinking blood and gurgling and screaming. This is interrupted when the music goes silent and we hear Oskar ask ‘Are you a vampire’ Eli replies and the music and sound effects take up again; this time the music is far more urgent, the screen goes black and the music stops, Oskar asks ‘Will you be my girlfriend’ then the eerie music starts up again to the sight of snow falling in the dark. This use of music building to a crescendo before falling again makes the trailer both exciting and spooky with its eerie single note. The use of Oskar’s final line being to ask Eli to be his girlfriend helps to capture the audience and encourage them to watch the film as we know that Eli is a Vampire, a ‘monster’ and a killer and we have seen flashes of what will happen if Oskar befriends her yet the character himself does not know, this is a form of Dramatic Irony which has been used for years to entertain and enrapture audiences. The film encourages the audience to see it in the cinema as it does not give a date of release for the DVD, the audience cannot risk seeing the film to far after everyone else has seen it, they need that boost in Personal relationships (Blumler and Katz) so as they do not know when the DVD will be realised they must go see it in the cinema, also the advertisement I watched was originally shown in a cinema so it was already advertising to movie goers.

Let the Right one in uses a mix of familiar conventions and uncommon ideas to intrigue and entertain both those who will be common to the genre and entice those who wouldn’t be. It focuses on ideas frequently explored in horror films, those of sexuality, isolation, alienation and vulnerability yet the monsters it uses to make clear these human frailties and encourage the audience to feel them are not in fact a supernatural monster (though like a lot of horror films there is a supernatural element- the vampire) but a ‘human monster’ in the bullies who torment and assault Oskar for their own amusement, and in Hakan in his willingness to coldly end another humans life and in Oskar’s father in his willingness to put aside his living breathing son so that he can drink. In this way it defies another convention making Eli- a tortured creature that kills only for nourishment and not for pleasure- a sympathetic character. Though this doesn’t mean the film doesn’t have its fair share of spurting blood and dismembered limbs, it is after all a horror film. Though unlike your average Stuart Gordon style horror film the gore and blood are rather down played with the scenes of violence mostly shot from a distance or in long shot so not as to emphasise the bloodshed, nor is the gore played up for laughs. Unlike the average horror film most of the core cast survive until the end- including the supernatural being which suffers pretty much no comeuppance to its murderous crimes and slaughtering of children across the country. In fact we are encouraged to be pleased that Eli has survived and is happy and can go on to kill and feed on more innocent people in the future! What a surprisingly upbeat ending! The upbeat ending isn’t uncommon for the horror film but most of the most memorable horror films will end with a shocker, suddenly it’s revealed the monster is not really dead! Or the killer can return! Or there’s another killer! Something along those general lines will suffice (don’t worry about being too cliché).

Being alone, isolated, alienated and vulnerable are all core ideas explored in Let the Right One in, right from the start we see Oskar’s separation from the rest of the world. He stands, trapped on one side of the glass looking out at the rest of the world on his own, he is dressed only in his undergarments emphasizing his vulnerability through his bareness. Outside the world is cold and dark and unwelcoming, we can see no evidence that there are any other children of his age who live near him. At school he is constantly alone with no friends to be with, he is bullied and tormented by the other boys in his class isolating him from other children of his own age. When Oskar goes to school he goes alone, he hunches his shoulders shrinking away from the world and defending himself from it. His clothes appear unfashionable, he is only seen as truly happy when he is with his father (though we see this happiness is only brief as we discover his fathers alcoholism and his willingness to choose drinking with his friend over his own son) and then later with Eli.

I first watched ‘Let the Right One In’ in class surrounded by other students, largely they seemed to think that the story was romantic, that Eli and Oskar’s relationship was sweet however I, and not only I, would protest otherwise. I think Eli is manipulative and cold, she in reality we know she will use Oskar until he can no longer serve her- just like Hakan who is not in fat her father but is implied to be a previous lover who acts as her father to avoid suspicion. She drinks dry Hakan and throws him from his window with little care or emotional response, considering she once loved this man like she loves Oskar and that he has cared for her his whole life I can’t see how this makes her a ‘romantic’ or ‘sweet’ character. Other viewers might see Oskar and Eli's blossoming adolescent love as something to be ‘awwed’ at or aspired to but they are forgetting that Eli is not in fact an adolescent, though she is trapped eternally within the body of a youth she is in fact far older, wiser and more knowledgeable that Oskar, she says herself she has been twelve a long time. Though it may at first appear they are going off into the sunset (or twilight perhaps would be more appropriate considering her ‘condition’) Oskar is in fact falling into the exact same trap Hakan did, he will become her willing slave, killing so that she doesn’t have to satisfy her in human thirst for blood. He will become a murderer, he will grow old and she will no longer love him and all he will have left is the desperate hope that he can stay with her as long as he remains useful. There will be no escape for him- and why? So that Eli doesn’t have to kill anyone herself- because she doesn’t want to. Just like Hakan he will have to watch as she pulls away from him and moves onto her next victim, like a parasite. I personally find nothing appealing about the character Eli, her ‘I don’t kill for fun’ act is nothing but an act, if she were truly opposed to killing once she had been turned into a vampire (a creature whose whole point is to kill) she would have ended her own life like Virginia did when Eli accidently turned her. Eli is a coward and a parasite and not a noble self sacrificing sad little girl who has innocently fallen in love.

Oskar is another character who is not quite what he appears, at first, I must admit, I felt sorry for him he was being bullied and ostracised form his class mates but then I began to notice something strange. Strange as in a scrapbook of killers, murders and knives. This is not the behaviour of someone who is mentally stable or of an innocent child who is just lonely and sad because he is bullied. Bullies will often pick on children who are alone or different, isolating them from the rest of the group like animals preying on the weak, like animals (and like all humans) they also will isolate and separate those who are dangerous from the pack. Though what Conny and his friends did is in no way acceptable (I cheered when they were rend limb from limb) it is understandable that they would attack the one who they could unconsciously see was dangerous. I quite strongly feel that Oskar would have been interested, even obsessed, with those things had he been bullied or not! Due to this, and die to how he so uncaringly abandon-his mother who was doing the very best to raise him alone- without thought of the suffering it would cause her, are my reasons for, watching the film for the second time, I have very little sympathy or pity for the character of Oskar.

Just as the characters do to particularly appeal to me nor does the narrative, though it is an intriguing idea I found it too slow for my enjoyment. The only part of the narrative that really appealed to me was that of the man who’s girlfriend and friend are killed, in the end this two came to a disappointing finish as he is just killed- again there seem to be very few consequences for Eli’s actions.

‘Love’ or a ‘romantic’ relationship between a human and a vampire is not an unheard of concept in the horror movie however the use of this relationship being between two children and the lengths that Eli is shown to be willing to go to to keep Oskar safe are unusual. She abstains from drinking his blood when his hand is cut; she kills the bullies to protect him and even steps through the door uninvited for his amusement and curiosity despite the pain that it causes her. Apart from in Twillight- which could hardly be described as horror- a vampire actually caring about a human enough to injure or endanger themselves for them is uncommon. The story could be rewritten to have Eli no longer a vampire, the easiest way would be to turn her into another supernatural being or a cannibal which would be the closest to her eating habits as they are now and would explain  pretty much all of the points covered in the film. If you were to take her out of this way of life completely however I think you would get a drastically different story, for example you’d either have to find some other way of explaining the need for the killing or just get rid of it entirely, Hakan’s relationship with her would have to be changed and so would her rescuing Oskar at the pool- a normal twelve year old girl could hardly drag a person across a pool and tear their head off.

Despite her Vampirism Eli appears very much like a normal girl, her like is shown as being surprisingly domestic and ordinary, the audience is aware that she is dangerous- she has after all killed people and will continue to do so- and yet is not encouraged to fear her. In fact I feel they are encouraged to like and support her as a character. She is not a monster she is a victim due to her illness just like all those she killed, not that she wanted to kill them in the first place! In some ways however this makes her acts of violence even more shocking as we have grown so easy in her as a character we have forgotten that she is a predator and a killer like any other of her kind. One thing unsurprising and common for a vampire is for them to have a consort- in Eli’s case her ‘father’ Hakan. Vampires often have human associates, usually those who aspire to one day become vampires themselves, who ‘find’ and ‘catch’ food for them eat and serve and protect them while they sleep. Just like an average vampires consort Hakan is shown to have an inappropriate level of affection/love for her, the level of adoration he shows for is of course completely inappropriate for a father but not for vampires companion/servant. Eli is in fact not so unlike her fellow vampires then as we so thought.

Our sympathies switch between Eli and Hakan throughout the course of the film, we feel sorry for Eli when he returns without blood for her- she is after all starving, and then feel sorry for him when she so uncaringly abandons him to spend time with Oskar (when he asks her to not ‘see that boy’ when he goes out to get her food we see the pain in his eyes as he knows that no matter that he asks she will not take heed of it, and the look of hopelessness in him when she strokes his face- a tender gesture but an empty one) and then again when she drains him and topples him from the window of the hospital. Hakan generally gets a bad lot of it in the film, burning his face with acid, being killed and having to watch as Eli is pulled away from him- of course when we take into account that he is a paedophile and that’s why he’s staying with her and helping her. Well. I’m pretty sure our sympathies don’t stretch that far. Just like all of the characters in the film we are constantly being thrown through hoops of emotions in regards to the characters, pity, sympathy, disgust, horror etc all of which helps to shape our idea of the plot. Going back to my previous point, just as I concurred that she was using him and that he would go on to live a life of servitude however through their viewing of the emotion and its effect on the plot they concur that Eli and Oskar will live happily ever after. So is the story perhaps in the head or the heart?