Props / Costume / Actors

Propsrope

red lipstick

wine glass

going out high heels

dark cloth or scarf

Costume list

ripped lace tights

heels

party dress

sparkly shawl 

Make up

BEFORE & AFTER HERE

Actress

Jordan Matthews - playing  Catherine

The making of

We studied 'In the Mood for Love' is an example of using colour and lighting to set the mood of the film. Using specific props and costume is as important as the other processes as they usually indicate the semiotics and hidden meaning behind what's being watched. 

Anamatic

This is our improved draft of the anamatic we produced as preparation before we offically going out to shoot. We found this effective music from freeplaymusic.com and chose this one over the others as it made us feel uncomfortable listening to it, which would have the same effect on the audience once the film was finished. On the shots of the flashbacks, to create a sense of a different time we photoshoped the images to make them appear more stern, with faded white edges to represent her foggy memory of how she got to where she woke up.

In our first anamatic we hadn't planned where we should put in the titles so we made the fades between the first five shots slower in order to add them and keep the pace of building up the suspense. The transition cuts between the present situation and the flashback, we improved the original anamatic but adding the sound effect of a drum. We chose this sound because it defined the difference of shot and is an heavy earthy sound which matches the mis-en-scene of the woods. 

When we experimented with the sound levels to see what was best effective to keep the gradual build up towards the end of our short beginning which suites the codes and conventions of the thriller genre we've chosen.

Using audacity

Audacity is a free program avaylible for me to use to create my own sounds to the effect i wish them to perform through recording and editing clips or un-copyright music files i've chosen from the internet.

The sound-editing software lets me record from a microphone or other input, dub over existing tracks and even create many layers and monitor volume levels. Its simple to use, but it's not as polished as other professional programs. 

I've practiced cutting, changing speed and pitch of my own recordings. It also allows me to copy, slice, and mix sounds together, remove constant background unwanted noises, alter frequencies and create effects such as phaser, echo, bass boost and equalization.

My group got together and we used an input microphone in order to achieve wind noises for our anamatic. We considered going outside to try and record real wind, but it would've been a bad quality sound, so we interperated what we thought would create the best mood through using our own breath, keeping constant and having all three of us to make layers.

The importance of sound

We watched how behind the scenes of making a movie is important to focus on sound. sound is a sense they used in 'The village' to pre-warn the audience of the bad mysterious character. 

Music and sound is a very powerful tool, it's just there, it works, exists as part of the film. The audience doesn't particually think about the sound, meaning its best effective as a subconsious factor. When you watch the movie you don't realise its creating the realistic feelings.

"sound is his special effects"

When looking at thrillers that have no action in them, the sound is the highlight of the intense feeling the audience feels. 

in The village, it's one of the most important factors because the main character is partially blind, so the sounds are increased and they reflect her fear. They experiment with using scratching of nails and ear piercing metalic non-diagetic sounds. 

In the 6th sense, all the background noise made to create the presence of ghosts is layers of people crying, screaming, and whispering so its unreaconisable. This gave my group the idea of experimenting making our own different sounds to add to our animatic, and eventually our film. 

Storyboard

art of storyboard

M. Night Shymalan produces very indepth storyboards spending weeks perfecting every shot exactly how he wants them so he as the best idea of the mood he wants to achieve. He believes with each blink comes a new thought, so the more cuts used, its more dangerous and can take something away from he film.

Good camera work need to make the audience feel like what they are watching is real, playing with human emotion to create the trilling feelings. 

They spend 16 weeks developing all the detail for only 2 hours worth of film. He thinks it's the most important part of the process of film making as it sets a base for all the decision making. The storyboard is the worst version the movie can be, when being filmed, tweaks can be made only to 

improve what the producers are already happy with. It also provides time for specific props to be prepared. 

They can test out different shot angles and ideas without wasting money, being efficient and good preparation. It give him the chance to be the director, actor and audience all at the sam time, considering all perspectives of the filming process and the final result.

"make the movie before you make the movie"

after realising how important this part of making the introduction to my own thriller would be, i fully focused on visualising each shot to achieve the most effective final product.

Development - Shot list

Our group discussed our final idea which changed as we went through the process of imagining each frame of the start of a story we were creating

1. edge of woods
2. closer into the woods
3. further into the woods
4. dark tree's
5. LA of tree's
6. Title - black background
7. blanc screen
8. C.U hands tied behind back
9. flashback - feet being dragged along floor
10. S.R.S hands tied behind back
11. pan from hands to back of head
12. flashback - body being dragged
13. pan from head to gagged mouth
14. flashback - mans hands tying gag
15. features of her face twitching
16. disorientating tree's
17. moving branches
18. LS of body on floor
19. disorientating tree's
20. struggling to break free
21. flashback - ECU red lips sipping wine
22. ECU gagged lips (contrast shot)
23. POV fast panning of branches above her
24. CU of her face, eyes flash open