Planning: Production Roles - Ms Begum

Production Roles

Introduction

- During the process of a movie in the making, there nine most important roles with different techniques and creativity that provides different parts to make the movie complete as a production.

Director:

- The director is a person who is in charge of an activity, department, or organization. They are those who come up with creative visual and working along the film crew to transform his/her visualisation becoming a movie production. A director is supported by other managers and producers to develop his/her ideas during the process of a movie in the making. This role has been assigned to Javel and myself to share the responsibilities because we both have creative visuals and are good at deligating roles to the rest of the group in order to complete our thriller production.

Producer:

- The producer is a person who responsible for the financial and managerial aspects of the making of a film. They are those who provide money to buy useful equipments and take all responsible for the film crew and a movie production. The producer supports the directors and co-directors to develop their ideas during a film making process. This role has been assigned for myself because I have good organisation skills and are willing to provide anything needed within my group.

Editor:

- The editor is a person who is responsible for assembling recorded raw material into a finished product suitable for broadcasting. The material may consist of camera footage, dialogue, sound effects, graphics and special effects. They are supported by the co-editors, however the main editor would be the person who puts the scenes together. I am assigned to be the editor in my groups because I have a wide range of imaginations and good editing skills, therefore I will take this role as I am able to puts all the scenes together effectively.

Camera operator:
- The camera operator is a professional cameraman/women of a film or video camera. In filmmaking, the leading camera operator is usually called a cinematographer, while a camera operator in a video production may be known as video camera operator, or videographer, depending on the context and technology involved, usually operating a professional video camera. The camera operator work along the alongside the storyboard manager and director to make sure that they will capture the right scenes at the right moments. In my group, we have assigned this role to myself as I have good techniques whiles filming and also wants to develop my filming skills.

Lighting technician:
- The lighting technician is a person who organises and sets up all the lights within the scene, they need to make sure that the light represetns a feeling and atmosphere that its wanting to be created by the director. In my group, we have assigned this role to Abdullah as he knows how to use the lighting effectively and also wants to develop his skills whilst assisting the filming process.

Location Manager:
- The location manager is a person who finds the best location for the scene/film and they also will do the risk assessment to make sure that the scene is okay to film in. There will also seek permission from those involves within the scene to make sure that the location is ready for the film to take place. In my group, we have assigned this role to Javel because he is willing to film our production at his house and also know a lot of suitable locations for our thriller opening.

Costumes & Make-up artist:
- The costumes and make-up artist is a group of people who are responsible for making sure that the characters all look in the way that is desired by the director. They will pick what people wear and puts on their make up to suit the role, for example they might put on blood with make up to show someone is in pain. In my group, we have assigned this role for Rex and myself as we both have the same ideas of how we wants our female victim and antagonist to look like so therefore we can work along with this to come up with better ideas of costumes and make up for our actor/actress.

Story-board Manager:
- The story-board manager is a person who interpretates the director visual to make up a narrative that the movie is based on. They will organise the scene shots by shots and make sure that there is an order that can easily be followed  by everyone else involves in the production especially the cameraman and the editor. In my group, we assigned this role to Abdullah because he have a creative minds and interpretates our thriller ideas very effectively.

Sound technician:
- The sound technician is a person who creates all the sound effects, soundtracks and music within a movie production. They will needs to create original sound that's belong to the movie to creates feelings and build up tension within that one particular scene where its highlighted the character's feeling. The sound also needs to be edited to the scene and to the edits that occur. In my group, we assigned this role to Javel because he is very creative when it comes to creating soundtracks and sound effects.

Final Idea - Miss Begum

Final Idea

In our group, we have decided to come up with the final idea for our own thriller production. Our thriller narrative is about a young girl around 18 year old who breaks up with her boyfriend because she fell in love with someone else. The boyfriend isn't very happy with her decision, so he then sneak to her house at night time and murder her.

Our Title: It's Not Over.

Narrative/Plot:

- The scene starts with a mid-long shot introducing the female character's walking home at night time around 9pm and onwards. The location for this would be in Great Cambridge Roundabout underground pathway, this location would be suitable for this first shot because it's dark and look isolated at night time. As she's walking, a close-up shot is being used to show that she's texting her boyfriend saying ''It's over ! I'm sorry but I'm in love with someone else..'' and then she turns off her phone and puts it back into her pocket. An extreme long shot and a floor camera level shot is being used to film her walking to her home. The lighting is natural mixed with low-key lighting as she carries on walking home alone.

We then see mid-long shot again from the behind of the female character as she opens the door and enters her house. As she enters her house, a close-up shot in being used to film the door handle from the inside of the house twisting and then she enters the house. The lighting here will be low-key as no one else is at home and the house is covered in darkness with no lights.

As the scene developed, we then see the female victim enters her room and go to the bath room to have a shower, the shot that's being used here is a long shot. As she enters the bathroom, a zoom camera movements is being used here to zoom out slowly as she's taking a shower behind the curtains. The lighting here will be back-lighting showing her silhouettes and to shows that she's vulnerable and physically weak. After finishing her bath, she then go back into her room to dry her self up and get changed into her white pyjamas. A high-angle shot mixed with long shot is being used to film this scene. The female victim then lays down to her bed to sleep. A middle shot is being used here from a high angle mixed with bird-eye views to shows that she's innocent and to show her vulnerability. The lighting is dark and low-key as she switches off the lights to go to sleep.

As the female is laying down in bed sleeping, a panning shot is being used to film from the end of her bed slowly showing her feet up to her body and to her head showing the clock on the table next to her bed letting the audience knows that it is 1:30am. The female then wakes up from a nightmare, she then decides to go down to her kitchen to get a cup of water to calm herself down. The camera is being placed on her table showing that she's getting out of bed and walking out of her room. She then walks downstairs to her kitchen, a high angle shot is being used from upstairs balcony filming her walking down the stairs and turns to her kitchen. As she enters the kitchen, she then goes to get a cup and opens her fridge to get water. The camera will be placed inside the fridge showing her face as she reaches for her drink.

Following on from this, she drinks her water then look at the cup to see how much waters left in the cup, a close-up shot is being used to film the reflection from the cup showing her ex boyfriend standing behind her holding a knife in his hands. A reaction shot is being used here to film her reaction as she's getting frightened. Fear and different connotations is being created. Carrying on from this scene, a point of view shot is being used to show that she's slowly moving back as her ex boyfriend move towards her. He then reaches to pull her hair and stabs non-stop in her stomach. A close-up shot is being used here to film her facial expressions as she's being attacked showing that she's helpless. Also to film the ex boyfriend's hand holding the knife stabbing her continuously. The fast editing mixed with shot reverse shot is being used here to show the attack at a faster pace to build up tension and create suspense.She then falls to the floor, slow editing will be used here to create a dramatic fall of the female victim. As soon as she hits the floor, the setting of the scene changes to her bedroom instantly, a reaction shot mixed with close-up shot will be used to show the relieved of a realization that it was only a nightmare. To comfort herself, she looks around her surrounding. However, it's not long before she notices that a dark figure, holding a knife is gazing at her with cold angry eyes. Then the scene will end with an instant blackout and the title of will slowly appears to the audience.

At the end, the audience is left with horrific ideas about what could happen to the victim. This builds up tension and act as a cliff-hanger. By having a cliff-hanger, it draws attention and increases the audience's interest in my thriller production.

Narrative Structure: Aristotle to have a beginning, middle and an end & Bathes to includes the five features which are suitable for the thriller genre.

Charaters: Female victim, antagonist.

Mise en scene:

- Locations: Home, Street

- Lighting: Natural lighting, back lighting, low-key lighting.

Costume:

- Female victim: White/Cream jumper + a coat, light blue jean.

- Boyfriend (antagonist): Black trouser, black hoodie + black coat.

Film influences:

- Scream 1996 influenced us the idea of the female victim is home alone which we thought would be affective to use this similar idea to develop our thriller opening.
- Takers 2010 influenced us the idea of obssesion which is similar to our thoughts of our antagonist to be obssesed towards the female victim.
- Saw 2004 influenced us the idea of death which gave us many ideas of how we want our victim to be killed in order to create fear and tension towards our audience.
- Panic Room 2002 influenced us the idea of the mysterious killer that sneaks into the female victim's home which we thought would help our thriller narrative to be more mysterious and the idea of being followed by a criminal would create more tension and chill-excitement towards our audiences.

Why is the opening conventional to a thriller?
- Our thriller opening is conventional to thriller because we introduce the characters which is female victim as soon as the scene starts and also the antagonist with hidden identity, these are thriller based. The narrative includes death, obssesion and psycho which conventional to thriller, this was also inspired from numbers of famous thriller productions.

What themes does our thriller present?

- The themes that our thriller presents are Obsession, Love(relationship) and Death. This is conventional to thriller because these themes are strongly highlighted within the thriller genre and the idea of obsession leads to murder in fast paced will creates fear and chill excitement towards the audience.

What response will I get from the audience?

- I really hope that my thriller production will get good feedback from the audience as I have tried my best to meet the audience expectations of what they would like to see in a thriller and also to avoid what they don't wants to see. Whilst watching my thriller opening, I would like my audience to feel pitiful, fear, confused and shocked because these are the emotions we wants our audiences to feel whilst making the production and through discussing.

Conclusion

- Our group have finally discussed and agreed to came up with the final idea for our thriller production. We have categorised what makes our thriller conventional and have also identified which MES, Cinematography we would like to use for our thriller opening.



Planning: Initial Ideas - Miss begum

Planning Initial Ideas

1.      Narrative: A young women moves to her new home to live on her own, one night she heard her doorbell rings, she went to open the door and see a little girl crying outside her door. She then feels sympathy and adopts the girl and she claimed that her mother was trying to kill her and doesn’t have any related family members. The little girl appears to have a tormented mind-set, she claimed to have an invisible friend and draws a lot of disturbing pictures about horrific killing and extreme violent pictures. One night, the women had a dream that flash back her memories when she was young teenager and was pregnant, she was too scared to do abortion so she gave birth to the child, chocked the child to death and left the child in the public toilet. And now her nightmares are becoming more concern as everything the child said about what her mother did to her was exactly the same thing as what she did. The child appears to be a spirit of the women’s child and came back to torture her for her horrific actions she did in her past.

2.      Title: ‘’The Unborn’’

3.      Sub-genre: Psychological Thriller

4.      Characters: Evil child, female victim

5.      Narrative structure: Aristotle & Barthes

6.      MES:

-          Location: House, park, public toilet.

-          Iconography: Blood, Knife, Colour pencils, Papers…

-          Costume of characters:

Evil Child: White costume with black eyes make-up.

Female Victim: Bright colours clothing.

-          Lighting: Low-key lighting, background lighting, top and under lighting.

-          Body language of key characters:

      Evil Child: small, physically weak, mysterious, and confident.

      Female Victim: quite small and short, clueless, innocent, physically wear and vulnerable.

7.      Advantages of this idea: Conventional to psychological thriller, the idea of the evil can help to manipulate the audience and create fear and also have clear narrative structure for the viewers to be understood.

8.      Disadvantages of this idea: May not have the permissions to for the child to act as the devil character and the child might not know how to act. Might be time consuming because the child might be messing around and not taking filming seriously.

Abdullah’s Idea

1.      Narrative: a couple that cannot conceive a child and they wants to adopt a child. The couple with their bad fortune visit a fortune teller to read their destiny and to see if they can have a child of their own one day or they will have to go ahead with their plan to adopt. The fortune teller is petrified and taken back by the couples impending destiny. The fortune teller warns the couple that there is darkness that will soon to occur. The couple leave unmoved by the fortune teller’s advice. The couple are now more determined to adopt and they visit a children’s home and the wife sees a small child sitting in the corner all alone. They instantly feel a connection and the wife think this is the child they will adopt and she firmly believes show has a motherly connection with the child but the husband is not too sure. The wife persists and she adopts the child with her husband very suspicious. When the child arrives in the couple’s house, the dog runs away and never returns also the couple have increasing strain on the marriage ever since they have adopted the child. The father has an unexpected and untimely death and then the child tortures and kills the mother and the child may have done the same with the father.

2.      Tittle: ‘Restless’

3.      Sub-genre: Psychological thriller

4.      Characters: Child (demented, demon), female victim and father/husband.

5.      Narrative structure: Propp or Todorov

6.      MES:

-          Location: Family house

-          Iconography: blood, knife which is used to kill

-          Costumes: the child is made to look demented and the mother costumes of a typical victim (simple clothing light colour clothing’s)

-          Low-key lighting

7.      Advantages:

-          Very simple and easy characters to use, child, female victim.

8.      Disadvantages:

-          Filming or find a children’s home.

-          Getting a child to play that role.

-          Finding a fortune teller or someone that can play it well.

Javel’s Idea

1.      Narrative: a man come across a theatre and watches a group of ballerinas rehearsing, he then sees one particular girl who he seems to take fascination to. He then becomes really obsessed with this ballerina. After a while of wanting her, he then decides to kidnap her and keep her as a prisoner.

2.      Title: ‘Silent Audience’

3.      Sub-genre: Psychological thriller

4.      Characters: Antagonist, victim and extras.

5.      Narrative structure: Aristotle & Barthes

6.      MES

-          Location: Millfield Theatre

-          Costumes:

·         Antagonist – Long black coat

·         Victim – Ballet outfit

·         Extras – ballet or dance outfits

-          Lighting: natural lighting.

7.      Advantages: This is quite conventional as it includes themes such as Love/Obsession, kidnapping and has a clear narrative structure.

8.      Disadvantages: being allowed or gaining permission to work within the location at certain times.

Rex’s Idea

1.      Narrative: in a library the lighting goes off, unknown murders are being committed through stabbing and the use of silencers.  When people realise that murders have occurred, they scream and call 999. The entrance is locked automatically, there’s more murders are being committed. In the end when the police arrive and they are killed, the antagonists would be the survivors.

2.      Title: ‘Silent killers’

3.      Sub-genre: Crime thriller

4.      Characters: antagonist, protagonist and victims

5.      Narrative structure: Todorov

6.      MES

-          Location: Library

-          Iconography: knife, guns, blood and phone

-          Costumes:

·         Typical girls or boys or child wearing bright colour costumes that connotates vulnerability and weakness.

·         Protagonist also wears bright colour clothes.

·         Antagonist wears black clothes.

7.      Advantages: conventional to crime thriller, the idea can make the audience think about how random the crime of murder can occur even in the most quite place.

8.      Disadvantages: Hard for a child to act our murder scenes. People may be unable to act and the library might not allow this activity to be access.

 - My idea and Abdullah's idea are most likely to be used as we have provided much details in our narrative and is more easier to have a vision of these idea to be done as a production.

Planning: Opening Scene Narration - Miss Begum

Opening Scene Narration

- For the opening sequence of our thriller, we have all discussed in our group about how we would like opening scene to be filmed and presented.

Opening Scene Narration:

- The scene starts with a mid-long shot introducing the female character's walking home at night time around 9pm and onwards. The location for this would be in Great Cambridge Roundabout underground pathway, this location would be suitable for this first shot because it's dark and look isolated at night time. As she's walking, a close-up shot is being used to show that she's texting her boyfriend saying ''It's over ! I'm sorry but I'm in love with someone else..'' and then she turns off her phone and puts it back into her pocket. An extreme long shot and a floor camera level shot is being used to film her walking to her home. The lighting is natural mixed with low-key lighting as she carries on walking home alone. 

We then see mid-long shot again from the behind of the female character as she opens the door and enters her house. As she enters her house, a close-up shot in being used to film the door handle from the inside of the house twisting and then she enters the house. The lighting here will be low-key as no one else is at home and the house is covered in darkness with no lights.

As the scene developed, we then see the female victim enters her room and go to the bath room to have a shower, the shot that's being used here is a long shot. As she enters the bathroom, a zoom camera movements is being used here to zoom out slowly as she's taking a shower behind the curtains. The lighting here will be back-lighting showing her silhouettes and to shows that she's vulnerable and physically weak. After finishing her bath, she then go back into her room to dry her self up and get changed into her white pyjamas. A high-angle shot mixed with long shot is being used to film this scene. The female victim then lays down to her bed to sleep. A middle shot is being used here from a high angle mixed with bird-eye views  to shows that she's innocent and to show her vulnerability. The lighting is dark and low-key as she switches off the lights to go to sleep.

As the female is laying down in bed sleeping, a panning shot is being used to film from the end of her bed slowly showing her feet up to her body and to her head showing the clock on the table next to her bed letting the audience knows that it is 1:30am. The female then wakes up from a nightmare, a reaction shot mixed with a bird eye views shot is being used to show her opening her eyes, she then decides to go down to her kitchen to get a cup of water to calm herself down. The camera is being placed on her table showing that she's getting out of bed and walking out of her room. She then walks downstairs to her kitchen, a high angle shot is being used from upstairs balcony filming her walking down the stairs and turns to her kitchen. As she enters the kitchen, she then goes to get a cup and opens her fridge to get water. The camera will be placed inside the fridge showing her face as she reaches for her drink.

Following on from this, she drinks her water then look at the cup to see how much waters left in the cup, a close-up shot is being used to film the reflection from the cup showing her ex boyfriend standing behind her holding a knife in his hands. A reaction shot is being used here to film her reaction as she's getting frightened. Fear and different connotations is being created. Carrying on from this scene, a point of view shot is being used to show that she's slowly moving back as her ex boyfriend move towards her. He then reaches to pull her hair and stabs non-stop in her stomach. A close-up shot is being used here to film her facial expressions as she's being attacked showing that she's helpless. Also to film the ex boyfriend's hand holding the knife stabbing her continuously. The fast editing mixed with shot reverse shot is being used here to show the attack at a faster pace to build up tension and create suspense.She then falls to the floor, slow editing will be used here to create a dramatic fall of the female victim. As soon as she hits the floor, the setting of the scene changes to her bedroom instantly, a reaction shot mixed with close-up shot will be used to show the relieved of a realization that it was only a nightmare. To comfort herself, she looks around her surrounding, a point of view shot is being used here. This is used to shows the female's from her viewpoints to creates fear and chill-excitement towards the audience. However, it's not long before she notices that a dark figure, holding a knife is gazing at her with cold angry eyes. Then the scene will end with an instant blackout and the title of will slowly appears to the audience.

At the end, the audience is left with horrific ideas about what could happen to the victim. This builds up tension and act as a cliff-hanger. By having a cliff-hanger, it draws attention and increases the audience's interest in my thriller production.

Research: Questionaire - Miss Begum

Questionnaire

What is the importance of primary research?

- The importance of primary research is that all the information is being given to ask those who the questions are aimed to. This would helps to benefits the one who asked because it gives them consistent and realistic answers within those who they asked. This would also benefits them as it gives them the reliable sources to helps them creates graphs with accurate information.

Who did you ask and why?

- In my questionnaire, I asked 20 people within the age of 15-21. This is because at this age, people are really interested in thrillers and this would help me to collects helpful information as they will provide answers that would benefits my results and is also reliable.

Example of questionnaire

 

This graph shows me that there are more people prefer to watch thrillers about religion than just other normal thrillers. This has helped me because I will take note from this to develop my thriller narrative to meet my audience expectations.

This graph shows me that most people like the use of low-key lighting in thrillers. This has helped me because I will use low-key lighting more to make my thriller look more scary.

This graph shows me that most people like the sounds of eerie music in the soundtrack. This has helped me because I will incorporate errie sounds like strings to make my audience scared.

 

Conclusion

- Throughout researching, the results from my questionnaire has been very helpful as it gives me the ideas of what type of thriller young teenager and young adults like to watch. It has also helped me to see people opinions about at what age is appropriate to watch thriller and what they like to see and don't like to see in thrillers. This has been the most useful source for me with my opening scene because I have now know to avoid showing things that people don't like in thriller and show more of what they like to see but still make sure that my thriller ideas is original and don't bore the audience from seeing the familiar things in thrillers.

Research: Opening Credits / Typography - Miss Begum

Opening Credits

What are opening credits?

- Opening credits are written information presented to the audience on who produced the film, who is starring in the films and other producing roles.

- The opening credits are effective in thrillers when accompanied by sound to create tension and fear. Can be very effective when the images do not make complete sense, making the audience question what is going on.

- Essential information to connect with the audience so they know more about the production.

 What is their purpose?

- The opening credits are shown to identify the major actors, crews and other cast members that are involves within a film production.

- The purpose of opening credits are: Advertising, giving credits to cast members who took part in the movie production, outlines major actors and crew members.

What information do they provide? Oder of apprearance

- The opening credits are shown at the very beginning and list the most important members of the production. They are usually shown as text superimposed on a blank screen or static pictures, or sometimes on top of action in the show. There may or may not be accompanying music. Where opening credits are built into a separate sequence of their own, the correct term is title sequence.

The order of apprearance are:

- Production Company

- Actors

- Casting

- Music

- Costume

- Editing

- Production/ Title

- Producer

- Director

How do they make the audience feel?

- The opening credits allows the audience to know the major actors/crew members and often followed with a soundtrack which automatically build up tension and create expectations within the audience. Opening credits could also includes pictures to shows the audience their relevant within the movie. For example, the video below is an opening scene from a thriller movie called 'Se7en'. The scene involves the order of appearance with creepy type of font and strange images mixed with the use of low-key lighting to creates fear and build up tensions. This makes the audience anticipate that the movie is thriller type and expects the movie to have disturbing scenes and bad intensions. Another example is 'Insidious', the order of appearance contains straight up writing in red with the smoke appearing in the back of each letters and also mixed with the use of low-key lighting to creates different connotations. This makes the viewers to easily identify this movie as a thriller type and raises up the level of fear.

Typography 

What is typography?

- Typography is how the writing is being portrayed and presented within a movie to delivered a message towards the audience. Typography is one of the most essential part in the process of a movie in the making.

Typography and connotations?

- Child's Play 2:

- The connotations of this movie poster tell the audience that this movie involves children and killing. This is because the title said 'Child's Play' letting the audience knows that this movie is based on children and their mystery toys. The number two is being written as blood stain instead of writing in normal. This gives the audience a briefly description of what the movie is about and this can have a relation to the antagonist as he's being shown in the poster.

- The Conjuring:

 

- The connotation of this movie title 'The Conjuring' let the audience knows that this film is all based  on a family home which from the first look seems to be haunted and abandoned. The typography is being portrayed in thin and normal writing but also very sharp and curl, it is also been written in black colour. As the connotations the audience had from the poster, the typography could give an idea of darkness and creates fear within the movie. This helps to give the audience to anticipate bad intentions from this movie and creates expectation within the viewers. 

Analysis of choices that I may consider

- In my thriller, I may consider to use this type of typography because it gives the audience a sense of what the movie is based about and creates different connotations within their point of views. I also like the way the font is being presented as it gives the audience the ideas of killing and disturbing images.

- In my thriller, I may consider to use this type of typography because gives the audience a briefly description and the connotations it creates within their viewpoints. I like the way the font is being portrayed as it gives the audience a sense of haunted and spiritual contents.

Conclusion 1

- All the information above has helped me to understand how each and every member of a movie casting is being presented in order and it importance. I may consider to follow this order of appearance in my thriller to gain as many mark as necessary.

Conclusion 2

- All the information above has helped me to develop a perception of how typography play such an essential part in the movie industry and the connotations it creates within the audience. I may consider to use these knowledge to portray the typography in my thriller for the same purpose.