Day 57 : Casting Flora

Introduction

Me and Priscilla carried out a casting process to find our main protagonist of Insanity Flora. This was extremely important as actress who plays Flora needs to fit to cute and mature image we are looking for as "encoders" but also have a convincing acting ability in which both can impact whether or not the audience wish to go and see the trailer or not. In the video below we gave participants the same script and gave them the same guidance and direction on how to perform their role as Flora. Some participants were better than others in terms of image and acting ability which enabled us to pick our actress.

Casting meant me and Priscilla had to be extremely organised. This involved both of us setting up a camera to record each participant, directing the potential Flora's when they didn't understand the script and gaining permission to use the drama studio at lunch time. As producers of our media products we are in charge of what message we place in the magazine, trailer and poster which is why we must put a lot of effort and time pre-production.



Conclusion

1.  In the end me and Priscilla choose Jalisya to play Flora Black. We agreed she had the best acting ability and aura which we want Flora to have in our trailer. This meant our original plan of having a blonde white girl to play Flora had changed highlighting a subversion of Flora's image in The Turn of the Screw (we based Flora Black on Flora from Turn of the Screw). Flora being an ethnic minority enables us to target a wider audience as postmodernists film makers create difference in the name of making a genre more exciting and appealing to the audience, which in terms of our media products will be more exciting as ethnic minorities aren't often presented in the Horror industry.

2. Jalisya was also willing to be committed and take time out to take part in our production, she has also taken part in school productions as well as being able to take directions and criticism on her performance. These are the skills we need for our production process to run effectively.

3. In terms of improvements in the future I could have been more organised in terms of bringing the narrative and storyboard for participants to see so they understand their role better, as some who signed up last minute didn't understand their character properly which could have impacted their performance. Also due to me and Priscilla sharing a lot of roles on our own it was often difficult, which is why in the future we could gather anyone willing to help us in terms of making sure participants are quiet when others are performing ext.

Day 56 : Clothing/Mise en scene for Cast

Flora and Jean are the main characters within our narrative, this why I believe we should mainly focus on what their clothing connotes as we want our audience to see straight away they are more monumental characters in comparison to other characters.

Here is a Glog below made using Glogster which highlights key elements of clothing and the reasoning behind it e.g Jean wearing casual clothes to highlight a time of normality and well being from the outside perspective, which is ironic as she was a victim of domestic violence by her husband James.

*If you highlight over "Glogster" on the image you can view it full sized
- Also if you click any image it zooms in 

 When producing our trailer, magazine cover and film poster it will be important to consider what each character will wear if featured and what we want it to communicate to the audience through colours, facial expressions, body language ext which is why exploring what we plan Flora and Jean to wear as main protagonists is important.

What the other characters are wearing are presented below:

Megan is Flora's older sister and we plan to conform and subvert typical
Horror representations of women, for example our actress Francesca who is
playing her is an ethnic minority which is a subversion of the lacking
representations of ethnic minorities in Horror, but also she will be portrayed
through male gaze due to what she wears however we will subvert it as she
will be intelligent. (Slut trops are usually "ditsy" and stupid)

James will be wearing casual jeans to present a typical family orientated
man, however it is ironic as he is violent towards his wife Jean. In terms of
the doctor he will be wearing a lab coat or formal suite to connote authority
which is often presented in Horror. 

Daisy Flora's friend will appear much sweeter, innocent and cute in
comparison to Flora which is why we will make sure her outfits
are bright and bold colours in contrast to her bully Flora's dark dull clothing.

Day 57 : Character/Cast List

Through casting me and my group made sure each character portrayed a specific vibe/aura to conform or subvert representations in the Horror industry. For example in terms of Flora through the casting of several Yr 7s we agreed Jalisiya would be perfect for the role as she was a natural when performing the script, as she highlighted the innocence but hidden bitterness we wanted Flora to have. Not only does she conform to the traditional Gothic creepy children portrayed in novels such as The Turn of the Screw, she is also a subversion of the lack ethnic minorities getting roles in Horror. 

Reasoning behind Decisions

Me and my group felt it was necessary to include ethnic minorities in our Horror trailer as audiences are generally more interested when something unique and different is portrayed in Horror, this was evident in my market research (Qualitative questionnaire) on final girls as most participants felt they should be portrayed more compared to "damsels" and "slut" trops. Are whole cast are ethnic minorities which is a statement we hope to make as postmodernist film makers, as "encoders" we place a diverse cast for a positive reaction and more interest hoping our target audience will "decode" with good intentions.

Summary of all Characters

I used Bubbl.us.com to create this mindmap of all the choices and consideration which went into the casting of each sub character minus Flora who was described above.

*Please click image to see a more zoomed in version

Conclusion

I believe it is important to consider what you want each character to portray pre-production so that decisions you make communicates effectively to the audience in terms of what you make them wear, what they say in the trailer and how they look (make up, clothes, hair, ethnic background ext) as these elements can impact the audiences perspectives on the characters but also their understanding of the narrative which needs to be clear. In our Horror trailer everything presented on the screen needs to have a purpose whether it makes the audience feel relaxed or uncomfortable, which is why putting great effort in the casting process can contribute to how successful our trailer is in terms of conveying a clear narrative, the genre of Horror and the main protagonists appropriately.  

Day 55 : Prop list, Locations and Shooting Schedule

*20th of January is a typo. (We plan to do most of our filming the week of the 6th of January)

Summary/Conclusion

Creating a prop list, location list and shooting schedule allowed me to gain a deeper sense of what will be required in this production process. Afreen is away so she was unable to take part in the confirmation of each aspect, however when she comes back we will update her on all these aspects to maintain conhesion within our group.

Day 54 : Test Shots Mise en Scene & Setting

Me and Priscilla took test shots which we could possibly use in our final trailer. They relate to mise en scene and setting and illustrates some of the ideas we have demonstrated on our storyboards, e.g the use of a doll to connote the decay of Flora's sanity with the use of media language as it starts of clean and ends up dirty showing dark side of her character.

Day 53 : Theorists included in narrative process

Whilst developing and planning our ideas for our final trailer me and my group hope to use a variety of theorists as inspiration through media language, representations, narrative and audience. 

Overall I hope I can use different theorists to entertain my audience in unique and exiting ways but also reinforce the element of fear which is evoked in Horror movies. 

Day 52 : Recreating scenes

Me and Priscilla decided to practice shooting a variety of angles in which we hope to use in our final trailer.
Both of us took turns being in the footage aswell as directing and recording the shots and scenes. Not only will this give us an idea of what works well and what we could do better in our final, but it also enables us to refer back to this trail when reasoning for potential changes in angles and camera techniques in group discussion.

Best bits of process

Overall I think our use of focus pull was the most successful within our trails. The voyeuristic shots of Adelina watching Priscilla was made even more effective due to the menacing aura reflected through the airy music. This scene was inspired by our narrative within "Insanity" as our main protagonist Flora watches Megan getting changed, thus giving us a stronger sense of what the scene may look like within our final trailer.

Day 51: Storyboards

Me and my group members created detailed storyboards to represent all the angles, camera techniques and movements but also sound, mise en scene and transitions which we can include in our final trailer. When creating our trailer we will refer back to these storyboards pre-production but also postproduction when editing using Adobe Premier.

Here is our storyboards below. Due to our original storyboards lacking diversity of angles we created more which is why there is aspects numbered like "7.2" as it symbolises the angle that comes after 7.

These storyboards below represent more scenes which we included within our trailer

Day 50: Update

On Friday we finally conducted the casting session to find our main protagonist Flora. This involved me and my fellow team member directing and leading the sample of year 7s on how to deliver their lines and filming their performance of the lines. This was an extremely fun experience as the year 7s were fun to work with and full of energy, which is exactly the qualities our actress needs in order to captivate the audience whilst making the innocent and evilness of Flora's personality believable. In the future I will post a video of the audition process and evaluate what went well and who we have chosen for the role of Flora.

Day 49 : Reasoning behind decisions within narrative

Whilst developing our narrative we discussed various different themes we could present in our trailer, ranging from religion, mental health and fearing the unknown. We then decided to use all these themes, however the main theme I will be talking about today is mental health. 

In films like Psycho (1960) societies general perspective of mentally ill people was limited which explains the representation of Norman but also the insensitivity through the name choice.  As it is now the contemporary age being "encoders" of our own media texts and the effects it can have requires us to have detailed knowledge of Schizophrenia. Having an understanding of Schizophrenia will also allow us as directors to guide our potential Flora's in acting auditions on Friday how to portrayal her character. I will update my blog about this process in the near future. 

Whilst researching we was able to find what age people generally developed mental illnesses. Previously Flora was 8 years old however when given feedback from our teacher, we realised it was unrealistic as mental illness mainly starts at age 14 in youth but also 8 year olds are less likely to take medication of the same level as a teenager or adult.  

Here's the hyperlink below:

Mental Illness and Age [Development]

Initially we were exploring split personality disorders in terms of behaviour and symptoms, however we thought it would be more interesting if we could portray a different mental illness as throughout Horror the villains often have split personalities which arguably won't be as exciting for the audience if we recreate that convention. 

Here's the hyperlink below:

Split Personality Disorder [Symptoms-NHS]

I also did further research on my own on Horror movies which portrayed Schizophrenia. Here are a few of the Horror movies I found the most effective. I could refer back to these trailers/clips for inspiration throughout the production period of our final trailer.

Identity (2003) was a particularly interesting trailer as it appeared to be paying homage to Psycho with the use of a motel and an unexpected killer. The man being questioned by a form of social order, was cleverly done as there wasn't alot said by the him but it was just enough for the audience to know he is the killer but also there was still a  sense of enigma surrounding his personality as not too much of the story was displayed. I also liked the use of text to build tension between each clip, e.g "Identity is a Mystery"

Shutter Island (2010) stood out to me as it subverted the use of dialogue which reflected the hybrid of the genre being a Horror/Action film. The trailer included a lot of dialogue, however it highlighted the idea that if dialogue is used well it can inform the audience straight away what the film is about. Dialogue is often used more in the action genre of trailers.

Doing research on Schizophrenia enabled me to gain a sense of  what the illness involved in terms of behaviour, but also learnt about some of the dominant portrayals of the mental illness which exist in the current Horror film industry of today. In our trailer we need to consider how we could subvert or gain inspiration from trailers and research.

Day 48 : Writing scripts for Flora & Megan

Me and my group are planning to hold a casting session with a variety of different students who are good at drama. This will enable us to find an actress to play Flora but also Megan. Within the process of auditioning for Flora they will have to perform a script.

I found writing Morgan's script easier in comparison to writing Flora's, as when writing Flora's I had to imagine how she would speak and restrict myself from portraying certain aspects of her character so that the audience will be curious to what her secrets are.

Here is the script for the potential Flora's :
 
Audio and voice recording >>







Here is the script for potential Megan's
 
Record and upload voice >>

Day 47 : Early stages of our production

This video highlights me and Priscilla's perspective on how our creation progress has been so far, highlighting research we have carried out, discussions as a group and gaining opinions from people outside our group. Afreen was unable to appear in this video, however she engaged fully in our creative process so far.

Day 46 : Update

Last week we created drafts for our storyboards. This will be greatly useful when creating our final trailer as we could refer back to it for details regarding shots and angles but also transitions in terms of editing. This week we are creating final drafts for a our storyboard, which means they will be published to each members blog in due course. I will post about the challenges we faced but also what are strengths were as a group but also me as a individual. 

Reference: http://japaneseemoticons.net/

Day 45 : Our Narrative - "Insanity"

Here is our narrative that we produced as a group. Aspects of this narrative will be told in our trailer, however we will sustain an element of enigma so that our audience is curious to see "Insanity".    

Day 43 : Exploring Narrative

Narrative refers to the order and sequence of events which characterise a plot. Before creating our trailer we must consider what the narrative of our film will include, which proved difficult at first as we originally thought of our narrative in terms of our trailer. 

When considering the concept of narrative it is important to evaluate what makes a good or bad narrative, but also what themes are reflected within it especially in terms of the Horror genre. 

I thought Well's perspective of the genre of Horror films was important to consider before writing a narrative, as I strongly agree Horror portrays fears in society. 

Below is a brainstorm I made which reflects potential fears we could portray in our trailers. 

Creating this brainstorm using Bubbl.us helped me gain a sense of what themes we could potentially include in our narrative, but also that most Horror movies are based on a fear which is still evident in contemporary society e.g the constant theme of fearing outsiders is presented in media everyday with the demonised presentation of subgroups like gypsies. 

Day 44 : Working as a Group

Here is a slideshare I made which presents the progress and development we have made as a group so far, in terms of movie names, narrative and who the main protagonists will be.

So far me Afreen and Priscilla have worked well as a group, demonstrating good use of time and communication using social networking through Web 2.0. In the future these skills will be beneficial as we will have to stay behind after school and plan ahead when finding actresses and actors to be in our trailer.

Day 42 part 2 : My Own Qualitative Market Research - Representation of Women in Horror

When creating this questionnaire I purposely added  an element of influence to one of the questions ("Do you think Horror should have a diverse range of women, in terms of representations? If yes describe), to see whether there were women who disagreed with women gaining more opportunities and roles. I than had a debate with this participant to find out further why she answered no on this question.

Overall my sample consisted of  7 people of which one was male, it produced mainly qualitative research but also quantitative.  I specifically wanted to focus on women as I believe women should be represented in variety, as in terms of modelling and intimation it could lead to some women being socialized into thinking they can't do the same things that men can do. 

In regards to the other 6 participants they all agreed women should have equal opportunities to men. Question 1 asked "What do you think about the representation of women in Horror movies?". One participant answered that "women are often perceived as scared, screaming and in the need of protection", he disliked the limitation in representations women faced which highlights the idea that some men do infact want equal opportunities for women. 

In Question 2 I asked "Do you find the "Final Girl" a character which is revolutionary in terms of the typical representations of women? Describe in the lines below. The majority of participants except from "A" and others found the "Final Girl" unifying to a certain extent as they believed in current times women are now "taking the lead more than men" in terms of the representation in Horror. This relates to the idea that opportunities for women have have increased, however I believe it hasn't improved enough. 

Lastly in Question 3 6 out of 7 participants agreed "women should have a diverse range of representations" I (quoted from a participants answer)This research made me even more determined to subvert the typical representation of women in our trailer, as personally I believe women shouldn't be marginalized in the movie industry due to their biological differences to men. This relates to postmodernist film as Postmodern film often subverts the typical representations, in terms of social class, gender, age, ethnicity and narrative.

Reference : http://wifflegif.com/tags/131459-feminist-rant-gifs

Day 42 : Market Research to develop knowledge of audience

Today me and Priscilla carried out research to develop our understanding of audiences. Here is a video which presents their reactions and views regarding their fears. The clips compiled below only demonstrate the best reactions, which are mainly in relation to shocking imagery, use of sound to scare the audience and a sense of enigma through the narrative.

The reaction video with best bits is below

These pictures represent our findings but also why we changed specific aspects of our research.

We also made a video addressing our findings.

Carrying out market research enabled me to gain a deeper understanding of what our audience would like to see changed, what they found the most effective and how certain presentations make them feel uncomfortable. Age group and gender certainly had an impact on our market research as yr 7 - yr 9 found the more violent and suggestive imagery uncomfortable. In terms of gender only 2 of our participants were male, however they were less reactive when shown trailers in comparison to the women and girls. This could be due to their gender, however the research is not representative as our samples were extremely small. When deciding our audience we will have to take into consideration ethics of our participants but also classifications as certain age groups can't watch certain images. I will definitely refer back to this research in the future when gaining reasoning behind decisions I make or put forward in my group.

Day 41 part 2 : Our Prelim Task + Evaluation

This week we were put into our final groups. Our first task was to produce a prelim in 2 days which involved us having a variety of camera angles, movements and shots, good use of sound and effective editing in terms of fades and transitions. This was a challenging task due to a limited amount of time, however we used the most of the time we had meeting at lunch time and staying behind after school to improve our piece after audience criticisms.

Here's our prelim which was influenced by Halloween (1978)

The constructive criticism was extremely helpful and I plan to refer back to this post, throughout the whole production process of our media products. Personally I have learnt a lot in regards to editing, as previously I did not know how to transition 2 clips together which was one of the best elements of our trailer. I would love for me and my group members to use this style again in our final trailer as it was evident our class as an audience liked it. Also I realized from witnessing other groups remakes of scenes that the more simple it was, the more effective a scene could be. Our trailer was too complicated which resulted in us having limited time to trim long clips and edit mistakes through camerawork. However what worked well was our ability to work as a team and decide on what worked and what could be improved. For example whilst I was editing, I would refer back to Afreen and Priscilla for advice. This process was also good as it allowed Priscilla to come up with the suggestion of using heavy breathing, which reinforces the theme of fearing the unknown and Afreen to spot un-smooth editing which could often let down a media products overall feeling.

Here's a list of the feedback we received:

- Make sure if you change the angle of the camera that it work well
- Make sure the colour balance is even (use white balance)
- Make sure when doing camera movements it's a smooth shot
- Make sure all mise en scene relates to how you want the audience to perceive a particular person or setting
- Don't overcomplicate your scenes
- There's a good variety of shots and angles
- The use of sound was effective
- The transitioning effects worked well
- The opening scenes use of fades was attention grabbing
- Good portrayal of narrative

Quick Summary of whole process:

When producing our final piece I'm determined to improve all my skills, however my  filming skills in particular. This would involve doing a detailed plan of each shot and repeating a shot at least 5 times, just in case you finish filming and dis-acknowledge that some of the clips don't work well due to acting, people getting cut out of the shot, lack of colour balance (which would require using white balance), unfocused shots and a "shakey"camera.

Day 41 : Alvardo et al

Alvardo et al found four key themes in terms of racial representations in the media. 

1. EXOTIC

2. DANGEROUS 

3. HUMOROUS 

4. PITIED

It is a current issue of ethnic minorities being misrepresented in the media. I was curious to whether society still sees ethnic representation as an issue as after all it has improved compared to the situation of the past. I personally believe that media has changed for the better, however there's still a sense of "othering" and out casting those not of the host culture if representing them at all.

I decided to do some research on contemporary opinions in regards to ethnic representation, when I came across an article on "Newstateman" which was published on the 14th of October this year. Samantha Asumadu is a documentary film maker, campaigner and founder of Media Diversity UK.

Here's the article hyperlinked below:

Challenging the lack of ethnic minority representation in the media

Asumadu's aim was to tackle the limited representations of ethnic minorities and enable people to have a deeper understanding of global issues, rather than demonizing and blaming a whole subgroup of individuals. This reinforces the "Dangerous" and "Pitied" representations in which Alvardo et al argued is prevalent  however I believe the "Humorous" and "Exotic" is more relevant in terms of film and shows. 

In hybrid Horror movies ethnic minorities are often the joke and due to them not being represented a lot they are exotified and presented as different to the norm.  The Scary Movie series is a clear example. 

Scary Movie - Brenda Meeks is incredibly stereotypical with her loud and brash personality 

which is comedic. I can't help but wonder whether some Black actors/actresses are sick of playing the same marginalizing roles over and over. 

Scary Movie 5 - Maria : This role was incredibly stereotypical and cringeworthy, I personally didn't find it funny however Scary Movie is known for playing on typical representations and making a joke out of it.

The representation of ethnic minorities is clearly still an issue in current times, which is why I believe subverting the representation of ethnic minorities in our trailer could be more effective as the audience would love to see something new.