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 >>