Day 71 : Audio & Newsreport

The images below represent what me and my group members have been creating so far in order to add to our Horror trailer, in terms of sound which can reinforce the element of suspense and enigma present in most Horror trailers.

I used soundcloud to present a recording of Flora previously played by Jalisya singing a Christian song . We originally were going to use her singing in the trailer, however due to the muffled audio quality but also the risk of too much music ruining the element of tension in our trailer we decided not to use it. Tomorrow we will be adding finishing touches to our final trailer. Sound and text (Including a voice over from Flora which I recorded earlier using Audacity). Me and Priscilla as editors will be focusing on editing the trailer as a basic final edit is due today.

Day 70 : Filming Update

This post is going to be an update of some of the filming we have done so far, including the last 2 last weeks filming. I will address what went well and what problems may have occurred. 

Thursday 9th of January 4:00pm - 6:15pm

- This is a knife in which are protagonist Megan uses within our trailer. In
terms of iconography me and Priscilla thought that this knife would be
extremely effective due to the largeness but also sharpness, which would most likely
shock the audience when presented in the trailer.

- I filmed a scene of Francesca (Megan) from outside of the window which was a scene influenced by Halloween, when

one of Laurie's friends was in the kitchen making popcorn and Mychael was watching her. POV shots are one of my favoruite shots when used in Horror. This scene worked extremely well, due to the contrast between the light in the inside of the house and the darkness outside almost representing the themes of good and evil presented in our narrative.

Here are some aspects of mise en scene which we included:

- A shattered mirror which we agreed could represent Flora's personality, due to the dark history of her parents
effecting the decisions she makes in life.

- These are the male gaze scenes with Megan. They are quite slow but due to our
teachers feedback on these shots, we will definitely increase the speed through manipulation or
show a quick clip of this scene rather than a long one. This scene also presents the element of male gaze
through camera angles as the camera pans across her body, reinforcing the conventional nature of her character.

- We were planning on using this notepad with bright red lipstick saying "Thank God for my Father's Death", however due to a spelling mistake which we only realised later on in the week we agreed we will not use this scene.

Monday 13th January - P3 & 4 - Streatham Park

- We decided to film chase scenes in the park which are a conventional aspect to the Horror cannon.
They are often effective and build tension which is why we wanted to use them. Filming in Streatham Park was a good idea due to the aspect of an isolate location, however the only downside was the fact that the sunlight kept on getting into the camera which meant that the gloomy and scary aura of some scenes were hard to capture which meant we had to keep re-filming parts, however we got there in the end with clips that had perfect lighting.

- On the way back from Streatham we then decided to reenact another scene from Halloween (1978), however with an element of subversion due to it being daytime. (The scene where Laurie is banging on the neighbors door when Mychael is after her). We asked the owner of the house if we could use her door and she agreed so we went ahead with filming. These scenes were successful through shot, angle and mise en scene , however the only downside would be that when Francesca was asking scared there wasn't a sense of urgency which meant it wasn't as effective as it could have been. In result this meant we may not use these scenes however if we remove the sound and slow down the clip it could still work.

Filming from 3:15pm - 5:45pm

- We filmed most of the core scenes with Flora at Afreen's house on Monday the 13th. This was one of our best days of filming as all members were present and all the shots were going well. Safia is a natural when following directions which meant are filming process was fun and quick as time was used effectively. The only downside would be that the fake blood that we used was hard to scrub off, which meant when trying to do more scenes which didn't involve blood on Flora's hands different camera angles to hide it was needed.

Thursday 16th January - P5 & end of lunch time

- Our last day of filming. This scene represents Flora cutting out the faces of her family members and stabbing them with a fake knife. This meant I had to get on the floor as well as use the tripod to film a wide variety of angles in order to get the right message of evil and twisted-ness prevalent in Flora's character across. There was no tribulations when filming this scene, however having only 45 minutes to film everything was stressful which is why in future projects I will make sure all participants are able to film for a realistic period of time.

Day 69 : Shot Lists

SUMMARY

Me and my fellow team mates thought it would be a good idea to create shot lists in order to gain a sense of what shots worked well and what shots weren't successful before we started the editing process.  As the main editor of our group, I decided to take on the main role of creating these call sheets. This meant I had to go through all our clips writing the clip names and a brief description which would be easily identifiable, as some clips are of the same people/objects from different angles. As we have started editing this shot list has proved useful, as I often refer back to this sheet to quickly find the scenes which we plan to present in our trailer. This means less time is wasted and more effort is put into making our "Insanity" trailer.

Day 68 : Changing James

(Umer)

Reason for the change in actors: 

Originally we were going to use a different actor to play James, however due to the fact that he was unable to turn up to our filming sessions we decided to use someone else. Like our first actor Umah is British South Asian so he adds an element of subversion to our piece, as generally Horror portrays the ethnic majorities in the main cast rather than ethnic minorities.

What went well when using new actor:

Priscilla met up with Umer and decided a time for him to film with us on the 8th of January. We met and filmed in our frees period 3 and 4 before lunch and completed the death scene and happy scenes with his wife Jean. I was filming and Priscilla was directing both Umer (James) and Kenrique (Jean) on how they could hold themselves and where to walk so that their heads do not get cut out of the frame. Unfortunately Afreen was absent this day, however this week when she came back we updated her on what she has missed and the feedback our teacher has given us on the scenes we have filmed so far in order to keep her up to date on every decision we made without her.

Day 67 : Mental Ilness & Sensitivity

Introduction

Mental illness can considered deviant due to some societies seeing it as a moral panic, however in the contemporary UK more is being done to enable people to understand those who are mentally ill instead of fearing them especially through media. The fact that Flora's behaviour is inspired by Schizophrenia borders on the lines of distancing a individuals in society, as many know someone who is effected by a mental illness or has one themselves. Even though we are portraying someone who has symptoms inspired by Schizophrenia (originally we were going to make it clear she was) we are not going to make it obvious as we don't want to offend or anyone make feel uncomfortable when engaging in our media trailer.

We plan to make Flora's mental illness ambiguous like Norman Bates from Psycho (1960), who is a likable character who has become ill due to his mother's controlling and manipulative ways. Flora is exactly the same however she has become immoral and twisted due to her father's abusive and controlling relationship with her Jean (Flora's mother). As an audience member I victim identified with Marion Crane in Psycho, however I consistently felt sympathy towards Bates which is the impact me, Priscilla and Afreen want to have on our audience when watching our trailer Insanity. 

Here are contemporary articles which address mental illness I hyper-linked them below:

(These increasingly made me realise it would be plain wrong to address a specific mental illness, as it is an increasingly sensitive topic which effects people on a day to day basis)

Mental health cases 'rose in young' after recession [15/01/14]

An article on the increase of young people suffering from a mental illness

Panorama - Locked Up For Being Ill?

A panorama documentary on how mentally ill people are being treated whilst in police custody

Conclusion 

Our teacher's feedback on clearly using Schizophrenia statistics  in our voice over made me realise that if we made it so Flora was Schizophrenic, our audience would not be happy as in terms of the space and time of the contemporary UK mental illness is no longer considered deviant whereas in the past it was (highlighting historical deviance). When creating our trailer we have to keep in mind the society of which we now live in, as help is most likely to be available for those who are mentally ill which is why we had the psychiatrist scene, whereas in Psycho during the 60s mental illness was less known about which caused more people to fear it. This is why we will not directly address schizophrenia in our trailer through a voiceover as we don't wish to offend anyone.

Hyperlink : http://mentalhealthxdesign.com/category/headlines

Day 67 part 2 : Monday 13th :- Psychiatrist scene Pre-Production

Introduction

In order to make sure when filming I have an idea of what angles and shots I could use effectively in our trailer, I made a PowerPoint with key aspects we as a team must remember whilst filming but also me as a camerawoman.

Before creating this PowerPoint, I once again deconstructed other students final trailers but as we have to gain influences from real media texts I decided to search interrogation scenes and psychiatrist Horror scenes in YouTube, as I noticed from watching a wide variety of trailers/movies such as Silence of the Lambs and Identity.  A lot of Horror films conform to the convention of having a scene where a symbol of authority or a potential victim questions or approaches the villain. I believe scenes like these are extremely effective as they are often used to highlight the lack of morality villains have towards their victims, thus making them more likely to be seen as evil and sinister by the audience. (This also results in them victim identifying with the main protagonist which is an aspect which I believe should be prevalent in Horror trailers, as if the characters within the narrative aren't likable or appealing to the audience it is unlikely they would want to see the film as there would be no one to identify with).

Idea 

Below is a compilation of my different ideas I came up with to share with Afreen and Priscilla, but also the specific angles and shots I wished to recreate in our interrogation scene with our main protagonist Flora.
The script I quickly created in order to give Priscilla a sense of what was required in the role of a psychiatrist, however Priscilla then improved this due to her natural ability to make scripts sound more realistic. I struggled creating a script for the psychiatrist as I felt I was either revealing too much of the plot or using too much cliches, e.g "your mother did it Flora". This also highlights the idea that if you have weaknesses you can always ask your fellow group members for help, as your weaknesses are often their strengths so we must recognize each others weaknesses and strengths in order to produce pieces to the best of our ability.


Conclusion/Summary

I used a YouTube video and print screened shots and angles I thought were effective from a scene in a Horror film. I then printed it out and brought it to Afreen's house and it was extremely useful as a guider when filming. In the future I would definitely print off more guidance sheets including angles, shots, reminders to keep an eye out for mise en scene errors and use of natural sound (meaning no one talk when filming) in order to make sure I check the mise en scene is perfect and no one is talking to sustain the element of natural sound which will be useful in post-production.

Here is a copy of a PowerPoint I sent to Afreen and Priscilla through Hotmail. (Which is why it contains informal language and internet slang at certain points) *Please hold left click on images to zoom in & there is a music player on the right hand side below (This was made using Glogster.com). Feedback from our first set of shots inspired these notes especially the "no pans" as our teacher adviced us that it would often look too slow, so in order to gain a wider variety of shots I made this note.

Day 65 : Discussions & Ideas

Our plans

Tomorrow we plan to film after school and during some of our free periods. I will update on my blog how everything goes once we are done. Today me, Priscilla and Afreen have been discussing a changes which we should make to our trailer due to much complications of actors/actresses we previously used being unavailable e.g the student who plays Megan. This meant we had to think on our feet to create new ideas however I believe it also had a positive outcome because it meant we communicated better as a team, which we had been struggling with in the past due to high stress levels limiting our cohesion as a group. Last weeks feedback from our teacher enabled us to realise we need to work well as a team or we won't be able to get everything done. This then led to us making sure we communicate everyday through Whatsapp in terms of what we need to do before our deadline this week Friday.

Results

On monday the 13th of January we aim to film the psychiatrist scene with Flora, iconography through the knife, scenes of Flora bagging bloody clothes (she is not shown but is wearing gloves which is inspired by A Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2013) Trailer) and more which reinforce the fear of the unknown which we as a group want to portray to our audience.  I will write about the filming process  in more detail in future posts.