Production Log

Wednesday 21st Jan 2010-
As a class, we watched various past students thriller openings and gave our own personal grading. This included anaylsising for conventions of a thriller and whether they hit the criteria of the assessement.The first opening we assessed was 'Above the law'. I rewarded it a low level three as it had a very good use of mise-en-scene, especially with props such as the crime scene. The narrative was also clear, but there wasn't a variety of locations and the cinematography could have been more creative. There was some use of original diegetic sound but no original soundtrack was denoted. The typogrpahy was also simple and could of been moe creative.

The next sequence was 'One last kiss'. I awarded this a low level four. It contained an effective storyline and used various of intreseting shots to portray this. The use of sound was excellent, denoting of unsychrounus sound of glass smashing to create an emotinal response from the audience. The mise-en-scene is also effective as the use of blood and makeup fpr bruises creates engima and a sense of realism. The last opening sequence was 'the unborn'. I awarded it a low level, as it did have some good mise-en-scene such as the candle light in the dark and used restricted framing. However,it was only shot in one location and used no original soundtrack. The credits also showed a lack of skill in typograpghy.
Watching these opening helped our group to decide what sub genre we wanted for our thriller and techinques we would like to recreate for example, we would like to use a graphic match.

Tuesday 26th Jan 2010- Brainstormed terms and conventions for thrillers that we would like to included in our thriller.We then watched opening thriller films.This included 'Gone baby gone' a psychological thriller and 'Leon' a action thriller. Brainstorm ideas for own thriller opening. During class, we alson complied a list of do's and don't when filming a thriller. This included:



Do's:
Use creative typography
Compose orginal soundtrack
Use sound effects
Various locations
Think carefully about mise-en-scene (ie, props)
Conventions of a thriller (ie, red herring, cheap surprise, restricted framing...)



Don'ts:
Film at school (lazy location!)
Break into horror genre
Create a complex plotline
Copy something you saw from a film directly!

All of these points has helped to form our pitch of our thriller opening.We decided to chose espionage as the genre as this is not filmed often in student films. Our final basic storyline of identity being taken over by mysterious person and 'erasing' the original person.

Wednesday 27th Jan 2010-



Created group logo 'Cats Eyes Production' through photoshop and uploaded to blogger. We decided to use cats eyes as they suggest mystery and films that contain dark topics such as identity theft. We also created a detail brainstorm of our thriller pitch, using the title 'erased' and the tagline 'Do you know who you are?'.





Friday 29th Jan 2010-
In lesson, we dicussed what makes a good treatment. This included a detailed, intresting storyline but also shows technical potential. We looked over past students treatments and graded which was good and bad by the amount of detail they put in and whether we could visually imagane it. We began to create our own thriller treatment for 'Erased'.

Tuesday 2nd Feb 2010-
Completed our thriller treatment for 'Erased'and began looking into audience research. This included making an audience demographic for our intended audience.

Wednesday 3rd Feb 2010-
Pitched our treatment for 'Erased'infront of teachers and fellow students. Feedback was generally good, including that we had a sound storyline although it should slightly be altered, so more locations could be included. This included to the change of location where a basement would be used as a setting for the antagonist. I began to create the storyboard for the opening.

Monday 8th Feb 2010-

There was still much work to be done, so seperated roles were assigned. I continued with the storyboard, while Roxann asks random students what makes a thriller for our audience research. In the meanwhile, Rayna uploaded pictures from our open auditions for the film.

Tuesday 9th Feb 2010-

Roxann and Rayna recce for interior shots of the home and the basement while I recce for extoior shots such as alleyways, including asking permission to film inside a police station. However this was not allowed and so a police station used within the film is impossible.

Wednesday 10th Feb 2010-
Recce shots was uploaded and Audience feedback was uploaded onto blogger. Storyboard uploaded to blogger and turned into animanic. This helped us to have an estimated time of our thriller opening.

These are some shots from the storyboard:


Opening titles typography


Our protagonist typing her bank details



Her bank details appearing in the screen



first shot of the antagonist in the basement



A shot towards the end of the film where the antagonist is cutting the picture of the antagonist. This was then used towards the end of the film instead of the mid point.


These are also shots from the original ending:


The long shot of the police station was orginally going to be used when the protagonist calls the station for help



The antagoinst walking with a briefcase


The antagonist is handing over the briefcase to another antagonist, which is full of the protagonist personal documents...



The id card of the protagonist, who now belongs to another person

The original ending had to be abandoned as it was impossible to film the police station (refused permission) and that it took a large amount of screen time within the opening. This ended up being a vital decision when filming as it saved time and was not necessary to the plot.


Tuesday 23rd Feb 2010-
Began to dicuss and oragnise props for filming, such as making ID cards through photoshop. Created filming schedule and organising times for actors to film.

Wednesday 24th Feb 2010-
Completed organising and created props for opening. Began test shots.

Friday 26th Feb 2010-
Filmed at interior location one- house scene with actress. Filming went well, with 3/4 of the beginning of opening scene. Also filmed an additional exterior off the storyboard. This scene is where the protagonist is going to the cash point and getting her card declined.

Monday 1st March 2010- Uploaded the opening sequence and sorted clips.

Tuesday 2nd March 2010- Created id cards using photoshop.

Wednesday 3rd March 2010- Created a rough edit of the opening sequence. Feedback received from teachers included that some shots have to be filmed with a better tripod and to try to adapt the lighting to have a more 'sinister' effect.

Friday 5th March 2010- Brought supplies for the basement scene. This included candles, matches, bin liner (to create the desired lighting) and printed off id cards.

A creepy atmosphere was created via candles:



Monday 8th March 2010-Filmed interior shot 2- the basement. This is where the antagonist forges and takes the protagonist's identity.

Tuesday 9th March 2010 and Friday 12th March 2010- Continued filming in basement.

Monday 15th March 2010- Updated Production Log. Reviewed the rough edit opening for our thriller. Made a list of things that needed to be refilmed.

This includes:
A shot of the protagonist walking away from her house
A floor shot that doesn't expose any wires
Make sure the location is completely ready for filming (ie removing unwanted photos)
Letters coming through the letterbox and her opening her bank statements. This will aid the plot in which she will discovered that her identity is being used for other things and help to build tension throughout the scene.

Tuesday 16th March 2010- Updated production log. Continued making soundtrack for thriller by using Garageband. We also searched Youtube for thriller soundtracks that would be ideal for our opening. See Thriller soundtrack.



Wednesday 17th March 2010- Searched for additional sound effects such as typing and walking heels effects to add to opening and uploaded to opening.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z06fBU41Xn4&feature=related

Friday 18th March 2010- Uploaded reshot footage that was listed on 15th of March 2010.

Props: Letters created by scratch used within opening.




These props are key to the opening as it alerts the spectator that the character is in conflict and drives the narrative.

Monday 21st March 2010- Re edited opening. Cut the running length from 7:10 mins to 3:36 mins. This was achieved by cutting uncessary shots such as the protagonist walking to the sofa. This was also achieved by cutting down actions such as the antagonist opening the laptop. Doing this saved valuable time and made me realise it is not necessary to film every shot.

Tuesday 22nd March 2010- Added production logo to opening. Added transitions such as fade outs.

This screengrab is from the end of the opening. Using Imovie, i chose the option fade out to the footage. This connotes that the film has drawn to a close and leaves the spectator guessing to what will happening to the specatator.



Monday 19th April: Recieved feedback from teachers of opening. This included synch sound back into place, adjust title font of production logo and check over production log. The titles had to readjusted as feeedback was that it was too cartoonish. Production title font has been adjusted by using new font form dafont.com and changed with photoshop software. Sound is back in synch by realining it with moving images from imovie, as well as credits during opening not after sequence. Production log has been updated and thriller opening is now finished!