Matty Muncey/ Media Blog

Masks In our thriller masks play a key role. We want them to be similar (synchronised) however we still needed to be able for the audience to distinguish one character from another and so potentially this mask may have to describe their personalities. We took a while to decide on what masks we wanted to use. We where all going in the style of Jason’s Friday he 13th hockey mask, however we felt that for this opening this mask would not be intimidating enough. We also looked at full head masks but thought that these did not fit the theme we were gong for. We eventually decided on getting plain white classic hockey mask. Although the Jason mask from Friday the 13th does not look intimidating, we bought a plain white version of it, and are going to custom paint all of them, making them individual and therefore easier to distinguish the characters. With custom paint jobs the will also look more intimidating and potentially (depending on how we paint them) look like more professional robber...

Here are all the props we are using and how we are getting them: Van - we have the school van that we will use as well as an additional one for crew.  Car - We are using Mike's car.  Money - We have bought fake money to use.  Bags - We are bringing in our own duffle bags. However we may consider buying them they aren't good enough. Guns - After researching, we have decided to use the mini uzi. Masks - We have ordered 3 plain hockey masks from ebay. Fake blood - Our studio have a supply of fake blood which we will use.

which type of guns?   I looked online and found a video that explains all the different types of guns used in film. I narrowed it down to two possible guns that we could use.  P226 - The SIG Sauer P226 is a full-sized, service-type pistol made by SIG Sauer semi auto pistol commonly used by police and military.  Mini uzi - Submachine gun designed in Israel, 1948 designed by Uziel Gal. Some variants are considered to be machine pistols. Popular and famous for being used in films by villains. Personally I think the Mini Uzi would be the best because of it's history and the correlation between the gun and the villan's as it could be recognised. 

As our sequence is set in a car park, it wasn't very hard to find a suitable location. We found a potential location in Guilford. However if we can't film there we will use the school car park as a backup. This could potential be easier as it means we don't have to bring a whole crew with us and we can use the canteen for the crew food. We also wouldn't have to bring the generator which is a lot easier.

We are all content with the costumes for our sequence. All the actors will start with wearing white boiler suits with black shoes.  Only the female character takes off her boiler suit to reveal her red dress and she throws her shoes and puts on heels.  We have searched for the boiler suits on Amazon and are ready to order them. However the school may be able to provide them so we are waiting for that.  In addition to the boiler suits, we also looked online for masks. This was harder as we all disagreed on the type of masks we would buy. We looked at animal masks, skull/ halloween masks and plain hockey masks. In the end, we came to the conclusion that the hockey masks are our best option. This is because they are cheap and we can make them each look different by painting them.  We have also arranged for the actor to bring in her own high heels and have a student which is willing to bring in her own dress.

Definition By definition, A storyboard is a graphic organiser in the form of illustrations or images displayed in sequence for the purpose of pre-visualising a motion picture, animation, motion graphic or interactive media sequence. Why? People tend to use story boards in order to have a clear image in their mind of the setting, characters appearances, props and mostly the shots. Not only does this save time setting up each shot in production but it gives the film makers a chance to put their thoughts on paper as everyone has a different way of thinking. For example if the location was a park, everyone is going to have a different version of the park they want to shoot in. This applies for the props, costumes and of course, the shots.  History In the 1930s, Disney credited animator Webb Smith with creating the idea of drawing scenes on separate sheets of paper and pinning them up on a bulletin board to tell a story in sequence, creating the first storyboard. The...

'The target audience for our film is young men about the age of 18 to 19 years old. We are aiming the film at people that are into action films thriller and crime movies. The audience should enjoy watching violence and guns because the film will contain lots of it. The film is also mainly aimed at heterosexual men that enjoy video games like GTA, and like to get a kick out of action packed media.' - Amory.

My mood board is a combination of everything I wish to include in my thriller opening sequence.  When it came to designing my mood board, I came up with 3 main themes, Money, criminality and death. I then thought up some sub themes, such as guns, violence, the pursuit of freedom and female dominance.  In order to convey the theme of criminality, I used a screenshot of the opening sequence from The Dark Night, when the joker kills his team in the robbery. (similar to our idea) However to fuse this with the theme of money, I cut out the body’s and used a background of a pile of money. This was to act as a metaphor to display their reason behind their actions. I then used a cut out of a man in a suit holding a gun but I cut the head off and drew Xs where his eyes were to suggest that death may be involved. As well as this, I then included a pile of bullets as another background overlapping the money to highlight the sub theme of guns as well as an explosion to im...

After our pitch, we met as a group to talk about what we could use or adapt from the feedback we had been given. Our target was by after the discussion to have a firm idea about what our opening sequence was going to be. However we had disagreed on a lot. For example we couldn't figure out what weapon she was going to use. We considered having a knife, gun, baseball bat or an axe. In the end we decided that a gun was the best thing to use as it was quick and simple and also it made the least mess. We were also not sure if we should have her kill both people or just one. I thought it would be better with two because of the reasons Matt had said however Amory argued that it could equally have suspence because you don't know if she ever caught him or not.

After presenting our pitch, Matt and Mike had some feedback that we could consider adding to (or taking out) our sequence in order to improve it. Here are some of the points they made: • ''Mix it up'' - Rather than in the woods, it could be in a car park and they're getting out of the van to go in their individual cars and split up. This is to show that they are trying to be low key by getting into cars that aren't associated with the robbery. • ''One location'' - Rather than having multiple locations, having one will be much more practical. This is because we only have a day to shoot which is only a couple of hours as it's winter. Theres not enough time to film multiple locations without rushing it. • "She takes both of them out" - Instead of having the second person running away, it could be more effective if he tries to run and she catches him and kills him as it's adding tension.

We gave a pitch to our teacher Mike and Matt who is part of the film academy and media department. We showed a powerpoint that conveyed the general outline of our idea as well as key things like Costume and props that play a big role in our opening sequence. Here is the powerpoint we presented to them.

Location: The woods - The pathway to the art block Characters: Although there may be 4, we only need 3 as they're the main focus of the scene. Props: A knife - We are going to use a pen to ensure that we don't get in any trouble and it is also unnecessary to use a real one for the test shoot. We also need a van so we are going to use the school buses. Roles: Myself and Amory are going to be acting as the woman and the man who dies. We are also using an additional actor, Guy Newland to play the 3rd person. Aidan will be the camera man and Alicia will direct it. Equipment: To film, we used a Canon 650d with a stock lens and for editing we used Final Cut Pro. This is all of Aidan's equipment.

Since I have joined my group, we have come together to form a final concept. We all talked about each others and came to the conclusion that Aidan's was the best. However there were some problems that came with the idea so we decided to combine Aidan's with Amory's to take the best from both.  Aidan's idea was about a group of robbers, trying to run away when one is backstabbed by another. Amory's idea was about a girl getting changed and at the end picking up a gun showing that she is a spy or intimidating figure. We combined these as we liked Aidan's idea and also liked Amory's idea of a woman, subverting to the stereotype and being more powerful than anyone else in the scene. Our current idea:  There has been a robbery. The team of 3 or 4 get away in their van and make it far from the city to the woods. Then the find out they have been followed so they ditch the car and run. In the action, one of the members gets hurt and can't walk. The other...

I have been put into a production group for the opening sequence project. There are 4 of us - Aidan, Amory, Alicia and myself. In order to help us communicate outside of lesson we have made a facebook group which we will use to organise things such as ordering costumes, meeting outside of lessons etc.

An 11 year old girl's baby sitter takes her to the woods and kills her. The film then goes on to be about the investigation of it and catching the killer.  The opening scene is a couple on a romantic walk through the woods. The sun is setting as they make their way back home but on the way back they spot the body and they start screaming and run out of frame. The title then comes up; ''The lost girl'' 

Idea 1 The film: Two friends that always play an xbox zombie game together every Friday night discover that the game is an alternative reality and find out that they are playing theirselves. (unclear)  Opening scene: (Like a flash forward to give the audience an idea of what to expect) Starts off in a basement where two characters are being attacked by zombies and all they have is handguns to defend themselves. One person runs out of ammo and is on the verge of dying. The other person is trying to save him in tears. It’s a really emotional, sad moment but then it pans out and two friends are playing zombies and one of the characters in the game is dying. The two friends are joking about it.  Idea 2 The film: Zombie apocalypse film. 1 person left in the world and the zombies are getting hungry. It;s not long before they start to die out but the last couple 1000 zombies find where he lives.  Opening scene: Jump cuts of the person doing post apocalypt...

What is a genre?  By definition, A film genre is a category based on similarities in either the narrative elements or the emotional response to the film. For example, a main genre of film is an action. An action would usually consist of violence, frantic car chases with explosions and a slightly dull setting. Whereas in a Comedy you would expect a bright colourful setting with clumsy, clueless characters causing trouble.  There are also sub genres and hybrid genres. A sub-genre is a genre that isn’t big enough to be it’s own genre so it falls into a category of main genre. Whereas a hybrid genre is two genres combined to make their own genre (romance and comedy makes rom-com).  Thriller genre:  Typically, in a thriller, you would expect certain conventions such as suspenseful music, dark undertones and underpinned by mystery and questions. However thrillers are one of the most broad genres in film as there are so many different aspects of thriller......

Prelim part 2: Editing: Myself and Josh (the director) edited together on Premiere Pro. Before we did anything we looked the all the rushes to pick out which one was the best. We then went in chronological order putting in each clip to the preview and dragging the chosen part of the clip to the timeline.  Once we had a ruff cut we experimented a little bit by extending the clips and playing around with it. For example when the character enters the room we started with the shot from outside too the long shot inside. I made sure I cut it on the movement, when the door shuts as it makes it less noticeable to the audience.  One big problem we had, was when one of the actors had his arms in a different place in two clips. This made it very hard to decide to cut before or after as the actor was doing two different things. In the end I extended the clips to avoid any ruff editing.  

Prelim Part 1 Filming: My group were given a story board that we had to replicate. There were many different shots and angles of the scene such as long shot, close up etc. We had two actors, a director and a camera man (me). We used a black magic with a nikon lens and a tripod. The lighting was already perfect so there was no need for artificial lighting.  To setup each shot, I zoomed in so I could focus more accurately, zoomed back out to the point where what I wanted was in frame and marked where the actors where standing to avoid continuity error. I would then wait for the director to say “Stand by” to double check that everything is in place before hitting record and then when I did record, I say back “rolling” to let the director know that the camera was recording.  We did one take for each shot we did so that in the editing we could swap back and fourth if we needed to. The first shot we did, was the long shot. This is because it is the most important...

Editing software  We use Adobe Premiere Pro which is one of the best in the industry with films like Avatar,  Deadpool and Gone Girl.  The main short cuts: C - trim handle  V - selector  H - hand tool + - timeline zoom in – - timeline zoom out cmd + Z - undo The most important command of all is: cmd + s which will save your work. This is because Apple become very unreliable when your running software like Premiere Pro. If you don't save it and it crashes your going to be very disappointed. Timeline: This is the section that you place all of your audio and clips into. The in and out points: This is the preview window of a clip before it goes into the timeline. This is used for when you want to perfectly cut a clip and you can compare it with the clip before using the preview window. Rushes and Bins: These are the folders that you keep your clips in. Generally you will use these folders to sort through each scene ea...

In this essay I will be analysing the sound in a scene from Shutter Island. Martin Scorsese uses multiple sound techniques in order to show the audience specific themes in this scene and to give them an idea on what to look out for.  The sound pattern in the scene:  Classical music:  Start: Contrapuntal, non-diegetic sound - Parallel, diegetic sound -  Contrapuntal, non-diegetic sound  Middle: Parallel, diegetic sound - Parallel, non-diegetic sound, Contrapuntal diegetic sound - Parallel, diegetic sound  End: Contrapuntal diegetic sound - Parallel, diegetic sound. As the Teddy and Chuck are showed in to the office of Dr Crawley we start to hear classical music fade in. We then see a high angle shot of the building as the music gets louder transitioning into the indoors scene. From this we can assume it was used as a sound bridge to keep the scene flowing and catch the audiences attention as the scene progresses. After some dialogu...

Shooting You should always shoot a wide shot first because in a wide shot you get everything thats going on in the scene so if you run out of time to film the close up, mid shot etc. you always have a wide shot to fall back on if you have to. You also should not always watch back the footage on set. This is because if the actor/actress doesn’t like how she looks in that shot and wants to re do it, you may not always have time to. You always start rolling the camera before you say action and after you say cut. This is to ensure that the camera is always filming the actors walking on set and walking off. To be extra sure of this, as a director, you need to shout to the crew, ‘’Standby”. This gives the crew a chance to makes sure they’re set up and when they’re ready they will all reply; “Standing by” This lets the director know that his crew has taken their positions. Next, you shout; “Roll camera” to which the camera man will reply; “Camera rolling”. Once the camera is rolling, wh...