WHAT
- Normal clothes (jeans and a jumper)
- Ripped up dress to represent dead body
HOW
-Charity shop jumper
- Charity shop dress / fabric
WHY
- Looks the most natural and we are buying a new jumper as there may be fake blood on the actor jumper and we don't want to get it bloody
- Because we aren't using an actual body, we need something to represent dead girl
WHAT
- lots and lots of fake blood
- rocks
- dog
HOW
- we are making our own to avoid costs
- find some around before we get to location
- order online
- schools kitchen
- actors dog
WHY
- cover in tree's, rocks, part of dog, all over dead body
- part of the mysterious things he sees when walking (arranged in a pattern)
- to spray onto trees and woods, we aren't getting a lot as we don't know how well it'll show up on camera
- to represent dead body
- to lead the actor to the massacre
As a group we decided on what roles we would most like to do, there was director, camera operator, editor and art director. The director is Tom, editor is Olly and Lola is the camera operator.
I put myself forward for art director as I thought it would give me a challenge but also be something that I would enjoy, we all decided that these would just be our main roles but we would do little bits of everything so we could put into practise the workshops and lessons we've been doing leading up to this.
As an Art director you are in charge of how the sequence looks visually. My main responsibility is the set, as we are filming on location in the woods - signs and symbols are a very important part of our piece, I need to lay out the size, colour and position of them. Because our sequence is simple and the majority of it is a man walking down a path, it needs to be ensured that it will look interesting, this can work with props, costume, colour palettes and these can all be incorporated within the horror theme and genre.
We've ordered fake blood (and a new jumper for our actor incase it gets bloody) along with spray paint and we are going to collect rocks and twigs - we have also managed to get a pig head and leftover intestines and livers for our sequence to put on a stick and are buying a dress we can rip up to make it look like a massacred body. I will lay all of these out to make it look the most scary it can be.
Thinking holistically is a significant part in art directing, this can be challenging because we have so many little props but thinking about the sequence as a whole is something I will have to keep in mind, the thing I'll try to do is to spread it out through the whole sequence as most the action is at the very end and this will be essential to keep the audience involved
Crew -
Lola Corcoran
8 -30AM
Hurtwood House
lola.corcoran@hurtwood.net
Olly Liechti
8 - 30AM
Peaslake House
olly.liechti@hurtwood.net
Tom Goss
8 - 30AM
Cornhill Manor
tom.goss@hurtwood.net
Jemma Mapp
8 - 30AM
Ewhurst Place
jemma.mapp@hurtwood.net
Cast -
Mike Niland
8 - 50AM
n/a
mike.niland@hurtwood.net
11th March 2022 - Our shooting date
8:30 - meet in classroom to pick up props and costume, load the bus (with cast and dog)
9:00 - aim to leave and drive to location (10 min drive)
9:20 - start setting up set
10:00 - start shooting
11:45 - Break 1 (10 mins)
11:55 - start shooting again
13:00 - lunch
13:45 - start shooting again
16:00 - clear location
16:15 - aim to leave and travel back to school.
Foley sound
Foley sound is used in film making, it refers to everyday sound effects that are added into post production, the term is broad and can be anything from a door closing to glass breaking - therefore enhancing the audio and making it more engaging for the audience. It can cover up sounds caught on set that are annoying or just make the wanted sounds more realistic.
Foley artists are responsible for replacing sound on set and recording the effects Individually, the will usually work in studios that are acoustically prepared with lots of different textures and objects. The sound effects are catagorised into 3; feet, moves and specifics.
While the test shoot went smoothly, there were some changes that needed to be made so we could make it more realistic and play more into the horror conventions.
The plot was clear, but also unclear at the same time - part of this was intentional as its a simple theme but also very mysterious, the narrative is clear because its a simple theme, a man is walking with his dog and starts seeing horrifying things pinned to trees and weird symbols marked In the ground and carved into trees, he then comes across a complete massacre where he stumbles upon a mutilated body and gets killed himself. We leave some to the imagination as we never show the creature/ being thats committing the attacks, the only representation of this is the high angle shoots that imply he's being watched. However some on this was unintentional, as we didn't have much time to get all the props we needed so the symbols in the ground need some more work to make them look more obvious and threatening but this will be sorted by the time we film the actual sequence.
There were some changes that needed to be made, but a lot also went well - we had a good actor (Tom) who was playing the man walking through the woods and this helped us know who to cast and also gave us a good idea of how the scene would play out, for example when to do close up shots and can help the actor who we cast in the real thing to know an appropriate reaction. We could also improvise well enough with the symbols, dead body and sound effects which was helpful. We were filming on an iPhone, so the quality wasn't as good as it would be in the real thing but we got some good angles and this was helped massively by the editing, which I think was carried out very well.
We need to change how we build tension throughout, we can do this by playing into the dog character more, and because we didn't have any fake blood, special effects or a mutilated body it was obviously a lot less scary than we would have hoped. We also decided on changing the ending shot from the man running away to him being striked and killed which will play more into the horror conventions. There's also work that needs to be done on making the symbols more obvious, and even adding more details (old candles, colour in the pentagrams on the tree, hair, bones & teeth could be added to make it obvious to the audience that this wasn't just a killing but a massacre.
The test shoot was just under 2 minuets and with these changes I think it will be developed further and we will reach the minimum time.
The sequence is engaging, but this will be amplified by editing, music and the props we'll use.
Early on in the process of our development to the final shoot we decided to attempt a test shoot. The point of this was to see what needed improving and what was already working so this would improve the flow of the shoot on the actual day.
As we were given quite short notice on the test shoot we did our best to be as prepared as possible; we did the casting with people in our production group with 2 people acting and 2 people filming. To make the symbols, we carved satanic symbols into the ground with sticks and placed stones in specific places while the man walking to add some extra tension and not make it as boring.
Because our preferred location was a forest location and we are fortunate enough to be situated in the middle of a large forest this was appropriate to film in, we obviously had to improvise with dog noises and we had to use one member of our production group as the dead body.
- establishing shot (trees)
- establishing shot (location)
- blank screen, with sound of leaves
- shot of mans feet with dog feet - very low angle
- shot of legs, camera moves higher
- shot from behind, man walking & shot of being watched
- side profile, face reveal
- close up of eyes
- shot of dog
- establishing shot where pentagram kinda noticeable
- shot where u notice pentagram, but man doesn't see it
- close up of pentagram
- cam stays still, man walks past and you see close up of guts stuck to tree
- shot from trees, implies someone is watching him
- close up of bloody leaves
- camera moves down the tree
- blood dripping all the way down
- camera stays and focuses on blood
- then focus changes to man walking
- dog runs through trees
- notices the symbol and sniffs blood
- close up of 'meat'
- man calls for dog
- dog running towards camera low angle shot
- establishing shot walking through wood
- notice dog has blood on it
- scratches dogs chin and has blood on his hands
- he starts to panic
- dog runs away
- man chases dog
- see's dog sniffing
- reaction of man reacting to massacre
- pan to remains of body
- pov shot from him being watched
- shot of hum turning around
- him being striked (Arthur Weasley type kill)
- black screen with him screaming
lola
jemma
tom
olly
