Footage Response

My first response to the footage was good, i think we got all our shots right and they look like they will be able to create the best possible film. When we first started to edit with final cut express, it was difficult to get used to the different software and how to use certain controls. The first thing we have done to our piece is to get all the correct footage into our time line and get them at the right lengths. We then overlapped them and i have changed the opacity levels to create a layer effect to show the movement of time passing as Thomas moves down the track. We are now at the stage of adding fades in between each clip of footage to make our piece more fluid.

Filming Process

We have now filmed our piece, and have got the footage that we think we need to be able to create the best piece we can. I filmed a good amount of the work and throughout the day gave my own opinions on things we should improve and work on, to get the best possible outcome we could. Amazon and Ben equally did the same amount of work, we all put in our own ideas to get the best overall to be able to get the footage we intended to.

Difficulties:
We found it difficult to get the horizon line straight on the day because the ground wasn't flat, making the tripod wonky and uneven. Another problem was using an animal for our first production, the dog (Meg) was good but had a tendency not to do the things the way we wanted, but we had to work with what we had and not worry. Another problem was that we only had one day to shoot all of the footage that we needed, therefor being no room to make mistakes and we could only film a few takes of each sequence because we were conscious of loosing the natural light of the day.

Adaption:
We managed to keep our footage similar to the storyboard, not changing much however we have changed it from our very original plan, as we excluded the background story of the murderer, where there was a scene where we wanted Thomas to find a newspaper with the murder stories over the front,  so it gave the audience something to be anxious about, with regards to the boy, however we decided that all the covers we came up with looked tacky and cheap so we decided it would be best to leave this out. Something that we found we had lost in footage when moving our film across to the computer was the opening sequence of the surrounding area, which we regret not re-doing, however we have a few seconds worth the same at the beginning of one of our takes.

Shots:
We used different shots for our sequence to add different point of views and interest for the audience. We used an establishing shot, for the first sequence of Thomas and the track, we then used a long shot to capture the distance he had travelled. For parts of the track and following Thomas and Meg we used a zoom for different sections. For the part where Thomas finds the collar and lead we used a close up shot then zoomed out to give the overall perspective of the scene and to show the murder while he's in shot. We found them relatively easy to film however we struggled with keeping the zoom going in and out at a steady pace, but we re did certain shots to maintain a good end piece.

Story Board

This is our story board, which i wrote and drew for our group, we decided the rough idea together. I chose to depict the actions with small drawings of the scenes we hope to create while filming. I have put an explanation to the scene underneath in the dashed box, and underneath that i have put an estimated time frame for the shots, within our 2 minute limit.
I have added an initial idea to the shots we want for each sequence, previewing our first idea's on how we want the scene/shot to look like. The stick man represents Thomas and the small dog beside represents Meg (the dog), i have added arrows to appropriate shots to show the movement of the scene and the direction of the movement, any that are pointing off the side represent the character moving off screen or a transition into the next shot.I think that having made this our filming will be easier and more fluid throughout the day.

Film Inspiration

For the opening sequence of our film we got our main ideas from 'A mothers son' a three part drama series on the BBC, it showed a young girl running away from something. we loved the dark spooky feel the scene gave off, they used clever camera shots, such as a distinguishing shot to establish the surroundings, it made the character seem very alone, but as if someone was watching her. The scene is dark, filmed at dusk. She is panicked, for ours we want Thomas to feel this way and realize how alone he is and how far he's gone. For our opening we want a shot of the surroundings and how they might make someone feel if you were there alone, feeling trapped in such an open and vast space.
This is the Video showing the opening sequence of the TV drama:

For the woods shot our inspiration came from a sequence that i suggested from the film 'Hide and Seek' it shows a young girl running away hiding in the woods. While watching this we felt on our toes and terrified for the girl, anxious for her well being, we want our audience to feel the same way when they watch our scene that is slightly similar in style. If you watch this video then it shows the sequence at 2:00 minutes:

Script

We don't have any dialogue in our thriller apart from the lines

Thomas: "Meg, Meg, where are you?"

we felt that actions spoke louder than words and therefore don't have more than one line, we felt this line was needed to explain the scene and crucial for the boy's sudden desertion and panic.

Casting

Casting
This is Thomas who is our main character in our thriller, he's 13 years old, we didn't have many other options for someone his age and height, however he was perfect for it and cooperated well with us to get suitable footage.
He fits our character background profile as he looks innocent, he isn't 12 , he's 13 but he doesn't look any different. It didn't matter that he doesn't live by the coast because that's where we filmed it.
We had an idea to use a young innocent boy because a naive girl is very predictable in this type of situation. Also as we used a dog as another character we wanted to portray the feeling of 'A mans best friend' type of relationship with the two together on screen. Inspiration for this character came from the film 'Hide and Seek' as it also shows a young person lost in the woods being scared about their surroundings, and stuck in a bad situation.

Character Background

- Boy:

An ordinary boy, innocent and unaware of the horrors going on in his small town on the coast. Aged 12 he is oblivious to the biggest headlines in the news and the potential dangers of the isolated woods by his house.

-Antagonist:

Opening will not include any dialogue or much view of this character as his role is to be a mysterious one and he isn't seen much throughout the opening. character is masked but has been sighted around the area where the boy lives several times. Not much is known about the killer but it is clear something in his past has encouraged him to act the way he does so we are going to try to help views paint their own picture of his characteristics and his past through scenes involving him.

This was written by Ben however we all came up with the ideas and agreed with each other on the views and characteristics of the characters.

Song Choices

This is the video, demonstrating two of the songs we may use in our final film. Ben was assigned this task for finding the music then we gave our opinions on what he found, we felt he would be best for this as he has a very musical background and he was interested in doing this. Both tracks would be good to use for the opening sequence, as i feel they are haunting enough to set the scene, and give our calm footage a chilling effect. The first song i can see being used when the attacker appears on screen and starts to follow, however it would also be effective for the walk up to the woods, to let the audience know the boy is heading towards danger. The second song would be good to use when Thomas is looking for Meg, making it feel rushed as if he knows he's heading for danger and that Meg is also in danger. We will decide which song we use, if not both for multiple effects throughout, when we have edited our footage.

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Character info

- Boy:

An ordinary boy, innocent and unaware of the horrors going on in his small town on the coast. Aged 12 he is oblivious to the biggest headlines in the news and the potential dangers of the isolated woods by his house.

- Killer/Bad guy:

Opening will not include any dialogue or much view of this character as his role is to be a mysterious one and he isn't seen much throughout the opening. character is masked but has been sighted around the area where the boy lives several times. Not much is known about the killer but it is clear something in his past has encouraged him to act the way he does so we are going to try to help views paint their own picture of his characteristics and his past through scenes involving him.

Costumes and Props

In our planned thriller, we intend to have only three characters; a small boy, a dog and an unknown and unidentified silhouetted figure.

Therefore  we aim to keep our costumes fairly simple. The young boy will wear a red t-shirt and plain jeans. We chose red to warn the viewer of what's to come. Red is a colour of danger and blood, so by choosing this colour for our costume we could indicate to the viewer what is about to happen. It is a subtle warning of danger to come. To keep consistency and to show that theses characters are linked, we chose red for the dogs collar as well.

Our third characters costume will be completely black as we wish to only show him as a silhouette, covered in shadow. Therefore we wont necessarily need a costume for this character, as long as the clothes are dark and makes them unidentifiable to the viewer.

Our only prop will be a newspaper that is folded so that the front page is visible, and the same silhouette of the man is visible on the front page.

This was written initially by amazon, however we sat and discussed our ideas and made final decisions together. 

Equipment & Schedule

The equipment list for our shoot & editing process:

• Digital camera sony HDR-HC9
• Tripod
• Mini DV tapes
• Camera charger
• Imovie
• Access to an apple Mac
• Props

The schedule for our shoot:

Wednesday 31st October 2012; 

• 12:00pm: Meet on location in Wells-next-the-sea.
• 12:15pm: start filming- film initial shots and "
• 12:45pm: re-film any shots that have gone wrong. 
• 1:00pm: Start filming scene 2-
• 1:30pm Start filming scene 3
• 2:00pm Start filming scene 4
• 3:30 Allow one hour for any complications or things going wrong- contingency time!
• 4:30 Departure.

This post was written by Amazon however we all contributed to the time and the general running of the day.