Foundation production; Interviews on our production

In this video we interviewed a few randomly selected people and told them about our film. We asked them to give us some feedback on our film and this is what they said.

Foundation Production: Costume

For the opening we are going to use simple, casual costumes like everyday people. The opening is in non- chronological order and we see the very begining so we see our main character (Ewan) before everything happens, he is an average guy meeting friends so its vital he looks casual.

We also see Ewan interact with a Waitress at the club, so she (played by Dani) will have to look like a waitress e.g. black top, dark skirt etc.

Jack is playing in his band during the club scene so he is also going to wear stage clothes.

Foundation Production: What we'll be doing during the club scene.

As we are going to be filming at an actual gig, we only get one chance to film these particular scenes. We've made a list of where we're going to be and what we're going to be doing at all times, so that we can film these scenes successfully.

-We will arrive at the Albemarle Centre slightly early so we can figure out where we will position the camera and how we're going to shoot the drink scene between Jake and Dani.
-We will film Jack playing first and get different shots of people dancing in front of the stage.
-We may film and record several songs, so that we have extra footage if we need it.
-After this Dom will film the drink scene between Jake and Dani, with Jack's help when he comes off stage.

This is our basic plan but as we can't see the set up off the gig yet, certain things will probably change.

Movie synopsis for the whole thriller

The film tells the tail of Ewan, a normal guy with normal problems, plunged into a bad crowd of gangsters, drug deals, pay-offs and murders. But when he is mistaken by some unwanted gangsters as being an undercover goon of one of their money obsessed competitors, he is forced into some extremely dangerous business. We follow Ewan as he is put through hell by the gang leader, as he is captured in a club whilst waiting for friends and dragged into transporting money and pulled into gun fights.

Foundation Production: Naming

We thought of two names for the film which were 'The 4th Day' and '4 Days'. In the end we named our film '4 Days' as the events of the plot take place over a period of 4 days in a non-chronological order which starts at the end.

Foundation Production: Inspiration

Within our group we came up with ideas, in the end we decided to mix two of them one was a chase scene in the woods and another was a club scene.

The inspiration for this came from the film 'Rock'n'Roller' specificly the club scene.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20DN9wDhbAo

This was the main inspiration that we used, this clip helped us to see how we could make the club scene work we then based the chase scene around that. Specifically, we liked the way you could here the music from the band inside, playing whilst the fight went on outside the club. It then switched onto the band inside, where they were playing that same song. It forms a sound bridge that links between scenes really nicely.

We also decided to to do the opening ion non-cronological order similarly to 'Memento'.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z87iY8rPJF8&feature=related

Foundation Production Lighting

When we film the bands for the club scene we won't need to set up any lighting. There will be stage lighting, including band blinders and strobes; these will really light up the stage and give a sense of  realism for a club environment.

Again, for the chase scene we won't set up any of our own artificial lighting. For the realism of the forest environment we will shoot the scene in day light and have just natural lighting. Also it would probably be to difficult to set up lighting, as the characters will be running through the forest at quite a fast speed. We want the scene to flow as naturally as possible to build the tension and chilling atmosphere in the film. 

As we are filming in natural light we will have to make sure that we set the white balance in between every shot we take. This is very important as it will affect our overall grade if we do not consider using it.

Foundation Production Filming Dates

We are going to film on the 17th feburury which is going to be the club scene, we have been given permission by the organiser of the event to film the bands. Also we will film through half term specifically the 19th 20th and 21st for the chase scene; we dont need permision to film here, as it is public land. However we are going to put up notices to let any bystanders know that we are filming.  

Foundation Production Plot Animatic

This is the animatic for our thriller opening, it is in a very simple form, but this is the layout for our plot through out the opening. it is a very basic animatic and it is likely that we will add or get rid of shots depending on whether we come up with new ideas or better ways to shoot specific shots for example a shot revers shot in the club is essential because the audience needs to see and hear both characters however when the pretagonist is begining to feel the effects of the spiked drink, we don't see Dani's character do anything to the drink so we may add a shot of her adding something to it.  

Foundation Production: Sound and Music

We are going to use Jack's band's music for our thriller and possible some other originals created on software programs like garage band.

Seeing as recording the music live would be extreamly difficult and it may affect the sound due to the crowd, we are going to re- record Jack and his band and put the music in place, so we are going to use foly to put the music in sync using garage band.

Health and Safety when filming

When we are filming in our locations we need to consider the many potential hazards.

Possible hazards when filming in the Ashdown Forest are:

• The risk of uneven ground and holes(rabbit and badger)  that are potential trip hazards. So we would have to check the ground where we plan to film the shots that are required.
• We must have a clear path for the camera person as they fall and damage the equipment and themselves.
• As we are filming in the forest we must make sure that we do not tresspass onto private property.
• In the forest we could come across some wild animals and must not approach them incase they find us intimidating and could lash out at us.
• We are going to be filming in an old abandoned army barrack, we have to be careful as the ceilings are quite low therefore we would have to make sure we don't hit our heads. We would also need to make sure we would have enough room.
• As the forest is a public place we woulld have to consider that some people may walk past, therefore we would need to make signs so that people are ware of us filming.

Possible hazards when filming the club scene in either the Albermarle or the live room are:

• As there will many extras present in the setting we would have to make sure that nobody damages the equipment or is injured by the equipment.
• We have to ask for permission to film at the venue and so that people agree to us filming them.
• We have to make sure the camera is out of the way of the crowd so the camera doesn't get damaged, lost or stolen.
• As a group we would have to communicate so that we know when we are filming and where we are filming in the venue.

Foundation Production Props

The props we have decided to use in our thriller opening are as follows:

• We are going to think about the costumes of the victim and also the Hitman in the chase scene e.g. simple casual clothes for the Victim and more appropriat clothes for the Hitman, for example darker more concealing clothes.  
• We are going to use a gun for the chase scene held by the Hitman.
• During the club scene we will use a glass to simulate a drink of Jack Daniels that Dani gives me.
• For the gig Jack is going to have three guitars due to different tunings in the guitars, they are not going to be fake guitars.
• Dani is going to wear things that resemble a waitress who works at this club. She will also bring a tray to carry the drink on so it's realistic to see she's a professional waitress

Synopsis for Thriller Opening

We are going to call our thriller 4 Days and it'll be in non-chronological order; it will open with a scene very close to the ending. This technique is quite often used in thriller movies (for example Inception) to raise enigma, confusion and to allow the audience to leap straight into the correct mood for a thriller. We're not going to give away our ending completely however; a gun shot will be heard before the fade out of this scene but nothing will be seen. This will keep the audience wondering until the end of the completed version of this thriller idea, what has happened to the man in this scene.

The fade will then rewind back in time to four days before where there will be a club/gig setting. The two scenes will be linked with a sound bridge; the music will  be an original from Jack's band, that will be heard during the chase scene and then seen playing live, as his band will appear in this club/gig scene. Jake will order a drink from the waitress, who will be played by Dani and a shot reverse shot conversation will be shown here. When the waitress comes back with the drink, Jake won't know that it has actually been spiked. He will drink the drink as normal and a sudden blur out from the scene will take place from Jake's point of view, as he passes out.

There will be a blur back in, still from Jake's point of view and showing him regaining concoiusness. The opening to the scene will raise enigma as Jake wakes up in an unknown place (possibly an office interior which will show connotations of an antagonist). There may be a short shot reverse shot conversation that will heighten the enigma at the end of the video; however not give to much away though as it's just the opening of our thriller.

Media Foundation Production Script (1st Draft)

Chase Scene:
Jake: what the hell are you doing!?!? those were innocent people!?
Hitman: Like we care.
Jake: why are you doing this, i did what you asked?!
Hitman: We don't want any lose ends.
Jake: so what you kill your own people?!, how long before he comes for you?
Hitman: haha, well, truth is the game was rigged from the start.

4 Days earlier

Club Scene:
Dani: Can i get you somthing?
Jake: Jack Daniels, please
Dani: Sure thing
Few Moments Later...
Dani: here
Jake: How much?
Dani: oh don't worry, it's on the house.
Jake: oh, chears
Dani: no problem, Enjoy

Pre-Production Planning: Possible music ideas

We are using Jack's band 'The Crows' as our source of music. Most of the songs are covers but he has one suitable for the our thriller openning.

Pre-production planning Locations

We have chosen a few locations that we may use to film.

Chase scene
Bedeands (Burgess Hill)
Abandoned army baracks in Ashdown Forest.
Burgess Hill Town Centre
Brighton Town centre

Club/Gig Scene
Live Room, Haywards Heath Central Sussex College
Albemarle Centre Haywards Heath

Pre-Production Planning: Our ideas

We had two ideas for our thriller opening to start off with. These ideas were;

• A forest chase scene in which Jake is running from a hitman and he trips as the hitman catches up he talks to Jake and then shoots him.
• Our other was a scene that would be shot in a club or at a gig venue where a band will be playing and Jake is there hanging out until he served a drink that was spiked.

We ended up merging the two ideas in the end. Our new idea is going to be in a non-chronological order as Jake is running through a forest trying to escape from a hitman, this then flashes back to the gig scene where Jake is served up a spiked drink. We thought that this would work well and would give the audience many questions to ask.

Group Roles for pre production planning

We have decided on our group roles:

Locations

• Dom and Jake are in charge of imagery of locations and decisions about locations.

Props research

• Jack and Dani are in charge of prop research this includes organising actors and extras if needed.

Storyboarding and script

• Jake and Jack will be in charge of script writing and storyboarding.
• Dani will be doing the synopsis to our whole film.

Fillming and directing

• As a group we are all going to take part in filiming and acting in our production.
• Dom will be in charge of lighting decisions.

Health and safety

• We will be working as a group to make sure that we stick to health and safety rules when we are filming.

180 Degree Rule in Premlinary Video

We used the 180 degree rule when Jake met Dom in the room for the dialogue scene. We made sure that Dom and Jake were on one side of the camera the whole time, ensuring  that it didn't confuse the audience in the dialogue and continuity of the scene. We set the camera up in the correct position before we took each shot to make sure we didn't break the 180 degree rule.
However we bent the rule during the filming of this scene, when jake moved past the camera to collect the bag and phone. He walked to the other side of the camera, where we then had to film from the other side. We did follow Jake over to the bag though so the audience didn't get confused and knew exactly where he was walking to and once he was on the otherside, we kept the camera to one side of them. This is why we didn't quite break the rule but did slightly bend it.   

Premlinary Storyboard

As a group we discussed the story for our preliminary thriller and then assigned roles so we could all individually get on with what we had to do. Jack was in charge of selecting and drawing the most important images from each scene. Dom then annotated the images to make the story easier to follow and to show their significance to the film.