Jelly Babies

Last lesson, our teacher placed us into groups. With our groups we had to come up with a idea for a horror film utilizing Jelly Babies as the characters. We had to come up with 4 consecutive scenes and it didn't matter what part of the film it was. For each scene we had to write down all the conventions of the scene.

Scene one: Most horror films are set in a dark, abandoned and isolate places. We utilized this convention in this scene because we chose a forest: dark and isolated.
Also, in the image you see a pink post-it note which says "Mental Asylum", this is also a convention because we used the element of insanity which comes up repeatedly in horror films.
In this scene we conformed to most of the typical conventions that you would expect to see in a horror film. However, we also did subvert form the convention that most characters in a horror film are in a group. We decided that we only wanted one character to break the convention that only groups of teenagers are put into situations like these.

 

Scene two: For this scene we decided to have the victim enter the room of the patients. On this scene we particularly focused on the colors/costumes of each character. For the patients we chose dull colors like: Musk Green and a Drained orange. We did this on purpose to show that they were mental and to suggest that they were so used to the Asylum that they started to blend in with it. Also, it's a convention that the killers wear darker clothing so we defiantly conformed to that convention. The Victim is yellow, we did this because normally the victims wear either white of pale colors, again we are using a very popular convention.

Scene 3: In this scene, the victim is being surrounded by the patients. We used the same conventions in this scene as we did for scene 2. However, went against a very typical convention in these scenes. In horror movies we expect to see a group of victims and just one killer, in these scenes with did the complete opposite, because there is a groups of killers and just one victim.
Also, the victim was a man. In films the stereotypical victims are women. We did this because the male is usually the one to survive in a horror film, so this is a different aspect which isn't very seem in horror films, even though modern horror movies are starting to incorporate men as victims.

Scene 4: This image shows what happened in scene 4, the victim starts getting chased by the killers/ patients. This is a mainstream idea that happens in horror films, there is nearly always  a chase between the victim and the killer. It is a very used convention. Also, we though of the types of sound that we could incorporate in this scene, we decided to use the typical sound conventions, which are : heartbeats, footsteps and fast breathing. We chose these because they all fit in with the idea of a chase between characters.

Past Horror Films (inspiration)

In my last Media lesson my Media teacher showed us examples of past student work. This gave us a better understanding of the things we needed to focus on and the things that we should definitely avoid when filming.
There was one student work that we really enjoyed because of the fact the it was filmed  in such a slow pace. Me and my partner had already though of utilizing a slow pace through out our short intro, so this gave us a better insight and we saw that the slow pace was quite effective as it really built up the suspense in the introduction.
In all the past student works we either saw the killer or we got a small glimpse of what their weapon of choice was, we didn't really get inspiration from that because we have though that we won't actually show the killer in a way that we can see his face or his weapon. We think this is a good idea because it will keep the audience intrigued because they don't know if it's the actual killer or just a random passerby.
From watching we also noticed the importance that the tripod has, especially if the camera is suppose to be still. Some past students didn't utilize the tripod because it was meant to look hand held, However some students decided not to use a tripod. This made the scene really shaky.



        

Breakdown Sheet For Shooting

BREAKDOWN SHEET FOR SHOOTING

Storyboard scene number: 6

Date:17/12/13                                                                                            Time: 

Setting: Young girls house                                                                            Location: Joana's house

Crew members and roles: Joana and Alice- filming
                                         Joana's Dad - Lighting

Cast members: Amanda and Elizabeth - Actors

Extras:

Wardrobe: Light coloured pyjamas 

Make-up: Pale/ neutral colours 

Props: Dusty Black book

Special effects: Smoke around book

Potential problems and how you’re going to overcome them: Cast members might have problems with transport and scheduling. To overcome this we'll make sure that they are available and that they arrive at the location earlier. 

BREAKDOWN SHEET FOR SHOOTING

Storyboard scene number: 16

Date:                                                                                                           Time: 4-5 pm

Setting: lake/forest                                                                                        Location: Battersea park

Crew members and roles: Alice's sister - Filming 

                                         Alice's mum and Joana's dad- lighting 

Cast members: Alice and Joana -acting

Extras:

Wardrobe: Joana - White dress and heels

                  Alice - All black and red coat.

Make-up:  Joana- neutral colours and pink/red lips
                 Alice- Dark eye make-up and dark lips

Props: 

Special effects: 

Potential problems and how you’re going to overcome them: It will be hard to film at night due to the lack of light, so some parts might be too dark. The weather might be too windy or not the we expect. To over come the lighting issues we will use extra light and use the darkness to our favour to show that the victims are surrounded by darkness.To overcome the weather problems we will keep updated with the weather forecast and make sure the weather to our liking on the chosen dates. 

BREAKDOWN SHEET FOR SHOOTING

Storyboard scene number:32

Date:                                                                                                              Time: 4-5 

Setting: Forest                                                                                                Location: Battersea park

Crew members and roles: Alice's sister - filmimg 

Cast members: Joana, Alice and Joana's dad

Extras: Alice's Dad (If Joana's dad isn't available)

Wardrobe: Joana - White dress and heels

                  Alice - All black and red coat.
                  Joana's Dad - All black

Make-up:  Joana - neutral colours and pink/red lips
                 Alice - Dark eye make-up and dark lips 

Props:

Special effects:

Potential problems and how you’re going to overcome them: We might encounter the same problems as we did in scene 16 - It will be hard to film at night due to the lack of light, so some parts might be too dark. The weather might be too windy or not the we expect. To over come the lighting issues we will use extra light and use the darkness to our favour to show that the victims are surrounded by darkness.To overcome the weather problems we will keep updated with the weather forecast and make sure the weather to our liking on the chosen dates. 

Feedback We Were Given (Animatics)

For Media we had to create a Animatics that showed what our idea was going to consist of. After uploading this, me and my partner presented our Animatics to the class.

Even though we got good comments we also got constructive criticism which we took in and will use to make our Animatics even better.
Most of our class mates were quite confused about our idea and they said that the our Animatics was way too long and we should make it shorter. To do this we just need to make each scene shorter so that we don't go over the time we were given.
Some people also commented that a few sounds were too loud for the action that was being preformed. For example : when the characters were walking on the sand. The sound we utilized was too loud and didn't fit, to fix this we need to lower the volume of certain sounds and then it will sound better.  

On the other hand we did also get good comments about our Animatics Intro.
Quite a lot of people stated that they like the initial part of the video where we show the moon and slowly make out may towards the house. They said that it makes the scene a bit more intense yet calming.
Many people also said that they like the background music that we chose because it's quite relaxing but also makes the Intro more interesting. They also enjoyed the fact that the music was continuous throughout the whole Intro because it make the audience aware that they are never actually safe.

So overall the only things me and my peer need to be more aware of is the length of the Intro and the volume of the sounds that we included.

Click to watch our Animatics: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enj50xlbNww&safe=active