Narrative Ideas For Our Film

Charaters- we would like to have a girl, teenaged vampire as our main vampire/character this is becuase in most vampire films the main character are males for example, Edward out of Twilight. Although there are female vampires that do have a part in the film, Edward is still the main character, so we want to make our main character a female. 

Also the main vampire in Van helsing is also male, so we will like to be different.We would also like the other characters that will be the victims to be male and female.

Costume- vampire- fangs, pale skin, white eyes (contact lenses), Casual clothes (dark). In Twilight, Edward (vampire) wears casual clothing such as t-shirts and trousers. The colours of these are dull. He has pale skin and unusal eye colours.

  


In this clip you can see his eyes and how he dresses and how he has really pale skin. 


In Van Helsing he also looks scary with pale skin and fangs. However he doesnt where as casual clothing, he looks like a vampire with a long black cape, and we want ours to be more modern so we will have casual clothing. Our victims will be dressed in going out clothes such as dresses, shorts, tops etc because they are coming back from a party.


He you see them changed into a vampire, and their teeth turn into fangs and eyes change colour and such. 

Lighting and setting- we would like the film to be based at night to create that erie, spooky feeling. Dim lighting will be used- lamp lighting the place. Throughout twilight dull lighting is used, this is because it is based around a town that has rubbish dull weather all the time, so the theme is carried on throughout the film.




 This is the same in Van helsing also, as it is never nice whethe rit ia always dull and misserable, and mainly set at night as it creates more of an spooky atmosphere.

Twilight- Chairss Lee- Wordle

Bella and Edward are the two main characters in the film Twilight, this is why there names are larger than the other words. Vampire is the next size down, this shows you staright away that the film is about vampires. Words are then used like powerful, death, tribe, killing, suicide and strong this gives you a big understanding about the film staright away.

Horror Wordle - Van Helsing - Katie Smyth

The film i did was Van Helsing, here you can see the main words that are important to the film such as Van Helsing and dracula, as these are some of the main characters that are important to the film. You can also see words such as vampires and kill and suchwhich show the film is about vampires and there is likely to be a a lot of killing in it. You can also see the word castle is quite big so this is important as is one of the important locations in the film. You can also see words such as monster, frankinstein, wings, captured, escape and cemertary and such, which helps to give you a understaning on what the film is about, as there is vampires and monsters and killing and such in it.

Final Coursework group

We have two people in our group, and we have chosen vampire for our final coursework project. We thought this would be an interesting and creative project to do, this is because the use of costume used in vampire films such as, blood, fake teeth etc. We both have an interest in vampire films, so this is an advantage also we have worked together before so we no how each one of us work. 

Mind Map

This is our mindmap we have done in preparation for our film. We have talked about; costume, narrative,  makeup lighting, sound, character, location and camera shots that will be in our film. 

Chariss Lee- Assignment

Use of Camera

In our film assessment, there were many different camera shots, we created a storyboard before filming to make things clear to use so we knew what we was doing and what camera angle and shot was needed for a particular scene. A Tripod was used, so when filming there was no camera shake, this was done very smooth, also there is a part in shot seven where the camera is tilted, this was also done very smooth because there was no jolt. Many different camera shots were used throughout the film such as, long shots, close-ups, extreme close-ups and mid-shots, I think each and every one of these shots shown emotion and was very understandable. At the start of our film the majority of shots are at a high angle looking down at her, this is to create the effect on the audience showing that the character is vulnerable at this point, when she starts to get up, the camera then becomes the same level as her until she is fully stood up and the camera is at matching eyeline. If I was to go back and do this film again I would change the lead and head room because at points in the film, for example shot one has a big lead and head room which is not needed, so I would make the lead/head room a lot smaller.

Use of editing

Before we started to edit, the week before, we jotted on a sheet how long each shot was going to be, so when editing we knew when to cut things out and crop the shot to fit the time. We followed our storyboard step by step, so when it came to editing we knew it was in order, so we knew what part we were doing and didn’t get confused. In our assessment we applied the rules of continuity editing, I think you can tell this by the way the film flows really well throughout. Our 180 degree line and 30 degree line I thought was also well thought about when filmed because the film flowed well with no jump shots. When editing we tried to make it look like the film we copied as much as we could, we found by adding many effects we could achieve this. We changed the brightness and contrast to make the room brighter and the outfit and tattoos darker so they stood out more. After adding many effects such as, brightness/contrast, shake (so the camera looks like its shaking) Movie Maker started to freeze and not let us use any more effects, this was disappointing because we would of like to use a little more to improve it, but I am happy with what the editing turned out like.

Selection of content

Before shooting our film, we set up a date to do a taster of what make-up and outfits where we’re going to use. We got our two actors to come into Bilborough College and did a make-up trial. For our main actor we used eyeliner to make her eyes stand out and on her arms we drew fake tattoos with marker pen. These were the only two things we used on her, for the make-up but I think it was very successful because it looked at lot like the film we was re-creating and stood out a tremendous amount throughout the film. With our second actor we used fake blood; we did the blood running down her face. We originally wanted the main actor Stevie to wear a white dress, but we thought because she had blonde hair it would look better for her to wear black also we got our other actor Saoirse to wear all black.

Before shooting our film we each did a reccee sheet. My chose was to do the first bit of filming where the three girls are chanting at a Church, 5 minutes down the road from where I live. Originally I thought it would be good to do the chanting in the arch of the church, but when visiting the place, I thought it would be a good shot if they were chanting under the tree with the church in the background, but when visiting college the week after we all decided not to add the chanting scene in our film. So we all agreed on using the faith room at Bilborough College for the whole film. I liked the look on this room in our film and I think the location fitted really well with what we wanted to achieve.  

Self Assessment

Unfortunately, I was not able to come and help with the shooting of the film but because of this I helped a huge amount with the editing, I had help by the other group members by them giving me ideas and thoughts on where I should cut and crop it and what effects to use but I added effects and cut/cropped the whole thing. However I was involved with everything else such as doing test shots and planning etc.

If I was to do the whole thing again I would work on getting every shot perfect and work on the head/lead room rule and I would like to add a few more effects and transitions to make the film a tad better.

Overall I am very happy with our team work and I worked really well with my group members, they did a great job in shooting the film also I am very happy with our chose of actors.

Katie Smyth - Half term Homework Assignment

Use of the camera
My finished assessment shows that i can hold a shot steady, sych as when we used a tracking shot, and i held the camera shot steady following the actr as she stood up against the wall. It also showed how i can frame a shot appropriatly in the tracking shot as we framed it, so there was room above her head to move into. this was lead room; we used alot of composition techniques, such as everytime we did a shot we checked the frame looked right such as there was nothing in it that didnt need to be there. Everytime we also checked the rule of thirds, however the groups film we copied could have framed some shots better, such as the rule of thirds better, but we didnt change it as we copied exactly like theirs as that was our task. I think we could have done better on the head room but i think it does look good and isn't too muh unneccsary head room as you need to see all around her to show shes in a white room, in the corner. 
We used a variety of shots such as we had an extreme close up in our first shot, where our actors eyes open, so it is an extreme close up of her eyes opening and looking around, so your focusing more o her eyes. we used lots of other shots such as; low/high angle shots, long shots, tracking shots, mid shots and point of view shot, such as when she is looking down at her arms, we filmed it from her point of view.

Use of Editing
Our finished assessment shows we can apply the rules of continuity editing, as i think it flows really well together, so we made the right choices when cutting/cropping and editing out film, and following the 180 and 30 degree rules. However when using the 30 degree rule, we could have done it better, such as having a bigger angle distance between some of our shots so it flows better, such as between our 2nd and 3rd shot. I also think it would have looked better if we added more transactions such as a flash between the 2 shots of the dead body, however the mac wouldn't let us add any more effects, as everytime we tried the window shut down, but i think the effects we used were very good, such as changing the brightness and contrast to make the room really bright and white so it looks better.

Selection of Content
We chose the appropriate make up and costume for our horror film as her eyes looked scary liked we wanted, with the eyeliner we used. It would have been good however if we managed to get some white contact lensers in time. The drawings/ markings on her arms looked really good, and looked simular to te film we were copying, and looked spooky. However for the costume we could have prepared more and got a better costume that we wanted, as we wanted a long white top like in the film we was coping, but when we had finished i think all black looked really good and more effective in the white room, so im happy with the costume choice.
I think we chose the right location as the film we was coping was called the 'white room' and the location we chose was a white room, also having a white room shows how she's gone crazy and possessed. i think it was a good location as it was quiet and knowone disturbed us in the faith room. However at one point you could see a curtain and some of the window, hopefully it isnt very noticable as the brightness makes it not very visable, so we could have picked a better white room where there was lessthings that could get into the frame.
I think the actor we chose for our film was a great choice, she worked well with us and was a really good actor, such as she did really good acting when she screamed at the end, and she looked really scared.

Self Assessment
I helped with a lot of thing to complete the film, i think we all contributed well. When planning we were working throuhg the sheets together, such as one of the things i helped with during the planning was, i was looking at the seconds for each shot whist someone else wrote them down and what angle and shot type they were. I helped doing the arm makeup on one of the arms whist alison did the other when getting ready to shoot. Since our actor had not seen the film we were copying from i helped explain and even (try) act out what she will be doing. Me and alison worked well taking it in turns and together positioning the camera right and making sure the framing and white balance and focus looked good and the composition and continuity was correct, such as that we did not cross the 180 degree line. We took it in turns filming such as i think the tracking looks good, when i moved the camera following the actor as she pushed up against the wall. We all helped edit together and all said our ideas and disucssed them. During editing i helped decide which bits to cutt/crop out and i checked that the seconds on each shot was correct. We all had a say in which effects looked best and which to use. We could have edited it better, but the effects wouldnt work, so it could have been imporved with more effects and transitions, as it would flow and look better. We also made a few mistakes whilst filming such as in the pint of view shot, we had abit of our actors hair in it, so we would do it again and make sure her hair isn't in it. When i do my final course i will be more organised and prpare and make sur ei follow all of the rules such as the rule of thirds and the 30 degree rule.