Bathroom scene for our film - Hannah

Hollyoaks Scene

• On Hollyoaks the featured a scene in which one character appears suddenly behind the other character but the other character cannot be seen in the foreground only in the reflection. This is the image we are hoping to achieve in our bathroom scene when the antagonist appears behind in the toilets. 

• We also hope to be able to get the framing like in this one as in the mirror we can see the other character but in the foreground we can only see one character and also the framing has left space on the left which also shows that this character may not be there or something imaginary because the character looks alone in the space the framing has left.

Script - By Amy and Hannah

Script

     
-Establishing shot of building-

-Point of view shot though branches watching character walk up to door-

-POV of under the stairs tilt upwards as walking up stairs-

-Eye Level, Long shot Character at top of stairs leading to the door opens door-

-Match on Action- Enters corridor-

-Exits through door-

-Character enters corridor which leads to the office and toilet, (high angle longs shot)-

-Close up of the characters hand on the door handle as she opens the door-

-Character enters office-

-Character goes to the desk and puts her keys on the table-

-The character then looks at the computer and checks emails to see there are no messages.-

-The character leaves the computer and the office back into the corridor-

-Match on action- back into the corridor where the character walks across the corridor into the toilets-

-Character then walks into the bathroom and then over to the sink-

-The character washes her hands with the reflection visible in the mirror-

-Lights flicker for a few seconds and shows a dark figure in the cubical before vanishing-

-The character the gets confused and scared and rushes to get her keys-

-The camera then tracks the character across the corridor-

- The character then returns to the office and sees the room has been trashed like they were searching for something-

-The character then walks over to the computer, still no new emails-

-Over the shoulder shot. This shows the antagonist talking to the character “where’s scarlet”

-camera pans up from behind computer revealing characters face and the antagonist behind-

-The character then evilly smiles-

-Camera pans round to computer screen-

-Email pops and says ‘Scarlet’

-Screen fades out-

Permission for New location in Office- By Bethany

Here is our permission letter that we got the staff in the office where we will be filming to sign.

Health and Safety - Hannah

Health and Safety


When filming our scenes we have to be aware of any dangerous or harmful things that could affect us or the camera and we have to be aware and cautious of these things:


The converted barn (Ghizzy's Dad office)


Problem:

• As we will we filming an establishing shot away from the building by the road, we have to be carefully as a) it is by a road and there will be continuous traffic and b) at the time we are filming it will be dark so we may not be able to be seen very well.

Solution:

• We can use lights around the area we are filming so people can see us. However, these can't be too bright otherwise they could cause an accident and can't face the drivers. We can use torches which aren't too bright on the setting.

Problem:

• When we are filming outside, we can't control what the weather will be like so we must protect the equipment from the weather.

Solution:

• If it is raining then we can take umbrellas with us and hold them over the equipment and if it's too windy then we can hold the equipment to make sure it's secure.

The Bathroom:

• As we will be flicking the light switch in the bathroom on and off, we have to be carefully as the light switch is connected to an electrical circuit so for this reason, we mustn't do this too many times as we could blow the circuit or the blow the bulbs.  
• Also when filming the character washing their hands we must make sure they don't leave the taps on.

Storyboard - Animatic - Hannah

Storyboard

• Here is the animatic of our storyboard for our thriller opening. The length the pictures shows is the estimated time the shot will last when we film to give us a rough idea of how long our opening will be. It lasted 2 minutes 13 seconds so we don't have to cut anything out or add anything in as ours is around the time we need it to be.

• However, when we do film, our storyboard may change due to any problems we experience and the storyboard is only a rough idea as well.

• One problem I did have when doing the animatic is that I did it on Windows Movie Maker and unfortunately the program crashed twice without me having saved it. This means I did have to rush it to get it on the blog in time for the deadline and also means I didn't have time to do a commentary along side it so I had to just write captions instead. The crashing of my computer also led to me losing the script I had written out so I will hopefully re-do this for a later date.

Problems - Hannah

• Due to my computer crashing several times today, I have lost a lot of the work I have done which has resulted in me rushing it and not completing it all.

• Windows Movie Maker crashed twice while I was making the animatic so I had to rush it and have no commentary alongside it and it is now taking a long time to upload!

• Also I lost the script due to the crashing so I will hopefully re-do this and post it at a later date.

UPDATE: 17/2/11

• Unfortunately we have now experienced new problems!

•  We can only use the office we want to once so we have to film all our rushes in one go and hope they all correct

• Our actress Emily has now backed out the day before filming which means we need to find a new actor/actress for tomorrow and could end up in us changing our story line

More Location and Ideas Shots- Beth

Location:
Toilets

• This shot is showing where the camera will be placed when the protagonist character washing there hands.

• This shot is showing where the Antagonist character will be standing just in view behind the protagonist character while there washing there hands.Also we were thinking to change the shallow depth of field in the shot by focusing on the protagonist character first so that only the character is in focus and everything including the background is out of focus, then changing the shallow depth of field so that the antagonist in the background is in focus while the foreground isn't in focus. This will create a sense of suspense.
• This Video Shows the flickering of the lights while the character will be looking in the mirror. We had to experiment what the lights looked like on the camera while they flickered and if there would be a delay from the switch to the actual lights.

  As You can hear the light switch is loud enough to be heard on camera,so we will have to think of alternate ways to solve this problem like maybe using diegetic sound of the tap. Or even using non diegetic sound just increase the volume so its exaggerated sound of maybe the tap dripping.

insperation for our film- Amy

Inspiration from the film the matrix

We can take inspiration from a scene in the matrix where the character trinity is on a computer and then is suddenly surrounded by police. This scene is quite familiar to ours but without all the action. There are some parts of it we would like to use in our own film.

The whole scene of the movie is in this video which cant be embedded: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPtk7mweahY

But here is the end of the scene and we have taken inspiration from the start of this piece

here are screen shots of the parts we have taken inspiration from

 this shot tilts up from behind the computer slowly revealing the female character and the thing behind them, in our case will be the male character. I like this shot as it slowly reveals the person and the thing behind them creating suspense.

Like in this screen shot we want to show  a over shoulder shot from the males characters view showing the woman standing but also being able to show the computer screen we could then zoom in on the computer showing the email/file/program saying "scarlet"

Location and Ideas Part 3 by Beth Keerie

Locations:

We have decided as a group to change our corridor location and office as they didn't match our previous locations.Here are some images of the new locations:

•  We are going to use this as the corrider leading from the metal stairs. The first door on the left is where your see our character come out from which would be where the metal stairs are.Also we have placed the camera here so you can't see the door. This shot also helps the continuity of the film.

•  This is a possiblity of where the character comes through the door from the metal stairs.As we have taken in that this location is very light due to the window, also the window doesn't fit the with the decor of the other locations and the room being too modern might be too much of a difference.

• This is the door to the office. We are going to use, We need to take off the posters and notices on the door to hide any sign of it being a college, to make it more realistic and to solve any problems.

•   This is another corridor we have showing where the door to the toilets are and where we might use match on action to or a quick cut to show the office being oppostie the toilet door to cut down the time and to cut out too much tracking from one palce to another. However the problem with this location is that you can still see that the corridor is really long.

  

• This is another shot in the corridor showng where the metal stairs will be taken from the corner. To show all of the space that might be used. However the problem with this loaction is that we can't hide that the corridor is longer than we would have wanted it to be.

Office:  Here ishe picture we took for the new location of the office.

• Here is the location of the new office, We decided to change the location of  the old office because  the size of it wasn't ideal and it was too modern, as this one looks the same as the toilets and the corridor locations.

costume ideas-Amy

Character costumes

Both our characters in our coursework  going to need to be in formal clothes as our male character is supposed to look like someone maybe from the government or some kind of agency the other character our female character will need to be in formal clothes as she works in a office and is high up in her job.

The males costume

This is the top of the suit we would want the male character to be in as it shows he has power, that he is important and that he has a important job. 

 

His shoes and trousers will then match the style of the other garments showing his formality and importance. But these will probably not be seen in the shots so are a less vital bit of costume to get. in addition we want this character to be mostly in the dark to create mystery so not all these garments will be visible. 

Females Costume

This is the type of costume we want our female character to wear, it gives the impression that this woman is high up in her company but also shows her confidence as her outfit is fashionable and shows real confidence. 

other props

We are going to use my computer as the computer they use in our scene as we do not want to use the office computers in their office as they will have important information on. As my laptop is a ex office laptop it still looks like a professional work computer and it will also mean i can create a video or something to make our stuff appear without having to touch it.

Permission for location - By Ghislaine

Me and Hannah have created a letter for Mr Moolenaar (my dad) so that we can get permission from him and a signature to film outside his office. (See below)

Update on planning and ideas - Hannah

• So today Amy and Beth decided that the office didn't fit in with our locations as it was too new looking and modern compared to the other locations. They went looking around the college building and found an old office in the old building which was perfect for our filming as it wouldn't take away continuity from our filming like the office in the new building in college. 

• We are able to film only on Friday after school hours and will send a permission letter to the email Beth and Amy were give from her.

• We have also sent a permission letter to Ghislaine's dad who works at the office we are going to use the outside of and will get him to sing it if he agrees so he agrees with us working there and filming

• The letter has been scanned and uploaded in a newer post by Ghislaine

Location and Ideas - Part 2 - By Hannah

Location shots and ideas:

Corridor 

•    This is the corridor by the office we are planning to use and the door frame we are using to look like the door to the stairs for match on action.

• The office is on the left of the camera off shot and there is another room down the corridor that can't be seen in this shot.

• Our idea is that we are planning to use the camera for a pan shot from the door frame to this end shot. As the person will go to bathroom after this, and the doors do not match, we are going to have the person walk down the corridor and off the camera shot and we will then cut to the door handle to the bathroom door or the person walking into the other bathroom. However, we are still uncertain on this idea as we are worried this will affect the continuity in our film and we don't want to lose continuity. 

Lighting

• This is what the lighting in the bathroom looks like. We are planning on making flickering lights in the bathroom scene when we see the character in the mirror and this what the lighting looks like when we flick the lights on and off.

• The problems we may encounter with this is that the lights are very slow at turning back on, however, we they do, they do flicker. We are going to try and use these lights in the bathroom with our own lighting.

• If this idea does not work, we have decided that we can use the lighting kits the college provides and turn those lights on and off.

• This is the difference when the lights are on and off and we we want to achieve this flashing lights only faster so it appears to be a flashing on it's own. Another problem we encountered though was the light switch. The light switch was quite loud when turning it on so if we do use this location then we may put a cushion over the switch while doing flicking the switch so the noise is less loud in the scene.

Location & Ideas - By Ghislaine

Location

BELOW: The Girls toilet door in the old building

• We have chosen to use this toilet because it looks old, we have chosen an old look because the building we are using for the outside looks quite old, and 'barn' like.
• However, because we are using an office with modern interior so it might look different and wouldn't have continuity, it could also confuse the viewer to why there are different interiors.
• Also the wall of the girls bathroom is yellow. This is a problem because not many office's have yellow painted walls, they would normally have neutral colours, or a colour connecting to the type of  business.
• Another problem is what the sign says on the door - Female Student Toilets. We will need to overcome the problem by finding out a way to cover it. We could use a piece of card, however it could look fake, making the audience weary, and not believe it's real.

BELOW: In The Girls Toilets - The Lights

• Because the lights are an important feature of our thriller opening, we need to know what the lights look like, and how they turn on and off. (See Lights for more info)
• However, we found that there is a massive vent in the ceiling, letting in a lot of natural light, so when we turn off the lights, it isn't dark enough
• We will need to overcome this problem, either by putting a massive black card over the vent, or we will need to find out another way of taking away the natural light, so that we can make our own and change it.

BELOW: In The Girls Toilet - The Sink

•  This is where the character will be washing their hands after they have either been to the toilet or is washing their hands because they have got them dirty.

BELOW: Me in the mirror, where the character would be standing, and where the camera would be facing

• This is where the character will be standing whilst washing their hands
• We have a slight problem because:
• Firstly we might not be able to see the antagonist in one of the cubicles whilst filming the character
• Secondly, we will have to be at an angle so that we do not film ourselves with the camera equipment - it would look unprofessional

BELOW: Washing Hands

• This is what the character would look like when washing their hands

BELOW: Antagonist

• This is where the antagonist will be standing when the character will be washing their hands

BELOW: Hallway

• (See Corridor - By Hannah)

BELOW: Office Room

• This is where the main 'thriller' happens
• We are using Andrew Mann's office, as to which he has kindly given us to use. However, we might be filming in another office in the old building (which we need to take pictures off), so we will have to decide on which office to use
• Even though this office is messy, it is perfect for what we are filming - a messy location.
• However, what might be a problem is the space. Because the room isn't big, it is probably harder to film in, so we will need to find a way around that problem

BELOW: The Character meeting the antagonist

• This is where the character and the antagonist meet for the first time, even though the character doesn't know who it is, that she is talking too. However, us as an audience will be able to see the characters expression and the antagonist
• And again, because it isn't a very big room, we might have trouble filming everything in such limited space

BELOW: Computer Screen

• After we have seen the character and antagonist, the camera will pan towards the computer screen. The screen will be showing a word of some sort which will link to the title. We where thinking 'Scarlet'. This is because the antagonist asks where 'Scarlet' is. This could mean anything, for example, a girl, a woman, a hardware, a memory stick. Thus leaving the audience wondering, and wanting to watch until the end, to figure out what 'Scarlet' is.
• When we pan to the computer screen we where thinking of having the word 'Scarlet' being typed whilst still filming.

Location problems - Hannah

Our initial ideas for our setting and location were the bathroom in the college and the outside and inside of Ghizzy's dads office. However, we are now unable to use the inside of Ghizzy's dads office  due to security reasons because of files in the background and other things that will be seen in our video which will then be able to be seen on our movie on our blog and youtube. The offices are quite similar to the classrooms at the college and look like offices so we are going to use them along with match on action to the college location from outside the office.

We have also started our story board today but due to our location change we may have to change a few sections to make it work with continuity and match on action.

our set - Amy

We are hoping to be able to use ghislaines dads office building to film the office and oustide part of our film (we have pictures but dont have permission to put them up on the internet as they do not want there office and its files uploaded on the internet to the public) for our toilet scene we want to use the tiolets in the old building of the college as the office toilets are too small. (we will upload pictures of this soon for our blog.

our idea for our thriller opening- Amy Beckwith

Our first idea for our thriller opening is:
It starts with a point of view shot of someone looking into the building from the bushes by the road. We are hopeing we will be able to see the figure of lady from the inside of the building so it will look like the person  is looking into the window at the woman. The shot then changes from outside to the inside of the office where the woman closes down her work, turns the lights of and goes accross the corridor and into the toilet, the shot then switches to her wasing her hands and behind her in the reflection in the mirror is a dark figure slit framed in the cubical. she then walks back into the office and her computer has opend up and new screen with the words "i can see you" on it, the office also looks like its been raided by someone. she then closes the screen and looks around for someone in the office. then suddernly her and the camera fall over and she is dragged off the screen by a unknown person.

We have talked about this opening and think that it is too much like a horror so we are going to change it slightly.

The idea we have come up with is geting rid of the drag scene and the computer i can see you part and change it to lots of files have been opened on her computer like someone was looking for a file on her computer, she closes a few and then the camera panns behind her where you see a siloute behind her with a gun and asks her where a certain thing is at the moment we are thinking "Scarlett" as it creates enigma as we dont know who or what Scarlett is as it could be a code name for somthing or a person thats missing, the woman smiles slightly like she was expecting it and knows what to do. The camera then panns back to the computer screen where there is a file open with the word scarlett in it, this will be the title screen. The film after our opening would then maybe flash to the woman being tourtured and men asking "where scarlett is" or the woman back at home like it has flashed back in time. The story of the film would either be finiding out what "scarlett" is or them trying to find it.

Initial ideas by Hannah

In lessons at the moment we have been discussing ideas for our thriller opening and our roles in our opening.
Our inital idea so far is to use Ghizzy's dads office which is a converted barn for our setting. We also have our intitial story line and adding more to it.

Basics of our story - Ghislaine

We have started to write the basics for our thriller opening. We have already decided on the roles for our group members which we have posted on the side of the blog. We will now have to decide the characters in the opening, and who is available and willing to 'star' in it.

Course Work Thriller Opening

This is the beginning of our journey to making our First Thriller Opening :)