Planning - Casting For Your Opening

Name: George                        

Characters name: John

Age: 16                                  

Characters age: 18

Personality:  George is a joker that stays to him self but talks to anyone when he wants.

Characters personality: The character John is annoying, rude and acts like a jock and a joker. He is the oldest of the group so he picks on people but says its a joker and doesn't notice he can hurt peoples feelings. John and Allison are a couple and there relationship is a typical horror movie relationship as there personality and physical appearance is what you normal see in a horror movie or any movie.

Reason for picking George: We picked George to play John as he physically and mentally suits the character. We all know that George is confident and will do what we say in front of the camera.

This is a picture of George who is playing John.

Name: Des'ree          

Characters name: Allison

Age: 17                      

Characters age: 18

Personality: Des'ree is a good looking girl that has a very loud and confident personality what mixes with her fashion sense and physical appearance.

Characters personality: The characters personality we would like Des'ree to play is loud, fun, sassy and flirty. Her appearance also mirrors her personality as she would wear very cute reviling clothes

Reason for picking Des'ree: Our reason for picking Des'ree was that she has a similar personality to the character what will insure us that she can play the part well. Also she currently does A level drama so we are confident that she can act professionally and will be confident in front of a camera.

This is a picture of Des'ree who is playing Alison 

 Name: Alex                    

Characters name: Billy

Age: 16                                  
Characters age: 18

Personality: Alex is sometimes quiet but also very confident and sometimes annoying. His look is a typical teenage boy with a bit of a chilled out vibe.

Characters personality: The characters personality is somewhat the same as Alex's as in the clothes he wears. The difference between them is that Billy is has a slow chilled out vibe to him and when he talks its either a joke or something rude.

Reason for picking Alex: The reason we picked Alex was that we all knew that he would suit the part because his looks matches the characters name and personality. Also half of his personality is the same as the character Billy we want him to play.

This is a picture of Alex who is playing Billy. 

Name: Ophelia              

 Characters name: Jodie

Age:  16                                  

Characters age:  17

Personality: Ophelia is unique, loud and confident but also resembles the typical social media geek. She is kind and sometimes a bit strange but in a good way.

Characters personality: The characters personality is she is a quite, shy girl that looks cute as in she wears glasses and band T-shirts. Jodie is the youngest of the group and keeps herself excluded when she doesn't want to speak her mind. She has moments when she is confident and leads the group in certain situations which no body would expect.

Reason for picking: We picked Ophelia as she defiantly looks like Jodie's personality. We also picked her as she has a feel of acting from GCSE. As well Ophelia's unique confident side would match Jodie's confident part of her personality successfully.

This is a picture of Ophelia who is playing Jodie

Name:  Ashley                  

Characters name:  Tim

Age: 17                                

Characters age: 17

Personality:   Ashley is a know it all who is confident but secretly shy. He looks like a cool geek who loves science and maths.                    

Characters personality: The character we want Ashley to play is shy and smart. He wears very urban geek clothes that include boots, beanie and bland tops.

Reason for picking Ashley: We chose Ashley as he has a shy, chilled side what he can put into the character. Ashley also does A level drama and did GCSE drama, so we know that he is not afraid to perform.

This is a picture of Ashley who is playing Tim.

Name: Alice                      

Characters name: 'The girl in white'

Age:  16                                  

Characters age: 12

Personality: Alice is sweet, kind, cheerful and funny. She wears cute normal girly clothes but can act very boyish.                  

Characters personality: The character we want Alice to play hasn't really got a personality but she looks dull, dark and lifeless. The character walks slow but with a blank sad looking on her face.

Reason for picking Alice: The reason we picked Alice was because she is small and young looking so she would suit being a 12 year old. As well we wanted the girl to look scary but still cute and Alice's long dark brown/black hair and olive skin perfectly mirrors the girls image.

This is a picture of Alice who is playing 'The Girl in White.'

Planning - Location Planning For Your Opening

Planning- Producing A Storyboard For Your Opening

This is our storyboard for "The Girl in White".

This storyboard is essential to the filming process. This will be need at a constant during the days of filming, acting as checklist to each section that we film. It will be referred to when going through each shot, making sure the story is kept to.

The first board is an establishing shot.

This displays where the opening of the film will take place and where events will take place

The second board shows the main characters of the film,

walking to the place established in the first board.

The third board shows the main characters at site

that will be where a camp will be set up.

This will be is one of the main places in the film.

The fourth displays the camp has been setup and

the group realising that someone has gone missing,

but are unsure when or where they disappeared.

The fifth is of two people who have gone to find the person who went missing from camp. They begin to feel that they've been sent on an impossible mission

The sixth is of a point of view from one of those who is searching for the missing person.

They have fallen over and see a girl in the far distance for a second.

The seventh shows the person who fell over

getting up and seeing that the girl has gotten closer to him and his friend.

The eighth displays a '20 YEARS LATER' mark.

The tenth is back to the wooded area from the first board.

The group that were camping, are all now tied up on tree's. in the middle there is a clearing, where the girl, that the person who had fallen over had seen, is standing. 

Surgical equipment  and tools are placed out onto a dirty, rusty table, behind where the girl is standing.

The ninth board shows a news broadcast on a television. It is displayed in this way to give the impression someone is watching it, but are you watching it from their perspective or another?

Planning - Writing A Treatment For Your Chosen Opening

Treatment for the opening 2 minutes (including titles) of

'The Girl in White' by Cloudy Village Productions 

The opening of the film starts with a black out that slowly changes into a high crane establishing shot above the camping site in the woods.

'A Film Produced By Cloudy Village Productions' appears onto the screen and goes away when the camera starts to zoom into the camp.

The establishing shot zooms down into the camp and lands onto the floor and turns into a black out.

The camera then turns into one of the groups self recording camera with a timeframe in the corner of the screen.

'Edited By Mea, Hannah, Rachel and Taylor' appears onto the screen for a couple of seconds while the camera is going in and out of focus.

Tim picks up the camera and looks at it then a conversation takes place between Tim and Chad talking about how he dropped the camera.

While Tim looks at the camera and talking to Chad 'Music by Hannah, Rachel, Taylor and Mea' appears on the screen.

Tim then wipes the camera to get the dirt off and the title wipes away with this wiping movement.

Tim is at the end of the line of the group, he moves the camera in his hands and points it at everybody in the group as some people in the group tell him to stop filming and hide there face in a joking manner.

Tim then faces the camera onto the floor showing his shoes while he is walking.

The tittle 'Staring' appears in the middle of the screen.

Tim is still filming him walking towards the camping spot and George Hales as Chad, Des'ree T as Allison, Alex Rowden as Billy, Ophelia Wilson as Jodie and Ashley Paddick as Tim all appear in the corner of the screen 3 seconds after each other.

Tim is still walking but now he lives up the camera to show that they are at the camping site and he explains everything he can see to the camera.

In the back ground you can hear Allison saying 'come on then, lets set up' but in mid sentence Tim points the camera towards her and zoom into her face. Everyone agrees and you can her them all start random conversions with one another.

The camera gets turned off.

The next scene is Tim turning the camera back on and placing it on the floor so you can see a low angle in and out of focus shot of him trying to start the fire with the rest of the group setting up the tents in the background.

While he is starting the fire up the title 'Alice piggot starts as' is in the corner of the screen, then as soon as the fire gets lit the title 'The girl in white' appears in the middle of the screen the disappears when he picks up the camera.

As Tim holds the camera at the fire you can hear Allison say 'guys where is Chad?', no one knows where he is and from this Tim and Jodie has a conversation with the rest of the group and they decide to go and look for him, at this point you can still see the fire.

The screen then goes to Tim pointing the camera towards the woods and occasionally at Jodie while they are talking.

Tim has the camera in a low angle shot pointing at the sky to show that it is starting to get darker, from this a conversation happens between Tim and Jodie about whether they should go back or not. 

The camera is back to a long shot of the woods and while they are talking they could hear sharp snapping sounds of twigs and leaves moving.

They both start to panic and run back towards the camp, at this point all you can see is their shoes and blurry images of trees as they are both running pretty fast from fright. 

We then get to see a point of view shot through Tim's eyes as he falls over and the camera falls and rolls in front of him.

The audience is still seeing in Tim's eyes, He is slowly blinking and moving around while hearing a loud high pitch sound from hurting his ears and a quite voice coming from Jodie.

A girl in white then appears in front of Tim slowly walking towards him and then hitting him unconscious.

The screen goes blank.

Then there is a panning shot of all the groups faces while they are unconscious and tied to a tree.

The camera is still being recorded from a self videoing camera but this time its not being held and filmed by Tim it is being video by the girl in white.
You can see the girl videoing her feet walking from the group towards her dangerous tools and then showing the tools layed out along the woodland floor.

In the back ground you can start to hear the group waking up and screaming and shouting at the girl.

The girl turns around while still videoing and pointing the camera at the group showing them all tied up the trees and struggling to escape and says in Latin ' Today i shall feast'. When the girl says this subtitles will appear at the bottom of the screen in yellow.

The screen will then go blank and the words '20 years later' will slowly start to show bold in the middle of the blank screen.

The screen is still blank then a diegetic sound of news reports will quietly appear.

After 2 seconds a mid-shot of a TV will be shown and on the TV will be a news report of the once young cannibalistic girl.

The end of the opening will be a news reporter saying 'and till this day the girl in white still hasn't been found.'

Research : The Importance Of Sound In Horror Films

Music has the ability to set the tone for how a scene will play out. Horror films generally rely on music to set the mood of a scene. It does this with specific musical instruments and dynamics of sound motif; if the desired feeling is tension then low drum sounds would be used at a slow tempo that gradually speeds up to the desired point when the suspense is over.


These are techniques that often tell us how a scene will play out. Our brain naturally understand and predict what is about to take place from the way that an instrument is being played or the notes that they play.






Isolated Instruments - Often used before a key event and links the idea of vulnerability to the audience.
Long, suspenseful notes - Increases the audiences anxiety levels as the tension gradually increases (this also increases adrenaline), when long notes are contrasted with short, sharp notes, it shocks the audience.
Pitch tone changes - For instance, low, sustained strings which suddenly change to sharp, high-pitched notes - this makes the audience feel immediately tense.
Rapid sound sequence - Conveys the feeling of stress and panic. It also results in the audience being anxious.


Sound effects are also an important part as you often hear these along side the music. Effects such as a creaky door, when one is being open adds a creepy element, rather than the natural sound of a door, which might not be picked up.


Sound is especially important to horror films as these are completely dependent of creating a specific, eerie, strange, intense atmosphere and making the audience feel as though they are about to witness something awful, or they themselves actually have it happen to them.

Planning: Initial Ideas To 60 Second Pitch

We began to plan for our main task. We had a few ideas for what our film would be about and went with one that we though we could have the most fun with and be the most effective for a teenage audience.

We then developed our idea for the film, what the plot is, when the characters will introduced, how they will be introduced, the character's details, etc.

To get an idea of how to pitch, we watched YouTube video's on how we should get our idea across to someone. Each member choose a part to explain in the pitch and practised together to see how long it equates to as a group. Our Pitch is below; 1:37.

Research : The Importance Of Opening Titles

In this session we looked at the importance of opening titles of films. We watched a video which explained how opening titles of film have developed and changed with the advancement of technological abilities.


We were then told to got to a website called The Art of Titles, which shown various opening titles to films and programmes. We were told to focus on the opening titles of SE7EN.


Our first task was to list each title that appeared, the time it appeared and in the same case as it appeared. (Name- sentence case. Company- Uppercase)

Time:	Title:
0:03	NEW LINE CINEMA PRESENTS
0:06	AN Arnold Kopelson PRODUCTION
0:10	A FILM BY David Fincher
0:14	Brad Pitt
0:19	Morgan Freeman
0:24	SE7EN
0:29	Gwyneth Paltrow
0:33	Richard Roundtree
0:38	R. Lee Ermey
0:42	John C. McGinley
0:46	Julie Araskog  Mark Boone Junior
0:53	John Cassini  Reginald E. Cathey  Peter Crombie
0:59	Hawthorn James  Michael Masse  Leland Orser
1:04	Richard Portnow  Richard Schiff  Pamala Tyson
1:10	CASTING BY Billy Hopkins, Suzanne Smith  Kerry Borden
1:17	MUSIC BY Howard Shore
1:21	COSTUME DESIGNED BY Michael Kaplan
1:24	EDITED BY Richard Francis- Bruce
1:36	DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY Darius Khondji
1:40	CO-PRODUCERS Stephen Brown  Nana Greenwald  Sanford Panitch
1:44	CO- EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS Lynn Harris Richard Saperstein
1:51	EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS Gianni Nunnari  Dan Kolsrud  Anne Kopelson
1:53	WRITTEN BY Andrew Kevin Walker
1:58	PRODUCED BY Arnold Kopelson  Phyllis Carlyle
2:05	DIRECTED BY David Fincher

Our second task was to list all of the visuals that we were seeing, so all of the images that appeared in a shot, whether it had any detail to it.

Time:	Visual:
0:03	Flipping through a book
0:08	Drawing of hands
0:12	Something metal
0:16	Someone holding a razor blade
0:20	Paper being flipped through
0:28	Note book being opened
0:32	Someone writing notes- shifts/double-vision
0:40	Cutting picture
0:43	Sellow tape being torn, picture places at the top of a piece of paper
0:49	Something being opened
0:52	Pages being turned
1:00	Text being blacked out with marker
1:02	Book being opened
1:07	Picture of a face blacked out
1:10	Eyes then entire face
1:13	Writing notes on paper
1:15	Film being moved up on paper
1:19	Very small rack being placed on a table delicately
1:26	Pages being turned
1:31	Photos
1:35	Book
1:36	Hands holding a needle and thread
1:37	Needle being wiped between fingers
1:38	Pages being turned
1:42	Threading paper
1:43	Stitching paper
1:54	Files
1:55	Scissors moving thin wires/hair into a pouch in a book
1:57	Turning pages in a book
1:58	Pulling cotton/thread tube
2:01	Close up on words “In God” from a green piece of paper
2:02	Books

The next task was to list the typography of the writing. So how it appeared, the colour of the writing, the position on the screen, etc.

 

Time:	Typography:
0:04	White, bold, capitalised, small, right bottom side
0:07	Shadowed, white, some bold/capitalised, names in sentence case
0:11	White, some bold/cap, name in sentence case, shadowed.
0:14	White, spaced apart, sentence case
0:16	White, bold
0:18	Dim, largely shadowed, white
0:19	Sentence case, dim
0:20	Bold, sentence case
0:24	Blurred, small, right top corner
0:25	Double vision, big
0:26	Small, double-vision, big
0:27	Blurred, small, right top side
0:30	White, tilted, right top side, sentence case
0:34	White, right bottom side, sentence case
0:39	White, right top corner, sentence case
0:42	White, sentence case
0:47	White, bold, shadowed, sentence case
0:48	White, double-vision, sentence case
0:54	White, bold, centre bottom
0:56	White, dim, centre bottom
0:57	Bold, large writing across screen, overlapping sentence case - right top
0:59	Bold ,white, right top side
1:04	White, centre bottom, sentence case
1:11	White, centre bottom, some bold/cap, name-  sentence case
1:12	Moved diagonally
1:13	Double-vision
1:14	Top writing shadowed cap, bottom- sentence case
1:15	Large, white, double- vision, whole screen
1:22	Shadowed, bold, name- sentence case
1:24	Double-vision
1:25	Some bold/cap name sentence case
1:26	Smokey appearance, white, bold
1:27	Some bold/cap, shadowed, name in sentence case
1:34	Double-vision, sentence case for name, top centre
1:35	Triple-vision, sentence case for name, bottom centre
1:39	Bold, shadowed, slanted name, sentence case
1:43	Double-vision, some bold/ capitalised, name in sentence case
1:50	Scattered names, in sentence case, title bold/cap
1:53	White, bold, shadowed, sentence case
1:58	White, some bold/cap, name in sentence case
2:00	Blurred- effect like its burning
2:04	Double-vision, name in sentence case

This was another task which meant that we were to list every sound that we heard, what it sounded like and think of the possible effect that it makes to the opening titles of the film. 

Time:	Sounds:
0:01	Crashing-large drum, electronic high hat
0:10	Typewriter
0:11	Distorted sounds
0:16	Muffled sound of a passing train
0:17	Reversed/backward sped up scream
0:22	Typewriter
0:25	Sustained note of a piano
0:27	Typewriter
0:33	Radio interference
0:37	Muffled sound of passing train
0:39	Reversed/backward sped up scream
0:42	Radio interference
0:49	Muffled scrapping of metal
0:51	Tinny sound- wind blowing
1:07	Sustained note of a piano
1:10	Distorted quiet electric guitar
1:11	Heavy electrical whirling
1:14	Metal being hit heavily
1:15	Build-up of electrical buzzing
1:34	Metallic drum beat, car engine
1:36	Guitar distortion
1:43	Reversed/backward sped up scream
1:50	Typewriter
2:01	“You got me closer to god” is sang

Each one of these tables shows how the atmosphere is created at the very start of the film. How it is set up.