General Conventions of Definitely Maybe

- Producer/Distributer e.g Working title, Universal
- Close up of package that is dropped on the table containing an address - Mr William Hayes of 1932 West End Avenue,New York. This provides exposition of the setting and is narrative enigma to who exactly Mr William Hayes is.
- There is then a medium shot of a man clicking his pen whilst sitting at his desk. This then provides the fact that this could be William Hayes.
- The letter is then opened revealing divorce papers. This provides the audience with an understanding or pre-judgement towards the character. Also due to the fact that he himself has opened the letter, it reveals that he is William Hayes.
- The character then reveals that he has a daughter who he picks up and therefore there is a mid-shot of him exiting the building in to the streets of New York.
- It is a sunny day which provides exposition on his mood

SD- Idents Idents

We are currently creating our ideas we obviously need two one being for production and one for distribution. We had to think on the spot and came up with two names, one beingCliffhanger productions but we found that it has already been used http://www.imdb.com/find?s=all&q=cliffhanger+productions so we decided to play around with it and change it slightly to 'Cliffanger' productions. We changed our distribution company  from 'Boredshore' because when we were desinging our idents we thought bricolage made more sense.
For our distribution company we decided to go with 'Bricolage' because we hadn't heard it before and it was kind of out last resort if we couldnt think of any other ideas. We have now started to produce the 'Bricolage' ident which will appear in brick on screen with white text,with harsh font.

MA- Classification

As we previously said in our treatment we are aiming for a 15 rating on our opening.  After looking at the BBFC website we still think that our film fits with their 15 criteria.
The reason we have gone for a 15 rating rather than a 12 is because the BBFC states that classification is stricter on video works and we feel that the violence we imply is quite strong. The BBFC have this view on horror;

Horror

The use of frightening elements which might scare or unsettle an audience is part of a long tradition of story telling and film making. Many children enjoy the excitement of scary sequences, but, where films are targeted at a younger audience, classification decisions will take into account such factors as the frequency, length and detail of scary scenes as well as horror effects, including music and sound, and whether there is a swift and reassuring outcome.

Older audiences often pay to see horror films because they like being frightened or shocked and such works are classified at an appropriate category to ensure that the young and vulnerable are protected from too intense an experience.

We feel that our film although we are trying to build up tension throughout we dont show any violence till the end which is a very short sequence and we do not show any gore but let the audience use their imagination.

The BBFC's criteria of violence only changes slightly between 12 and 15 ratings.

Violence- 12 RATING

Moderate violence is allowed but should not dwell on detail. There should be no emphasis on injuries or blood, but occasional gory moments may be permitted if justified by the context. Sexual violence may only be implied or briefly and discreetly indicated, and must have a strong contextual justification.

Violence- 15 RATING

Violence may be strong but should not dwell on the infliction of pain or injury. The strongest gory images are unlikely to be acceptable. Strong sadistic or sexualised violence is also unlikely to be acceptable.

There may be detailed verbal references to sexual violence but any portrayal of sexual violence must be discreet and have a strong contextual justification.

ALL- Update on problems with shooting Update to Casting

We are supposed to be filming this weekend but problems with the location have let us down, we are going to have to reshoot our outdoor footage today and then do the inside filming either monday or tuesday as the woman that owns the salon is away at the moment therefore we cant get the key to get access to the salon. If this affects our cast on the day of filming we will have to re cast which will be stressful as the due ate for our work is friday.

SD- Preshooting Adjustments to the storyboard Preshooting Adjustments to the storyboard

We will be re-shooting on either saturday or sunday afternoon this weekend and be getting plenty of coverage and shot variation that we can edit successfully. We have made some minor changes to our storyboard recetnly so we will be adding a new one on soon.

The changes we have made are to the ending of the opening as we had problems shooting the violent scenes as it is based in a salon we wanted the murder to happen when the victim got out of the sunbed and would be brutally murdered with an axe although we had to think about how we would do this due to clothing of the victim as normally when using a sunbed you dont wear anything or wear paper knickers. After thinking about it we decided that Colette (victim) will get into the sunbed as it is an upright one she will be wearing a towel and the towel will be placed over the door of the sunbed and Katie (the killer) will take it from her then when colette comes out of the sunbed we will have a point of view shot of Colette and we will hear her scream then the screen will go black. Finally we will have a low angle shot of Colettes leg sticking out of the sunbed cubicle with blood dripping down it and onto the floor. Before the killing we are going to have a high angle shot looking down at the seat in the waiting room where George (other customer) was earlier seating providing narrative enigma as to who is the killer in the opening.

Sound track

Although we have been concentrarting on our idents recently to get them the best we can we are starting to think about soundtrack now we have previously decided that we're going to use Garage Band and we hope to create something along the lines of what is in Paranormal Activity on the shot when we realise the customer is missing aswell as the owner (Narrative enigma) as to who is the killer at 0:54 in this clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SSc3bmdd8o
at this point the date and time could appear on screen as often in serious films and horrors this is the case such as in halloween, paranormal m activities one and two and peeping tom etc which we will be discussing in a Vodcast on Tuesday.
We have decided we dont want a song playing all the way through like in some openings. We want to have some diagetic sounds but have them more exaggerated. For example we want to shot the muder weapon (axe) scraping along the floor and we want to have the sound of the salon door slamming.
By looking at horror opening we have noted that many opening do not have a song playing all the way through but rather short noises that create suspense. InHell Night there was diagetic music playing as it was set at a party but this obviously doesnt fit with the context of our opening.
Many films such as Halloween and The Ring have a sound track thatas starts off rather slowly and then picks up. Its clear that a lot of high pitch notes andstrings are used such as a piano and violins.

EM- Ideas for Film Opening

PLANS- 


- Find out if actress can film during the evening.
- Get images for casting
- Describe ideal characters
- Think about characters form existing movies e.g Psycho 
- Describe scream queen and others
- Create scripts for actors/actresses 
- Research on male gaze theory
-




Psycho meets Halloween


- Establishing shot of the house
- Potentially do a shot of them being stalked from outside.
- Trees near the house, stalking, point of view shot from behind the tree
- Male enters the salon
- Close up of the beauticians hand while she's writing down his appointment (we never see her face until the very end
- Medium shot of male character walking up the stairs
- Comes into the waiting room where we see customer 2

- Close up of beautician stabbing putting scissors into a scissor holder
- Medium shot of her coming up the stairs
- Over the shoulder shot of her on the side looking at the mirror with th reflection of the two customers
- Beautician offers tea/cake to male customer which is used as an excuse to use a knife to stab the victim
- She asks for first customer
- Takes her into the massage/waxing room
- She accidentaly hurts the customer and then offers 6 minutes in the tanning bed
- In the mean time, male customer goes outside to take a phone call
- Beautician sets the timer on the tanning bed for the customer
- While the customer is in the tanning bed we hear an axe scraping on the floor contrasted with the non-digetic music, e.g organ
- Beautician then slowly enters the room  and opens the tanning bed door 
- Point of view shot from the victim and killer says "Times up!" This is the first time we see her face
- There is then a black out, and then we see a leg hanging out of the tanning bed with blood dripping down
- The male customer hears the scream and pauses in shock

Preliminary Exercise:  Continuity task involving filming and editing a character opening a door, The The prelim exercise was to demonstrate match on action. shot/reverse shot and the 180 degree rule.  By using a shot reverse shot it helps to reveal the characters more by them having a conversation and the binary opposition between them both are visible.  With the soundtrack of the prelim, we used a site to download sound and insert it into the prelim.

Preshooting Adjustments to the storyboard

We will be re-shooting on either saturday or sunday afternoon this weekend and be getting plenty of coverage and shot variation that we can edit successfully. We have made some minor changes to our storyboard recetnly so we will be adding a new one on soon.

The changes we have made are to the ending of the opening as we had problems shooting the violent scenes as it is based in a salon we wanted the murder to happen when the victim got out of the sunbed and would be brutally murdered with an axe although we had to think about how we would do this due to clothing of the victim as normally when using a sunbed you dont wear anything or wear paper knickers. After thinking about it we decided that Colette(victim) will get into the sunbed as it is an upright one she will be wearing a towel and the towel will be placed over the door of the sunbed and Katie (the killer)will take it from her then when colette comes out of the sunbed we will have a point of view shot of Colette and we will hear her scream then the screen will go black. Finally we will have a low angle shot of Colettes leg sticking out of the sunbed cubicle with blood dripping down it and onto the floor. Before the killing we are going to have a high angle shot looking down at the seat in the waiting room where George (other customer) was earlier seating providing narrative enigma as to who is the killer in the opening.

Idents

We are currently creating our ideas we obviously need two one being for production and one for distribution. We had to think on the spot and came up with two names, one being Cliffhanger productions but we found that it has already been used http://www.imdb.com/find?s=all&q=cliffhanger+productions so we decided to play around with it and change it slightly to 'Cliffanger' productions. For our distribution company we decided to go with 'Boredshore' because we hadn't heard it before and it was kind of out last resort if we couldnt think of any other ideas. We have now started to produce the 'Boredshore' ident which will appear in red on screen in quite playful round text, it bounces up and down in the line of the letters.

Genre Summary.

'Horror films are unsettling movies that strive to elicit the emotions of fear, disgust and horror from viewers. They often feature scenes that startle the viewer through the means of macabre and the supernatural' 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horror_film
The most popular ranging from 'The Rite' to 'Zomieland' all rated highly amongst the public for example on imdb http://www.imdb.com/genre/horror
By viewing all the films we have and deconstructing each there are a number 'of characteristics we have noticed, for example Blue tints are often used to create an eary feeling in openings and sometimes throughout films in specific scenes for example in Halloween the establishing shot of the house (extreme long shot) has a blue tint. It also uses framing in the shot eg. the tree in the corner of the shot coming slightly over the screen on the camera and then cutting to the tree and doing a point of view shot from behind the tree giving us a stalker effect and somebody is watching. False scares are used to create tension for the audience for example in A Nightmare on Elm Street the idea of a false scare is connotedby the girl having a nightmare when the audience portray it as what is actually happening in the film and then she wakes up although the prefered reading that it was a nightmare (used signified by an orange tint) was picked up but the audience (our group) view on it was the orange tint was used to signify the heat of the room as the temperature would be high in a factory.

When thinking about idents an example being Warner Brothers, change there idents to suit the genre nd film that they are representing for example to the left the idents was origionally gold and blue but presented it in grey and black when Harry Potter and the deathly hallows was released (right) also when The Matrix was released they changed the ident to green (left) representing horror.
We found that weather representations (Pathetic fallacy) is used to
                                                      signify the mood of the setting in openings for example in Sweeney Todd (set in London) it is raining at the beginning which could also be portrayed the mood and feelings of what is to come with also the darkness of the tunnel and one significant figure of a man. Often near a detched house with open windows often american country looking, like in Jennifers Body which also uses a false scare when the stalker is staring at the victim and she jumps creating tension in the audience.
Accidents at the beginning of films such as somebody cutting themselves with a razor are often used also another example of Sweeney Todd when it happens in the barbers shop which is our first connection with blood and foreshadows what is to come. Sometimes directors and producers play with your emotions offering false security at the scariest points in films creating your vulnerability but this is of course the whole point.

Preparations for filming and filming ideas.

For our film we are going to have to make blood we have tried out a few ways such as using ketchup and a number of different liquids to do so but all seemed to fail. In the end we looked on the internet and researched different ways of how we could make it and found the ideal way which wasn't too messy because obviously we cant create to much mess in the salon. http://www.zimbio.com/Recipes/articles/sln3fHiUCvr/10+Recipes+for+Fake+Blood
We tried it out for ourselves and decided to go with it because it looked realistic.
We also have been thinking about if the idea of the axe would would because we want it to be believable.
We want the mise-en-scene to be realistic so we are having things like tweezers, wax strips which is obviously a reference to the title and if we can we think it would be a good idea to have things like magazines and newspapers in the waiting room that refer to a story of some mass murderer or serial killing and happening like that in the local area to us but this is obviously specific and we dont want anchorage to look to forced on set.

Film Openings

We normally expect film openings to set the entire tone of the film. However, there are dynamic choices which we normally see and expect and there are factors which we do not expect.


In the opening sequence there is normally an establishing shot to signify the time period and location. In some cases, the opening sequence is just of the location and we are not introduced to any characters. However, in most cases the audience sees the victim but the identity of the killer is hidden. This identity is kept hidden by use of tracking shots and point of view shots. In the film opening, there is not immediate action which takes place, but there is a build up and a tension that rises to keep the audience in suspense.


In film openings, we are normally given exposition which sometimes provides the time period/date and the place. On the other hand, this exposition does not always have to be the place or time, but through the dialogue. In the opening, through this dialogue we are introduced to the characters  and therefore we can pre-judge. Exposition can also be used to provide anchorage such as in Halloween the words 'Halloween Night 1963' come on to the screen.

General Codes and Conventions of Film Openings

In looking at a range of various film openings, there are various elements which are applied. 

Firstly, the camera shots/angles which are used play a big part in setting the tone of the film. I have noticed that in horror films the camera angles are either high angles, panning shots or point of view shots. For instance in Halloween, a point of view shot is used which is focused on a sub-urban house. To give a dramatic effect the camera is not still but it is shaking in order to build up tension and suspense but also to show the vulnerability of the victims inside the house. Shots like these are used to create narrative enigma for the audience as they do not see the killers face straight away. Also, another example of a point of view shot is in Jennifer's Body. Like Halloween, there is a point of view shot of the supposed "killer" which shows the house in the opening scene. Due to this trend, point of view shots are used to set the scene and to provide details on the background, social status and the overall feel of the neighborhood.


Secondly, sound also contributes to the film openings as it not only provides anchorage for the genre, but it sets the mood for the first opening minutes. For instance, in 5ive Girls, there is a diagetic sound of an organ which sets the tone of film as it provides a haunting and oppressive tone. However, sound can also portray the time period as we see in Hell Night. Diagetic sound is being played from a radio and it is typical rock music sung by a woman, and this therefore signifies the time period. In the opening sequence for Halloween, the non-diagetic music is fast paced with a combination of slow string notes which brings an eeriness. 

Thirdly, I have seen throughout various slasher films that they each have a tint to the lens. This blue tint is used to signify that it is night time in most of the films. Most of these have blue tints such as  Bride of Chucky, Peeping Tom and Halloween. However, some use red or orange tints to signify danger such as A Nightmare  On Elm Street.