Lighting practise shots

Here we practised with light, in preparation for my thriller open title sequence task. Me, Niamh, Rae and Courtney have practised various lightings, on different shots. All the photo's were taken with Courtney's iPhone 6, as we could easily edit them on her phone, and transfer them to blogger.

For this shot, we attempted the 3 point full lighting. We couldn't create it properly as we didn't have all the equipment needed, so we improvised. We used the flash lights on our phones, Niamh was stood at the back of me with the flash light on, this was the back light. Then Rae was stood in front of me with the flash light shinning on my face, this was the full light. Courtney stood at the side of me with the flash light on, whilst taking the picture; this was the key light. We tried to create a 'normal' looking scene, as you can see I am the object in focus. The shot looks very average as I'm looking into the distance. The colours in the background are average, as we exposed more light from the lights above us to create a creamy background.

The purpose of this shot was the create background lighting. The shot created a silhouette of Rae looking out the window, as you can only see the outline of her.  Although this shot is common in romantic films, it is useful for a thriller as it builds up mystery. The pathetic fallacy could be that the whether reflects the characters mood, as it is dull and rainy outside. The whether is usually gloomy in a thriller, therefore this shot goes well with the genre we're trying to create.

This type of lighting is called Chiaroscuro lighting, it is commonly used in horror films, and dramas. We have achieved this lighting through contrasting black and white, we did this by editing the photo on Courtney's phone. In the shot, there is harsh lighting on my face, created again by the flash light on Courtney's phone.  Immediately, the audiences attention is drawn to my face as it is a bright white colour, whereas the majority of the bavckground is black. Although some of the background is white, it isn't as outstanding as the shot is a close up of my face. 

For this shot, the lighting we used was artificial. We made this light ourselevs through the photo effect called 'process', this lighting effect can be found on iPhones when you click the camera icon.

The one circled is the process effect. We chose this particular effect, as we wanted a shot which had a mixed blue, grey and harsh yellow. The shot makes naturally darker objects seem blue, which contrasts to their normal colour. It also makes lighter objects seem yellow, giving them lighter tones. Therefore it gives the effects of light and dark which work together to create this effect.

One page pitch

Deaden hikes (anagram for ‘hide and seek’)

Genre: Horror Thriller

Length: 122 minutes (2 minutes opening)

Target audience: 15-24 years old

Audience appeal:

• Young characters- target audience can relate
• Gives teenagers thrills, however not appropriate for children because of the graphic scenes
• Want viewers to question our film as it addresses mental and gender issues

  Tagline: you are your own worst enemy

 What if you were close but never noticed the dangers around you? What if you were the victim  to your own inner demons? What if? 

 The story synopsis: A runner goes for a jog to get rid of last night’s hangover. Meanwhile, in another part of the wood a distressed victim is on their last thread of life calling to anyone nearby. “Please, please, please” but how can you help someone who’s too far gone? When people say live your life like it’s your last, applied to Iyra Marshall on a day basis because she doesn’t remember most of their life. In her last moments she must decide the best way to spend it is to take a life, but who’s?

 Statement of intent: We want to convey the issues of mental illness and bring the saying “we are our own worst enemies” to real life. We like the idea that throughout life we are fighting our inner demons and our main character clearly does that, but is not successful in winning against the little voice in her head.

 Visual realisation: High contrast in many scenes. We want it to have a dark colour but enough that it doesn’t have a bad camera quality. We don’t want to alter the colour too much but rather make it more defined. It’s going to have an intense atmosphere to it so the audience will be able to feel some realism in it.

Rae Griffiths, Niamh Barratt, Courtney Lynch and Hyleana Anthony

Initial thriller ideas

For my thriller, I have chosen to work with Niamh, Rae and Courtney. This is who I worked with for my preliminary task, apart from Rae who is a new member to our group:). 

We put our brains together and brainstormed some initial indea' for our thriller film. The sub genre in our thriller is horror, therefore we was thinking of having a narrative about a psychiatric patient who has espcaped from a mental asylum. Obviously we will be respectful to those who do suffer from mental illnesses in our opening title. We want our opening to be set in a wood. Therefore we was thinking of all of us having their own character in the opening eg someone's a runner, someone's taking their dog on a walk. We imagined that the camera would zoom in on a foot print left by the runner, which would contain a title of the directors name or an actors name. We thought this would give the effect of mystery aswell as horror. The viewer would see someone tied up to a tree, screeming for help but they would be dressed in white. Then we thought the person who was tied up could be the patient, who tied themselves up. The patient is now laughing, to suggest they have a split personality and clearly suffer from insanity. 

For the title of the film, we wanted an anagram of a word that's all jumbled up to transform into the word 'asylum'. This is because we was thinking of naming the film 'asylum' but we're not sure yet. Here is a picture of the spider diagram we created in lesson on our idea's. This will give you an insight of the roles we all have, and the shots we want to use within the opening. 

Screenplay of Jaws