Feedback 2 - Mrs Fernandez

Emma, Amelia, Charlie,

Well done - the blog is shaping up to be level 4 evidence of group planning and concept development.  Your pitch demonstrated that you had worked extremely hard to research forms and conventions and that you had considered all angles of your treatment and character motivation.  There were gaps, however on technical ideas, however you have reflected on this and using recces and test shooting, you are working though issues related to the train station location, amount of content you had planned for 2 minutes and other complexities in your initial pitch.  Nevertheless, it is better to have a wide range of ideas and cut it down, than the opposite.  Final point about the pitchl in future, make sure that you rehearse and plan timings carefully as yours did run on considerably and would have benefitted from editing.

In order to work towards level 4 planning - you should now:
1. post audience research, results and a reflection on how this informed your concept development
2. Tidy up blog - all posts should have highlighted key words, lots of still frame images / clips, colour to help read sub headings, avoid great long paragraphs, but instead break up to bullet points so that you demonstrate L4 use of ICT in presentation
3. evidence of your storyboarding and animatic, with titles
4. Clear reflection on how your treatment has changed
5. Amelia and Emma - technical analysis needs reflection at end and clear link between this process and  your concept development
6. recce photos / images from shoots - make these post much more visual

You are using the blog well to document what you are doing each lesson, however you also need to include detail on how your concept is developing and changing.  Stills from footage taken and what you have learnt from it would be very useful evidence.

ER; Title Research

True Detective (2014) — Art of the Title

Assess:
The title appears through a closing gap in the shape of a cross before vanishing. This has religious connotations, which is something often featured in horror. The writing has a texture to it which reflects the hellish scenes shown previously, like flames. The font is bold (vital to see the texture) in capital evenly spaced characters while the colours used are all shades of red to portray death, danger and hell. The actual title is portrayed to actually be printed on the metal cross which makes it conveys realism. It then disappears in a distorted movement into the cross, as if it is being swallowed up with the light. The image can already be seen through the cross which shows the silhouette of an expanse of grass with fire.

How we will take inspiration:
We have looked into many title sequences for inspiration, this one stood out as we believe it is possible to recreate and will make our horror opening much more professional looking and even scarier. We want to use the method of showing the image through the cross in our piece because we feel it will be very effective in establishing the horror genre.

 

Group: Reflection on Thursdays 23/01/14 lesson

Within todays lesson, Amelia completed editing all the footage we have shot so far, Emma-Louise continued adding sound onto the animatic as well as uploading it onto youtube and Charlie documented our progress so far as well as looking at different title styles we could use.

Group: Reflection on Wednesdays 22/01/14 lesson

In Wednesdays lesson, we began to film scenes from High Brooms train station of the final parts of the dream sequence and the parts in which are on the platform of the station. Whilst Amelia took on the role of lead camera women, Charlie and Emma-Louise played two of the main actors who feature within the opening sequence. We managed to film the final parts of the dream sequence within the tunnel at High Brooms, however didn't manage to film the scenes on the station platform. After having a discussion about the train station location, we came to the conclusion that it may appear difficult for the audience to interpret the idea that Emma-Louise's death is nothing to do with Charlie's current location within the narrative. We thought it would cause confusion and so wanted to avoid the idea altogether. Therefore, when we arrived back at school all 3 group members decided on an alternative location of a bus stop. The bus stop we are planning to use is one very near to High Brooms train station and we choose this particular bus stop as it provides an interesting visual background of a passing train. This can then be linked in with the dream sequence filmed in the train station tunnel, as it can reveal that the murderer is closer than she thinks.

Group: Reflection of Tuesdays 21/01/14 lesson

Within todays lesson, all 3 group members were assigned different tasks to be completed.

• Amelia continued editing the new footage on premiere (perfecting the timing of each shot) and acting as lead editor for the group.
• Emma-Louise continued including sound on the animatic.
• Charlie wrote the post updates of what we have achieved within each lesson so far, as well as acting as a secondary editor to Amelia.

Group: Reflection of Mondays 20/01/14 lesson

During the lesson, all 3 of the group members were assigned individual tasks to complete.

• Amelia began to edit the new footage we had recorded from the weekend on premiere and acted as lead editor for the group.
• Emma-Louise continued the development of our animatic (adding sound and tidying it up).
• Charlie added the footage recorded from Friday onto the location reccie we pursued earlier, as well as acting as a secondary editor to Amelia.

We all worked on our tasks throughout the lesson, having achieved quite a lot within the hour. Amelia managed to edit together half of the footage recorded from the weekend, Emma-Louise included the majority of the sound onto the animatic, however not quite completing all of it and Charlie added some examples of the footage from Friday onto the location reccie.

Group: Reflection of Fridays 17/01/14 lesson

On Friday, Charlie and Amelia went on a practice shoot to High Brooms station (during lunch) with an aim to investigate  how our final footage would look using different camera angles. Whilst at the station, we decided that the time of day was suitable for when we actually want to film, between 12:30 and 1:30pm, when there is still light available. We also discovered that the time of day was convenient for us to film, as the station was abandoned with only a few people being present at times when a train arrived at the platform. We recorded footage of ourselves walking past a convex mirror as we thought this looked very sinister and therefore would look effective to an audience. We further went onto record footage within the train station tunnel, which provided an eerie feel as it appeared damp and closed in; we felt this image of the tunnel would be very conventional of a horror opening sequence and would be an element we could incorporate into our final production. Whilst we were at the station, we were lucky enough to record an oncoming train in which gave us a much clearer idea of what angles we could use within our opening sequence. We also gained an idea of what technical aspects we could include within each shot, such as a pan, track up and what we could use for our establishing shot.

After we were satisfied that we had gathered recordings of all parts of the station we were planning to use, we came back to school to work on our props, risk assessments and call sheets. Whilst Amelia took the role of producing the chloroform bottle she had collected from the art department, Charlie completed the risk assessment and call sheets for all 3 of our chosen locations. Unfortunately Emma-Louise couldn't be with us on this day due to flooding and closed motorways, affecting her travel to get into school.