CHANGE OF PLAN!!

Tuesday 1st feb 2022

We have changed her plan

- Today we had another meeting with Tom and Adam to brainstorm more of our idea. We all had a conversation wondering if our idea would be exciting to watch and film. At the start of the lesson we didn't have many more ideas but as soon as we were put in a room together to brainstorm we managed to come up with a very good concept. Tom had mentioned when he was talking to us that our sequence should have a 'punch' at the end which makes the audience remember our title sequence. He also mentioned that the Netflix series You season 3 could be good inspiration to make our sequence exciting. 

- Mia and Doug hadn't watched series 3 of You so I showed them the trailer. They both really liked the way that it seemed scary however it wasn't stereotypically 'thriller'. They also liked the concept between a toxic marriage and the idea that you would "kill for your partner". We then began thinking how this could influence our already planned out sequence. I thought that we could flip the character if a man following a girl to the women following her husband around. We thought it would be effective to keep our original location in Shere as we can can still use the location of the pub, cafe and bridge. 

- Another positive about changing our idea is that we will have a larger cast to find so we can have auditions, we have more locations so it is more interesting for the audience to watch and it will be exciting to film and watch.

You - trailer

Brainstorm of our idea

1. It will begin in a sitting food of a families house. The wife is sitting on the sofa with her husband and son watching tv. The husband then gets up saying he's going to "go for a drink" at a pub leaving her wife questioning who he is going to see.

2. The scene will now be set in a pub. You will see two close up shots. One of the man drinking and one of a women drinking. The audience will expect that its the husband and wife. When the shot cuts to a mid shot you see the husband drinking with another women. Then a blonde haired lady crosses the frame of the shot which implicates to the audience that its the wife. The husband doesn't notice her.

3. The lady sitting at the bar will then look over her shoulder to the lady and the shot will cut to another location (the lady will be in the same place so the edit will seem effortless.) You get a quick scene showing the lady being killed.

4. The scene changes to be a birds eye view shot of the husband and wife lying in bed. The husband is asleep but the wife is awake, lying on her back and looking up at the ceiling. She is contemplating how she is going to stop her husband from cheating.

5. The next scene will be set in a cafe. The shot is filmed through a window of a cafe. You see the husband buying a drink for another lady. He is passing her a coffee as they are standing at the counter. The shot than pans around until it reaches a mirror in the cafe. In the reflection you see the back of the wife and then she turns around. She is holding her son in her arms. 

6. her killed

7. The camera then cuts to a warm lit Childs bedroom. You see the husband holding the child and the wife it stroking his head. It's the last moment you see the family all together in the sequence before the ending.

8. The next scene is set on a wall with trees in the background. The wife is sitting smoking a cigarette contemplating her life with her husband. The light is grey and you can see the smoke float up in the air. This scene won't last for too long but it breaks up the moment of chaos with calmness before the ending.

9. The last scene is set in the hallway of the couples house. The husband walks through the door and the son walks into the bottom right side of the frame. The son says "mum" as you see the sons scared face. The son backs away. Behind the husband you see the wife holding a bat. As the bat goes infront of the camera (when she is swinging it) the title comes up.

Backstory

 Wed 26th Jan 2022

Whats the backstory of Thomas

Thomas grew up in a big city in his early life with his single mum. His Dad left when he was 7 as he cheated on Thomas's Mum. When he was 16 his Mum moved them to a small village in the countryside as she wanted a new life. At first Thomas didn't want to move as he had to leave his friends and school. When he is 18 he meets this girl called Cassie who also lives in the village. She works in a small cafe in the centre of the village. In the village Thomas is known as a quiet mysterious man but he does have a reputation for sleeping around. Both Cassie and Thomas get on very well and start dating a year after knowing each other. Their relationship is perfect and Thomas experiences live that he's never felt before. However, after 4 years of dating when they are 23, Cassie has to move away to Scotland meaning that she has to put their relationship on a break. This breaks both of them but they both now that this has to happen as its an amazing job offer that she can't decline. A few months after she leaves, Thomas is broken and starts to sleep around again as a way to try and forget Cassie. He knows that she won return back to the small village when she has experienced amazing things up in Scotland. He becomes very depressed due to having meaningless relationships and as his mom has become older and unwell. He is trying to take care of her with also juggling work. He decides to go for a walk around the village that they used to spend time in. When walking around, her favourite song places in his headphones bring back all of the memories of them together. He visits the places that they used to go to and also visits her working in the cafe where he first saw her. He keeps getting constant flashbacks of moments that they have had together. He is completely destroyed with loosing her and feels like he will never be the same again. Sadly his mum passes away which leaves his feeling isolated and lonely. He needs a job and see's one in the cafe. One evening before his shift is about to end, someone walks through the door. It's Cassie.  He takes a moment to process as he can't believe that after years of believing that she will never come back, she has returned. He starts to see the light come back in his life.    

Our chosen soundtrack

 Mon 31st Jan 2022

Chosen soundtrack

We chose Babushka by Kate Moss because we thought it was most appropriate to what was happening in our opening title sequence. We also thought that having a song which is suspenseful and is building up to the chorus which is the tighten part of the non-diegetic soundtrack. We new that due to it being to long, we were going to have to edit it to be shorter so that it fits the 2 minute mark. I really like Kate's version of the song as well.

Narration of action and types of shots

Friday 28th Jan

Shot by shot - whole group brainstorm

* close up shots of perspiring glass being drank by a man

* cuts too close up of women drinking from a wine glass and leaving lipstick on the glass

* cut out to a wide shot of the man sat alone at bar 

* He starts to leave and cuts too a mid shot of him walking towards door 

* mid shot from other side of door

* Close up of him putting the headphones into his pocket

* Back to the same mid shot as man puts in headphones 

* camera pans along as he walks straight out of bar and turns camera follows him

* cuts to wide shot of widow of cafe with girl

* The man walks past *the camera shot wont move he will walk across the screen* as he walks past the woman she will disappear.

* Cuts to wide shot of the man sitting on a wall

* Close up shot of him getting a cigarette as a second hand comes in*nails painted same hands as on the wine glass* and lights the cigarette 

* extreme close up zoom to her lighting cigarette in slow motion close up.

* Zooms back out and he is just sitting on the wall alone holding the lighter in his other hand.

* sideways mid shot of him smoking as he gets up to leave

* Spike Lee Dolly shot of him walking down the road towards the bridge from face on.

* Cut to the girl, *studio shoot* close up of her 

* Cut back to spike lee dolly shot

* Cut to girl close up her in bed

* Cut back to spike lee dolly shot

* Cut back and forth speeding up pace quickening

* Cuts to mid shot of him on the bridge screaming and will slowly zoom out *title will be overlayed over the top in big white text*

Whats a Spike Lee Dolly Shot

A Spike Lee Dolly shot consist of having the camera operator and the actor on a dolly so the only action moving is the action happening is off the dolly. This is called the 'Double Dolly Shot'. This is effective as both camera and actor moves simultaneously which looks cool for the audience. It also makes the actors look as if they are floating or hovering above the floor.

Casting, costume and props

Thurs 27th Jan 2022

Todays lesson

In todays lesson we looked at the costumes and props we could use throughout our scene. We looked at all our our scenes chronologically and worked out what props we needed. We found out that we didnt need a lot of them however, certain props will make our scene seem naturalistic. After that we thought obout the criteria for Thomas and Cassie and what costume they will need. We discussed that both Thomas and Cassie need to be aged around 30 however still need to have a young quality. I think that Thomas should wear jeans and a hoodie as he is still trying to act younger than he is and reject on his youth. He is wearing headphones which is the soundtrack of the sequence. We then discussed Cassie's costume and criteria. All three of us imagined her to have blonde hair and also be aged around 30. For her costume we thought that she should have redlipstick to show youth, wear a scarf and a long coat.

Casting

criteria for Thomas: around 30, preferable brown hair, bit of stubble 

criteria for Cassie: around 30 , preferable blonde straight hair

Costume

costume for outside Thomas: puffer jacket, hoodie underneath, jeans, headphones, trainers

costume for outside Cassie: straight blonde hair, sweatshirt, acrylic nails, long wool coat, red lipstick, scarf

costume for studio shoot Thomas: white t shirt, pleated pj bottoms

costume for studio shoot Cassie: dark red tank top and grey sweatpants

props

- headphones

- cigarette 

- lighter 

- wine and beer glass

- bed

- lamp

- lipstick

Context - names and music

 Tuesday 25th Jan 2021

Character names

In todays lesson we were brainstorming name ideas for the characters and what impact they will have on the entire plot. All of us decided that the names would need to to feel connected to their characters so we took a while brainstorming names. Doug like to use initials for inspiration. For instance he referred to the male as C.K as he thought that his character represented 'Captain Kirk." I spent lots of my time thinking of many film and tv characters to create inspiration for the female protagonist. I liked the surname Sheridan which I thought of from the tv program Normal People and Mumma Mia. I then thought that her first name should be Cassie due to my imagination thinking that she would be blonde and Cassie from skins is blonde. Doug chose the name Thomas C which I really liked and it also can be abriviated to T,C.

Male protagonist: C.K, Ozzie, Oz, Thomas, T,C

Female protagonist ideas: Cassie Sheridan

Music ideas

We decided that we wanted the music to be parallel to some parts of the action on screen but as we we're pretending that the soundtrack is what he is listening to on his headphones, we wanted it to be a little bit contrapuntal. Mia and I spent some time over a few lessons looking at music, we found a song called Become a Mountain by Dan Deacon. We liked this song as it has a build up and a section of fast place music. We thought the fast part would work well for the studio scenes when he is having flashbacks. Doug also did some research and found the song Its a Trip by JoyWave. We all liked this song as it could easily be a song Thomas would be listening too and it also contains a fast pace section.

music ideas: joy wave- its a trip

- I chose this song due to the amazing build up and chorus. We want to show the flashbacks when the climax of the song is happening. This will be very memorable for the audience as I hope that it very romantic and emotive. 

Joywave- it s a trip

music ideas: Babushka - Kate Bush

- I really liked this song as both the genre of the song and the lyrics of the song match what we want our opening title sequence to include. I think that this song matches the thriller genre we want to portray to the audience. Kate Bush is also a very famous singer so using a popular song will gain more attention and it will be rememberable.

Babushka - Kate Bush

music ideas: Become a Mountain - Dan Deacon

Become a mountain - Dan Deacon

Pitching ideas

 Tue 25th Jan 2022

Pitching ideas to Adam and Tom

Today was the first day that we told anyone else our idea other and we pitched it to Adam our teachers and Tom who is a camera opperator. We first explain our location to him which he agreed that Shere would be a perfect location to film in as it contains a pub, cafe and bridge. We then told them our concept of the whole film and for the opening title sequence. We explained that we wanted to communicate that a man has gone disappear from loosing his first love. He is fed up from having meaningless relationships with loads of women and his mental heath is at the worst than it has been for years. He decides to go back to the place that he used to spend most of his time with Cassie and reminisce about them together. When he's walking he is portrayed as heartbroken when he keeps getting flashbacks of them together. At the end of the sequence you see him standing on a bridge screaming as he can't bare to be away from his first love.  They both really liked the overall concept of our idea as they both could imagine it being a title sequence and they could imagine the rest of the film. They both thought that a way of showing that he his having flashbacks of times with his lover, we could have the lady popping up in shots but then disappearing as it would be a good indication that she leaves to go somewhere in the whole film. Tom really liked our studio shoot idea and thought we could have two different flashbacks. One of them shot in natural yellow lighting and the other one shot in red or pink lighting. The yellow natural lighting could portray the natural comfortable times together and the red lighting could portray more intimacy between the couple. We all agreed that this would be a cool idea as it gives us more to shoot and would look effective as it would establish that he is thinking about when he was with the girl now that he has lost her. We then brainstormed more about interesting shots and effective lighting that we could use to create impression that the love he once had has now been lost.

Lighting for red studio shoot- contain lots of flashbacks 

                                                                                    Lighting for natural studio shoot - filmed on bed

Problems that we might need to face:

If we want to contain the bed studio shoot we will need our actor to be over 18 and we would need to make sure that we get permission as even though there will not be anything inappropriate happening, we still have to make sure parents and them are okay with it. This is if we wanted them to lie next to each other on the bed as some people might think that we are implying inappropriate things are happening between them.