Chosen Music

After our problem with finding an appropriate piece of music, we have finally found a piece that fits for our film, and our researching has paid off. The piece is called 'Hotel' and is quite dark, it has been described as 'A slowly evolving melody winds like a snake as percussion adds echoing accents. Lonely flute notes give the feeling of an evil presence biding time for the cover of darkness.' This music begins when  we have our first black screen after the police interview and it starts out slow and gradually get louder and much more tense. Nicole and Hannah are very fond of the music, however I think it is a bit too dark compared to the screenplay, but its the best we can find and I think I will grow used to it after a while.

Solutions

We got in on Monday and fully explained what happened over the weekend with filming to our teachers, and they said they would extend the deadline for us. This is a big help to us as we are not able to edit on Friday as we are on a school trip, and our actors have let us down again with filimg on Thursday, therefore we are going to film this Saturday 31st March. They have extended our deadline until the second week of the holidays on Thursday 12th April which means we will have plenty of time to film anything extra and edit it all together. Although we are not comfortable to have missed our deadlines, our planning was in place and our actors let us down, we have to understand that this isnt the actors work and the only way we are going to finish our work is if we take this deadline. We are taking the mac home because we cant access it in the holidays, we then just need to export our work and put it on a memory stick for our teacher and hand it in.

Dilemma

Yesterday we all turned up at Nicoles house and 10 minutes after we arrived, our male actor couldnt make it, we then had no option but to cancel. As we were refilming most of our film anyway we decided to call around and find any male who could fill in for us, however no one was available so we couldnt film anything. Both of the actors are no available to film until Thursday 30th which means we now have a very tight schedule, as we have one day to edit. Hopefully our unreliable actors dont cancel on us again last minute, we just have to get on with it and get it done as quickly as possible and at the highest standard.

Adjustments

After speaking to our teachers about the ending of the film, we have decided to re-film the end so we have a better reaction from Charli, instead of her just letting Luke grab her. This shouldnt be too difficult as we filmed this using artificial light and we havent moved the room since we last filmed so continuity shouldn't be a problem. We are going to add dialogue to this scene too as we think this will also make it look more realistic. We have decided that Charli doesnt know Luke and she doesnt have any idea why he's kidnapped her. We don't want it to be long but we want it to have a full dramatic effect on the audiences reaction, especially the build up to him holding her down. We have decided on

Charli: *terrified* Who, who are you?! (Pause) What do you want?!
Luke: *firm* Don't aggrivate me
Charli: *terrified* No, dont, dont touch me
Luke: *shouting* I said DONT AGGRIVATE ME (grabbing her violently)
Charli: *struggling* (screaming and whining when he covers her mouth)

Additionally as we are going to have the police interview before these scenes, we have decided to re-shoot the beginning of Luke where he is sitting in the office. We are going to have him reading the newspaper we made and then smirking and laughing at it and then he will chuck it down as if he doesnt care at all.wel will then continue with him hearing her banging and begin to walk up the stairs. We have devised a shot list:

1. Establishing shot of study
2. Point of view shot of newspaper
3. Close up of face - smirk
4. Point of view table - putting down newspaper
5. Close up of face- hold hears noise
6. Long shot, Luke gets up and walks out

We plan to film this on Saturday 24th March so we have time to edit it all and to hand in our final piece 31st March.

First Draft

Here is our First Draft to our film. We need to improve our continuity, pace, realistic ending, title to the film. Also we may record some of Charli's heavy breathing so we can add it over the top and hear her panic better.

Setting up and Filming Police Detective Scene

Yesterday we filmed the police detective scene with our drama teachers as the actors. We decided to film this at lunch time so the teachers were available. We used the previous lesson to set up the room to make it look more like an interview room. The room was ideal as it was our media teachers office which include a phone and filing cabinet which made it look more realistic.

After we began to set up we waited for the teachers to arrive which was a problem as one teachers forgot and we had to go and find them meaning we didn't start debriefing them and filming twenty minutes late, leaving us with half and hour. Although this we a lot of pressure for us as we would not be able to film them again if needed until next week, pushing us to edit very quickly. Therefore we decided to film the scene with three cameras simultaneously, me, Nicole and Hannah each went at different points around the room with different distances and angles so it saved time. This also benefitted us because it meant we would be able to use the same scene so there would be no differences in speech and positioning of the characters. We had to ensure that none of the cameras were in shot whilst filming which often meant only two people could film, nevertheless using two cameras was faster than one.
We instructed our characters to dress in the appropriate clothing; The mother dressed in casual smart clothes, and the detective in smart shirt and tie. We researched the dress code of a detective and we found out that they often wore either police uniform, or a suit with a detective name badge. As we were unable to access a badge we decided to make a name tag that we placed in front of him on the desk stating: 'Detective Smith'
We asked the actors how to behave, for example we wanted the mother to be very fragile and upset and the detective to be firm and informative, but also to be sensitive. Both actors worked very well and we are very pleased with their acting and our footage. We finished just in time and I then uploaded the footage and looked through it and began to put it in our project in order so we were already ahead. Today Hannah came in and looked through the sequence and made some changes before our lesson where me and Nicole looked through it and then made some more changes and we now have our opening sequence finished, we just need to get our teacher to look over it. We had to be careful not to break the 180 degree rule and this first scene reall contrast the next scene of the kidnapping, making it more dramatic.

Storyboard and Shot List for the Police Interview

Hannah devised a story board for our police investigation scene. We have decided that instead of showing this on a TV screen for Luke to watch, we are going to place this scene as the opening scene before any footage of Luke and Charli so the audience has some sort of idea of what is going on.
We first need to include a shot of both the actors facing each other to establish their posistioning in the room. We will then have a series of shot reverse shots during the questioning and we need include a close up of the mothers face to show how upset, distraught and desperate she is. Followed by a mid shot of them sitting at the table and end with a mid shot of the mother and hold this shot and fade out into the next scene. Here is the Storyboard made by Hannah:

We then began to make a shot list which gives us a better idea of what shots we need to take. We must encorporate a variety of shot distances and angles to achieve our best grade.

1. Establishing shot of room
2. Mid shot of detective (showing name tag)
3. Shot reverse shot of mother, mid shot
4. Shot reverse shot to detective
5. Shot reverse shot to mother
6. Shot reverse shot to detective
7. Back to mother- hold close up
8. Black screen- role on titles