Filming issue

We were due to start filming on the 29th of December but our cast proved unreliable and non of them were available for service and we were forced to cancel, this made us reconsider casting and in the future there may be some changes in our casting team.
We had a long discussion on our Facebook group chat and a possible new candidate to replace Malachi may be brought in the future, a possible choice is our friend Ton Wentink, he would be a viable candidate due to his long term experience in plays and musicals and physical build which fits in with the role of "Jock"

Incidental sound track ideas

For a slasher genre of film incidental sound tracks and sound effects are crucial for creating atmosphere and tension, so we researched a variety of incidental sound tracks and sound effects that could inspire us for creating our own in the future.

We found some of these clips on;

http://incompetech.com/ (for the incidental music)

http://www.freesound.org/ (for the sfx)

Here is a collection of screen shots from these sites:

We also scoured Youtube in search of music ideas we found a few that inspired us, we specifically enjoyed the work of Kevin Macleod.

 We enjoyed this piece as its fast suspenseful tempo would work in a slasher film, however this too much to be considered a incidental sound track and feels more of a sound track in my opinion.

We liked the way this piece seems to get louder and rise, which would be a very good effect when trying to build suspense, it is also lower register then the first one and would be more suitable for an incidental score.

Finally we also enjoyed this piece, its much more atmospheric than the rest, and its high tones and changing tempo seem good for raising suspense, however In my opinion I feel this piece would suffice better in a supernatural sub genre rather than a slasher.

Typography reasearch

For our film we need a unique typography, that suits our target audience's liking and that is suitable to our genre and Sub genre of film.
So we looked around the internet for titles of horror genre productions and on copyright free sites for suitable styles of text, and we made a mood board with a selection of the best ones.

Script

For a good while now I have been creating many drafts, disputing and constantly changing my mind about the script, but now using Adobe Story a professional and free script making software, I finally made a professional looking film script.

Draft opening

Using the music piece i previously created i then used the agreed Title and made a draft opening for our film, the finished one will be in HD and will have additional effects, I simply put the title and music together on Final Cut Express.

The sound track I created is inspired highly by the original sound track used in the first Halloween film, the build up that appears when the titles start to approach sound somewhat like an approaching train which works well with the theme of our film.

Creating the theme tune

I decided to create a theme tune to accompany the opening title, i used garage band due to its large variety of instruments and because its very simple and easy to use, i used a mix of drums and techno pianos, i used this to make a intense and gothic style tune.

Job setting

After we finished our pre-production planning and as we are the eve of filming, we set ourselves tasks that would be ideal to complete before filming commenced.
We had a team meeting in lesson and assigned ourselves particular roles to complete.

I agreed to be tasked with creating a theme tune for the opening titles of our film.

Charlotte was tasked with researching and deciding a suitable typography.

Katie is to research and find a variety of incidental sound tracks to be put into the film.

Filming schedule

Will be updated to adapt to possible circumstances 

Name Change!

For a while now we have accepted the name "The Conductor" as a temporary name, but after much thought and discussion we have decided to change it to...

Tracks of Damnation

This name still works well with the theme of our film and sounds far more suitable to the genre, and it is far cooler.

Story Board

Recorded questionnaire questions

We read out questions (see in Questionnaire post) to other students regarding our film to find out what sort of target audience our film would appeal to.

land Permission

After doing some research into the land we're filming on I discovered it was property of the local council, so I sent an email to our local representative asking for permission to film on the land

I am currently awaiting a reply.

Costume

Equipped with a decent knowledge of our casts wardrobes we set about sketching what costumes we would want them to wear, afterwards we sent the actors a copy of this and requested they sent a picture of them dressed up.

Costume design for Malachi (Jock)

Malachi dressed in requested costume

Sophie design idea (drama queen)

Sophie in her costume

Joe's costume design (killer)

Joe in his costume (mask is currant being prodcued

Edward's original costume idea, this was scrapped as we believed it was too over the top

Edward in his chosen costume

The new costume is far more modern

Group Discussion

We decided to film us having a group discussion, in which we discussed ideas relating to the story board and its contents and to certain aspects of our film.

Filled in Call sheet

Call sheet (template)

In the future I will post some filled in Call Sheets but for now I have posted a blank template to be filled before going on set, Call Sheets are essential to any professional production and are very helpful when planning a film take before hand to make sure everything is in place.

Audition

We met up with our 3 cast members in order to get an audition from each of them to see if they fit their roles well, in order to express their full potential we let them improvise their roles so it was more natural.

Sophie did a performance based on her role of "drama queen" as you can see she was very convincing in her act, her act was very impressive as she seemed to fall into character almost instantaneously.

Malachi did his audition as "Jock" although he was unsure how to act so I had to stand in as a prop for him to express his anger, we are considering redoing his performance in the future giving him more time to prepare.

And lastly but certainly no least Edward did his "Geek" act, as you can see he fitted comfortably into this role and even managed to create a line which will be added to his performance in the complete production.

Film Mood board

Fake blood special effect

As i previously specified in my post about the age rating, with a 15 age rated film we are allowed to show low levels of gore, so we decided to create and use our own special fake blood, to make the body in our film seem mutilated, we found a easy to follow guide on youtube.

 This guide shall be fairly cheap to follow, how ever it will be fairly messy and will leave the actor its applied on feeling quite sticky, water and equipment to wash it off afterwards should be kept to hand on set.

Tester shot film

In order to present the variety of shots we have chosen to use in our film we took rough footage at our filming location following the narrative of our story yet lacking any form of acceptable dialogue (we spoke complete nonsense) and the editing was very rough but it was only to show we experimented with camera angles and lighting.

Unfortunately our actress was unavailable for this so i volunteered (regrettably) to impersonate her in an atrocious manor, we chose world war one as a topic to discuss to make the conversation seem natural as the script is a currant work in process.
Also the clip may seem too short to accurately represent our actual film, that is because we did not film all our ideal shots or narrative.    

Practicing with Premiere Pro (Paladin)

In order to familiarise ourselves with a variation of film editing software we used a different software (other than Final Cut Express), we were supplied with a selection of clips and sound effects that we had to cut, position and add in sound effects to create a film sequence.

Bruise effect

After doing some research my team mate discovered a simple effective make-up idea that can simulate a bruise.

Being in-charge of make-up and body effects my team mate experimented with this effect on a willing volunteer, the result being an easy very convincing bruise.

She used this equipment to make this effect.

Afterwards going above and beyond the call of duty she added the previously added fake blood effect and I think its quite realistic and compelling.

Risk assessment

Even the smallest of things have risks, our film opening is no exception, so we identified these risks in order to counter them, and in a professional manor we created a risk assessment.

It is a work in progress but it shall be updated in the future after a more thorough look into the location.

Communication

In order to plan out and manage our time well and also to have a place where we could share our thoughts and feelings in relation to the film we set up a Facebook group chat featuring myself and my 2 colleagues.

Screen shot curtsey of Katie Wright 

This chat is very convenient to access and all members are well informed when a query is received therefore any last moment changes and ideas can shared throughout the group.
Facebook also has a image share option, and is great for sharing links to the other participants making it a very practical and easy to use tool.

We use the student program Its Leaning for exchanging files (such as text documents and images), it is a simple emailing site, which also helps when communicating with staff members, and more importantly accessing help files.

In terms of physical communication, we often meet during school breaks to discuss ideas and progress, but conveniently me and my colleagues are good friends and are in each others presence on a fairly regular basis and we always make sure everyone's opinions are voiced before we engage in any film related activity.  

Target Audience group questionnaire

We have previously established that the official age rating of our film is 15, so based on this our target audience should range from 15 - 18 year old, to find out what certain set of people would enjoy our film specifically (E.g. gender, interests) I have created a questionnaire in order to receive the required information, I shall read it to a chosen person whom after being explained the idea of our film shall have their response recorded.

1. Do you think that the narrative is something along the lines of what you would conventionally expect from a horror or a Slasher film?

2. Would this film appeal to the target audience?

3. Please explain your answer.

4. In a horror film, what aspects are important to an opening?

5. After watching the opening to this film would it convince you to continue watching the rest of the film?

6. Would you want to see lots of gore and violence in this film?

7. What elements would you like to see in a Horror/ Slasher film opening?

8. Do you have any suggestions of things to include in our Slasher film opening?

9. Are there any elements of our film opening that you feel we should not include?

10. Whom would you recommend this film to?

11. Why?

After the results of this questionnaire are collected I will make a judgement based on people's answers to choose a specific target audience in the not so distant future.

Age Certification of our film

After researching into the BBFC official guidelines regarding age I have come to the conclusion that the suitable age rating for our film is

After careful assessment it is clear that the specifications of a 15 rated film match that of out film, I will only post the specifications that relate to my film.

The official BBFC site says this in regards to language:

"There could potentially be a great deal. At 15 there is no upper limit on the number of uses of strong language (e.g. ‘f***’).

Occasionally there may be uses of the strongest terms (e.g. 'c***'), depending on the manner in which they are used, who is using the language, its frequency and any special contextual justification. However, continued or aggressive use will not normally be passed 15".

This works well with our film as we wish to include some obscene language in order to make the situation more realistic, as in stressful situations people tend to depend of vulgar language.

For violent scenes the BBFC website states this:

"Yes, at 15 violence may be strong. It should not dwell on the infliction of pain or injury, however, and the strongest gory images are unlikely to be acceptable.
Strong sadistic violence is also unlikely to be acceptable".
This sums up our film pretty well, there should be brief moments of violence and only a short viewing of gore.

There is also a specification which explains the 15 rated specification on horrror:
"At 15 there can be strong threat and horror as long as there is no sustained focus on sadistic or sexualised threat".
Our film contains no form of sadistic or sexual threats (much to our relief), but the general threat in our horror is undeniably strong.

Also there is a part dedicated to the films influence on teens and what they can imitate from it:
"We consider the risk of potential harm to impressionable teenagers. For example, dangerous behaviour such as hanging, suicide and self-harming should not dwell on detail which could be copied.
Whether the depiction of easily accessible weapons is acceptable will depend on factors such as realism, context and setting".
The film features the use of weapons but not directly being used by the teenagers, there is no form of suicide or self harm, or anything that can give teens the impression to do so.

All information has been supplied from the official BBFC website for more information regarding it follow this link http://www.bbfc.co.uk/what-classification/15