Inspirations

Inspiration

As a starting point, me and my group members looked at the opening to thrillers. This was to gather influences on camera shots, setting, narrative and other conventions to help us come up with ideas of our own. Our main focus was psychological thrillers as this is what we wanted to base our film opening on.

Shutter Island (Dir. Martin Scorsese- 2010)

We were rather interested in the psychological sub-genre so to begin, we looked at a movie from this category: Shutter Island. A date was written on screen to set the time period for the audience. The establishing shot began with a ship emerging from a bright white fog. This setting was brilliant as it gave the impression that something bad was lurking and it even gave off a metaphorical message (the brain of a mentally ill person can be quite cloudy and shrouded.) This setting began to inspire us to to create a mysterious setting where nothing is completely clear so the audience's mind is baffled. Also, the bright white suggested purity and innocence which made us want to have a character or place that represented this. Teddy, the main character, then begins to talk to himself in the mirror. Mirrors are commonly used within thrillers so we considered using this somewhere within our narrative. When Teddy and his companion talk to one another, the tone of the film becomes calm and all thought of something bad is lost. It seems natural and normal which leads the audience into a false sense of security. We really liked this idea of placing the audience in a calm state of mind, before something bad happened, so we began to take note and think of ways to use this.  Flashbacks were also used to give hints about the character so we too considered using flashbacks. As they reach the island, a storm is brewing and pathetic fallacy is used to suggest that things are not so nice after all. This idea spurred us on to come up with more ideas about how the weather can represent the characters feelings or the plot.
Another thing we liked was the close-ups on the character's faces. This showed expressions inspiring us to use these type of shots.
At first, the music is rather faint  with loud outbreaks of sound. As they approach the island, the music becomes very loud, suggesting danger. We wanted to use music to suggest danger and safety so we liked how the music was one within this opening.

Things we liked about the opening of Shutter Island and what we want to consider for our film:

1. Mysterious setting which may have a metaphorical meaning
2. The colour white to suggest purity and innocence
3. Mirrors
4. False sense of security and then something bad happens/ hinted at
5. Weather/Pathetic fallacy
6. Close-ups
7. Loud music

Inception (Dir. Christopher Nolan- 2010)
Inception gave us slight influences for our film. Inception starts off with Leonardo DiCaprio washing up on a shore. It seems very confusing and almost dream-like to play with the audience's mind. The dream-like setting influenced us to make some form of bright, dreamy opening too. Then, a young boy and girl are shown, representing innocence and purity. This is also represented through high key lighting. Once again, we liked the idea of representing innocence so we used this to inspire us. Hidden identity is used when you don't see the face of a man (the figure of authority.) This suggests secrecy so we took ideas from this for our own film. As for camera shots, close-ups were used on hands and faces. This showed emotions and suggested the importance of certain objects.
The costumes used within this opening, were suits. This showed authority and status, which we liked the idea of. When there was dialogue, an over the shoulder shot was used. We thought this may be useful to us if we had dialogue within our opening.
Finally, there was very little music. We weren't keen on this as we liked the idea of music within our opening.

Things we liked about the opening of Inception and what we want to consider for our film:

1. Dream-like opening
2. Hidden identity
3. Close-ups
4. Representations of innocence
5. Costumes (suits)
6. Over the shoulder shot

Black Swan (Dir. Darren Aronofsky- 2010)

Black Swan begins with a girl performing a ballet dance. She is in a high key lighted spotlight and surrounded by darkness. This suggests her purity and innocence in comparison to the outside world. Once again, we liked the purity that was presented. She was also wearing a bright white costume to symbolise her innocence and the costume was made from feathers to suggest her vulnerability and delicacy. Close-ups were used to track the feet of the dancer, this suggested that we were going to follow this character throughout the film as we did in the opening scene. The music began slow but soon turned quite viscous and fast paced. This famous piece of music (Swan Lake by Tchaïkovski) helped to suggest that the main character will become in danger. We liked how the music was used within the opening so it inspired us to find the right track for our film.

The opening fades out to black which suggested that the character will break down into darkness, hinting at the psychological element. We were influenced by this and thought of using this within our film.

Things we liked about the opening of Black Swan and what we want to consider for our film:

1. Lighting
2. Close-ups
3. Music to fit the narrative and opening
4. The colour white
5. Costumes
6. Fade

Sucker Punch (Dir. Zack Snyder- 2011)

Sucker Punch influenced us the most. The whole opening begins with a theatre, leading onto a girl sat in her room. The theatre set gives the impression that what is about happen within the opening isn't real (it's pretend like a play) or that it atleast doesn't feel real to the   character(s). Straight away, this hints at a form of psychological opening as it confuses the mind of the audience.

   A young girl is sat on her bed alone. At first, the bedroom symbolises safety for a child but this room seems far from it. The outside light from the lightening flashes about the room and creates a dark, shocking feel. This setting was brilliant as it used binary opposites: safe/danger. The bedroom seemed safe but the dark colours and lighting gave other impressions. This inspired us to want to use lighting to reflect on how the character feels and the narrative. Moreover, the main character had blonde/white hair, suggesting innocence and purity. This colour had already inspired us within Shutter Island so we once again took note and decided it was a significant colour.

  As the opening progresses, close-ups are often used on the character's faces to show emotions. Emotions are important to understand the plot and the characters so we decided that we may need to use close-ups within our film. Extreme close-ups and close-ups were used on weaponry within the narrative. For instance the small letter opener and gun were focused on many times. this suggested that violence and danger were to come, creating suspense.  We liked the idea of a subtle weapon like the letter opener rather than the gun as it questioned whether it was a danger or not. Another close-up used was on the feet running. This was quite effective as it showed her vulnerable side as she had bare feet.

 When the young girl is locked in a room, a zoom is used to show the reflection within the eye (her eye is looking through the key hole.) This symbolises mirrors as they too have reflections  leading back to the conventions of a thriller. By this point, we really liked the idea of a mirror or reflection within our own narrative.

 Low angled shots were used on the strong male figure whereas high angled shots were used on the girl. this suggested that the male was hegemonic and the girl was vulnerable  We liked this idea and thought it may be useful to use. Furthermore, we liked the idea of a dominant male figure and an innocent girl so we decided that these could be our characters.

 A blurred shot is also used when the girl points the gun at the man. The focus on the gun emphasized the reality of what she was doing and took away the thought that it was an innocent girl. This idea was clever and inspired us to use some form of focus change.

 Costumes played a key role within this thriller opening. The girl was wearing pyjamas, representing vulnerability  On the other hand, the male figure is wearing a suit. This showed authority and power showing how he dominates the younger girl's status. This is then portrayed at the end where the older male is listened to and the girl is sent away, showing the power of the man. The status shown through costume had great influence on us.

    Sucker Punch had a plot twist just like the usual thriller. The young girl accidentally kills her sister, which leads her into break down. This completely turns the plot around and shocks the audience.

    The sound was well used within this opening. It began with a voice over which then lead to music. The lyrics of the song "Sweet Dreams" were cleverly used. "Some of them want to be abused" suggested danger of a dominant figure, hinting towards the characters and narrative of the opening. The music also used drums and the pace was quite fast. This created suspense and inspired us to use fast paced music.

Things we liked about the opening of Sucker Punch and what we want to consider for our film:

1. Characters- young girl and dominant male figure
2. Weather
3. The colour white to represent innocence and purity
4. Close-ups/ extreme close-ups
5. Suggestive weaponry
6. Mirror/reflections
7. High and low angled shots
8. Costumes- vulnerability vs power
9. Plot twist
10. Fast paced music

Jaws and Goodfellas

Jaws and Goodfellas was our focus for one reason: the reverse dolly.
We found this shot to be very interesting and challenging  So we decided that we should put this shot within our film.

Preliminary

Preliminary Task

Our task:
Continuity task involving filming and editing a character opening the door, crossing a room and sitting down in a chair opposite another character, with whom she/he then exchanges a couple of lines of a dialogue. This task should demonstrate match on action, shot reverse shot and the 180-degree rule.

Key Features:

Match on action: Match on action is a technique often used to portray a constant pace so that the visual image appears to be smooth. Match on action distracts the audience from any continuity errors and keeps everything flowing.  It also makes the scene appear to have continuous time so that the viewer isn't confused. 

Shot reverse shot: 
This technique is usually used when dialogue is exchanged by two actors. By switching from a view of one actor to the other, the dialogue looks real and flows smoothly. It als0o shows different facial expressions to understand the dialogue and emotions in greater detail.

180-degree rule:

This shot can be used to show different angles of one scene. Rather than just an over the shoulder shot, other shots will be filmed to show different aspects such as emotions, height and costume. This can help to show connoations of power, psychological state etc.

An example of these techinques are:

Our idea:

We wanted to add a small narrative to our preliminary rather than just doing the camera shots within the task. Therefore, we began to come up with ideas. Since our main task was going to be a thriller, we decided that our preliminary should have some form of thriller elements to lead us up to our next task.

    First of all, we wandered into a small room so we could think quietly  Within this room, was a window which sparked our idea. We liked the idea of someone being stood at the window with their back turned away from the camera so we began to work around this idea. After quite a lot of thought, we came up with the idea of filming a short conversation about assassination since the setting was just right. We hoped to have a male figure walking into the room to find a powerful woman offering him business (to kill someone.) We liked this idea but the question was: who was going to be the victim? We quite liked the idea of having fun with our preliminary so we decided to make it into a thriller parody. Thrillers tend to have twists so we decided to make up our own; the victim was going to be a cat. The three of us loved this idea so we began to storyboard.

Storyboarding:

Once we had our starting idea, we had to storyboard the camera shots, dialogue etc. We all contributed to the drawings and ideas so we all had a fair share.

Here is the storyboard:

Shot No.1 

For our establishing shot, we wanted to have Daniel (the assassin) to come around the corner whilst Iain was at the desk.

An over the shoulder shot was chosen so that Daniel was in the background and Iain was in the foreground (representing the idea that Daniel was a secretive character who didn't want to be the center of attention.)

Shot No.2

This shot was framed so that Daniel could walk into the shot. We wanted Iain to turn when Daniel walked by him, as if Iain had sensed his presence, and  then we wanted Iain to say "Just go straight in." We liked this idea as it held a little bit of mystery as to what was behind the door.

Shot No.3

We wanted Daniel to walk towards the door so that we could see his face and shoulders (medium close-up to close-up.) This still held mystery as he was behind the door and something was within it.

Shot No.4

For this shot, we wanted to use a close-up to show the door handle opening. This was used to keep the film going at the same pace and to make sure we used match on action like the task requested.

Shot No.5

To make sure we had match on action, we made it so Daniel entered the shot and sat down at the same pace he'd walked in the previous shots.   We planned that I would turn and say, "I've been expecting you..." This was to add a mysterious effect but also to add slight humour. Also, we wanted to use hidden identity, like usual thrillers, so we didn't want my full face to be shown when I spoke.

Shot No.6

For this shot, we wanted to have a close-up of my hand crunching a picture of the victim up. This was used to show anger and frustration.

Shot No.7

For shot number seven, the group decided that I should finally show my full face. Since we wanted to make my character quite powerful, we decided that she should throw the papers across the table.

Shot No.8

We then wanted a close-up of the images face down so that the audience couldn't see what was underneath. We wanted Daniel to begin to turn them off so that we could use a cut to stop the whole image being revealed.

Shot No.9

For the dialogue, we planned to use an over the shoulder shot. "So how shall I do it?" was a line was Daniel was going to say to hint towards assassination.

Shot No.10

Since we needed a reverse shot, we decided to use it at this point. An over the shoulder shot was planned so that you could see me say, "I don't care as long as it's done."

Shot No.11

For this shot, we wanted Daniel to ask a question that made the female character quite angry. "Why do you want him dead?" not only told the audience that it was an assassination but also angered the female. We wanted me to rise at this point so that I was higher than Daniel within the frame. This was to show my authority and power over him.

Shot No.12

For our 180-degree rule, we decided to have me stood above Daniel shouting  "That is none of your concern! So are you in...or not?" 

Shot No.13

Our final shot was going to be the revealing of the photo. We wanted to camera to tilt down to reveal that the victim was a cat. This was to add  a twist (like a thriller) but also comedy to turn it into a parody.

The practice:

Once we has storyboarded, we decided to do a practice run through of the film. This was just a quick test to make sure the camera shots would work. We filmed it using Iain's phone as it was just a run through. The shots of me and Daniel speaking were filmed wrong as they should of been on the other person's shoulder (e.g when I am speaking, it should have been filmed looking over Daniel's shoulder not mine.) Since it was a run through, we realised the mistake we had made so we would not make the same error in the real film.

Here is our practice with the bloopers included:

Costumes

For this mini task, we even decided to make sure the costumes were correct.

Iain- Iain was the secretary so we decided that he should wear a shirt and tie. This was to show sophistication.

Daniel- Daniel was the assassin so we wanted him to wear a hooded jacket and dark clothing. This was to represent secrecy, mystery and a darker side to him.

Lizzie (Me)- I had to wear a skirt, blouse, blazer and heels. This was so I would appear taller, formal and powerful. We also decided that I should wear red lipstick to help me to look slightly more mature and formal.

Editing:
Once we had filmed the piece, we edited it. We began by using a fade in, followed by many cuts. The cuts were used to keep the pace of the film and also to build suspense. For example, we used a cut when Daniel goes to look at the photos so the audience doesn't see the image. We also decided to add a black and white effect to the film. This was to represent the secrecy of the narrative and to keep the lighting quite dark. I think that this film noir idea really worked nicely. We also used a dissolve between the shot of me stood up to the shot of the images on the desk. This was used instead of a cut so the suspense was kept a tad longer as the shot tilts down towards the images. We also used the dissolve to experminet with editing techniques ready for our main task. To finish we faded to black to show closure and to lead onto the credits. For the credits, we were going to use the dramatic music 'O Verona by Craig Armstrong' but for copyright reasons we decided to use our own sound effect from the bloopers. This added more of a parody effect.

This was the music we were going to use but didn't for copyright reasons:

The final piece:

What we changed from the storyboard:

1.  In shot no.1, we didn't use a tracking shot. We liked it better as a still frame so that Daniel could walk into the frame.

3. In shot no.3, we didn't change into a close-up fro the mid-shot. Since it was quite a quick shot, we preferred the camera to stay fixed.

12. In shot no.12 we changed the dialogue from "That is none of your concern! Are you in or not?" to "That is none of your concern! Now kill him!" We did this so it sounded melodramatic to add slight humour.

Bloopers:Here is the bloopers to our filming. As you can see, we realised some continuity errors (e.g the door was open at the beginning so we closed it.)

Overall:Overall, I was very pleased with our preliminary as it was funny and well thought out. I really liked the shots we used and the ideas behind it. I think it gave us good practice ready for our main task and it was a lot of fun to film.

Eden Pictures: Logo

Eden Pictures: Logo

For our production company, we needed to make a logo to present ourselves at the beginning of our film. Therefore, we decided that we were going to use Serif DrawPlus to make the logo as we had past experience with this software. This is how the logo and production name was created.

Early Planning: 
The first thing that our group did was individually come up with names for our production company. This was so we could bring our ideas together and create a name influenced by each other.
These are the names I came up with:

1. HummingBird Productions
2. MockingBird Productions
3. RedBreast Productions
4. Ship.McGuy Productions
5. Hornbill Productions
6. Sunbird Productions
7. Pintail Productions
8. Sirius Films

As you can see, I was keen on the idea of a bird inspired name as they represent beauty. I wanted our name to reflect upon the beauty within our films and the creative art that it presents. 

• HummingBird Productions was inspired by the beauty of the animal. MGM uses a lion as their logo so I got inspiration form their use of animals. The colours are vibrant and change within different lights. This suggested that our film would also be beautiful and creative on screen. Hummingbirds are also the only birds that can fly backwards, sparking up a unique feel to the name and our films.
• MockingBird Productions came from the bird theme that I had begun. MockingBirds mimic the sounds of other birds to create their own sound. Therefore, I liked the idea of this as it represented how we used other production comapanies to inspire our ambitions and films.
• RedBreast Productions was influenced by a Robin. This name was quite personal to me as I had a deeper meaning behind it. My nana, who sadly passed away two years ago, used to tell me stories of robins when I was a child. And, after she left us, I began to see robins when I didnt expect it or when I was facing difficult times. As my nana was a strong woman, who was creative and very influential, RedBreast Productions was a great name to represnt the strong and creative films that we wanted to make. I really liked this idea and the meaning it brought.
• Ship.McGuy Productions combined all of our surnames. I liked this as it represented the teamwork that was going to go into our films and it also showed the professional side as it was our surnames rather than our forenames.
• Hornbill Productions are threatened by extinction. I used this to symbolise how oringal and unique ideas are gradually decreasing as the media shoots them down. The hornbill seemed like a really good name as they are also unique looking to reflect upon our films.
• SunBird Productions came from DreamWorks. DreamWorks' logo is a boy fishing on the moon. The moon is the opposite to the sun so I looked for birds that relate to the sun. The sun represents light, warmth and happiness which we wanted to show through our films. Therefore, I liked this idea. From this I came up with Pintail Productions as the water in the Dreamworks logo inspired this as Pintails swim on water.
•  Sirius Films came from the contellalion and itwas also a pun for ''serious films'. I liked this idea as it was lighthearted with the joke. I also liked it as it represnted stars to show that we make creative films and that we 'aim for the stars' with our ambitions. It also suggested taht we are guided with our film making.

When the group came back together, we shared ideas.

Daniel's Ideas:

1. Native Pictures
2. Regal Pictures
3. Royal Productions
4. Imperial Pictures
5. Woodland Pictures
6. Bottled-dream Productions
7. Lighthouse Studios

Iain's Ideas:

1. Iridescent Films
2. Indigenous Pictures
3. Crimson Pictures
4. Peacock Pictures
5. Raven Productions
6. Forbidden-fruit Productions

I liked 'Lighthouse Studios' as  it represnted the British Seaside. I also like that it is a light in the dark so it suggests that our films would stand out from the rest. Although I really liked this idea, we came to a mutual agreement that there were too many deep meanings that didn't correspond with what our films were about.
I also liked 'Iridescent Films' as it matched my hummingbird idea he wings on a hummingbird are iridescent.)
Since the colours change within different angles, it suggested that people may have different perspectives of our films. I really liked this idea.

 After more discussion, we narrowed all our ideas down to three.

They were:

1. Iridescent Pictures (Iain)
2. Royal Pictures (Daniel)
3. HummingBird Productions (Me)
      

After further discussion, Iain then came up with a new idea: Stag Productions.

Me and Daniel really liked the idea of a stag as it represented power so we began to develop this idea further and added it to our final list. We felt the need for individuality so changed the new suggested name to WhiteStag Productions. A white stag seemed unique in comparison to the usual stag so we soon became very keen within the idea.

Our list was then narrowed down to two:

1. HummingBird Productions
2. WhiteStag Productions

    

These two names then began to cause issues, as Daniel was set on WhiteStag Productions unlike Iain who really liked Humingbird Productions. I was swayed towards WhiteStag Productions although I really liked the other option.

After a long argument between my other two group members, Daniel then came up with a compromise. Cleverly, he suggested that our moving logo image should be both a white stag and a hummingbird. The plan was then to have a stag eating grass, till its head raised, then a hummingbird fly in to sit on the antlers of the mammal. Iain was happy with this idea so we began to re-draft a new name that didn't single out either animal. Iain came up with Eden Pictures which was influenced by the Garden of Eden in Genesis.

I was really enthusiastic towards this name as it sounded individual and sophisticated. We all agreed that it symbolised power (God created the Garden of Eden with power), beauty (the amazing animals, nature and life) and knowledge (the tree of knowledge) so the name fit perfectly for a film company. 

New Idea:

Happy with our name idea, we then began to plan how the logo would look. We planned to draw out each frame for our stop-frame animation until we found a problem. As we planned deeper  we realised that it would have been too hard to sketch and animate a stag and small bird. This problem put us in a difficult situation but we had to make the decision to change our animation idea.

We drew out some sketches to inspire us:

 We then thought of our name, Eden Pictures, and began to think of what we associated it with.

The common thought we had was an apple so we worked from this. We simplified everything and decided that we wanted apple blossom to grow vines and an apple, leading onto the apple falling.

We then came up with this sketch:

This became our final drawing so we could begin to animate.

Making the logo:

The animation part of the logo was a long detailed process.
We began by transferring our drawing onto the computer and using it as a starting point. By using the pen tool, we drew out the outline from our drawing. We began with the lettering by colouring them with a gold. The gold was used  as it is a colour desired by most and it was used to suggest power and beauty .We also started on adding a pink colour to the apple blossom.




Pen Tool

Here is a video of us making the logo:

Since the font was gold, we decided to use black as the background so it looked sophisticated.
Once all the font was coloured and the background was added, it looked like this:

After this, we began to work on the flower. The colours we had already picked looked too pale so we decided to change them. Once this was done, we began to animate. Frame by frame, we added vines and allowed them to grow. This was the hardest part of the animation as the vines had to flow smoothly whereas the apple was rather simple as it only had to fall. Once the animation was completed, we converted it into a video file.
Finally, Iain found some music that worked well with our logo so we added it via Windows Live Movie Maker.

This was the finished logo:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hg9oJSpn-aY

After watching it a few times, Iain noticed that the vines weren't as smooth as we had hoped and that the quality was not to a good standard. Therefore, since I was the only one with the software at home, I volunteered to try and fix it. I started the vines and apple again from scratch and added more frames to try and help the vines to run smoother. I attempted to change the quality in several different ways but it would not improve so we decided to just stick to what we had.

Once done, this is how the new logo looked: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zwungn48JCE

The group was pleased with the logo and so was I. I think the glow on the apple worked well and the music really compliments what is happening on screen. Overall, I think our logo went well once we got passed all the problems that occurred.