Making Our Animatic

Once we had completed our storyboard, we began to transform it in to an animatic. According to the Google definition, an animatic is: a preliminary version of a film, produced by shooting successive sections of a storyboard and adding a soundtrack. And so, we created our own animatic using the very same post-it notes that we used for our storyboard. What we did to complete this, went as follows:

1) Got a canon camera and set it up on a tripod.

2) Organised the shots in our storyboard, double-checking that they were all laid out in sequential order.

3) attached a large white A3 piece of paper to the wall using some blu-tac.

4) on this piece of paper, we placed our first post-it, drawing around it so that we could place the other post-it notes in the same position.

5) From here on, we took a photograph of each and every one of our post-it notes.

6) Once this was done, we uploaded our photos from the camera to a computer.

7) Here we began to edit our animatic together, deciding the duration and position of each shot within our narrative.

 

8) Once everything was in order, we went back and added sound effects and music to our piece, to give it a more realistic feel.

Set Considerations

Whilst in the process of completing our storyboard and furthermore our animatic, we have begun to consider the location in which we want our film to be set.

The first decision we have made, regarding this is that we want our film to be shot indoors. We decided this initially because we thought it would be easier to film indoors, given the unpredictability of the weather outdoors, and the effects it may have on lighting etc. We also thought that it made more sense to film our project in an indoor environment, as it focuses on a child’s tea party- something which is likely to occur in an indoor setting, rather than an outside one. Given this, we discovered that we had the choice of filming in either mine or Esther’s houses or a hired location, using one of these three areas as the set for our film opening. We then decided between these three options, via a process of elimination.

The first option of these three that we decided to reject was to hire a location. The main issue we found with opting to film on a hired location, was the cost this would present us; being an AS media group, it is inevitable that our film will be relatively low budget and the majority of hired locations we found we simply could not afford. In addition to this, there were very few hired locations nearby to us that we could transform easily in to something which resembled a child’s playroom or house environment (the majority of local hired locations being either outdoor or church halls). It made more sense to us, to use the location’s available to us, e.g. the school or our own homes, as they were cheaper, more accessible and in the case of our own homes, did not need to be transformed much to make a realistic set.

After this, we were left with the choice as to whether we should film in either mine or Esther’s house. To help us make this decision, we took a series of images of potential rooms in our homes that could be used for filming and then discussed which house we thought would be most suitable for filming to take place.

My house: Within my house, there are six possible locations where we could film, these are shown below:

Hallway-1

Dining Room-2

Dining Room-2

Kitchen-3

Conservatory-4

Conservatory-4

Living Room-5

Living Room-5

Bedroom-6

Bedroom-6

Bedroom-6

Locations available in Esther’s house are:

Bedroom 1

Bedroom 2

Bedroom 3

Hallway 1

Hallway 2

Living room 2

Dining room 1

Dining room 2

Kitchen

Office 1

Office 2

Out of Esther’s house and my own, we thought it most convenient to film at my house. This is mostly because we think there will be more choice of space and more room to film our film here. Equally, this arrangement is more convenient for both of us, as working at Esther’s house would mean we may disturb her parents who work at home. Of the locations available within my house, we have decided that the Living Room, Dining Room and Bedroom are most suitable for our filming, although at a later date we will decide the final location for our film.

Storyboarding

We began our storyboard in class and this will later contribute to the making of our animatics. In the process of making our storyboard we have begun to think more about how camera angles and movement will contribute to creating the atmosphere we want to achieve and support the horror genre. On the front of each shot we have drawn a still image and any camera movement, on the back we have written the duration of the shot, any movement, any dialogue, the angle and actors or props involved which will help us later with organisation in the filming process.

To Kill a Mockingbird Film Opening

To Kill A Mockingbird Opening sequence

Although this film is not of the same genre as our piece will be, viewing of it’s title sequences is something which has been recommended by our media teacher. On analysis it is easy to see why this recommendation was made, as many of the elements of this clip bear resemblance to how we want our final film opening to look. In particular the series of close up shots used in this opening, mirror somewhat the close ups we have planned for our opening to include, and the piece shares a similarity to ours in that it focuses on the seemingly innocent activities of child-like play.

Below are some shots from this which I found to be particularly interesting:

Shot with Shallow Focus, in which the primary focus is on the whistle. A shot like this would be good to use in significant moments of our clip or to highlight the importance of certain props/actions

A Birds eye view shot like this could really help to establish the key props that we are going to use in our clip. We could use a similar shot of the ‘tea’ table, once it has been set by our protagonist

The titles in this opening are very simple and plain standing out against the backdrop of this clip. They are easy to read and have been well though out. A shot like this, with titles positioned similarly would be good.

I really like the way these images fade in to one another. The editing here helps to link two props/actions together and is something we could incorporate in to our clip, (perhaps to link the placing of jam on the bread to the teddy bear?)

Again, the positioning of titles here has been well thought out. We would like to use many close-up shots such as this.

This is a panning shot (and close up), a type of shot which we could use to help establish a sense of place in our film, or when showing the toys within the girl’s bedroom. This particular shot remains at the same level, and due to this flows nicely in to the following shots.

Evidence of Organisation

This is a picture of my log book, which is kept in our media class room. Each lesson we fill this book in, at the start of the lesson noting down our aims for the day and at the end assessing whether we have completed them. At the back of this book there is space for note taking and a list of deadlines that we have to meet, in this image the deadlines that are ticked off are the ones that we have met so far!

Further notes on feedback

After receiving a large amount of verbal feedback when presenting our idea to the class, it was easy to notice that within our storyline there were a few loop holes. These loop holes came mainly because of the confusion caused by our final shot- how did a girl with blood on her, have any relevance to the scene we were portraying? This was something we knew the answer to, but could not convey clearly to the audience through our film. It was also noted that our idea had a few other flaws, such as the cast size we were requiring (4) and the fact that so much action was planned to happen within the first 2 minutes of our film, (making it more of a short film in itself than what the pitch asked, a film opening!).

Once realising this, and taking on board the criticisms of our classmates, we were able to sit down and discuss with our media teacher how we could adapt our existing idea and try to fill-in these loop holes. In about 30 minutes of discussion, we came to the conclusion that it would be a good idea to change the storyline of our clip. However, this did not mean that all of the work we had done up to this point was in vain, as our new storyline aimed to keep some of the elements of our old idea. For example, in the adaptation we came up with we have decided to focus more heavily on the idea of schizophrenia, something which will help us to adhere to the horror genre we have chosen, and more specifically the sub-genre of psychological horror. Equally, our new plot focuses on a girl with this illness, who is imaging things too- namely that her toy teddy bear can talk to her!

Although our new idea is not fully developed, we can see it has a clear beginning middle and end. These are as follows;

Opening- A girl is in a room alone with toys, her mother enters and informs her that she is going to take a shower/bath and she should play by herself for a while. The mother leaves the room.

Middle- The girl begins to set up a tea party for herself and her toys. They sit and she begins a conversation with her bear. It is soon apparent that there is something very wrong about this conversation. She hears voices.

Ending- As an event to forebode to later events, the girl will damage her bear or another toy in a sinister manner, perhaps by cutting its limbs off with a knife.

Now that we have a basic storyline developed, in the following weeks/days we hope to find a suitable actor to play our protagonist on casting call. We also need to decide upon the location for our clip (which will be indoors), probably mine our Esther’s houses, and to help us make this decision we will collate some images of our homes and potential setting ideas. We will also do the same for potential props we wish to use, such as the toys the girl will have. Finally, we have also started to begin work on our storyboard, completing around 10 shots for our opening within our last lesson and aiming to develop 10 more potential shots each over the weekend.

Feedback on our Pitch

After pitching our idea to the entirety of our media class, this was the written feedback that we received from our media teacher

Pitch

We had to pitch our idea to the rest of the class to get feedback and understand what our target audience think of our idea.

http://prezi.com/zf6qyvnjt4cf/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy&rc=ex0share

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This is the script we used to present our idea:

Esther – We want to create a psychological horror opening title sequence. We have carried out research such as analysis of past student examples of horror sequences, existing horror title sequences, horror film posters and the conventions of the horror genre to ensure that our sequences supports the features of the this genre. Our target market is teenagers and our sequences should appeal to this audience. As teenagers ourselves we should be able to understand what this audience will enjoy. For the storyline we are developing we need a small cast of four and we would like to find an original soundtrack for the sequence, either from copyright free websites or contact with an unsigned artist.

Megan – We have carried out market research in preparation for the creation of this sequence. We made an online questionnaire which contained questions about favourite genres of film and other similar topics. From the results of this questionnaire we chose our target audience and genre. We also found a pre –existing online poll which contained a list of popular film title sequences. We analysed these sequences to try and see what it was that made them so popular and we hope to incorporate some of these features in our sequence.

Esther – The storyline we are developing at the moment is about a seemingly normal family. The sequence would begin with our main character, a teenage girl waking up in the morning. Using convention of the genre we would hint at something not quite normal, jump cuts and eerie music or cut away’s to letters from a psychiatrist. The character would interact briefly with her sister and mother but at the end of the sequence, when mentioning her sister to the mother, her mother would reveal that she has no sister and a cut to her sister covered in blood would end the sequence. We want to titles to appear subtly and superimpose the shots throughout.

Megan – Our idea is loosely based on the psychological disorder Schizophrenia- which we may suggest that the main character has/shows symptoms of. We have done some research into Schizophrenia for our opening sequence. Symptoms include hallucination -in this case it will be her sister, behaviour changes, delusions and the inability to distinguish between their imaginings and reality. The idea of imaginary friends or personas is not something that is uncommon within horror films and by including this within our film opening, we will be conforming to the Horror genre. Other horror films that feature imagined personas are ‘The Shining’, ‘Don’t look under the bed’ and ‘The Exorcist’.

Esther – The theme of Schizophrenia and furthermore the idea of imagining a persona also exists in the psychological thriller/horror ‘Psycho’. In which Norman Bates, believes his dead mother is still alive and even goes as far as taking on her own personality. This story is based on events within the life of Ed Gein, an infamous murderer, whose life has also influenced other horror films such as ‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre’, ‘Leatherface’, ‘The Silence of the Lambs’ and the character of ‘Bloody Face’ from the second series of ‘American Horror Story’.

Megan – Here is a list of the minimum requirements that we know we will need to make the sequence we have planned. This should cover all elements of the production of our sequence.

Esther – This is how we will get all of our requirements needed to make our sequence, most of which are already available to us excluding cast and music which we will find online.

Megan – So what now? From here we plan to create a story board, shooting script and script. We will then practice the horror make up and lighting. Then we will use casting call to cast our sequence and contact the actors we will choose. From there we plan to shoot the sequence, find copyright free music and edit the sequence. Thank you.

Evidence of planning our pitch

The best way for myself and Esther to communicate is via text, this helps us to remain organised and up to date in our coursework. Here you can see a series of texts sent between us, whence we discussed our pitch, and began to organise how we were going to present it.