Research and Planning - Sound Research

When thinking about the kind of sound we wanted for our teaser trailer that would fit in with its genre and storyline I decided to go on to youtube and research into some video of a similar genre of horror search for something similar that we would possibly take inspiration from when it comes to us creating our own film sound track.

Research and Planning - Weather outlook for filming

This is a screen grab of the weather for the week. From this we can see that the best days for filming our outside scenes will be Tuesday and Wednesday. This is when it looks as though we are going to get some dry weather and so it will be the perfect time to film. It is important that the weather on this day is going to be dry as we are filming outside and dont want any damage to come to the equipment. It also may affect the quality of the filming and so the best days to shoot our scene are the dry and preferabley sunny days

Research and Planning - Actress Profile 2

 

 This is the actress we chose to feature at the very start of our teaser trailer, her interviewing process was not as thorough as the main actress's was because her speaking part was only very small.

But here below are the reasons why we chose her.

•  Laura Hurst
• 17
• Blue Eyes
• Blonde Hair 
• 5.8 
• Studies at Hyde Clarenden
• English Language, Media, Film Studies.
• Lives Locally (Hyde)

The above is just some of the reasons, why we chose Laura to be in our film. She is the correct age and has the correct look. Also she studies at the same college as us and so we know her at that she is reliable. She lives locally which is a plus point when trying to arrange a meeting.
Another important factor is the the subjects she studies are of a similar field to us and so she will understand all our filming schedules and requirements of her when we do do the filming.

Research and Planning - Actress Profile

This is the girl we chose to be our main actress, after having interviewed her together for the part.

We analised her personality and the way she looks and decided that she fit the criteris perfectly.

Below is a small profile of her which helps to see why we chose her for the role...

•  Sophie Louise Ballagher
• 17
• Green Eyes 
• Blonde Hair
• 5.5
• 7 stone 9 pounds
• Lives locally (Denton Manchester)
• Studies at Hyde Clarenden College
• Media Studies Level 3

All of the above are reasons which swayed myself and Naomi to choose Sophie. She was the correct age and had a good look. Shew lives locally which will be a bonus when trying to organise filming. Also the one thing which cemented our decision was that she already studies media herself and so understands the filming, acting and camera work. Which is important.

Research and Planning - Shooting Schedule

 

Here is the shooting schedule that me and Naomi have put together to organise when we will be doing our filming. We carefully organised the dates beforehand to make sure we would have plenty of time to film and re film the scene so we had enough shots that we could choose the perfect ones for our teaser trailer. Also we had to hire out one of the locations for a day so it was important that the dates were planned and stuck to so this could be arranged. As for the other location we are going to try hard to stick to the arranged dates weather permitting.

Research and Planning - Group Meeting

Research and Planning - Risk Assesment

Here we have put together a list of all the risks we may come across when attempting to film our teaser trailer. Taking into account where the locations were, as some were outside and some were inside we had to assess two different sets of risks for each and so above are all those we found were relevant to the filming we would be doing. We assessed the risks against the location we wanted to film, for example on the outside one we took into account the weather and also whether we would be a disruption to any members of the public or a public area and then we went on with caution from there.

Research and Planning - Preparation Of Props and Scene

 

 This video shows us preparing the props at the scene of where we filmed our first shot.  It was located in a bedroom at an apartment which we used for the day. There was minimal furniture and possessions in the room which was extremely handy as it allowed us to dress the room specifically the way that we wanted it to look in the scene. This was like a boys bedroom, so we positioned the coat on the wardrobe door and the laptop on the dressing table to show it showed the audience it was a males room. The pictures on the wall were placed carefully to look similar to the practice 'stalker board' posted earlies in my blog. It was important that we got the props perfectly positioned so that it was clear to the audience when watching it that this was the bedroom of the stalker. All the images against the blank walls show nothing about his personality, no posters, no colours all we see is the laptop, the coat and the images. This gives across a message to the audience as to what this boys 'hobbies' and 'interest' are. It gives a clear indication of what he is actually doing here which is in fact stalker the girl whether he realises it or not.

Research and Planning - Group meeting, - Storyboard

 

This is an improved version of the storyboard that we constructed together on one of our group meetings. We discussed the scenes and decided that these were the basic scenes that were definatley going to be appearing in the teaser trailer. We have added colour and given a lot more detail to the shots and scenes. Here you can see just how each scene is going to look and what kind of shots are going to be taken.
We are going to try hard to stick to the schedule but we might possibly be adding in a scene or two in which case an updated version of the storyboard will be placed on here with reasons as to why the shots were added.

Research and Planning - Production meeting cancellation

Due to un foreseen weather circumstances, on the week that we had planned to film a scene from our teaser trailer. We had to cancel the filming because it was out doors and it had in fact forecast snow for the first two days of the week. Which it is not possible to film in for obvious reasons. We thought maybe we could continue to film later on in the week but then we were not sure whether or not the snow would have cleared by the end of the week so we decided not to take a chance and risk making mistakes on the filming and delayed it for another week until the snow clears and we are able to get back to filming in normal weather conditions.

Research and Planning - Auditions

Once Me and my team member Naomi had decided on the type of person that we would like to play the role of the girl being followed, we decided to hold a number of auditions, we decided that physically Sophie looked the part and so decided it was best to have a verbal interview with her to determine whether or not her personality matched the part she would be playing. Also we wanted to see whether she was motivated and most of all reliable so that we could agree to meet on a certain date and be confident that she would not disrupt and shooting schedule by not showing up.We put together a number of relevant questions to ask her whilst filming the interview. We were impressed with the answers she gave and also her appearance was tidy, smart and just the right kind of image we wanted for the girl in our teaser trailer. So we decided to cast Sophie as the part of the stalked girl.

Research and Planning - Stalker board mock up

This is a mock-up of the 'stalker board' that will be used in one of the scenes in our teaser trailer. In preparation for filming over the last few weeks I have been taking the neccessary photos on different days in certain locations to make it look as if Sophie is being followed as she carries out her daily routine. The main image shows the girl that is going to be stalked in our trailer. All the images shown are going to be seen on the bedroom wall of the stalker where there will be a number of different shots used to show him standing over the bed with a hooded jumper on hiding his identity.

Research and Planning - The Strangers Trailer

This is the teaser trailer for the horror movie 'The Strangers'.  The reason I have chosen to post this on here is because when watching it I found that the first few scenes were really catchy and would possibly be something I would like to put into my teaser trailer. Not in the same context of the houses. But in a similar format such as three scenes of people or things that aren't necessarily in the film but set the theme for the audience. Like in this video we see the different houses and straight away the audience know that this film is gonna be based on a house. Whereas in our trailer we may do a similar thing but instead of a house we are going to have three couples breaking up which wont necessarily be in the trailer but it is important to the story.

Research & Planning - Call sheet

 

This is the call sheet I put out using  the social networking site facebook. It was posted onto my facebook status to be seen by friends who attend the college asking whether anyone wanted to take part in our teaser trailer. From this we will then audition the people who are interested, asking them a number of questions, then looking at their answers and their personal skills and appearance to determine who is the right actor/actress that fits the criteria we are looking for.