Stage 2 Production Schedule
Today in our AV Design seminar we were told to produce a production schedule for our 6 minute film assessment piece. I listed every single task that needs to be done, put them in to order that they need to be completed and set a sensible deadline date for each. Although I am very unlikely to stick this schedule I am going to try my best, but I think I will find this very helpful for my reference to see what exactly needs to be done and whether I'm falling behind or not. MORE READABLE SCHEDULE TO BE UPLOADED.

Task Deadline
Write synopsis 08/01/08 - DONE
Research, create and develop main characters 18/01/08 - DONE
Write first draft of script 30/01/08 - DONE
Analyse and amend script 01/02/08 - DONE
Finalise script 03/02/08 - DONE
Draw Storyboard and shot lists 07/02/08 - DONE
Produce call sheet/shooting schedule 08/02/08
Produce paper edit 08/02/08
Book equipment 08/02/08 - DONE
Find set locations and photograph 12/02/08 - DONE
Draw floor plans 15/02/08
Hire actors for film 15/02/08 - DONE
Hire crew for film 15/02/08 - DONE
Find costumes and props 20/02/08 - DONE
Start filming (note: photograph all production) 25/02/08 - DONE
Draw 3d visualisation of film in Frameforge 05/03/08 - DONE
Organise materials for presentation 10/03/08
Finish filming 15/03/08
Edit film 01/04/08
Analyse and finalise film 04/04/08
Research and draft for Electronic Press Kit 10/04/08
Produce trailer 20/04/08
Produce advert 01/05/08
Gather all work and create final DVD 19/05/08

Film Analysis - Halloween (1978)
Directed by John Carpenter
Written by John Carpenter & Debra Hill
For my AV Design film analysis task I have chosen the truly classic, low-budget horror film Halloween. This film alone spawned a entire sub-genre of horror, the stalk n' slash genre, and set the standard formula for many films to follow for years to come.
However although this film is responsible for producing this genre, I would not necessarily label it under the same category.
The stalk n' slash sub-genre usually consists of certain trademark elements including an unstoppable deformed/masked killer, premiscuous drug-taking teenagers, high body count, inventive murder methods and a dorky heroine. Where this the main selling point for most of these movies (i.e. boobs and blood) with each element getting increasingly rediculous as the sequels progress; the original Halloween is extremely mild on all these elements e.g. four murders, no blood, inhuman strength of killer not shown until finale; however this happens to be one of the scariest films of its kind due to suspense; all created by the basic tools available to a film maker....brilliant camera, lighting, sound and art production.
Therefore I would maybe classify it as more of a suspenseful thriller with a twist, being the first film of its kind and not directly linked to the typical horror genre at that time.

The film is based around an escaped psychopath, Michael Myers, who murdered his older sister when he was just 6 years old. Having escaped from a mental hospital after being there and having not said a word for 15 years, he returns to his hometown on Halloween night to stalk a group of unsuspecting girls, with psychiatrist Dr. Loomis (Donald Pleasance) in hot pursuit.


Chase scene
In this pre-finale scene the heroine of the film Laurie (Jamie Lee Curtis) goes over to her friend's house across the street to find them all dead in the upstairs bedroom. As she huddles in the darkness crying, Michael Myers attacks her from out of nowhere and knocks her down the stairs. She looks up to see her masked assailant and runs away with Michael Myers in pursuit brandishing a large butcher knife.
Aside from an almost identical scene from the sequel Halloween II; this is one of the most suspenseful scenes I have seen.

Shot 1 - The first shot of this scene is my favourite. It shows Jamie Lee Curtis crouching down and crying with her back to the corner of the hallway wall facing the camera. The wall is dimly illuminated, but where the wall ends on the right-side of the shot leads to pure darkness, this creates an atmosphere of fear and uncertainty. The music tone starts from low giving a sense of dread, and then changes to a high pitch to increase the tension. The shot is also medium close-up which gives a kind of claustophobic feel giving the impression that she has nowhere to run. As she stands up and moves forward to go down the stairs, the plain white masked face of Michael Myers subtlety appears in the pitch black corner of the screen. You only see this for a second or two but you can briefly glimpse at the dark eyes and white features of the white mask appear and strike Laurie silently from the darkness. I think the general concept of this shot is fantastic and is all brought about through clever lighting and camera work.

Shots 2 & 3 - A close-up of Laurie screaming before falling backwards over the banister leaving pure darkness. Shots are once again made up of dark shadows and the audio is simply a high-pitched scream from Laurie.

Shot 4 - A first-person perspective view of Laurie falling off the second floor banister and spiralling towards the stairs. I find this to be quite an interesting shot. It is once again very dark except for the light from the criss-cross of shadows created by the banisters, combined with a fast spiralling camera shot this gives a sense of confusion and alarm that Laurie is feeling as she is knocked off the banister without warning. The audio is once again Laurie screaming, I feel exclusion of music/soundeffects for this shot makes it seem a little more realistic and gives a slight break in the tension.

Shot 5 - A medium shot of Laurie crashing onto the middle of the stairs and hitting the wall. Again the shot is mostly pitch black aside from a fraction of lighting through the banisters. The audio provides the sound of her thumping against the wooden stairs and grunting and moaning from her injuries.

Shot 6 - A medium shot looking straight up the stairs to show the shadowy figure of Michael Myers step onto the landing at the top the stairs and look down at Laurie. The shot is very dark, only able to see the outline of Michael's legs and arms, not even his white mask, the usual small patches of light from the banister are here. The audio is at first a mixture of Michael's heavy breathing and Laurie cries of fear. The heavy breathing from beneath Michael's mask is pretty much the only sound he makes during the entire film, this gives him an essense of mystery which leads to an essense of fear since we are generally scared of the unknown. After Michael pauses the chase scene music starts, this one of many gems on the Halloween soundtrack and creates and builds up tension and fear as the final showdown begins, it is fairly similar to the Jaws theme in that it provides an audio sense of danger as the predator closes in on the prey.

Shots 7 & 8 - Medium close-ups of Laurie getting up and running towards front door. Lighting is slightly brighter as reaches front door depicting that she is escaping the danger and claustophobia of the darkness and heading towards freedom and safety. Chase music continues to play as Laurie cries.

Shot 9 - Medium shot of Michael's dark figure pacing down the stairs in pursuit to the chase music.

Shot 10 - Long shot of Laurie leaving the house screaming for help. Although she is free from the house, the shot shows that she is still in danger. The house appears gloomy and dark from the outside as does the surrounding area with not a single person around, the long shot is used here to show that Laurie is still alone but in a open space. The only audio here is of Laurie screaming for help, but with no reply; aswell as the chase music still playing and intensifying to increase the feeling of danger.

Fiction Seminar - 'Malac' Synopsis
In this week's AV Design seminar were asked to read the short script for 'Malac' and stepping into the director's shoes produce my own interpretation of what the film will look like. So after reading and analysing the script, in which much of the action revolved around a fictional object/thing called a 'Malac', we were asked to write a synopsis for a film about a 'Malac' which included this scene. The beauty of this task was the flexibility in which we make the 'Malac' to be anything we wanted as long as it tied in with the script.
Here is my synopsis:
(Note: Malac in my film is a metaphor for committment, or a wedding ring in the particular scene).

Harry Blane is a successful smooth talking airline pilot who seems to have it all. Life is a continuous party - money,airplanes,drugs and women. However Harry is hitting his 40th birthday soon and he still has no intention whatsoever of growing up, or settling down; he has an intense fear of age and commitment, particularly marriage. However during a brief stay in the Venezuelan holiday island resort of Bonaire a run-in with a mysterious schizophrenic witchdoctor will change his life forever.

Back in his hometown of Miami, Florida things don't seem quite the same, everything and everyone in his daily life seems slightly off-key. The following day he meets a beautiful girl called Camilla and is instantly smitten. He is in love but refuses to let go of his rock n' roll lifestyle; from here Harry's entire reality is twisted beyond recognition. He seems to randomly step from one insanely surreal world to the other, each representing a scene from the deep psychosis of his mind, all seemingly triggered by his various different emotions and actions.

Is he dreaming?Is he going insane?Is he dead? or is there something more supernatural and sinister going on?Camilla seems to be the key to everything but can he learn to change his ways and stop this madness.

Review Week
Had my first review presentation session with Debs and Simon this week where we went through my blog and talked about my general progression, interests and aims within the course. Seemed gernerally quite happy with my progress though there were a few areas nthat I need to work on and improve by the next review session in April.

• More documentation of progress and learning of pathway work on blog.
• Do some editing exercises, take well-known films, deconstruct them and re-edit them.
• Tag blog entries.
• Research genre.
• Look into possible internships/summer work - mandy.com, shootingpeople.com.

Stage 1: Non-Fictional Character Study Assessment
So after a successful day filming at the lake our next task was to edit over 20 minutes of decent footage down to just 3 minutes! So after spending hours working on this seemingly impossible task this was the result:


Although my group was fairly happy with what we had produced the feedback wasn't so great for a number of reasons:

• Documentary wasn't properly structured, didn't make much sense and didn't even introduce character properly.Problems with continuity.
• Would like to have seen more cut-away shots and photos.
• Audio level was too low.
• Composition in racing segment is off, the top of head is cut off screen.
• His eyes moved about too much in diving segment, needs to focus on one interviewer.
• We should have allocated specific jobs to each team member more seriously to allow better organisation and focus.

Overall I think the flaws of this film are due to lack of organisation and analysis. If we had been allowed to make this film as long as we pleased it would have made a lot more sense but since we had to cut it down to 3 minutes this proved extremely difficult. The best thing to do would have really been to shot it again with more planned questions to keep it within this limit. Also we would have benefited from letting the tutors have a look at it first before releasing our final version as they could have pointed out the other problems.

Side Project - Anthology Horror Film
As an outside of studies project I have decided to begin working on making my own anthology style horror film. These types of horror films are basically a compilation of different short stories often linked together by a wrap-around story. Numerous films have been made like this, often based on short stories by Stephen King; films of this sub-genre include Creepshow, Creepshow 2, Tales from the Darkside, Cat's Eye, Twilight Zone:The Movie and Tale from the Hood. I find these films to generally be more fun and interesting as there are a variety of different themes and ideas and also tend to have a more humourous and comic approach then your typical horror film.Here is a trailer from Creepshow and descriptions of the different tales that make up the film:


Wrap-Around Story: Stern father Stan gets angry when he finds his young son Billy reading a grisly horror comic book entitled "Creepshow". After arguing with his wife and slapping Billy, Stan throws the comic in the garbage. A skeletal figure appears outside Billy's window, the "Creep", who hosts the stories in the comic book.

Father's Day: Years ago, Nathan Grantham was killed on Father's Day when his daughter Bedelia bashed him in the head with a marble ashtray as he screamed for his cake. Years later, as his relatives get together for their annual dinner on Father's Day, Nathan returns from the grave for revenge.

The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill: A dimwitted backwoods hick thinks a newly-discovered meteorite will provide enough money to pay off the remaining $200 of his bank loan. Instead, he finds himself overcome by a rapidly spreading plant-like organism that arrives in the meteorite.

Something to Tide You Over: A coldblooded TV producer stages a terrible fate for his unfaithful wife, Becky and her lover, Harry Wentworth by burying them up to their necks on the beach, below the high tide line. But the tide sometimes has a way of bringing things back...

The Crate: A mysterious, extremely lethal creature is unwittingly freed from its crate in this supenseful and gory monster story. College professor Henry Northrup sees the creature as a way to rid himself of his emotionally abusive wife, Wilma.

They're Creeping Up On You!: A cruel, miserly and ruthless businessman, Upson Pratt is disgusted by germs and insects, but finds himself helpless to stop them when Mr. White, his put-upon employee, allows his apartment to be overrun by endless hordes of cockroaches.

Wrap-Around Story: The film ends with the boy's father experiencing neck pains, transmitted by a voodoo doll ordered from the comic by the young boy, Billy, whom we see being chastised by his father at the beginning of the film.

I have begun researching and concepting stories like this of my own and hope to begin writing a script soon.

Stage 2: Fictional Study

Using what you have learnt, in audiovisual design, writing for visual media and AV production
Thinking about: Place, space and pace

To do: Using the research done in stage 1 produce a script for a 6 minute fictional AV work with two main characters. Research and pre produce your film and produce a 40 second pilot using Frame Forge to show how your film will look and feel.

Over the Christmas I have managed to sketch out two main characters for my film aswell as a basic plot outline. The concept is fairly similar to that of the classic film 'The Odd Couple' directed by Gene Saks (written by Neil Simon) in that it will follow the story of two very different friends who share a flat together....with hilarious consequences brought about through conflict.My two main characters will be loosely based upon on two people I know that live around the corner from me.

Character 1: Sean (The Hippy)

Sean is a peaceful and spiritual man of the earth. He is quiet and reserved, a deep-thinker, always looking to lend a hand, and seldom loses his temper; however he also happens to be fairly disaster-prone and is often on the receiving end of unfortunate incidents. His hobbies include meditating, cooking, reading, smoking weed, tai-chi, computing, playing guitar and enjoys chillout,psytrance and soft rock music.

Character 2: Barry (The Lout)

Barry is a loud and rowdy pub-loving chav. Due to his love for beer, he is usually incapable of intelligent or civilised conversation, he is clumsy and destructive, and overall a bit of a menace to society; however he a happy person who is fairly oblivious to his actions and deep down has a good heart and cares deeply for his friends. His hobbies include drinking, fighting, football, porn, snorting cocaine, clubbing, snooker and enjoys drum n bass, hardcore and heavy metal music.

However despite the characters' major differences......they happen to be the very best of friends!! They have grown up together since primary school but began to choose very different paths in life fairly early on, but at the age of 22 their friendship is still strong as ever. The film will be set primarily in the friends' flat revolving around a typical day in the life of two such conflicting characters living together in a small space. I picture it to have a fairly to similar feel to the popular 90's TV show 'Bottom' starring Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmondson.

Sean will take serious/mundane character role of the story, while Barry will provide the comic relief and conflict which pushes the story forward.

Over the next few weeks I will be researching numerous sources to help me design and write the script for this film such as various similar characters and scripts as well as set design and art production.