Codes and conventions

Here are two really useful Slideshare presentations which relate to our chosen genre - psychological thriller. These were particularly useful when planning my evaluation... 

Film classification

As we have finished producing our two minute opening, we have done some research into the rating it would be issued, if it was made into a feature length film. Using the BBFC website, we decided on the most appropriate rating for our film.




















Our film would not be a '12A' because...

Our film has quite a dark tone, and it touches upon some unsettling themes including drug abuse, murder/ strong violence.

Though it was not used in our opening, strong language may occur throughout our film, because although our protagonist is professional, the film shows her status declining.

Violent behaviour may be exhibited by our protagonist, as a result of her drug abuse/ side effects.

Inevitably, dangerous behaviour and drug misuse will be exhibited in our film as it ties in with out plot. Although we are not glamorizing or endorsing these behaviours, they would definitely be a persistent theme.

We have decided to rate our film '15'...

BBFC features of a '15' rating.

The drugs featured in our film are more likely to be prescribed, and are therefore less accessible to the audience. Our film does not endorse drug use, and rather, portrays the unappealing side effects.

Some of our film inspiration has also helped us decide what certificate to give our film, as they include similar themes...

Side Effects

Girl, Interrupted

Testament of Youth: cinema trip

Today, Miss Foster and the English department took us to a screening of James Kent's 'Testament of Youth'. It is the film adaptation of Vera Brittain's memoir detailing her war experience and losses during the first world war, as originally published in 1933. Here is the trailer:



The lead role was played by the wonderful Alicia Vikander, a flourishing Swedish actress with 8 upcoming films this year which I am thoroughly looking forward to.

The film was useful not only as an English Literature student, studying the literature of World War 1, but also as a Media Studies student. Me and Tayla were pinching each other throughout because of how beautifully it was shot!

We really liked the use of selective focus, especially in close ups of single characters as we thought it really emphasized the emotion and individual suffering of each character; this also made us consider the subject of war as a whole and that the idea that each member of an entire generation was impacted in some way or another.






We also liked the use of match cutting in the film - one in particular which stood out to us was the scene where Vera's tears fell, which followed into the raindrops in the trenches where her loved ones were, as it was particularly poignant.






 Here is a critical response to the film:

Testament of Youth: critics review

Although the critic argues that 'there seems no real thunderstorm', after watching the film through wet eyes, I disagree as the film did little to romanticize the war and still made the audience emotional - perhaps it was more appropriate to leave out the horrors on the Front line as it was central to Vera Brittain who did not fight in the trenches.

Here are some of the scenes which stuck out to us, in exposing the brutality of war:



Overall, Testament of Youth was a brilliant film which I'd definitely recommend.
Although it does not fall under the same genre as our two minute opening, we took inspiration from how it was shot especially in terms of framing, composition and sound which made each scene all the more effective.

Mirror shot research

Mac 5 have one last scene to film, which features Hannah standing in front of a mirror, in a bathroom.
 We have found some examples of how we want this scene to look, and we have carefully selected the framing and composition of each shot to make the scene effective. 

We have been given this really cool underwater camera, which we are going to use to get a close up shot of Hannah scooping up the water.




Here (30s-50s) is an example of what we mean from We Need To Talk About Kevin (2011):


We also like the idea of using a close up of the tap, as we already have a shot of Hannah by a sink in our previous location. This is somewhat similar to how Kevin Spacey's bathroom monologue begins in Casino Jack (2010):



We think a POV shot would work quite nicely here - Enter The Void (2009) shows us how this could be achieved:


Here is a compilation of movies which feature a few more bathroom/ mirror scenes:



We don't want the scene to be scary, as we are aware that scenes like these are quite cliché as it is.

We do however, want the scene to show our character's unfamiliarity with herself, and we think that using a mirror is probably the easiest way to show some of the side effects our character is experiencing, as we previously identified in our drug research.

Production company research

Last lesson, our group began to think about the name of our production logo, and how it should look. Here is a picture of us in the lesson, comparing all of the possible choices in the thesaurus: 

We have also done some online research into production companies which produce films possibly associated with our genre; we focused on UK production companies as we are producing a British film, after all. Here are the links to some of our useful sources:

BFI Vision Awards 2013-15 list

UK film production companies wiki list

 We gave it a lot of thought and we have come up our own list. We picked names out of a hat, resulting in 'wildfire' as the name of our company and we have a rough idea of how it might look, though we haven't completely decided this yet.

Drug research

We have been doing some more research into possible psychological disorders which link to our two minute opening and that main character could exhibit symptoms of, and the medicine we could reference within our opening. We had a look at several different types of anti-anxiety drugs:

We liked the idea of prescribing valium, as it is prescribed to "treat anxiety disorders, alcohol withdrawal symptoms, or muscle spasms" - this links to both our characters. The patient, we have decided, suffers from stress and muscle spasms, while the psychiatrist suffers from an anxiety disorder. The psychiatrist prescribes the patient with the same drug she is taking. 

Here is a really useful website which lists some of the side-effects of valium; the ones which we would like our character to exhibit are highlighted in blue:

http://www.drugs.com/sfx/valium-side-effects.html

If any of the following side effects occur while taking diazepam, check with your doctor immediately:

More common

• Shakiness and unsteady walk
• unsteadiness, trembling, or other problems with muscle control or coordination

Incidence not known

• Abdominal or stomach pain
• agitation
• anxiety
• black, tarry stools
• blistering, flaking, or peeling of skin
• blurred vision
• changes in patterns and rhythms of speech
• chills
• confusion
• cough
• dark urine
• decrease in frequency of urination
• decrease in urine volume
• difficulty in passing urine (dribbling)
• discouragement
• dizziness, faintness, or lightheadedness when getting up from a lying or sitting position suddenly
• false beliefs that cannot be changed by facts
• fast heartbeat
• fast or irregular breathing
• feeling sad or empty
• feeling that others are watching you or controlling your behavior
• feeling that others can hear your thoughts
• feeling, seeing, or hearing things that are not there
• fever
• headache
• hyperexcitability
• increased muscle spasms or tone
• irritability
• itching
• lack of appetite
• lack of memory of what takes place after a certain event
• loss of appetite
• loss of bladder control
• loss of interest or pleasure
• lower back or side pain
• mood or other mental changes
• nausea
• nervousness
• nightmares
• outbursts of anger
• painful or difficult urination
• pale skin
• rash
• restlessness
• seizures
• shakiness in the legs, arms, hands, or feet
• shortness of breath
• sleeplessness
• slurred speech
• sore throat
• sweating
• trembling or shaking of the hands or feet
• tremor
• trouble concentrating
• trouble in speaking
• trouble sleeping
• ulcers, sores, or white spots in the mouth
• unable to sleep
• unpleasant breath odor
• unusual behavior
• unusual bleeding or bruising
• unusual feeling of excitement
• unusual tiredness or weakness
• vomiting of blood
• yellow eyes or skin

We like the use of using parallel shots in our opening, to show the similarities between both the patient and the psychiatrist. However we also storyboarded shots which show a contrast in position from when our psychiatrist is on her job to when she is by herself, to imply that she would like to keep it a secret regardless of how dangerous it may be.

Title sequence inspiration

After much contemplation, our group has decided to add our titles in post-editing. We figured it would suit the film genre slightly more than filming the titles in the real world, which is more typically associated with comedy or indie films such as Napoleon Dynamite shown below:

However, rather than just having our titles roll across, or fade in and out of the screen, we would like to use elements in our setting to make the sequence a little more interesting.

We have looked at a few examples of this which we really like, such as the opening sequence of Six Feet Under:



The opening sequence for Dexter really inspired our group in producing our own sequence too. We plan to use close ups to create intimacy, and an uncomfortable viewing experience for our audience - Dexter is a great example of how our close ups could be shot incorporating the titles:

Although both of these sequences are for TV series', we think adding our titles in, in a similar way would be much more appealing for our audience while maintaining a sequence reflective of our film genre.

Title sequence ideas

Our group has been doing some research on the order of our title sequence, and after reading online and watching several examples, we have a list of common titles and the relative order they go in:

• Name of studio
• Name of production company
• A film by
• Starring
• Film title
• Featuring
• Casting
• Music
• Production design
• Editor(s)
• Director of photography
• Producer(s)
• Based on the book/ characters/ story by
• Screenplay by
• Written by
• Director

We don't plan on using all of these in our opening, so we have narrowed down the list. The potential titles we may use are highlighted in blue.

A great deal of our research was done using artofthetitle, which provided us with inspiration for potential fonts and for the position of our titles. Here are a few examples:

                                                             Grand Prix (Film)

                                                             The conjuring (Film)

                                                             Black sails (TV)

                                                             United States of Tara (TV)
                                                             (Sorry, I had to)

The faculty: general character research

One of the best movies I ever saw as a kid was The Faculty (1998). It had me believing my teachers were aliens for years. It also has an amazing cast, which drew me into watching a lot of their other works. 

While it is classed as a sci-fi/ horror and therefore doesn't fall under the same genre of our two minute opening, I think it is one of the best movies which portrays insecurity and distrust between people - this is something our main character adopts due to her own psychological disturbance. It may also have a similar target audience to our film. Here is one of the most memorable scenes in the movie which shows each characters lack of trust in one another:

Here are another few clips in the movie which show different characters' reactions and expressions in times of suspicion and revelation:

Beanz

Here is the advert for the fridge pack of Heinz baked beans:



The cutaway shots used are great and synchronize really well with the jovial music, to create a cute video montage of everyone's favourite Beanz! The jump cuts flow smoothly into one another and the Beans are  shown in focus, using a shallow depth of field to highlight their prominence in the fridge.

Filmmaking techniques