Practice Project- Set Layout and Shotlist

This is the floorplan for our set. We designed the look of the set, where all the props will go as well as the camera shots we will have for the final piece. This is the final visualising piece of pre production before we do our first shooting on a green screen. As a group we sat down and discussed this plan to allow ourselves to know what we are doing as well as easily explain where the cinematographers need to record. I hope this piece looks good at the end. Also as a producer of the project I looked at all the things that may or may not be realistic in this piece. As you can see down the bottom of this picture it says 'tape hand to leg'. We may not be able to find a chair with arms therefore we have decided to tape the tortured mans arm to his leg to make it easy for the woman to cut his finger off as well as make it easy to put the latex glove somewhere resting as we cut the finger off.
As you can see we have a few different shots here and here is the finalised shotlist:

-Track out shot/ Mid Shot/ Close Up on Mark (All in one shot)
-Shot behind torture table establishing fire behind woman
-Close Up on finger being cut off
-Close Up on gas canister and cigarette
-Tracking shot around half of chair as woman walks in Mid Shot

Experimenting With Prosthetic Hand

We had to work on the hand in three stages, first stage making the fake blood, second step making the hand itself and third step making the blood squirt out of the hand when cut off.
The most difficult parts of these stages was making them all look real to the eye. The blood had to be the right consistency with we were able to do by mixing strawberry sauce with red food colouring. It gave off a dark red colour that could easily be mistaken for blood and was thick but not to thick so it stuck to the mixing stick. We tested it by seeing how long it took for the gue to drip off the mixing stick, it had to run off fairly quickly but not too quickly. This is the look of the blood that came from the two simple ingredients.

Second step, the hand itself was explained to us by Martin. He showed us an example of a previous attempt of making a prothetic hand, he used bread dough, a thin dog chew stick and a latex glove. The feel of the hand was really genuine the only problem was the look, it needed paint that was skin coloured, which convenietly was located in the store of paints and worked extremely well after Fiona and Ruby added a layer of paint to it. The third step, making the blood squirt was easy to do. We got a syringe from the cupbourd and a small rubber pipe that we connected together then put it in the glove. The only thing we could do now was give it a final test. The test physically made me feel weak as it looked so real. It looked mangled and the blood was everywhere. A brilliant first attempt from the group:

Lesson 5- Interior Set decoration and change to practice project idea

This lesson was more on designing the interior of the set. Basically matching what it should look like on the actual shooting day. As we only had one lesson to do this in it was quite rushed. People had to design exactly what it should look like by visualising the day of the shoot. As my group were doing green screen we did other things. I helped Joe on the set above. We both wallpapered the set on one wall and fitted the fireplace. It was beginning to make a difference and as you can see they cut a big hole in the set wall to place a mirror on it to give it a more living roomy feel.

The rest of the group got on with designing specific elements of the set. Myself and Mark measured out the Doll House and compared it with the amount of space we would realistically have in the green screen. We converted the measurements from centimetres to metres and then put it up another 1.5 scale. This allowed us to visualise the room and see where everything would be placed. The room we will use will be the bottom right. We will be covering all the walls and the floor with black to allow more ease when tracking out for the last shot as we can then 'green screen' this in a graphic transition to seem like nothing in that room has changed drastically when people watch.

Meanwhile Fiona and Ruby worked on creating a prosthetic hand for the change to the practice project. We decided to make this film have blood in it that we would cut off the tortured mans finger. We thought this would add more of a learning curve to our project and give us something to experiment with. So far so good.

Major Research project- Initial Planning- Psycho (1960, Hitchcock)

After looking into the 'twist' thrillers I want to research I came across Psycho. I have viewed this film before but did not click at first. This is an extremely good movie to begin researching as it started the 'twist' thrillers off.
Psycho is based on a novel by Robert Bloch of the same name that follows a woman who steals $40,000 from her employers client. After she runs away she encounters a young man called Norman Bates who owns a hotel she stays in. Soon to find out that Norman as too long been controlled by his mother. The film ends in a shocking twist that is dramatically revealed. This was the first of it's kind and is Hitchcock's most renowned film.

I think this film is great for the initial planning as this is the first film of it's kind to have the elements that are now used to inspire films such as Fight Club (1999, Fincher), and Shutter Island (2010, Scorsese). This is really usful as I can find contemporary articles and books looking into the film and how it is used as inspiration. It will also make it easier to find articles that will explain to me the theories behind this certain type of film as well as lead me to other articles or books related to this subject that will explain to me in more depth what I am looking for. I hope to begin by finding a wider selection of films that have this same element of 'twist' thriller then look into these films in more details to find what is needed to create such a successful piece.

Major Research Project- Initial inspiration- Shutter Island (2010, Scorsese)

Based on Dennis Lehane's novel of the same name Shutter Island explores the psychological effects a mental institute has on it's patients and the main character U.S Marshal Teddy Daniels. The film has a shocking twist which is what attracted me to use it as inspiration. These are my favourite sort of films, with shocking unexpected twists that change your entire perception of the film and make you want to watch it in a different light. There seems to be a genre 'type' for these films and include films such as Seven (1995, Fincher), The Usual Suspects (1995, Singer), Fight Club (Fincher, 1999) and Saw (2004, Wan). Although on first watch these films seem completely different they all have a specific thing that ties them together. The ending. The ending is a shock to the viewers system, we are changed when watchingh this the first time and on a second viewing we atch the film in an entirely new light. These films are usually hugely popular as the anticipation for the ending is widely recognised. Fight Club even uses the tag line 'The first rule of fight club, never talk about Fight Club'.

Shutter Island definitely had the element of surprise within it and was very hard to pick up on. In fact this film affected me mentally as I was left to question if Teddy Daniels situation is true then doesn't that make me insane as well. This led me to the secret behind these films. That we are viewing this so much from the protagonists point of view that everything else around them is obscured. It is a clouded vision of the main characters interpretation. Only at the end are we given another point of view. This is the type of film I will use for my Major Research Project.

Lesson 4- First Studio lesson

Today we looked at set building and put it into practice. This was a huge learning curve for me as we literally started with a blank canvas. We learnt how to build the sets including the stands and weighting to secure them. This process was extremely simple but something that was extremely useful to learn for the future. I had never worked on a set nevermind made one so I was learning throughout every step of the way. We had to make sure the set walls were in tact and fix them if they werent with a simple screwdriver or hammer and nail. After all of this we began painting the set with was very satisfying as it felt a lot more complete when we looked back on it. As you can see we ended up creating a pretty good looking set. Unfortunately this isn't ours instead ours will just be a green screen which we will have to measure and create a room from by just visualising it. This brings a lot more difficult challenge during the pre production stages however I am looking forward to having a lot to play with and learn in the post production stages. I am already trying to get photos of George's basement so we can use it as the backdrop in the final edit.

Lesson 3- Workshop Tutorial

This lesson was entirely based around learning how to use the tools and what tolls are the correct ones in different situations. We were inducted in the basement of Sheaf and learnt how to use a drill, electric saw and other vital tools. However the most interesting part has to be the use of the most simple tools and how effective they are in building a set. The tools were simple to use and the session was very useful in teaching me how to build a set. 

Also as a group we worked on our idea and changed it slightly to create a more 'uncanny' film idea. This involved using the doll house Suzannah had and making the entire film within a room in the dolls house. This was an interesting idea as we would have to use green screen. I am excited about this idea as I have never used green screen and do not know how to use it. I am excited to see how this will turn out!

Inspiration for Major Research Project- Skyfall (2012, Mendes)

After watching Skyfall at the cinema on it's release day I thought it was definitely an initial bit of inspiration to help me begin my Creative Project Realisation Major Project Research. Directed by Sam Mendes this film has a certain detachment from the bond we are used to. However as the film itself this is a great Thriller/Action that has helped me to gain an insight into the kind of film I want to look into.

The film is a spy thriller. It has specific elements of a thriller and is unique because of the character and the spy feel to it. Bond is really the developing film collection that has introduced the way spy thrillers are made now. For examle the use of high tech gadgets have become widely used in spy thrillers such as Mission Impossible (1996). This shows how films develop there own element of sub genre and we as an audience can quickly find out what sort of film we are watching just from the distinctive parts in the film such as music, lighting, mise-en scene and props, editing and more. I will be careful when using this in my own major research project.

CPR- Major Project Outline and First Thoughts

For our Major Project Research we will be looking into a specific path within a genre we are inspired from. At first glance this seems a little difficult. Susannah has told us the work load will be huge and that we will have to put a lot of research into our work. So far I have almost froze on this side of the work, although I have borrowed: 'Film Genre: Hollywood and Beyond' (Langford), 'Film Genre: from iconography to ideology' (Keith Grant) and 'Thrillers' (Rubin). I hope that these books can inspire inspiration. Although I have looked at different genres such as musicals and dramas I feel that I should really stay away from these as I am creating a musical for my final drama piece and afraid that I may get caught up in the same style of musicals in both modules. I think my best bet is Thrillers as this is a genre that I am most interested in as well as the genre with most history, therefore there is bound to be some sort of specific path that I can take within this side of film. I hope to go into films like Crime thrillers as this is somwthing that I enjoy especially with a twist at the end. I have recently watched skyfall and thought this was a good inspiration within the thriller genre. I will be looking into this more.

Uncanny Practice film- Prop list

Our Proplist so far:
- Empty Gas Canister
- Chair with arms
- Duct Tape
- Long Table
- Torture Tools - Hammer, Spanner, Knife, Drill, Saw
- Light
- Red Dress
- Tattered White Shirt
- Some jeans slightly ripped and worn out
- Fake blood
- Make up (purple, browns and reds)

I expect we may have probelms with some of these items however I hope that this will stay relatively the same for the final shoot.

Moodboard for Uncanny practice film

This is the moodboard I created. As you can see this is a rough draft that I pulled together from images from the internet but I have managed to combine them into the image we are looking for. I have also managed to pull up a list of props that we will need in the final shoot of this piece.

Lesson 2- Photoshop

Today was a photoshop based lesson. I am not very familiar with photoshop and have only ever used it when enhancing the look of my photographs for my photography portfolio, so this was quite a big learning curve for me. Since writing the plotline of the practice idea I hadn't given much thought into the look of what we would have within the scene of it and photoshop gave us a perfect opportunity to look at the style and image of the scene. We learnt how to create a moodboard looking at how tools on photoshop could be used to create a good looking moodboard as well as combine separate images together. I went to the extreme of combining images and tried to create what the scene would look like with images I found across the internet. This was a great way of teaching yourself the image you want and I felt a lot more confident about the look I was trying to grasp with the moodboard to back me up. I decided to compare mine after I had created it with Mark who is also in my group. We looked at the similarities and differences that we had and discussed them thinking about what we would rather have it looking like in the final shoot. This definitely taught me something about directing and art directing. Firstly is there are a million different ways of seeing the same scene and everyone sees it differently so mood boards are a great way to show exactly the image as well as the style you are looking for. I also found out on the directing side of production that presenting your image and style to your production team is so important for them understanding what you want out of the shoot. Just a simple discussion between myself and Mark meant that we now know what we want from this shoot and near enough what it should look like. Even if we can't get the exact image we want. I will be using the moodboard as a way to express to people what I want in future productions to help inform the team instead of just telling them.