Due to difficulties with continuity of filming the footage for our film in the foundation portfolio, this year we made sure we created a filming schedule, character profiles, and a detailed list of props we would require for each scene, so we didn't face any major problems again. This meant we were able to be organised throughout the filming process. Although we thought we were fully organised for the filming, we did still face some minor issues, these being: snow interrupting the filming throughout the whole of January, meaning if we had continued to film on these days we would've broken the continuity of the film as there would be snow in some outdoor shots and not the others. because of this we had to wait for long periods of time while the snow thawed so we could finish off the filming. then again this created continuity problems in itself due to actors hair changing in colour/length since previous filming; which in some cases was 2/3 months previous. To overcome these changes we tried to edit the film as craftily as we could including some wide shots, close up shots and establishing shots in able to dodge these changes in the continuity. An example of these changes was that the actress playing our protagonist 'Agnes' changed the length and colour of her hair so rather than shooting all the scenes we decided to put her hair in plaits so that this problem was unnoticeable. Extending the time we had to produce the film would have meant we wouldn't have has to risk the continuity change and would've has time to re-shoot some shots. Although this would have been ideal we managed to edit the film so these differences were corrected.
Intertextuality
This year we wanted to try a variety of new shots so we could develop our creativity. Alfred Hitchcock's 1960's thriller, Psycho included a shot we were inspired by and thought we could use it to show that Agnes had been killed by her parents. Obviously we couldn't physically show the actress hanging from the noose without creating some major hazards and difficulties; but we still wanted to shoot this scene in a way as gruesome and detailed as we could to give a greater effect on our audience. the spectacular shower scene in Psycho creates the impression that the actress is being viscously stabbed to death, without even showing it. By creating an arrangement of fast-moving shots of the knife quickly dashing around the actresses flesh and synchronised the stabbing motions with stabbing sound effects. his scene was very realistic although no actual knife entered the actresses flesh.
We took great inspiration from this scene and filmed to footage for the scene where Agnes is hanged using the same technique. Fast, quick-cut shots of the noose being placed around the actresses neck, her fidgeting feet as she struggled to breathe, and a shot of her dangling from the tree with the rope around her neck all create the illusion we wanted. We added a sound effect of a weighted rope to add to the verisimilitude (0.25). Despite the murder being portrayed in the scene, the actress was not harmed and the 'hanging' is completely fake. Another actor, Jack, had to lift the actress in order for us to be able to shoot her feet fidgeting. The illusion of her 'hanging' from the rope was created by simple shooting from a low angle.
We used another part of Hitchcock's shower scene where he uses a dissolve effect transition between a shot of the plug hole at the bottom of the shower to the actresses eye as she is lying on the floor having collapsed in the shower once being murdered. This shot adds dimension to our film, whilst representing how Agnes suddenly remembered her murder and came to the conclusion that she was in fact a ghost in her own home. We filmed a close up shot of Agnes' face whilst she clasped her hand around her neck, imitating the action of the rope being tied around her neck. When we edited this shot we added a slowly dissolving effect into the actual shot of her hanging from the noose, we did this to show this was what she was remembering.
We had seen a shot in Jurassic Park from 1993 and Jaws in 1975 which was a pull focus shot. Apart from the group generally liking the look of the shot, we knew it would add dimension and creativity to our film by including this shot; we also thought that because this type of shot had drawn our attention we thought we would add more audience interest to the particular object. By no means is this shot only associated with horror films like ours but we knew that we could create an effect on the audience by using it in a creepy way; by adding some sinister music to the scene including this shot we could create some suspense. As we didn't quite know how to create this effect when filming the shot we needed to do some research on how to make sure it would present the desired outcome, and also watched a YouTube tutorial of how to shoot it on or type of camera.
The pull focus shot is shown in the kitchen scene near to the beginning of our film. Agnes is preparing to make a cup of coffee so she boils the kettle and places a mug on the kitchen side next to her. As Agnes turns away from from the mug for a few seconds to look at a flower arrangement and is seen to read a sorrowful note attached to them, she turns backs around to continue asking her coffee and notices that someone has moved her mug to the other side of the kitchen. (this scene is from 5.38 onwards) We uses a wide shot to show how the mug has moved, making sure Agnes was in focus and her mug was out of focus. This is called a shallow focus shot. We them twisted the lens on the camera as Agnes walked towards to mug, gradually creating a deep focus shot by involving everything in the shot in a full focus.
Because we have four members in our group we obviously all had different ideas for the storyline so we wanted to include a part of each members story line. Our main ambition was to sell our idea as much as possible. Emma chose thriller, Amber chose a psychological, Ellisha chose a romance and I chose an action. After looking at everyone's idea and presentation of their storyline, we concluded that it would be fair to evenly split the story line between us all. After taking ideas from the combination of story lines we created our film genre: a horror.
The thriller genre was added into the storyline seen as our protagonist Agnes is murdered. This supports the stereotypical idea of a thriller as deaths are commonly used in this genre to create a sinister atmosphere and also create tension. Richard Dier's theory of intensity is supported in our film as the characters to experience extreme lows; such as Agnes' parents having a drug addiction and it becoming so overpowering that the end up killing their own daughter.
The psychological plot in our film is the climax in the narrative caused by the music to build tension throughout the film; and including the flashbacks of Agnes' abusive childhood. The flashbacks also relate to Dier's theory of transparency, as the flashbacks are used to give the audience to be informed of Agnes' inner thoughts and feelings.
The action included in our film is where we have fast-paced cuttings between shots of sinister happenings as Agnes is beginning to realise that her house is 'haunted', when actually it is the new owners of the house and she then realises that she is the ghost 'haunting' her house. Dier's theory of energy is represented at this point of the film. We give the audience energy through the editing; the quick cutting of various shots between dramatic scenes. By adding a loud sound effect of a heartbeat to these shots ads to the feeling of palpitation in the audience as our plot starts to unravel.
The romance presented in our film is between Agnes' parents as they are married in the film, and the romantic relationship between the ghost man and woman. Empathy is revealed to the audience by adding this contrast of romance and creates emotion when something negative impacts on these two relationships shown. For example in the interrogation scene we have shown the characters to both be distressed which creates the empathy for the characters although they are in the wrong.
After viewing some high graded 5 minute films from the year before we found that those who presented a horror genre tended to get a higher ark than those who did a comedy for example; therefore this persuaded us to make a horror film as we thought we would be able to all achieve higher grades from this. An advantage with doing this genre for our film was that some members of our group have previous experience in making a film of this genre. Ellisha and Emma had made a psychological thriller last year for their AS media production and therefore knew the conventions and iconography such as knives and blood; and with psychological thriller genre is a sub-genre of horror by choosing to film a horror it allowed these members of the group to apply previous knowledge of this genre into our film this year.
Here is our final film idea storyline.
A film we were inspired by was 'Shutter Island'. We decided we wanted to change the stereotype of horror and have our protagonist as a woman rather than a man. By unravelling the plot from one characters view we were supporting Dier's theory of community which creates a personal tone. Most horror films often feature a young, pretty female who is scared and seen running away from the antagonist (usually a male); from this we inverted this stereotype considering our female protagonist Agnes is abused and eventually killed by the dominant male in the film: her dad. This is evidence of how women and men are represented in film; we have represented the women as weaker while the men remain as the superior one. Laura Mulvey says that women are viewed as objects, this is called 'Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema'. To add to this we show how the female ghost believes she has seen a ghost (Agnes) in her new house and immediately calls for her boyfriend, he then tells the female ghost "don't be stupid" and dismisses the subject. This creates a sense of the female character being naive and him telling her what is right. We liked the idea of using flashbacks based on the Agnes' memory in our film after seeing how Martin Scorsese used them in his film Shutter Island to give away to the audience about Teddy's real identity.
The initial genre of our film was aimed to be a horror but after creating an audience questionnaire we discovered that 50% of people thought it was a horror and the other 50% thought it was a thriller. We understood this outcome because of the non-linear story line and use of flashbacks, as well as the increasing narrative climax towards the end of the film, these are all conventions of a thriller genre. Although is was 100% accurate to our intended genre from the questionnaire we still felt confident in achieving the scary tone we set out to create. We were encouraged by the questionnaire as the thriller genre still holds conventions similar to horror, whereas if we had answers including comedy we would've been a lot more worried about our film and would've had to reassess our film. Overall we were happy with the audience questionnaire results and our film portrayed the message we wanted; fear.
Conclusion
Overall, I felt that we created a film which gives the audience pleasure which is what we set out to do. By adding interesting shots, good editing techniques and a non-linear dramatic narrative, we gave our audience a chance delve into our protagonists point of view which helped them to sympathise with her during her emotional journey throughout the film.
The Intruders - final cut
A film we were inspired by was 'Shutter Island'. We decided we wanted to change the stereotype of horror and have our protagonist as a woman rather than a man. By unravelling the plot from one characters view we were supporting Dier's theory of community which creates a personal tone. Most horror films often feature a young, pretty female who is scared and seen running away from the antagonist (usually a male); from this we inverted this stereotype considering our female protagonist Agnes is abused and eventually killed by the dominant male in the film: her dad. This is evidence of how women and men are represented in film; we have represented the women as weaker while the men remain as the superior one. Laura Mulvey says that women are viewed as objects, this is called 'Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema'. To add to this we show how the female ghost believes she has seen a ghost (Agnes) in her new house and immediately calls for her boyfriend, he then tells the female ghost "don't be stupid" and dismisses the subject. This creates a sense of the female character being naive and him telling her what is right. We liked the idea of using flashbacks based on the Agnes' memory in our film after seeing how Martin Scorsese used them in his film Shutter Island to give away to the audience about Teddy's real identity.
The initial genre of our film was aimed to be a horror but after creating an audience questionnaire we discovered that 50% of people thought it was a horror and the other 50% thought it was a thriller. We understood this outcome because of the non-linear story line and use of flashbacks, as well as the increasing narrative climax towards the end of the film, these are all conventions of a thriller genre. Although is was 100% accurate to our intended genre from the questionnaire we still felt confident in achieving the scary tone we set out to create. We were encouraged by the questionnaire as the thriller genre still holds conventions similar to horror, whereas if we had answers including comedy we would've been a lot more worried about our film and would've had to reassess our film. Overall we were happy with the audience questionnaire results and our film portrayed the message we wanted; fear.
Conclusion
Overall, I felt that we created a film which gives the audience pleasure which is what we set out to do. By adding interesting shots, good editing techniques and a non-linear dramatic narrative, we gave our audience a chance delve into our protagonists point of view which helped them to sympathise with her during her emotional journey throughout the film.
The Intruders - final cut
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