Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Feedback for Rough Cut Tiny Terror Location 1

FEEDBACK:
Good variety of shots.
 The editing is too 'jumpy' which needs to be changed.
 For full use of the false scare, there should be no footage of anybody knocking at the door, instead, the girl could be in her room reading a magazine for example.
The character Damien should not say "Where's she gone?" because, although it provides exposition, it is too fake, instead, he could say "Jodi, Jodi?"
Try different doll sounds for variety.
Get rid of when Jodi says "interesting..."
The POV shot of the boy hiding behind the branch is well done.

Rough Cut Tiny Terror At Location 1




This is the first rough cut of the 2 rough cuts which we will produce with 1 location on each rough cut with the final footage which we aim to use. There are some faults with this rough cut which we will be re filming.

Monday, February 13, 2012

NEXT SCHEDULED FILMING TINY TERROR

Barncasarn aim to produce nearly all of the final footage in which we will be using in our Final Cut of Tiny Terror. This includes the correct costume, dolls, cast and other details such as blood use.
The two dates in which Barncasarn are scheduled to be filming are:
Friday 17th February at Location 1, Georgia's house, with the outside scenes and bedroom scenes, we plan to be filming for around 2 hours.
Sunday 19th February at Location 2, Tom's house, with the bathroom (killing) scene and the kitchen scene. We aim to be filming for around 2 hours yet again.

Friday, February 10, 2012

Rough Cut 2 Feedback

FEEDBACK:

  • Use possible trick of Texas Chainsaw Massacre with light flashing in and out with the use of transitions.
  • Good to see that Barncasarn are concidering soundtracking at this stage.
  • Use '&' instead of 'And' in titles.
  • Establish that the house will be in an isolated setting.
  • More POV shots needed.
  • More variation of shots are needed.
  • Get rid of the sequence where the couple go upstairs.
  • The bra needs to go over the doll.
  • Instead of luke getting out of the bed with his trousers on, he could get out of the bed with the duvet wrapped around him or have bare legs.
  • Shakiness in the shots needs to be avoided.
  • When Luke (the boyfriend character) hears the bang from the kitchen, a close up shot will show his emotion better than the medium long shot did.
  • A lot of different angles and shot takes need to be taken in the bathroom to emphasise the excitement of what is happening.

Different Kitchen Scene Idea For Tiny Terror


Untitled from Georgia Barningham on Vimeo.

Barncasarn thought about having the boyfriend being unfaithful to his girlfriend. We shot 1 scene in which the boyfriend is on his phone to another girl, wondering of his where abouts, indicating that he is cheating on his girlfriend.
We used 1 shot for this to test out what it would look like.
Our conclusion is that this would work equally as well as the original idea we had because it adds tension to the film, and as it is before the scene where the boy finds the girl, we could have changed it so that it was him who killed his girlfriend and made it out to look like it wasnt him.
However we decided not to go with this idea as we already had a lot of footage for the other idea which fitted in well with eachother, so if we went with this idea then we would have to spend a lot of time reshooting and changing our ideas when we already had a good plot in the first place.

Rough Cut 2 of Tiny Terror



This is the second full rough cut that Barncasarn have done for our film idea of Tiny Terror.
We did not provide some of the shots and conventions that will be used in the final cut of Tiny Terror, for example:
  • The boy walking up to his girlfriends house
  • The Costume of the characters
  • What the doll will end up looking like
  • The packaging of the doll
  • Some variation of shots (we will be adding more POV shots etc)
  • This is the first time that we added titles and music, it is just a rough version and the main final cut of Tiny Terror will have better illustrations.
  • In the final idea we will be using a lot of fake blood in the bathroom scene.
The finalised cast is in this rough cut. We decided to use Jodi Harrison as our scream queen for two main reasons, 1) Is that she goes against some stereotypical conventions of a scream queen e.g. blonde hair. 2) Luke feels more relaxed in playing the part of her boyfriend as they are in a relationship in reality.

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Teenage Wasteland - The Slasher Movie Uncut: The Final Girl (further reading)

"Ever since 'Laurie Strode' in Halloween, t has become almost a cliche that a lone woman will be the one left standing at the end of a slasher film. Before Halloween, heroines had survived horror movies, but the climactic battle between Laurie and the bogeyman was a 'veritable blueprint' of what was to follow. Sometimes there was a final boy (Alfred in The Burning) but that was a rarity.
The final girl was usually a virgin (unlike most of her friends) Shy, but smart and she turns the cat and mouse games to her advantage in her battle to make it to the closing credits. In many ways, the final girl has taken over the role of the traditional male hero in slashers.
Some final girls, such as the one in The Dorm That Dripped Blood make it through the movie, but in a cruel ironic twist of fate, fall at the finish line. However, even if the girl does make it to the end of the film, there is still no guarentee that she will live through the sequel.
The final girl appeals to both males and females, throuhg her possible attractive looks and also an inspiration to the female audience"

Teenage Wasteland is available on Amazon: Teenage Wasteland - The Slasher Movie Uncut

Podcast 6 On Final Test Filming And Holiday Work




Comments on: 

  • Filming with Luke Kenna last week
  • Vodcast with LS29 about the contrasting doll films
  • Feedback on our footage
  • Next time we will be filming
  • Our final product
  • Finding a scream queen

NEXT SCHEDULED FILMING TINY TERROR

Barncasarn are scheduled to be filming test footage for Tiny Terror on:
Wednesday 8th February - At Location 1 (Georgia's house) for two hours. Filming all of the scenes apart from the kitchen and bathroom scenes.
Thursday 9th February - At Location 2 (Tom's house) for one hour. Filming the bathroom and kitchen scenes.
We will be filming with the actor we will be using in our final film, Luke Kenna
We have not yet found a scream queen for the main character and will confirm this at a later date.

Monday, February 6, 2012

Teenage Wasteland - The Slasher Movie Uncut (further reading) Films

Author: J.A Kerswell
Book Available: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Teenage-Wasteland-Slasher-Movie-Uncut/dp/1847734529
SOME REFERENCES AND QUOTES USED DIRECTLY FROM THE BOOK.

(some hyperlinks to wikipedia resources have been added below the text is NOT copied from Wikipedia)




Halloween
John Carpenter
1978

A psychotic murderer institutionalized since childhood for the murder of his sister, escapes and stalks a bookish teenage girl and her friends while his doctor chases him through the streets.

Irwin Yablans, a producer, approached Carpenter with his concept for "The Babysitter Murderers" in which Carpenter was overjoyed with the prospect of directing a film.
He set to work on the script with his then-girlfriend Debra Hill who went on to produce the film.
The film was budgeted at a modest $300,000. Carpenter also agreed to direct, write, compose  and perform the soundtrack for just $10,000 and a percentage of the profits.
Jamie Lee Curtis was chosen to play the virginal but ultimately resourceful Laurie Strode, partly because she was the daughter of Physco star Janet Leigh. Carpenter had offered the role of DR Loomis to Peter Cushting and Christopher Lee, who both turned it down (Although Lee later said that this was the 'biggest regret of his career") Instead the role went to Donald Pleasence. Michael Myers was played by Nick Castle, Carpenters friend and director.
Halloween began shooting what was to be a tight and problematic four week schedule in May 1978. Although set in the Midwest in autumn, it was actually filmed in Calafornia in the spring, despite the trees being noticeably green and full, the production team used bags of specially painted brown leaves to give the right autumn feel.
Tommy Wallace who was in charge of the production design on the film was sent to get the perfect mask for the role of Michael Myers. The two choices were: A clown. And one made from a likeness of Startrek actor William Shatner with the eye holes cut larger and sprayed white. The moment he saw the Shatner mask, Carpenter knew that he had found the look for his boogey man.
The films most famous scene is the opening shot of the 6 year old Michael stalking his sister, who had just had sex with her boyfriend, through the Myers home. The Point Of Vuew shot was achieved by using a Panaglide camera that mimicked the natural movement. Michaels hands were actually Deborah Hills. While looking as if it was filmed in one continuous shot, it was actually 3 shots edited together.
    The horror genre has always mixed up sex and violence, and Halloween is no exception. Although it is true that the virgin heroine survives, whilst her sexually ative friends die, Carpenter denies that there is a conservative political agenda at play and states that sex obsessed teenagers just pay less attention to their own personal safety. Carpenter has also said that Myers represents the revenge and the repressed.
 Halloween very nearly didnt become a breakout subgenre defining film. Every major American studio (the same studio that would later be rushing to claim their slice of slasher film pie in the coming few years declined distribute to it. Carpenter showed it to the executive at 20th Century Fox (minus the music score) and she said that it 'just wasn't scary'. Yablans decided to distribute the film via his own company, Compass International.
Not all critics were positive about Halloween. Influentional "New Yorker" film critic Pauline Karel was scathering. However, her voice was in the minority. Tom Allen, in 'The Villiage Voice' said that the film could 'stand proud alongside Night Of The Living Dead and Hitchcock's Physco. Roger Ebert (who would go on to critically savage Friday The 13th two years later) praised the film as "terrifying and creepy".
Halloween became a phenomenom. It was one of the most profitable independant releases of all time with a $70M worldwide gross on its original release.




Dressed To Kill
Brian De Palma
1980

Brian De Palma was one of the first mainstream directors to see the cinematic ptential of mixing the now-traditional spills of the psycho-thriller with the contemporary edge of the modern slasher movie. De Palma's Dressed To Kill, starring Nancy Allen and Michael Caine, was heavily influenced by Physco amd includes a now-familiar shower sequence and a transvestite murderer, although the film's gory and violent razor attacks are for more graphic than Hitchock could have got away with in the 1960s.
Unfortunatly for De Palma, Dressed To Kill initiated a huge wave of protest on both sides of the Atlantic from womens group's deeply unhappy with the rise in popularity of what they perceived as violent 'women-in-peril' films.
De Palma was roundly labelled a misogynist by feminist protesters.
However, despite the controversy, and proving without a doubt that the subgenre was at the top of its game, the film took almost $32M at the domestic box office on its release.

Teenage Wasteland - The Slasher Movie Uncut (further reading)

Author: J.A Kerswell
Book Available: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Teenage-Wasteland-Slasher-Movie-Uncut/dp/1847734529
Some references and quotes used from the book.

The Golden Age of Slasher (1978-1984)

From 1978 to 1984, the allure of the slasher, particularly wily producers and directors, were able to make significant amounts of money at theh box office with a relativley small outlay - and usually without the cost of a bankable stars. As a total, the subgenre made hundreds of millions of dollars at the American box office and most glided easily into profit. When those grosses were adjusted to todays rates, they are even more impressive. Halloween would have made $144M, Friday The 13th would have made $121M, even When A Stranger Calls would have raked in a box office of $57M.
Most slashers were Halloween imitators but lacked the 'finesse' of Carpenters movie. As a simple rule of thumb, to bring audiences in, you needed to give them more "bang for their buck" eg filmakers exploited and expanded on what had gone before in the wake of Halloween this meant more blood and boobs.

1980 - Success And The Slasher
The original final girl Jamie Lee Curtis told Box Office Magazine that she thought the success of the slasher movie was sa reaction to the 'boring' 1970's, saying 'watching people running from danger negates some of the apathy, even if it is only for 90 minutes'. However, this was also the year that former Hollywood star, Ronald Reagan was elected 40th United States president and musician John Lennon was assassinated outside his apartment block in New York.
The debate about the representation of women on screen and the use of violence as entertainment also erupted, manifesting itself on the streets in the form of protests and boycotts. The slasher movie at the height of its commercial powers, unwittingly found itself at the center of this political and cultural maelstrom.

Teenage Wasteland - The Slasher Movie Uncut (further reading)

Author: J.A Kerswell
Book Available: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Teenage-Wasteland-Slasher-Movie-Uncut/dp/1847734529
Some references and quotes used from the book.

Timeline of the Slasher subgenre:
  • "The golden age began in 1978 when John Carpenter created what is argueably the 'perfect horror movie'. Halloween scured John Carpenters future, as well as launching the career of its young star, Jamie Lee Curtis"
  • "Although many slashers went into production in 1979, they only really saw the light of day in 1980"
  • "1980 was the year that the slasher movie really exploded into public conciousness, with the incredible financial success of Friday 13th"
  • By 1981 the subgenre was showing signs that its audiences were approaching saturation point. Films such as My Bloody Valentine all but bombed at the box office despite heavy advertising"
  • "The slasher movie peaked by 1982 and began its slow descent towards straight-to-video hell. However, the supernatural began to feature more heavily and a certain physco put on his hockey mask for the first time"
  • "By 1983 the golden age of the slasher mvoie was fast coming to a close. What had been cutting edge terror only a few years previiously was now looking old"
  • "By 1985, the slasher genre was almost in its doldrums but didnt curl up and die, the video revolution was around the corner. Bar successful franchises and the magpie nature of mainstream thrillers, the subgenre seemed condemned to straight-to-video hell"
  • "By 1996, the subgenre was pretty much dead int he water. Therefore, its surprising resurrection with the Scream (1996) was proof that this really is the subgenre that just wont stay dead"
  • CONCLUSION: "The slasher subgenre is sure to survive. There will always be nostalgia for these movies and todays teenagers will look back fondly on the slasher films of today".

Sunday, February 5, 2012

Final Locations

Locations Photos

Friday, February 3, 2012

GB TC DO'C SD - Vodcast On LS29 And Barncasarn Ideas For Opening Films


Untitled from Georgia Barningham on Vimeo.

Both LS29 and BarnCasarn had ideas to use a doll like character in their opening films. In this vodcasts we explained the synopsis and ideas for both of our films and recognised the contrast in them, what things we have done differently, or quite similarly to eachother etc.

Thursday, February 2, 2012

FEEDBACK For Rough Cut 1 Of Tiny Terror

FEEDBACK:

  • Too many long takes, shots need to be kept in variety (more POV/over the shoulder shots)
  • Shoot the same thing but several times over to enhance shot variation
  • do some COVERAGE
  • Try to keep dialogue to a minimum, chop up dialogue to create diversity.
  • CONVENTIONS! do not need to show the shot of the couple going up the stairs, but could be entering the room
  • The doll moving is anchorage that it is alive - (possibly too early in the opening?)
  • The camera inside the cupboard was a good shot.

Rough Cut 1 Of Tiny Terror



In this test footage we used most of the sequence apart from the boy walking up to the house. We didnt do this because it was too dark outside. We used some shot variation and different angles as well as using one of the finalised cast for the first time (Luke Kenna) and Georgia. We used dutch angles and also repeated the mirror shot from test footage 2 as it was very effective and is an intertextual reference to the film My Bloody Valentine.
GEORGIA edited the footage.
In the Mise en scene we used GEORGIAS room for a conventional teenage girls bedroom, for further conventions we should spread makeup around and (going against morals) empty drinks bottles/cigarrettes/condoms could be spread around.

Interview With Luke Kenna (Boyfriend character) In Tiny Terror


Luke Kenna tells us basic information about himself (where he lives/his age), his interest in slasher films and why he accepted to being in our slasher film Tiny Terror