TREATMENT

10/9/14 | PLANNING | TREATMENT

ERICA, 12, unnaturally pale with an unhinged look in her eyes, sits upright on a bed in a psychiatric hospital looking straight ahead while a voiceover plays of a discussion between her PARENTS and DOCTOR HOLLOWAY about her mental health. The doctor recommends she is not released yet but her parents are adamant.

Cross cut to a desk lit with a bright desk lamp with early release forms scattered over it and voiceover still playing in the background, revealing that Erica suffers from multiple personality disorder. The early release forms have Erica’s names and details all over them. In the background a heartbeat effect is now playing. Desk lamp switches off to pitch black scene, then an artificial fluorescent light shines as heartbeat increases pace and title appears over the white background in black font, pulsating to the beat of the heartbeat.

Shot reopens in Erica’s bedroom with her reading in bed and parents turning off her light and saying goodnight. As soon as they have left she gets out of bed, stuffs a pillow under the duvet, grabs a piece of wire and climbs out of her window.

Cross cut to a FAITH, 9, big innocent eyes, pigtails being bullied by two older girls, CHLOE and HANNAH, 15. Erica sees this as she is wandering the streets in her pyjamas and has a flashback to a time in her recent childhood when she was bullied herself. You see her being bullied by to two older girls, similar to how Faith is being bullied now. Faith sees Erica coming, looks terrified and runs off to hide somewhere nearby as Hannah and Chloe look slightly confused but walk off together anyway. There is then crosscutting between Faith’s face and Erica stalking the two girls as Erica gets closer. You do not see the two girls being killed; you just see Faith’s face from her hiding place looking traumatised. Erica kills the two girls by strangling them, and for a moment the music cuts and you see the weapon around a neck and hands reaching up trying to claw it away but failing. There will be a shot of two dead girls necks with the scars from the wire.

Cross cut to Erica climbing back through her window, goes to her bathroom and washes off any blood or dirt before staring at herself in the bathroom mirror and smiling creepily.

 

 

IDEAS FOR PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER

26/9/14 | PLANNING | BRAINSTORMING

In today’s lesson, Harriet, Amber and I discussed ideas for our film opening in more depth. We decided we definitely wanted to do a psychological thriller, and that we wanted it to be about a psychologically damaged teenager who, let out of the psychiatric hospital early, becomes a murderer after seeing a girl being bullied triggers traumatising flashbacks from her childhood. We also decided on a rough sequence of events, as well as some finer details:

·         The film opening would start with the main girl (played by me) sitting on a bed in the hospital while her early release forms are being signed. We are thinking that she will have multiple personality disorder, but we will do more research into this to make sure we have a disorder that bests fits our character.

·         You will see the forms scattered over a large, old fashioned wooden desk, lit by a desk lamp (Harriet can supply this prop). In the background will be a heartbeat sound effect and then the light will flick off and in the pitch black that is left the film title will appear, pulsing in time to the heartbeat. We have not decided what the film might be called yet, so we still need to brainstorm ideas for that.

·         After this you will see my character at home in bed, doing an innocent activity such as reading and her mother or father switching off the light, and then her climbing out her window with a weapon. This fits the MPD we are thinking she will have and shows she is emotionally unstable. We will use rooms in our own houses to film this scene.

·         We are not sure on the exact sequence of events after this point, but we know it will include my character seeing a little girl (probably played by Niamh Wilson) being bullied by two other girls (played by Amber and Harriet). This will trigger a flashback to a time in the girl’s childhood when she was bullied herself by girls who were more popular than she was and thought my character was 'not cool'. The camera will zoom into her eye and back out into the flashback. This flashback then turns my character murderous and she kills the two girls bullying Niamh’s character.

·         My character will not have premeditated the murder as it is triggered by a flashback. You will not see the actual murder happen but we will use the power of suggestion. 

SCOOP IT PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLERS

23/9/14 | RESEARCH | SCOOP IT

Today we decided to research the psychological thriller genre using a very useful online website called Scoop it! It is good for research because you can carry on adding to it and as you go, Scoop it! offers suggestions which I can evaluate and choose to use or not. It is also very useful as I can use the whole of the internet to research so I can find lots of results. 

FRAGRANCE SCOOPITS

PLANNING LESSON

9/9/14 | PLANNING | THE BRIEF

I am working in a group of three with Hatty Carey and Amber Giles. We have chosen Brief 7 (video), the opening sequence of a new film including titles, in any genre or mix of genres such as a comedy or thriller together with a storyboard. The maximum length it can be is 3 minutes.

 In today’s lesson, we also discussed in our groups about ideas for genres and first film ideas. Amber was away so Hatty and I discussed and decided we probably wanted to do a psychological horror or thriller film opening as we felt there were a lot of options here and that it would be an interesting genre to do. We thought it had a lot of potential with makeup and costumes etc. but we are still not completely decided on the story.  Overall, it was a very interesting lesson and I think we made a good start on ideas for the film opening.

 

 

 

RED LIGHTS ANALYSIS

13/9/14 RESEARCH | THE ART OF THE TITLE: RED LIGHTS (2012)

Red Lights is a sci-fi thriller opening sequence. I really enjoyed deconstructing it as I enjoy sci-fi films, so I found it fascinating to analyse. I could tell it was a thriller firstly because of the soundtrack. It was instrumental music with violins which added a sinister and tense edge to the music and the mood of the extract. This was a code as to the genre of the film; that it might be sinister, even a little bit creepy, which fits the sci-fi genre.

The images were another code. They were streaky, blurred, unclear images that suggest mystery and add a sense of intrigue as to what the pictures are really showing. Editing is used to add effects to the text – dots of light appear around the credits, as if building up a blurry image of something that cannot quite be seen. Black and white images of an eye, equations on a board and historical portraits denotes secrets from the past; it hints at something unknown that someone/something is searching for. Then the clues become more obvious; spidery hands that don’t look human, a newspaper cutting of a story about a UFO sighting. These are the final codes as to what the film will be about, the last pieces of the puzzle and mystery the previous images built up. They suggest science fiction, aliens, extra-terrestrial life waiting to be discovered, as well as the idea it may be harmful or scary.

DETECTIVES LESSON ANALYSIS

9/10/14 | RESEARCH | THE ART OF THE TITLE 2

Today in class we went to ‘Art of the Title’ website. We watched and analysed the opening of a television series and deconstructed the visual codes in it. I knew it was a television series because it had a theme tune that played in the background. The tune was jaunty and fast paced, which suggested these qualities would be mirrored in the programme.

I deconstructed several of the shots. There were shots of the Eiffel Tower, an iconic image of Paris, to set the scene for the audience. The camera angles were often canted to make the viewer feel slightly disoriented as they travelled on this fast journey through the streets of Paris. The speed of the camera moving down the streets was very fast, and made the audience feel like they were there and travelling along the streets themselves.

 

Effects were used to great extent in the opening sequence. The first title slide is shown on what looks like pieces of paper stacked together and this gives the impression of files and research. These are typical of props in detective dramas so are a code as to the genre. Effects are also used to make it appear as if a mouse is clicking on the files of different people and different ones are circled. This is clever as it makes it appear as if people are being research and suspects (key characters in crime dramas) are being circled. This is yet another clue to the genre of the series.

ZEN ANALYSIS

9/10/14 |  RESEARCH | TV FILM OPENING ANALYSIS

In class we watched the opening credits of a TV crime drama called ZEN. I knew it was a crime drama because of different images it included, for example silhouettes of guns and a man holding a shotgun. These suggest danger, jeopardy and death, themes which are typically associated with crime dramas. Another code was the Italianicity. The pictures were tinted red, white and green like the colours in the Italian flag, and there was an image of the Italian police headquarters, as well as views of Italy. This connotes not only an authentic Italian setting but also crime and criminal doings. There are also pictures of men in suits and dark sunglasses, which is a stereotypical image associated with spies and secret agents, characters that would be key in a crime drama. Because you can't see all of their faces this enhances the mystery and makes the opening credits more intriguing.

The opening credits also included special effects such as a slicing animation to show only parts of the images. This adds intrigue and mystery as you cannot see the images clearly. Mystery is a key theme for crime dramas and this shows the audience what type of programme it will be.