CALL SHEET FOR FINAL SHOOT

During today's lesson I created a new call sheet for the final piece of filming our group needs to do; the flashback bullying scene between Erica and two bullies at her school.

GCSE Media Studies Call Sheet for Psychological Thriller

Shoot date: 10/2/15

Location: Claremont Fan Court School, Claremont Drive, Esher, Surrey, KT10 9LY

Camera equipment:

Canon 550D

Lighting equipment: N/A

 Crew: Eleanor, Amber, Harriet

Harriet Mobile:  07*********                                          Email Address: harriet@gmail.com

Eleanor Mobile:  07****556**                        Email Address: eleanormcchesney@gmail.com               

Amber Mobile: 07********                                             Email Address: amber@gmail.com

Props:

N/A

Wardrobe Erica:

School uniform (skirt, tights, jumper, school shoes)

Wardrobe Bully 1:

School uniform (skirt, tights, jumper, school shoes)

Wardrobe Bully 2:

School uniform (skirt, tights, jumper, school shoes)

THE IT CROWD

I read the script for an episode of the IT Crowd called Yesterday's Jam. This is what I analysed:

How are the characters constructed?
Jen - As a sociable girl who's not really very intelligent because of the way she can make friends instantly (such as with the woman who beats Roy with her shoe) but she is not very knowledgeable about things like IT, for example, when she doesn't realize her computer is not plugged in.
Roy - As short tempered and lazy but desperate to be popular and get a girlfriend because of the way he doesn't answer the phone for as long as possible when it rings and when he does he gets very angry when the person on the other end doesn't understand what he's saying ("why don't you come down here and make me then?"). However he also tries to impress girls like Jen when he first meets her by pretending to be intelligent and sophisticated ("I believe it was Tolstoy who said...").
Moss - As very clever when it comes to technology but completely uncomprehending of subtlety such as when Roy pretends to be talking about Tolstoy and he doesn't understand why ("When have you read Tolstoy?" "Why are you giving me the secret signal to shut up?")


In what way are Roy and Moss 'standard nerds'?
Things they say - use of technological language such as 'system core tablet', 'thread' and 'programming code' that no one except someone very interested in computers (a stereotypical 'nerd') would understand 
Things they do - they don't know how to interact with girls, for example Roy getting beating regularly by girls he's frustrated with on the phone; they sit alone in the basement all day and are surprised when they have a visitor like Jen (for example when they enter, look surprised, put on deodorant and re-enter to try and impress her); they order two books to check the text isn't different (when Moss says "I got the child edition and the adult edition just to check there are no differences in the text"), which is something most people would not be interested in doing.

What is comic about Jen's appointment as IT manager?
She seems to know nothing about IT (for example naming the same thing different ways "emails, sending emails, receiving emails, deleting emails") yet Denholm is taken in and says that "you certainly seem to know your stuff". Therefore it is comic because although it is clear to the audience that Jen is incompetent when it comes to computers Denholm seems to believe her. 

QI AUDIENCE PLEASURES

I went to the BBC website at www.bbc.co.uk and found clips of QI, a comedy panel game hosted by Stephen Fry and featuring permanent panellist Alan Davies. I watched and analysed the clip called 'A Mind Blowing Snack' from series L which you can see here.

Audience pleasures in the clip:

• You see familiar people (Stephen Fry and Alan Davies) who are in every episode and so you form an on screen relationship with them and their personalities (i.e. Stephen Fry as the erudite intellectual and Alan Davies as the scapegoat). Relationships is one of the four gratifications of consuming media in the Uses and Gratifications model, and is a way audiences get pleasure from watching TV shows like QI. You feel you know the characters and are included in their jokes and banter.
• Alan Davies is consistently the scapegoat and always falls into the trap of saying the most obvious answer rather than the 'quite interesting' one. In this clip he does just that by asking if the green food is wasabi causing the sirens to go off. This gives the audience pleasure because it makes them feel safe in that they can watch from the comfort of their own homes and answer rightly or wrongly without such public humiliation. It also endears the audience to Alan as they feel sympathy for him always being the one to get the question wrong. This also helps in creating the on screen relationship with the panellists.
• There is physical humour, for example when Jason Manford comically fans his mouth after taking a bite of the green horse radish. This exaggeration is humorous and so gives the audience pleasure.
• The audience gets pleasure from watching Johnny Vegas take a big mouthful of the horse radish and then realise his mistake as it is very spicy. This gives the audience pleasure partly because his pain is humorous as he over reacts even though you know it is not as bad as he says and partly because they are relieved not to be in the same situation (similar to the idea of not having the sirens go off if you get the answers wrong). Johnny's over reaction is humorous to the audience because they know he is mainly putting it on; he uses physical humour like pulling faces and irony, for example telling Stephen Fry it would have been useful if he'd put up the pictures of the horse radish first instead of 'giving us some and saying 'Put that in your mouth'". He also jokes that he will be "flying home" and that he can "see through walls", entertaining the audience and playing up to them. This kind of humour from comedians on the panel is typical of QI and is one of the pleasures as they get to see other familiar faces such as Jason Manford, Aisling Bea and Johnny Vegas in this clip.

3/1/15 | PRODUCTION | FILMING

3/1/15 | PRODUCTION | FILMING

Today Harriet, Amber, Nikki Granger and I met up at Harriet’s house to do some more filming for our film opening, Erica. We filmed using a Canon 550D video camera and torches to create eerie lighting as we were filming after dark. We did not use a tripod for these scenes as we wanted them to be handheld so they were disorienting and created a spooky atmosphere. We filmed a lot of shots for the main part of the opening, when my character Erica is walking down the street, sees Nikki’s character being bullied by Amber and Harriet’s characters, and then stalks and kills them. Amber again did the makeup for the scenes and both me and Amber helped style hair as part of the costumes, for example I gave Nikki plaits to make her look young and innocent. Amber and Harriet directed most of the shots but we all contributed our own ideas. We also all took a turn filming. I was mainly responsible for organizing getting everyone together and finding someone to play Faith (Nikki’s character).

We spent 3 hours filming these scenes and I feel it was successful. We got a range of shot types such as canted angles, close ups and tracking shots.

BFI EXIT POLLS

11/9/14 | RESEARCH | BFI EXIT POLLS

I wanted to find out about how exit polls give information about gender and age of audiences so I went to the BFI website. The BFI says that they carry out exit poll surveys for all the films they support using their distribution fund. It does this by asking cinemagoers about themselves and their interests so that distribution companies can market their films more effectively. This is the website I went to: http://www.bfi.org.uk.

I wanted to find out about the audiences who are likely to see a film like mine (with psychological thriller aspects). I looked at five case studies on the BFI website:

A Dangerous Method (Dir. David Cronenberg, 2011)

I also conducted some qualitative research into audiences on IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes. This is a review on A Dangerous Method copied from the website. I got this from http://www.rottentomatoes.com:

“Cronenberg doesn't go in for any exploding heads this time, but the surging emotions and heady ideas on display in his adaptation of Christopher Hampton's play The Talking Cure are equally combustible”

 

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Dir. David Fincher, 2011)

Qualitative research, http://www.rottentomatoes.com

 

 

Is Anybody There? (Dir. John Crowley, 2009)

 

Qualitative research, http://www.imdb.com

“What I admired about this film that it doesn't paint the elderly as something to be pitied or feared. The film is rounded out by a cast of mostly unknown British actors (at least by me, anyway, but it didn't diminish the film one bit). A screenplay that equally mixes humour, drama & pathos makes for a sparkling cocktail of a film that will have the viewer exiting the cinema feeling good”

Them (Ils) (Dir. Xavier Palud, David Moreau, 2006)

Qualitative research, http://www.rottentomatoes.com:

 

Fifty Dead Men Walking

 

Qualitative research, http://www.rottentomatoes.com:

“What makes Fifty Dead Men work is the story's sheer moral complexity, which dares viewers to sympathize with anyone onscreen for more than a few minutes at a time”.

From my research of case studies on BFI Exit Polls I conclude that psychological thrillers are watched by both males and females of all ages. It is a very broad audience to appeal to.



 

 

B324 EVALUATION SLIDES

 

 

 

 

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