Casting and Location Recce

Casting and location Recce
 Casting:

Jasmine: Aimee Paterson

Girl speaker: Pearl - Thomas

Swim teacher: Mrs. Kirby

Drowning kids: Year 8/ 9/10 volunteers:


Elena Constandinou (10L)
Isabel Sabourin (8n)
Katie Scott (8L)
Lola Walton (8L)
Pearl Thomas (8L)
Holly Hawkins (8L)
Homa Elechi (8L)
Emma Abdi (8L)
Ella Gormally (9v)
Sara ABukar- Ferrik (8R)
Sophie Hudson (8B)
Erona Maliqi (8R)
Isobel Nethercoast (8s)
Kate Murphy (8S)
Liyah Deules (8N)
Rosie leffman (8R)
Grace Brycelanb (8S)
Lorna Reid (8R)
Cerys Jones (8L)
Adriana Oliveira (8S)
Olivia Herbert (8L)
Amy leffmen (8s)




Problems
For my film opening to look believable, I needed a minimum of 12 students from lower down in the school to participate in my production. This proved to be very difficult as I first had to ask permission from the head teacher in order to make sure I was allowed to carry out my filming. At first, the senior Leadership team had a problem with 'safe guarding' as it would be in the swimming pool, so I had to draft a letter 3 different times, asking the parents/ guardians of the students, asking permission for their daughter to be able to participate as well as being filmed. The final draft of the letter was finally produced and I gave out 20 letters to two distinct forms. One of the form was very enthusiastic and keen to participate, where as the other form were less impressed and willing to participate. The re- draft of the letters also meant that it took a lot of time before I was able to give it out and ask the students, meaning that I gave as little notice as two days, before I was filming.


Although I made it extremely clear that they needed to bring in their reply slips the following morning, only 4 girls handed them in. This result made me very nervous and I was unsure that the day of the filming, I would have any more reply slips. At this point, it called for desperate measures, and I printed out another 25 letter to hand out to additional year 8 forms. The forms I visited, seemed very willing and Happy to help, which gave me great encouragement for my Production.


Thursday - filming day- I again went around to every form I handed out letters to during form time and I was flooded with reply slips form 22 girl that were happy and excited to participate. Although the problem of having to few actors, I was now faced with the opposite dilemma of having too many kids that would be difficult to control.

Target Audience Profile

My Ideal Target Audience

Name: Emily Walsh 

Age: 18

The area she lives in: Finchley

Occupation: Full time student studying journalism at Leeds university

Relationship Status: in a relationship with boyfriend Jake Goldsmith (age 19)

Insight into home and family life: When Emily is not living in her student housing in Leeds  with close friends;Maria, Izzy, Ella. She lives in a semi- detatched house in finchley with her mother (Carol Walsh aged: 45 ) and step father (Bill Walsh aged: 48) and a little brother (Harry Walsh aged: 12)  

Personality: Confident, lively, determined, enthusiastic, outgoing, aproachable, charming, spontanious, very active, when it comes to studying, emily takes a very lazy approach

Shops: Pull&Bear, New Look, Holister, Miss selfridge, super drug, Victoria Secrets, JD sports

Placed to eat Favorite food: Wagamamas, Nandos, Byron Handburgers, steak and chips, spagetti bolganase, Chick ceaser salad

University societies: Water polo, detabting society and film society.

Music Taste: Disclosure, Katie B, Adelle, s Club 7, Busted. 

Interests and hobbies : interested in sport, interested in adventiourious activities (attends go ape sessions) loves the idea of the supernatural, likes to go to the cinema and go out with her friends. also into feminist literature

Favorite Tv shows: Ninja worior, Total wipe out, Friends, Big Bang theory, Great Brittish Bake off

movies: Incidious, The human centerpide, Jeepers Creepers, Chucky, Princess diarys, 10 things i hate about you, Finding Nemo 

Dislikes: studying, reading, dislikes attending University seminars, Hair Extensions, Girls who wear lots of make up. 

Drinks: coke, 7up, fanta fruit twist, beer.    

Final idea

Final idea for movie opening

Pitch:

 My idea involves of a female character (young adult) who is some sort of presumed life guard or swim teacher for a group of 12-15 young kid. The main character, Jasmine, (supposedly late for work) rushes through the side door to enter the building and sees the kids are already in the swimming pool playing and messing around. Jasmine makes a small remark that conveys a sense of suspicion to why they are unsupervised by a fellow colleague. She casually asks one of the kids where ‘miss’  and the kid dismissively reply’s with ‘I don’t know, she went out a minute ago’. The character does not think twice about where her collogue is and just goes through the corridor to the changing rooms (long tracking shot follows character). The last shot of the children splashing around has a long shot duration and almost lingers for a few seconds before moving and following the main character to convey almost an  omnipresent presence that acts as a threat to the children which inevitably should forebodes something bad is about to happen. The scene continues with the main character quickly changing and putting her bag down (putting flip-flops tops and life guard t shirt). There is a sense of a burden on the characters conscience. The character takes a second to check herself in the mirror before heading out.

 A potential Idea I was think was that whilst the character is collecting her thoughts in the changing room, there should be sudden flashes and the children slowly starting to drown where there is a sudden realisation that something may have happened.

As she leaves the mirror the shot lingers again and the focus changes to the other side of the changing room where you see a bit of hair (maybe fake blood) discreetly coming out from behind a wall. The main character does not see this detail and returns to the swimming pool. As she enters the pool area, she sees that all children are face down floating and all of them seem to be in a trace or worse dead. The rest of the title sequence will consist of underwater shots of the children floating and moving around in the water, panning from child to child. The scene ends with the assumption something supernatural has taken place and jasmine is at the centre of it all. 

Storyboard

Storyboard 

Whilst creating my storyboard, it forced me to think of the four key micro elements; sound, editing, camerawork and mise-en-scene. I manily focused on camera angles, shot types and key props within mise-en-scene. This meant that i was able to map out my whole storyline as well as the actual shots which gave me an indication and clear vision of what i wanted my end product to look like. Likewise this was also helpful when i was filming as i knew what type of shots that i wanted to incorporate which kept me on task. 

Initial Ideas

Initial ideas 

Codes and conventions of thriller/ horror genra

Codes and Conventions


Shot types:

Editing:

Depth of field- focus on character
Blurring background- panic the audience
Slow paced editing - suspense and an unsettling feeling
Fast pace - chaos

Mise-en- scene
Colours (black and red)- connotes: death, evil, danger and the binary opposition between the two
Weapons- violence and danger associated with character
Bible- religious themes, supernatural and superstition

Character:

Protagonist- main focus- hero
Antagonist- monster, demons, ghosts, zombies, mutated freaks, serial killer/ psychopath
Death- careless teenager killed first
Police- authority figure

Themes :

Good Vs Evil
Revenge
Supernatural
Religion
Living dead (zombies or vampires)
scientific experiment gone wrong
Insanity
Nightmares
Lust

I have chosen this type of genre as i feel there is more devivices within the thriller genra that will accumilate a reaction from the audience as oposed to a comedy that could prove very dificult to excicute.

I am potentially looking at using some of these conventions such the supernatural which will be connoted through the inferred accident. Likewise, I will also incorporate the idea of long shot duration to accumulate suspense followed by quick short shots to satisfy the climax.