Script

We only really needed to plan the script for the radio recording we play over the house scene. This is because the girl in the shed and the man in the house never actually exchange any dialogue. This wont make shooting the sequence any easier as we have to tell the story in other ways.

This is a picture of our original script. This is the only planning we have done for the script we have focused more on the shooting schedule and storyboard.

All it shows is some of the dialogue needed for the news on the radio. It does not include any screams and noises made by the girl in the shed. To be fair we are planning on letting the actress in the shed make up the noises and screams she makes as this will make it look more realistic as apposed to false.

We are also thinking about having the man repeat 1,2,3,4 whenever he does an action for example opening a cupboard, as this will enthesise that he has OCD, however we are not entirely sure of this as we don't want it to get too repetitive and bore the audience.

We are yet to shoot our final media product but i know we should have planned our script then we have so far. hopefully it won't have any repucutions on the quality of the product.

The Title

Once we decided on the genre of Horror for our film we started to plan the name of our Title. We had all done our own individual research of titles so we knew what type of technique we would use. We decided to go for an abstract name that did link in with our film in some ways. Once we knew the tactic we started thinking about what type of names we could use, this is what we came up with: 

Our OCD character is obssesed with the number 4 so we decided to play around with that, some of our ideas were:

• Fourth coming
• Four of a  kind
• 4
• Thorthcoming
• 1, 2, 3, 4
• number 4
• 4bidden
• 4bid
• forbidden

 We decided that using the number four in our title was too obvious and tacky, so we played around with the obssesive character of our villain, here s what we came up with:

• obsessed
• fixated
• fixation
• fixate
• captured
• fix4tion
• obssesive
• stalker

Finally we decided our title would be Fix4tion, this is because it links well with our OCD character as it focuses on the number four and it also includes the theme of the film which is a man being fixated with girls.

Ammendments To Casting

Since our test shoot, we have decided to make an ammendment to the cast, as James' performance on camera was not up to scratch, we have drafted in someone from the school Drama Department.

Alex, the new lead role, has partaken in Drama lessons at school since the young age of 10.He also has over 10 years of drama experience in extra curricula clubs both inside and outside school.

He is currently sitting his AS Drama Exam, and hopes to continue this specialist subject for at least another year and get a full A-Level in the subject. His current predicted grade is an A, which shows he has supreme acting abilities.

I have personally briefed alex on the task, and he seems perfectly comfortable with the role he will be playing. I have also shown him our groups rough edit and OCD symptons video, that we gained inspiration from.

He has agreed to the shooting time and we consider him a reliable and valued member of the team.

Storyboard

Here are some photos of our storyboard:

We began storyboarding a week before our shoot. We initially did a timeline which we used to then add further detail and it made us think about where we would place titles etc. We used different colours for different types of shot eg-yellow was close ups. This allowed us to see if we were using variation of shots as this criteriria would make our opening sequence exciting and interesting.

We split up the jobs of the storyboarding to make it quicker

-India and James did the drawings

-I did the writing underneath identifying each shot

-Spencer sorted out the order generally helped with all jobs

The process of storyboarding was very long however without doing this I don't think we would have a set idea of the opening sequence. It made us actually walk through our sequence and try and overcome problems

Shooting Schedule

The Cast

Distressed Girl, Girl Number 3: Ciara

• Ciara will be playing the distressed girl locked in the shed
• She has won an oscar at an early age
• She achieved an A* in GCSE drama
• She loves acting and is looking forward to taking up her role
• She is convient because she is in our group so she will be there at all times when shooting is taking place; eliminating the chance of delayed shooting due to unreliability

Charlie Smiles: James 

• James is a keen actor
• He likes acting and volunteering to act in our sequence immediately
• Like Ciara he is part of our filming group so he will be reliable and available 
• He is looking forward to getting into his role 

Location Stills For Our Final Idea

Here are some stills from our new location (my house)

As you can see the kitchen is much tidier than the previous location, it is more minimalistic and more realistic for an OCD person to live in.

The shed is small and cosy, it will really make the audience feel closed in on, and costraphobic. It will not look like a nice place to be in at all.

The garden is quite long and there is an easy route from the shed to the house.

 

 

As you an see there is able to be a good shot of the door from the hallway as the man enters the house. you can even have a shot of the door from the stairs.

 

Proposal - Final Idea

Our initial proposal was not signed off by Ms. Blackborow. Therefore, we have to create a new proposal with a new idea.
We will try to keep the sequence the same but tweeking  few minor aspects to create an overall much better sequence.

Second Proposal - Final Idea
The sequence starts with a steadi-cam shot towards the shed, snaking around the hedge and through a key hole or hole in the door into the shed.

Once inside the shed the camera will sharply drop down and snake along the floor. As the camera snakes through it runs into her feet. There is then an extreme CU of her bound hands and then her eyes. We see her eyes dis-orientatedly rushing round the room looking at photos stuck onto the walls.

The camera cuts away to close ups of some of the photos, as if from her eyes, to reveal more detail of the photos. We can see that they are photos of other girls in her situation. The shots won't be held long, and the cuts will be very tight, in-order to help dis-orientate the audience and bring them in to the same feeling as the girl.

We then play the clip again but in rewind, to take us back through the hole, and down the garden towards the house, but all moving backwards as the shot is being rewound. The shot ends up back through the garden door and into the kitchen. In the kitchen we are introduced to the second, main character.

As we first see him, he will be staring down the garden to the shed at the end of the garden, as if he was in a pyschotic trance. The toaster will then pop, as this happens his mind set and mood will change into a more ordinary everyday character. The camera pans around the entire kitchen and we get a sense of the neatness of everything. However, the room isn't just tidy its obsessively neat. We finally see the guys clothing, which is also pristine.

The man turns and opens the fridge, we get an over the shoulder shot of the fridge as he bends down to reach for the butter, and all we can see is the fridge perfectly organised. Once the toast has been made he sits down to listen to the radio and eat his toast.

As the radio is turned on a song comes to a close, and a news announcment comes on. It describes how the third mystery dissapearance of a third girl took place the day before.

The man walks to his calender, circles a third date. The two dates already circled are representative of when the other two girls were kidnapped. We then get a cut away to a close up of the clock, which strikes eight. The man picks up his keys and walks back through the house to the front door, and leaves. As if any other normal day.

The screen cuts away to the Title of the film then the sequence ends.

Teacher Feedback To Proposals

Teacher Feedback to First Proposal

Here is a lists of points our teacher made about or First idea, and how we could improve our idea:

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  We were trying to tell two stories, we have a character with OCD, and the same character him kidnapps girls, it's too complicated with both stoies
  
  
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  Our teacher loved the fact we had an OCD character as it is original
  
  
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  She liked the kitchen scene, with the toaster popping, showing an average day
  
  
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  She thought if we had an OCD kidnapper then his kidnappings would all have to be OCD, with everything perfect
  
  
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  She didn't like our location as it was too homely and not the sort of house a person with OCD would live in
  
  
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  She thought that our 2 minute opening sequence was trying to tell the whole story to the film
  
  
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  Our teacher said that there was no sense to who's the opposite, what she meant was that there was no one challenging the kidnapper like a detective or a victim that wants to fight back.
  
  

After we got this feedback we had a group meeting and discussed how we would change our final idea. here is a list of things we have changed:

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  We have changed the location to my house, it is tidier and looks more like a house someone with OCD would live in
  
  
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  We have kept the kitchen scene
  
  
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  We have the kept the OCD kidnapper
  
  
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  Instead off starting with a shot of the kitchen we start with a shot of the kidnapped girl

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  alot less goes on in our scene now to stop us telling the whole story

Teacher Feedback to Second Proposal

After getting our feedback we all spoke about it and worked on a new narrative a new loaction and finalised the character. We then proposed again and we were passed allowing us to move on to planning for our shooting weekend. Here's some feeback our teacher gave us after the second proposal

• Loved new locations

• Questioning eyesight from the shed to the house-will it work

• Perhaps use the exterior of one shed and the interior of the other so we get a good shot from thw window to the house

• Complete transformation-really likes it

We can now start storyboarding and preparing shooting schedules

Proposal - First Idea

Here is the hand-out we gave out to the cless that went along with our presentation. It offers additional information we may not of covered in the presentation and it gives us the key point to genre, target audience, synopsis and character.

Ciara:Today we presented our proposal for our final idea. I think it went well perhaps we should have focused on how we were going to structure the proposal more. I talked about the synopsis of the opening sequence and about the target audience

James: I think our presentation went well, we covered all the main topics, including genre, characteristics (OCD), actors/location and the target audience. In my opinion we could of delivered the presentation better, what we were talking about was good but our presentation wasn't structured enough.

Spencer: Today we presented our initial proposal. I think the presentation went well, however we could have included more information on the character and location. Also i feel that we did not elaborate on the plot enough and explain the style of shooting we would use.

India: I thought the way we delivered the presentation was good as wel covered every aspect we needed to, also i think that our handout (see above) was good and it explained everything clealy.

Shooting Location Stills For Our First Idea

Here are the stills from our First Idea's chosen shooting location. It gives a variety of shots from the four main locations, kitchen, hallway, garden and shed.
However, the quality of some of the shots are not very good as they were shot in the dark. But we will be shooting in the day so lighting problems should be resolved.
Also, the location is still fairly messy, due to it being lived in, but we hope to tidy the location prior to shooting in order to get across the OCD symptoms of our main character.
I have attempted to organize the photos from the location as a walk through plan. Starting at the bottom with the house front, and working your way up, everything is placed roughly where it would be in the actual location.

Ideas At Second Group Meeting

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  I've typed up our idea from the second group meeting. The idea should hopefully work well, we need to work on audience and get a set idea of who they will be apart from that we have a good understanding of genre character and narrative.
  
  
  

Initial Ideas At First Group Meeting

•  Forest
• Celler
• Man in car holding photos of girls
• Lightning-either early morning or just as it begins to get dark
• Headlights on car gives most lighting
• Hand held shots of girl waking up in forest and running
• Window of the car drawn up slowly and the girl appraoches
• photos all over a wall
• Girl tied up in corner of room
• Girl really rough and hurt
• Guy looking at watch timing everything
• Guy extremely creepy/scary
• Pervert
• Cigarette in mans hand
• Audience-Horror fans, boys and girl age of 15-30
• man with tools
• Photographs of different girls

Main Idea:
Young girl wakes up in forest she scared afraid she begins to run and sees two headlights brightly shining on a car. While we see this we see small clips of a man flicking through a folder of photos with all different girls and some have crosses through them with blood. She begins to run to the car for help however this man is the kidnapper/murderer who is sitting just waiting for her he times it prefectly adding to the creepiness. she bangs on the window and he slowly rolls down the window and we see how weird he is. The last shot is hand whack the window inside the car with blood all over it and slowly slides it down the window.