As we are hoping to film on a train station we need to get permission so I have researched into this and found that professional companies have to pay a fee, fill in an application, write a risk assessment meet with someone in the rail networks team to discuss safety measures all with seven days notice and as we are running out of time with filming we may not be able to do it in a train station therefore I have written an E-mail that I found to try and persuade them without the hassle as we are students on a low budget. Hopefully we will obtain confirmation sooner rather than later.
email to Felicity Jump about filing on a station
I then got a reply within the same hour which said:
So I researched into the national rail enquiries and found a number after being put on hold several times they gave me another number which once I called gave me the email address of an Emma Gacione who two days later has not replyed. Therefore as our deadline is coming in thick and fast we may have to change the ending.
Email to Emma Gascione
ok so bad news we have not had a reply from Emma Gasocione but we had heard of an A-level group going to Gerrards Cross station and it was fine so we decided to jsut go and film without asking for permission.
Once again we came to a dead end and were asked to leave as they thought we were filming for profitable purposes, so have now decided to go to Seer Green station as it has no desk.
We are not really sure where this is so we have changed our minds again to go to Denham Station which even though it is further away it is easier to drive to because we know where it is more.
Since last time I blogged a large quantity of changes have happened to our project. We have decided that the first shot of a hand held point of view (POV) camera angle too difficult to obtain. This is because it would take a lot of practise to get a wrist to act as a neck. At the beginning of this process we wanted to be inventive and create a brand new idea. However we have found that with the low budget it us easier to go with traditional ideas. Therefore the fact that this shot is used at the beginning of the thriller means that there are no establishing shots which the research contains a lot of the time. Also as the beginning of our opening has quite a few of theses hand held POV shots we have come up with a more simplistic idea. Thus starting from scratch while being traditional simplistic and not cliche!
The idea is of an Action Thriller in which a Russian receives a phone call says a Russian word for "yes" which is looks through his brief of the mission and then gets his bag to go to the Gerrards Cross Train station to for fill his mission the last shot should be of the train doors closing to leave it on a cliff hanger. We were worried that this would be too short and simple so was thinking to get the Russian character to plan his mission by visiting the areas in London and taking photos of the location he was going to carry out the crime of killing one of the royals. However we felt this was too long and the photographing bit too cliche.
So now that are doing an action thriller I have decided to review this video:
Camera Angles
A wide variety of camera angles used including ped-down, long shots, pans, over the shoulder shots and many more. features of character not revealed until quite a while into the beginning of the sequence to create suspense and to properly establish/introduce a new character.
Music
Non diegetic score digital connotes its modern and the guitar is a string instrument that creates tension in the title sequence which fades out after credits dips to black. blurred credits in time with sinister non diagetic music In time Dietetic sounds of the train creates continuity. Foley sound of a gun shot just before drums kick into the title.
Mise-en-scene
The prop of the news paper article created verisimilitude because it was designed like one and had large font which explained more of the plot "Criminal Master Mind Still At Large".
Another prop of a cigarette which is indexical the fact that he dropped it and stepped on it, connotes that he smoked it before as this is the habit people have experienced or seen. This could could interpreted two scenarios either nervous or rebellious.
The costume of black shoes black trousers black tie white shirt and grey coat symbolism a mysterious businessman.
body language of animated photographed guy tense as holding a prop of a gun.
Body language and facial expressions didn't connote much emotion as it was relaxed because he was just getting onto a train which isn't dangerous but seemed to be concentrating on reading the news paper.
Editing
Title sequence before scenes connotes action thriller immediately
blurred credits create mystery and tension
zoom out of title in capitals to show importance "Money" on black back ground fade from white to America dollars in text - fade out bigger the rest of the credits and centered to reinforce importance
animation in credits - bold big credit not capitals "Arial" animated gun in sink with real gun being picked up clear cuts to to give a false sense of security fade to black to convey time movement cut off going to sit down on the train
For another part of my media exam we will have to discuss convergence and expansion if magazines therefore I made some notes of the research I made about the changing magazine world.
how are magazines print changing becuase of new media technologies?
My case study
we then presented our research about our case study and peer assessed them
Next we had to find an article that was about the ever changing media world:
we wrote notes on them and then discussed what we found out in small groups so that we would be able to have five artiles that we could comment on in the exam.
Our actors consist of Reece Collins (as victim) and Aidan (as killer)
Day 1 (Sunday 27th January)
1) POV shot of Reece lying down, waking and beginning to struggle
3) Pan to left (still POV) to reveal syringe on table and zoom in
4) Close up of the syringe with Reece in background panicking
5) Over shoulder shot of Reece looking over and up to the window
6) POV shot of Reece lying down and identifying the white lab coat hanging up.
Day 2 (Tuesday 29th January)
However this was rearranged to Thursday 31st January because the actors couldn't make it and we couldn't change them as we used them on th 27th
1) POV shot of Reece lying down, lifting his cut hand up to the camera
2) Over the shoulder shot of Aidan's hand on Reece's shoulder and injecting him
3) Medium shot of Aidan and Reece fighting and struggling-using tracking
4) POV shot of Reece lying down, and Aidan slowly walking towards him
Loua (Louise Wilmhurst) made the shooting schedule I feel we added more shots to the shot list that were not in our story board. This is because in our story board most of the camera shots were hand held but this made it difficult as this wasn't detailed enough so didn't flow.
Low Key
In filming, the lighting of a scene so that there is a contrast between dark and light areas, making artistic use of deep shadows. Low-key lighting is used effectively in dramatic presentations to create variety and establish mood, particularly in thrillers as its as if something is lurking in the shadows. In film noir it is especially traditional to use low key lighting to increase tension as there is more of a juxtaposition between light and dark as seen in the picture on the right of two silhouetted figures in The Big Combo which was filmed in 1955. Another more recent use of low key lighting would be in the tailor of a film called Brick as it hides the features of the character creating a climax of tension and mystery.
High key lighting is basically the opposite of low key lighting (high contrast) as high key lighting has low contrast for example in the wizard of oz:
This photo is of page 39 from OCR media studies for AS third edition by Julian McDougall. This primary research explains that even though we have a low budget there are still lots of ways to use lighting.
