Practice POV Buried Shot

We used the Cannon 550D to shot this shot, to experiment with a possible scene.

We put the camera in a box, and used acetate to protect the lens on the camera. We learnt that holding a see-through plastic sheet over the camera lens, to protect it from the dirt, works really well as a POV shot. 

The letter warning the neighbors of our presences at the church - Jonah

Dear Sir/Madam,

My name is Jonah Atkins and I am studying for my Media A level at College in Haywards Heath.  I live in Horsted Keynes and I have been given permission by Father John and the Church Wardens to film at the Church on 29th February from 7pm - 9pm and again on 7th March between the same hours.  We will be making minimal noise, but wanted to let you know in case you were worried that something suspicious was happening in the Churchyard during these dates and times.

Thanking you in anticipation of your co-operation.

Jonah Atkins

Permission to Film at Church location

After several emails back and forth between myself and Father John, of St.giles church, we have been giving premission to film. Here is the evidence:
(The emails start from the bottom)

 I have consulted. 

We will have to warn the neighbours - or you can - but you have my permission.

FJ

Sent from my iPhone

(From a seperate email)


I am consulting the Churchwardens and will come back to you. Fr John

On 26 Feb 2012, at 20:45, "Mr Jonah Atkins-Desbruslais" <jonahatkins@hotmail.co.uk> wrote:

John

Yeah sure, we are filming for are final task for Media A level, i only mentioned the Jubilee because i thought that's how you would know my mum. We are filming for a Thriller movie and just need some shots of the church at night as it looks very scary and is perfect for what we need, we don't need to enter the church or the Old Rectory we only need access to the path leading to the church and to the side of the church.

Thanks again, and if you need any more information please ask

Jonah

---

Subject: Re: Permission to film
From: John.Twisleton@Diochi.org.uk
Date: Sun, 26 Feb 2012 20:31:45 +0000
To: jonahatkins@hotmail.co.uk

Dear Jonah

Please could you tell me the purpose of the filming. How does it link with the Jubilee?

We have had a number of suspicious sightings of late in the Churchyard of concern to villagers and break-ins at the Old Rectory so I need to be fully cognisant of your intentions.

Yours

Fr John

On 26 Feb 2012, at 19:02, "Mr Jonah Atkins-Desbruslais" <jonahatkins@hotmail.co.uk> wrote:

Dear John

I am a student at Haywards heath college, son of Lisa Gaudion who is on diamond committee. Im writing to ask for the permission to film in the church yard on Tuesday evening and next Wednesday evening (21st Fed and 7th of march),  it will just be me and my group of three with some small equipment, lighting and cameras. We only need a few hours if that and will not be making minimal noise as there is no dialogue in the scene we are shooting.

Thank you so much for your time and consideration,

Jonah Atkins    

Radio script

{alarm going off}

[music playing on radio]

Jonah:

“Good morning you’re listening to Radio Sussex with me Geoff Higgins and with me Mary Mann. Its 7:15am on Saturday morning and your weekend start here, first a quick weather and traffic report from Julia smith.”

Alicia:

“Unfortunately it’s going be a cloudy day in the south with patches of rain in the south east. The traffic is mostly quiet today but with congestion into the city and on the A23”.

Jonah:

“In other news, yet another report has come in today of a missing person in the West Sussex area. The person in question is believed to be Alice Genie, a 23 year old female from Ardingly, last seen Wednesday morning traveling with a group of colleagues, around 8am going to work at HNS offices in Crawley town. Her parents started to get suspicious when she never arrived home that evening and hadn’t contacted them all day like usual”.

Practice with focus pulling

Canon HD camera: 

We tried i few shots that we are planning to use in our opening. We did some focus pulling, just to test out the camera. As well as using the dolly to pan and track.

College HD camera: We did a few quick shots using focus pull to get an idea how it works, the manual toggle for the focus pull can be temperamental at times, and the variation between the in focus and out is small so the effect is not tremendous. which could become quite annoying when filming. 

Set location - Jonah

Set Locations

Location 1, The Church. The church yard is really eerie at night with the surrounding grave stones and huge light beaming onto the church. This could make for a good location for a murder or catch scene, if done well. We will need to film just before dusk in order to have enough light to film but dark enough to add more lighting for a thrilling effect. The silhouette on the church will make for a fantastic shot and adds to the restricted narration of that character.




Location 2, The house. This is an appropriate house to use in our thriller opening as it is a typical country house with its odd quirks and characteristics, along with its flickering lights, great silhouettes can be created which makes for some good shots. When filming in the house we will re-decorate it to a point to reflect the characteristics of the female character who lives with a man. The rooms in which will film may change depending on our very final idea. (sorry for the bad quality, the better camera ran out of battery and need to get this post done, we will update with better quality photos later) 

The Kitchen (photo down to the right) has a light which flickers on which creates quite a scary atmosphere.

  

 The door frame to the Right creates a very threatening silhouette leading into that room, possible shot there. The room to the Left could be used for the female character getting ready as it has a mirror, and some good shots can be taken there.

Initial ideas and brain storming

Ideas

• Somebody being hostage.
• Don’t see face.
• On the phone.
• Flashback.
• Telling police what happened.
• In station telling what happened.
• Low key lighting.
• Woman in dark space, being held hostage.
• She has a flash back, of telling the police that she thinks someone is following her.
• Shots back to her in the room (dark space).
• The criminal goes into the room as she starts panicking. 
• Wakes up and it's a dream.
• POV.
• Restricted narration.
• Torso down of the kidnapper (don't see face, low angle).
• Extreme close up (face).
• Cross cutting between woman getting dressed and a man doing a bad deed.

Thriller opening - Getting ready/ getting up - Examples

the series intro to criminal justice is helpful base information as not only does it highlight the same camera shots we would like to do but also a similar mise en scene effect with the lighting

Although 'UP' is an animated movie, it contains some good shots that we could use and get ideas from.

Exam displays fractal and close-ups, the kind that we would like to use in our opening because they resistrict the narrative and create an enigma.

For 'Freaky Friday', go to 4 minutes to show the inspiration for a 'getting up scene'. Although the POV shots are unique to this film to portray the different characters, it's still a useful scene as it shows a character getting up.

Synopsis And Shot Ideas

Synopsis

A woman is getting ready in the morning as part of her daily routine (present day), she is listening to the radio as they announce another woman has gone missing in the West Sussex area, we get a reaction shot of her as if she might know something about this. We then cut to a flashback of a eerie church at night, splattered with graves in the surrounding yard. Restricted narrative is used to hide the identity of this character, using shots such as this... ( To the right). He is seen digging causing high disruption (not set in stone at this moment) we continue to cut back to the woman getting ready using graphic matches, but making sure not to over do it, (e.g example of which is a match between a spoon digging into cereal to a spade into dirt). 


After the two scenes, of the women getting ready and the man who digging, they meet in the final scene but because of restrictive narrative the audience will not be able to confirm the link between the male "digging" and the male meeting the woman at the interview (in an office or similar).


After the opening


After the opening the story goes on to reveal that the man at the interview is a super rich businessman cereal killer, who is insane, and interviews young women then goes on to murder them and hide the bodies. The women manages to escape the murderer and she is in a struggle of survival as the police don't believe that this CEO businessman is a serial killer at night. 

Shot ideas

•  Spoon digging into the cereal - cuts to digging a hole.
• Match on action of the woman's wrist closing the door - sees her hand at the end in the hole (same bracelet).
• Over the shoulder shot of the woman - cuts to over the shoulder shot of the man.
• Cross-cutting music. Parallel music for the 'daily routine' shot. Heavy breathing and foley for the digging shots.
• Focusing pulling onto objects that link the two scenes, may mislead the audience.