Essay

Planning

 

I first started researching for this project by watching some previous AS level students’ work and also chose some films I owned to watch and take notes on.  I thought that most of the students’ work I saw was of a pretty low standard and didn’t look very professional.  Also, most of the introductions I watched were for horror films and I am not very interested in that genre.  I wanted my film introduction to grab the audience’s attention and make them want to watch more but these amateur films didn’t really do that at all.

 

One of the first professional films I watched was my favourite film, ‘Hot Fuzz’.  When I first watched it I recognised that it was very well directed and this was an integral part of the film overall.  The editing was fast and exciting, adding to the mood.  I liked the way the film was successful as both a comedy and a thriller.  Most comedies aren’t shot very interestingly and rely on a clever and funny script but this film had both elements.  I particularly liked director Edgar Wright’s scene transitions where he used various techniques such as “whip pan” and “wipe” to add a bit of variety and keep the audience interested.  Wright’s use of loud, exaggerated sound effects is extremely effective.  I would definitely like to recreate some of these sounds to make my film more exciting.

 

I liked the dramatic lighting and music in ‘The Bourne Identity’ however I don’t think I will be using much music in my introduction.  I liked the characters in ‘Juno’ and ‘About a Boy’.  In both films the comedy is in the characters themselves and it seems natural and effortless.  I liked the character of Will in ‘About a Boy’ because of his inappropriate jokes and the fact that although his humour seems natural, it is clearly intended for the audience as not many of the characters in the film understand his sense of humour.  I also liked Will and Marcus’s voice-overs throughout the film that make you empathise with the characters and understand more of what is going on.

 

A technique I really liked in ‘About a Boy’ and ‘The Machinist’ was where the audio at the beginning of the film started before the image came up on the screen, creating tension and mystery.  In ‘About a Boy’, you can hear the sound of ‘Who Wants To Be a Millionaire’ on the television and in ‘The Machinist’ there is the sound of Trevor struggling to wrap up a dead body in a rug.

 

The first time I used iMovie was for my practise assignment.  I had to film someone walking down some stairs using various different shots and angles edited together. Instead of walking down stairs I filmed my friend walking up to a building then opening the door and walking inside.  I used a handheld camera so the filming was a bit shaky.  I filmed quite a lot so when I started to edit I had a lot of choice as to which clips I could use where. I tried to edit in a fast-paced style like Edgar Wright to make a boring scene of someone walking and opening a door into something a little more interesting.  I was pleased with this as a first attempt because editing it took quite a while on ‘iMovie’ as I wasn’t used to using it.

 

I then did my preliminary exercise in which I had to obey the 180-degree rule and film someone walking into a room, sitting down and having a conversation with someone.  There were a few problems, as I didn’t prepare a script so when I came to edit, the conversation was not the same for every angle I shot (I made my actors repeat the same conversation a few times for each angle I needed).  It all worked out in the end despite having to cut out a lot of repetitions.  I used the school’s Canon XL2 camera on a tripod so the filming was of a better quality than my first video.  For one bit of this video I extracted the audio from about 2 seconds of Amy's dialogue and put in a reaction shot of Lottie while Amy is still talking in the background.  One problem I had with it was I deleted the visual clip of Amy instead of putting it with my other unused clips. I saved it then watched the full video back and realized I would have preferred to put the reaction shot a bit further on but because I had saved I couldn't get the clip of Amy back.  This taught me to keep all my clips.  Despite my problems I am happy with my final video and am confident that things will run more smoothly in my final film introduction.

 

I was still very interested in Edgar Wright’s style after I had done my two preliminary exercises so I decided to try copying some of his techniques using the school’s Canon XL2 camera.  I tried pan, whip pan, crash zoom, three shot zoom and when editing, I added in sound effects which I think added a lot to the final product.

 

After watching several thrillers, comedies and thriller-comedies, I decided that I would definitely like to make a thriller-comedy film in a similar style to ‘Hot Fuzz’.  Edgar Wright’s direction is what influenced the thriller-comedy storyline for my film as I enjoy the exciting way his films progress.  If I film my introduction in a similar way to him, hopefully the audience will be interested in finding out what happens next.  As in ‘Hot Fuzz’, I want my introduction to have quite a slow beginning but have fast-paced, heavily edited montages in-between.  I have decided that my film should be rated a certificate “15” as I would not like younger people to see the violent scenes in my film and their young, impressionable minds may be influenced by the actions of my characters.

 

My film will involve two seventeen-year-old babysitters who accidentally kill the girl they are meant to be looking after.  It is a comedy so the humour has to overpower the horror of the death of a child.  I wanted an ordinary, everyday setting and characters so that the audience can relate to/empathise with and understand the characters and what is going on.  I want to have long(ish), slow, quite awkward, boring scenes to contrast with quick action sequences e.g. Girl sitting on sofa watching television, looking very bored, then fast-paced section with babysitters ringing the doorbell, parents saying goodbye, closing the door and babysitters sitting down on the sofa.  I have five characters in my introduction; Laura Anderson, Louise Eden, Hermione, Jackie and Michael Pratt.  Laura and Louise are seventeen-year-old babysitters who are looking after fifteen-year-old Hermione.  Jackie and Michael are Hermione’s over-protective parents who are going out for dinner.  I will film the digging scene in Laura’s garden and the house scenes at Louise’s house.  Both my locations are near school so it is very convenient for both actors and equipment.

 

The film starts with the film studios' logos (Universal, Working Title and Studio Canal - the ones backing Shaun of The Dead and Hot Fuzz) and the sound of digging, nothing else.  A close up image comes on screen of Laura, who is sitting outside in the dark holding a can of Coke.  The digging continues in the background.  Laura’s voice-over starts.  She talks vaguely about what has happened as the audience watch her sitting and sipping her drink through a crazy straw.  During the voice-over there is a long shot showing a new character (Louise), knee-deep in a ditch she is digging.  Louise is on the right of the screen and Laura on the left, sitting garden chair.  Laura’s voice-over will go something along the lines of: “Everyone thinks about death.  Everyone thinks about it and knows that it’s just one of those things.  You’d never kill anyone.  Not on purpose.  But you rarely think about the fact that it could be an accident.  It’s too easy.  I never thought I’d kill someone.  Yet here we are.  Knee-deep in mud.  Burying a body.  It didn’t start out like this.  We’re just babysitters…”

 

The next scene starts with a screen wipe from the last scene into this one and a pan starting from behind a television, panning left to show Hermione sitting on a sofa in her living room.  In the black frames between the two scenes, the title of the film, “The Babysitters” will come up and move away as though it is stuck to the back of the TV.  Hermione’s parents are fussing over her before the two of them go out to dinner leaving her behind with Laura and Louise.  After a few words between Hermione and her parents (Hermione telling them that she doesn’t need a babysitter), there will be a quick Edgar Wright-style montage with the two babysitters ringing the doorbell, parents saying goodbye, closing the door, babysitters sitting down on the sofa etc. all in quick succession to make the awkward silence after even more intense (I wanted to pay homage to the ‘Shaun of The Dead’ montages and by “pay homage” I mean “totally rip off”).  Hermione then tries to ignore them most of the time and continues to watch TV, turning up the volume every time they try to speak to her.  To build the tension, Louise has a packet of Werther’s Originals, which Louise (very loudly and painstakingly) attempts to open.  The tension is built through a series of slow-zoom shots of each character and the packet of sweets, Hermione getting increasingly annoyed by the sound and Laura getting increasingly awkward by the effect it is having on Hermione.  Louise’s shots show her to be totally unaware of the irritation she is inflicting on the others in the room, smiling innocently as she carelessly continues to rustle the packaging.  The scene ends suddenly with Laura getting up and asking if she could get Hermione a drink.

 

Construction

 

I booked the school's Canon XL2 video camera for Friday 20th March and Saturday 21st so that we could film the digging scene at Laura's house on Friday after school as it started to get dark.  Then on Saturday we would film at Louise's house for the indoor scenes.  On Friday we went straight after school and naively left the actual grave digging till then too.  In retrospect we should have prepared the hole beforehand.  We spent quite a while digging then, when we eventually finished, I went over the script.  I started having doubts about it so enlisted Laura’s help.  We added the binoculars instead of Coke (as my introduction was pretty much turning into a Coca Cola commercial) and tweaked a few other things too.  We kept the voiceover the same but we recorded that at school afterwards and put it in once I had edited everything else.

 

Laura and Louise quickly learned their lines, so soon we were ready to shoot.  Everything ran very smoothly, getting all the shots I needed.  But then it got dark.  All we had left to do was the Mars bar shots so I shot them in almost pitch black, hoping it could be fixed on the computer afterwards.  I ended up just altering the brightness and contrast on ‘iMovie’ and it worked fine, even if the result was a little flickery.  But I kind of liked it.  I used the ‘Day for Night’ filter on ‘Adobe After Effects’ and blackened/blurred the edges to make it look darker and more sinister.  We had to shoot the shot of Louise getting the Mars bars thrown at her in Louise’s garden the next day as by the time we got round to it, were all too cold and we thought it was too dark to do any more. 

 

There was a problem with the equipment, too.  Some evil, sabotaging person took the good, smooth-moving tripod that I was used to, leaving us with an awful one that should have been destroyed immediately following its return to the Media department.  This tripod did not pan very well as it got stuck and swung around etc. whenever I tried to move it, so I decided to cut the transition between the digging scene and the indoor scene as the pan had to be steady for me to edit it successfully on ‘After Effects’. Instead, I replaced it with a 3 shot zoom, which I luckily had practiced with beforehand in my "Practice" video.  I panned so fast that the tripod didn’t have time to break so luckily it was okay (I have a steady hand).  Actually, it worked out very well as I ended up putting that part to music and I don’t think the original panning transition would have fitted in so well.  Also, this way, I managed to have a much more attention-grabbing title with the swelling ‘THE BABYSITTERS’.  Beforehand, I was going to have it on the back of the TV in the middle of the transition.

 

Before shooting at Louise's house, I wrote a plan of all the shots I needed. I referred to my plan and my storyboards throughout filming and they were very helpful.  I ticked off each shot as I did it so I knew how much more there was left to do.

 

Here is the plan I used on the day (I did shoot everything on the list however I ended up cutting a few as they didn’t fit in as well in the final cut):

 

·     3 shot zoom on Hermione sitting on sofa

·     Quicker version of Hermione watching T.V.

·     Turns up volume of television – close and closer (3 stages)

·     Laura and Louise at door breathing heavily and grinning idiotically

·     CRASH ZOOM MONTAGE:

Close up of Louise wearing coat – just buttons – then takes off to reveal pyjamas

Laura taking off hat

Laura opening Coke can

Louise opening Coke can

Louise grabbing bag of Werther’s Originals

 

·     Laura and Louise sitting down on sofa in unison – camera pans down as they sit

·     Hermione looking over at them suspiciously

·     Close up of Laura’s face grinning + looking at Hermione

·     Close up of Hermione’s face looking over at them

·     Laura and Louise sitting on sofa – pan across as in HF conversation

·     Hermione looks down at Louise’s pyjamas

·     “Are you wearing pyjamas?”

·     Louise nods like a simpleton

·     “But you’re babysitting me”

·     Laura coughs, wide-eyed, raised eyebrows

·     Louise looks up from Werther’s Originals and smiles as though she hadn’t heard

·     Hermione looks at Louise, vaguely disgusted

·     Slight pause, showing whole room, Laura and Louise on sofa straight on, Hermione facing right, TV on left but not seen

·     Louise’s left side, bit of Laura can be seen, starts rustling but can’t see; next shot of close-up Werther’s Originals, Louise having trouble opening them

·     Louise unwrapping Werther’s Originals:

1)   Louise’s face (not zoom, just smiling unsuspectingly as rustling)

2)  Slow zoom Werther’s Originals

3)   Slow zoom Louise’s face – straight ahead – do straight faced version AND grinning inanely version

4)   Slow zoom on Laura’s face – irritated – looks over left at her angrily

5)   Slow zoom on Hermione – wide-eyed and twitchy

6)   Extreme close up of Hermione’s eyes

7)   Extreme close up of Laura’s eyes

8)   Extreme close up of Louise’s eyes looking around confused then wide and shocked

·     Laura stands up + camera follows her as she gets up “Shall we get you a drink?” – really fast

·     Louise looking at Laura sitting and watching as she gets up then staring at her as she talks

 

I filmed all of the shots of the parents leaving the house a couple of weeks earlier because in my original script there was a short scene with the parents saying goodbye to Hermione in the living room.  I ended up cutting it, as the pacing didn’t feel right.  I felt bad cutting my own parents from the film but I suppose thats what happens in show-business and they should learn to deal with rejection!

 

I searched extensively for some respectable sound effects and music for my introduction but, despite purchasing several sound effects CDs online, nothing I could find was really very good (unless I wanted to pay something ridiculous like $90).  I would have loved to have a professional Foley artist on hand to create for me the slurping of the Coke and a slightly less clichéd “spooky wind” sound, however I eventually had to come to terms with the fact that I was stuck with the limited selection iMovie had to offer me.  It was a challenge but I managed to edit in some pretty acceptable sounds.  Something that really surprised me, though, was that I spent weeks and weeks searching for a “slamming door” sound effect only to find the exact one I wanted saved under the name “Mammoth” on the very computer I was working on.  I used it maybe a few too many times in my introduction but as I was so excited about it, I used it wherever I could.  And I think it works really well – just as I dreamed it would be.  Someone actually said to me that they liked the effect I used “at the end” so I was glad someone noticed.  I got the alarm sound effect (which I used when the babysitters were at the front door and which I had had in my mind from my first draft of the script) from an obscure podcast that I luckily remembered I had.  I didn’t know where else to find the sound effect as it is pretty well known but I don’t know where it’s from.  For the music, I used various wares iMovie provided me with, as well as a song by ‘Sparks’ called “Here In Heaven”.  I spent a long time trying to find an upbeat yet relevant song that would fit in with the shots and be a great contrast to the slow scene prior to it.  I knew I needed a song with a steady beat, not too fast, like “Goody Two Shoes” by ‘Adam and The Ants’ at the beginning of ‘Hot Fuzz’ so that I would have a good rhythm that went in time with what was happening visually.  I made lots of quick cuts and sped some bits up to keep in time.

 

I really hated using ‘After Effects’ to do the ‘Day for Night’ conversion so was not best pleased when I was informed I had to do my titles using the same programme.  I did the titles last so that I could import the otherwise-finished film into ‘After Effects’ then add the titles in at exactly the right places.  However ‘After Effects’ for some inexplicable reason does not allow you to play back your clip to see if the text works in time with the music etc.  It is infuriating.  I would have loved to have the titles coming in, in time to the music (as I believe I had successfully achieved this with my clips) however Lord knows how long that would have taken me, with so many titles to place.  As for the style of the text, I wanted to do something similar to the ones in ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy’ introduction.  They are simple yet effective, with minuscule lettering for the job title (eg. producer) and majuscules for the name (eg. ELIZABETH JOHNSON).  I used the names of my friends for all the credits as it looks more realistic having lots of different names as opposed to just mine and the cast members’.  I was pleased with my replication of the ‘Hitchhiker’s Guide’ titles although, as I only had a small preview window on ‘After Effects’, I did not realise that my final text would be so thick and bold; I could barely even make out the writing on my screen at the time so assumed it would be quite thin, subtle lettering as in ‘Hitchhiker’s Guide’ (yet another flaw).

 

I brought an artificial light from the Media Studies department at school for filming outside but I didn’t end up using it, as it was light enough to film the digging without it.  I did use it though for the indoor shoot the next day at Louise’s but I did not have to turn it up too bright as light was coming in through the windows (on which I had pulled the blinds down).  It was not convenient for anyone involved to wait till it got dark to film even though I initially thought it necessary.  I think it was not only easier filming when it was still light outside but also emphasised the absurdity of the seventeen-year-olds babysitting someone who looks older than them.  Why would a fifteen-year-old need to be babysat when it’s still light outside?

 

My script changed quite a bit during the filming days as I learned what worked and what didn’t, discovering what I truly wanted from my film.  Despite the changes and cuts I felt necessary to make, I feel that my final film still adheres to my initial thoughts and ambitions at the start of this project.  I am so happy with how the film introduction turned out.

Filming

I was inspired by the opening credits of The Hitchhiker's Guide to The Galaxy and decided to replicate the simple-but-effective style.

Character Photos

Laura (left) and Louise (right) = the two babysitters

Hermione = the "child" they babysit

Jackie and Michael = Hermione's parents

These are the outfits Laura and Louise will wear for the film.  I think Laura will wear a black jumper though as it will look better in the first scene where it will be dark.  Hermione will wear black, typical goth clothes and make-up.  Jackie will wear a black dress and coat and Michael will wear a black suit and tie.

Digging Location

I am going to do the digging scene at the sand dunes in St Ouen because it will be easier to dig sand than mud.  Although it wouldn't be realistic to bury a body in sand, it will be quite dark when we film it so hopefully you won't be able to tell.

Laura will sit on the dark grassy part on the left of the photo above

UPDATE: Laura's parents have kindly said that I can use their garden for the digging scene.  It will be a lot better for the equipment as if it rains, we can go inside whereas at the sand dunes, we would have had a lot further to go.

In the introduction, Louise will sit in the hole and dig as Laura sits in a chair to the left of her.

Practice

I practiced some filming techniques and transitions then edited them on iMovie.

I experimented with sound effects and music and I really like the effects I created.

Other things I included are:

• Pan
• Whip pan (where Alice throws the pencil then it cuts to Louise picking it up)
• Crash zoom: The school camera can only do slow zoom and not crash zoom which I really want for my film so I zoomed in slowly on Louise's face then when I was editing I cut the clip in two: the first part was the zoom so I wanted to speed it up then the second part was where the zooming was finished and it was just a close up of Louise's face. The final product is pretty good but it could have been faster although the original zoom was very slow so in my final film I will zoom in quicker.
• Some of the pans I did seemed a bit slow so I sped them up on iMovie (like I did with my "crash zoom"). I will probably take off the sped-up sound in my final film but I quite like it here.
• I like scenes in films where the beginning of a shot has a loud, sudden sound so I filmed Alice opening a door and walking in the room. The first sound is the slam of her hands on the door, pushing it open.
• I filmed a phone and zoomed in on it really slowly then put in a sound effect of a phone ringing. I didn't have enough still footage of the phone at the beginning before I started to zoom in so I slowed what I had down a bit in the same way I sped up the clips earlier. At the end of the clip I moved the camera swiftly right because I was going to follow with the next clip coming from the right in a whip pan but I forgot. When I am doing my actual film I will plan very carefully so that I don't make mistakes like this. In the next clip where Louise puts down the phone but lifts it up for a second accidentally, I put in a very short audio clip of the phone ringing. This is something Edgar Wright sometimes does in his films (eg. in Hot Fuzz where Simon Skinner looks right at the camera accidentally so when Wright came to edit the film, he put in the sound effect of a cash register which is very funny).
• Three shot zoom: I whip panned from the left far away then a bit closer then a bit closer. Then I put them all together.
• I'm not sure what I was doing with the plant thing. I just thought it was funny.

Tzvetan Todorov

Tzvetan Todorov’s theory is quite interesting as almost every film I have seen sticks to it and I'm sure some of the people who made the films were unaware that it even exists because I certainly hadn't heard of it before now yet in every story I can remember ever writing has stuck to this simple pattern.

Todorov's theory is that a narrative has five parts. The story always starts and ends in a state of equilibrium but, unlike in something like The Simpsons, the final equilibrium is usually different to the beginning one.

The five stages:

1. A state of equilibrium
2. A disruption of that order by an event
3. A recognition that the disorder has occurred
4. An attempt to repair the damage of the disruption
5. A return or restoration of a NEW equilibrium

Location Photos

I went to Louise's house yesterday and took some photos of her living room, kitchen and hall because this is where I will be filming most of my introduction.

The main annoying thing is I don't think I will be able to fit the camera behind her TV because it is quite big and flat and there are a lot of wires etc. which would make it very hard to move. I could possibly hide the TV behind something and have a different TV in front which I could film behind. Louise has a TV that she said I could use that's only in the next room so we could easily shift it. Or I could add the TV in on the computer like I will be doing with my "wipe" transitions. I watched my Spaced clip again and I think that they probably did it on the computer anyway - I just need to work out the angle to make it believable.