Assessment - Planning SJA 18/12/11

Teacher Assessment

Second Half of the Storyboard

Peer Planning Assessment

Casting

Who we chose for casting, and why we chose them:

For our victim, we chose to use a female character.  This is because stereotypically women are presented as being weaker and more vulnerable then men, therefore she has a low status.  Also, our female character is small and has a light hair colour which suggests that she is innocent.  The innocence of this character is effective because it makes the audience sympathize for her, and want her to overcome what she is going through or about to go through. We chose Nicole to play the victim as she was willing to play the part in our opening sequence. 

Our murderer is a male character, with dark hair and tall.  This is because men are stereotypically stronger, and more powerful then women so have a higher status over them and control them.  As this character is more powerful and aggressive the audience feel less sympathy towards this character, and concentrate on what they think the character is doing, who they are, and why they are doing it. We chose myself (Matt) to play the killer as I am willing to be in our opening sequence.

Credit goes to Becka.

Killer Costume

-Dark Clothes - Connotes bad character.

-Lack of Colour - Could show that this character is cold (links with killer). It could also show that he wants to blend in and not stand out. Maybe he isn't bothered about clothes and grabs what is there.

-Not much of his body is revealed (Mystery) and this suspends the audience and instantly makes them ask questions. In our opening sequence you may only see the killers hands and feet, maybe his body.

Victim Costume

- Jennifer, 20.

- Bright clothes with colour gives the character some personality. It also makes the audience focus more on this character than the killer, making her the main protagonist and the killer the antagonist.

Props

These images show the props that we will be using in our opening sequence. 

Chair - This is where our victim is tied down for the entirety of the opening sequence.

Rope - This will be used to tie down the victim to the chair (shots will show her hands and feet tied)

String - We will use this to connect the photos of the killers victim, to show they have a relation.

Pin Board - This will be used for our killer 'Hit List' and will show pictures of his past and future victims.

Pins - This will be used to pin the photos into the pin board.

Location

This will be the room that the victim is tied up in. We will take the unnecessary items out of the room so it is just a chair in the middle of the room. The pin board will be on one of the walls on the sides so the victim can clearly see the past and future victims. The location looks uncomfortable and this connotes that this is a eerie place where bad things have and will happen.


Credit goes to Nathan.

Titles

These fonts are fonts that interest us as a group. The name of 'A Childs Nightmare' may be a temporary or permanent name, were not sure yet. They all link with the handwriting idea, like the kidnapper is writing in a diary about his victims or killings, and he is hunting down his childhood friends to punish them links with 'A Childs Nightmare'.


On Screen Titles:

The Wire (All Due Respect, 26/09/04, US)

This is how we want our titles to look. We think that having the text over the shots looks better than having it over black. It allows the audience to ask more questions and want to know more, rather then the 'fake world' they are seeing to be interrupted. This example from The Wire is perfect as the font they use is very similar to the font we want to use and the positioning of the titles too. The close ups are going to be used in our opening sequence too.

Over Black Titles:

The Sixth Sense (Shyamalan, 1999, US)

Even if we did want to do titles over black it would be hard as our opening sequence has to be under two minutes and the titles may take 3-4 seconds each, narrowing down the time allowed for the opening sequence. Although this works for The Sixth Sense, I don't think it would work with our opening sequence. 

Credit goes to Me.

Character Description

The following video is a short 'chat show that we created to show the characters description and relationship. We blurred the killer/kidnappers face out to hide the identity. We also didn't state the name of the film as we haven't fully decided on a film name.


Bubbl credit goes to Nicole.



Credit goes to all of us.

Animatic of our Opening Sequence

Storyboard Analysed

This storyboard gives us a basic outline of what will happen in our opening sequence. Our main character will wake up in a room, filled with clutter and mess. She will be tied to a chair and begins to look around the room, whilst trying to discover where she is, who captured her and why. During this she begins to panic and tries to escape. Random clips of children in plays and home videos of children will be playing to show that the killer/kidnapper knew this girl as a child. This links in with the psychological side of the thriller.

We've had to change some shots as we have now decided that the only time we will see the killer/kidnapper is when he opens the door in the final shot. This means our focus is now mainly on the killer/kidnapper.

  

Storyboarding

Drawing credit goes to Nicole. Colouring and text credit goes to me.

The three following videos are of me and my group putting together the storyboards and listening to each others ideas.