Rough Cuts

This is one of our rough cuts. We have decided to film it again as the camera is two jumpy and doesn't need to move to follow the protagonist's actions as she will fit in the screen without the jumpiness.

This is another rough cut. We had to delete this scene as a Sophie on the far left is in this scene and when it goes back to this scene in the shot reverse shot, she is not there. See clip below.

We have had to re-film this shot as its supposed to be an over the shoulder shot of Peter, not Matt so were re-filming it from a over the shoulder shot of Peter/Point of view shot of Matt. Another reason why were re-filming is you cant actually hear what Peter is saying, so a boom mic would have been essential here.

This is the school scene which was in the draft final cut. We then decided to take it out for the official final cut as the audience didn't react to it as we expected them to, they laughed at his character. This is then replaced by the scene of the protagonist in bed with the male character.

Our groups initial ideas

Long shot of a door at the end of a coridor, camera moves towards the door, the door is opened to find a boys feet dangling from a height. You hear his mother shouting from downstairs " Tom...You need to get up now! Don't forget your dad is picking you up with his new tart of a girlfriend!" It then cuts to a news clip of a woman saying that a young boy of 17 has commited suicide in his house with no further information given. It cuts again to Tom, the unidentified boy, walking around school with a voice over saying " Im Tom Schofield, this is my story, this is my life..." Then further on it shows you Tom getting bullied by other students being pushed around and teachers paying no attention of him and just sending him out of class. He then goes into a toilet cubicle,you see him going mental hitting things, screaming and throwing toilet paper around. He is then sick from all his built up anger and frustration, he stands up turns around to the camera wipes his mouth and then a close up of his face shows tears rolling down his face and then the screen fades to back. At this point fast paced music is used and the credits appear on the black screen.

We then changed our idea as it didnt fit into a specific genre and we would have struggled to fit it in to 2 minutes. Also, 3 cuts in a 2 minute opening would be to confusing to the audience.

Micro drama Narrative theory

This is our micro-drama. We filmed this in october 08. This film, and the preliminary task is what we used to research the equipment and come to grips with the software.

The task was to create a micro-drama, a short fictional text of around 1 minute. To then be introduced to 4 key theories and to explore these theories then apply them to our own fictional narrative. The Theories are:

Propps character archetypes

Todorov's model of narrative structure

Levi-Strauss' Binary opposition concept

Barthes' narrative enigma idea

When we were filming this we weren't particularly focusing on camera angles and including these theories but they are still applied.

We used Propps character types in our media. Lucy was the villain, the hero was Lauren and the false hero was Sophie as she ran back to help Kristie just so she didn't get into trouble. Kristie was the victim.

Todorov's 5 part narrative formula consists of,

1. a state of equilibrium at the outset

2. a disruption of the equilibrium by some action (wanting to steal the phone)

3. a recognition that there has been a disruption. ( arguing)

4.an attempt to repair the disruption ( running back to help)

5.a reinstatement of the equilibrium (calling an ambulance)

There are binary opposistions between the 3 bullies and Kristie by the way there dressed, there actions and the way there speaking. We did this to make it clear to the audience who's on which side.

There is narrative enigma as you don't know if Kristie will survive and what will happen to the bullies for stabbing her.

Production plan

http://www.scribd.com/share/upload/11248945/2gsiujguxrkgey3rij7c

Production Schedule 2nd

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Below is the production plan before we made changes to the film. Above is the link to the changed production plan.

Storyboard

This is the correct storyboard for our production after the changes have been made.

Below is the 1st storyboard before we changed some shots.

Logo

This is our groups logo.
We decided to use a simple and accessable logo as when people look at the logo it is obvious its a film company. We chose the name 'tracking' as its a filming technique. I googled our production name and it isn't being used by anybody else.

Casting

We decided from the beginning we would have a brunette as our protagonist to go against the stereotype of having a blonde protagonist who is killed straight away. Also, our character has similar looks to Lisa (Sian Brecklin) from Donkey Punch who is the final girl. We did this to give a twist to the story, to make the audience think that she may get away and not get killed.

For the main characters we did not hold a casting session as we thought it would be to time consuming and we had a few ideas of people we knew who could play the parts. We had already decided to use a group member as the female protagonist.
The main male protagonist in the school scene was chosen because he creates a binary opposition between himself and the female protagonist, Mandy. This is because the girl is pretty and 'cool' as she has a group of friends surrounding her and the guy is not as attractive and 'geeky' by what he is saying and his mannerisms, in contrast to the female who seems cold and not as interested in the fact there splitting up.
The antagonist was chosen because again, he is binary opposition to the other male and female as he is a lot taller and bigger then the other two characters. It conotes he is more powerful and strong, making the female look vulnerable.

Our cast is quite a narrow representation of the general public as all the characters are 17 years old, appealing to the youth audience. The characters are also all white, and middle class characters. But this doesn't mean it wont appeal to a wide audience as most productions who have no non-Caucasian characters, don't suffer for it commercially. Horror films which do include ethnic minorities, such as Scary Movie with the character 'Shorty Meeks' who dies in the first half of the film. This could show that films show a negative representation of ethnic minorities.

Eventhough we have a narrow representation of the public, we decided it would be more accessable to have teenagers playing teenagers, as it would be more realistic than having teenagers playing a doctor or police man. Although, it is not a big problem that we have only representated teenagers as many other successful films have done the same, such as Final destination.

A conventional slasher with middle class characters targets C1C2DE audiences. Films that generally appeal to a ABC1 audience are high budget with no teenagers, as our film is low/no budget and is based and teenagers, this may mean we have no appeal to ABC1s audience.

We could have gained a cross over appeal to an older audience by featuring a parent, even for a short amount of time just till the audience feels they can relate to the character. Or by using a song from the 70's/80'/90's era but due to copyright complications, this wasn't possible.

The Protagonist and the Antagonist

Mandy: Matt: