Equipment/Props/Mis-en-scene 

Due to our tight budget DSD has come up with replacements to save us time and money, using our imagination and inishative these should work out as good as:

I'm going to invest in a ankle bandage to give it that extra scruffy painful look on set for the victim to react to the pain in her ankle and for the audience to notice her injury and sympathize for her.

The victim is going to try and reach out for the cordless house phone placed on the kitchen table to  call for help but fails to reach it in time. DSD have chosen to do this so that the audience can think maybe? what if? and that their is a chance of her getting help and escaping her terrible ordeal.

The villain will use housekeys to enter the young female victims home and intrude on her trying to reach out for the phone. This intense cut to cut scene will leave the audience in worry for the female and want her to pace up and get the phone, but in a fall out of continuous pain she is going through restricts that achievement and the evil villain places the key into the key hole in a relax manner as if nothing is wrong.






The victim is going to be either covered or have specks of blood on her clothing or along the floor but within the scene so instead of using fake Halloween blood we've decided that tomato ketchup gives off the same effect through the camera and no one will know.

Costume

DSD productions haven't come up with definite actors yet although i am considering playing the main character and taking part in the filming and editing continuously. My original plan was to have the character that is seen to be evil to cover them in a full black bin bag cape outfit. Although the team considered saving vast's amount of money on equipment we didn't think about how to make this costume stable on the actor as it might fly away once filming and during allot of action. So we have come to the conclusion that a saving money procedure isant the way forward and that we need to think more broadly. My main inspiration came from celebrities and other icons in the Media that have made Bin bags 'fashionable' and accessible.We did think also think that using bin bags will be a environmentally friendly use as most are recyclable. I suggested tat bin bags are adjustable but i then got corrected on how easily they rip and fly away. When testing this out we saw that it looked like a Halloween outfit which was not what we are intending to go for plus it will be confusing for the viewers to understand the purpose of our costume choice.  

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After many debate and consideration we thought about other costumes we could get and provide. Daniel agreed to keep the outfit black as this will show the terror and darkness/evilness also danger of the character so i suggested how about keeping it more basic and formal. We thought about it long and hard and thought of the advantages we have, the villains face will not be shown at any point so facial covering was something we didn't need to worry about. I went home that eventing and realised exactly how cold it is so i took this into perspective. I decided gloves will be good to use and have black jeans with a baggy black jacket/coat with a hood on it. Dark night, cold weather, dark atmosphere, blacked out clothes, perfect result!

Step Two Analysis 
We formed our step 2 analysis today. we made it detailed but did not include when where how or why? because our ideas are not detailed yet. But our group meeting focused on what each individual in DSD need to think about. Mine and Daniels job is to think about how we can film this to make it interesting for the audience and for simon its the Editing process to grab all the marks and make it relevant to the genre we haven't yet thought about non Diagetic sound but hopefully as our ideas get tighter and more productive this will all fall in place and make sense. We did however think about the beginning and middle and how it will all piece together for the audience to understand what they are viewing. Its a mystery of who the killer is and for this reason we need to establish what significance the killer and the new neighbour have in common. The one certain thing is the plot and what time everything is going to be filmed. the close up of her struggle and the front door makes it all clear that the act is taking place in the comfort of there own home.

The Naming Of Our Group
Today i went around asking the class what they thought a appropriate name for our group production could be. Each person presented us with random names that they thought would be suitable for our chosen genre Horror and sub genre Thriller. We had some ridiculous names but after much debate we chose the most popular one and officially chose DSD Productions many thanks to Tylors idea. Their is a hidden meaning for this name, this is because its the first letter of each of the members: Dee Simon Daniel also known as DSD! we are looking forward to working together in our main piece.

The Camera

Decided to experiment around with the camera that i want to film with in the main production with. The original camera we was going to use was provided to us from our resources within the school but i wanted to go one step further and use my high tech HD camera. I decided to record the area of my plot and setting during the evening to see if it would upload onto the computer and then onto my blog but it failed to do either. The type of the file was not being picked up upon by the Mac systems so therefore this file would have had to be transferred into a mp4. I tried to then do this transaction but i was then faced wit a further problem of the size of the file being to big. This then would've meant i would be forced to cut down the size of the file transform it onto Movie Maker then change it on to a mp4 file so tat it could be viewed and edited on Premiere Pro. Me and Simon decided this is to much hassle for us as a group and the editing process would take twice as long so it generally was not worth taking such a risk due to our limited deadline date. So we have decided to go back to the original JVC camera and make the most of the resources provided.

Our Target Audience:
Our main production as you are aware of is going to be a Horror/Thriller. Our sequence is going to be very disturbing and for that reason i have decided that the audience must be old enough to understand and mentally maintain there emotions throughout. the age range i think is suitable would vary starting but start from 18. I ave rated it this because i  recently went to the cinema and viewed Sinister, it as come to my awareness that the film was rated a 15 in comparison to our opening construction there is a big difference in the amount of fright factor created! Its for both females and males to enjoy and also for all ethnicities to watch. Although it does meet with the stereo-type of girls being the victims we have decided to twist it around a little and not make the victim a 'dumb blonde'. The shock factor is incredible and their is a story line from it so younger viewers might have difficulty understanding what is being portrayed. If i was a professional film maker I'm sure the BBFC would agree with my decision and allow us to take it to the next step.

 A pure example of our audience 'young trendies' up for a night of being scared to death knowing it will be a right laugh. Theirs not a certain social group that our clip is aimed at so the more the merrier.

Teenagers use a lot of their time for hobbies. There are many types of characters in teens. So every teenager has different interests and hobbies. For example sports, collecting some things like marks, stamps and labels, reading books, writing, and cooking.
Girls and boys are different. For example, boys are interested in sports like football, basketball, volleyball and swimming. But girls prefer dancing, singing and going out with friends. Some girls like sports too like running, playing volleyball, handball and swimming.
Teenagers spend a lot of time on the computer. Three out of four teens spend about two hours daily surfing the internet or chatting with friends.

List of hobbies:
Music (singing, composing).
Poetry.
Dancing.
Indoor as well as outdoor sports.
Adventure or extreme sports.
Fitness or working out in a gym.
Car or bike racing.
Computer games or programming.
Social Networking.
Watching movies.

Preliminary feedback
The whole class took place in a verbal evaluation of our Preliminary. They stated all the things that went well and could be improved upon.

The main factor of disappointment was the fact that our timing is not right and we shall make improvements on all these.
Anna quoted that the shots are good but the music just doesn't make sense with the preliminary and that i shouldn't leave the audience this confused for our main production. Veronika agreed and added that the shots were to cut through and did not flow and maybe we should think about fading out the music to make the whole ting smoother. Dean pointed out that the lighting was very bad and if effected the quality of the filming dramatically and we need to think about these issues before hand with where we place our characters. Dawn suggested that we shouldn't leave our audience second guessing about certain things, for example Bushir came out from no where no visions of what door or anything this was not realistic and was presented as a stage show not meeting up with general key factors of making a clip or film seem realistic and flow. 

The alleyway Scene
I was looking at certain settings where we could produce our Establishing shot/s. When i came across my alley way in the dark night as i was walking home i flipped out my phone camera and took pictures. I am aware that most of the images are not as clear but i thought if i do not turn my flash on it will give the scene a scarier effect but i was wrong because it just looks plain and simply dark! i don't want the alley way to be a long timing shot just to set the mood of the whereabouts of where the victim lives. The shot of the front door will definitely be used just to create a extra suspicion and reveal that the action is going to take place indoors in the comfort of her own home and hospitality's. Anyway let me know what you think guys thank you :)

This was a shot taken of my road leading up to the house. This image shows approximately how far it is from my house to the alleyway. For this we will have to cut out some of the walking as the suspect enters the front door. If we were planning to shoot the whole walking distance and include all of this in our two minute opening then we just wouldn't have enough time! In this case we would have to choose quality over quantity.

This picture and the one above are side photo's mid-end of my alleyway. As you can see, its all a bit freakish and does have a certain lighting to it, so it will be clear for the audience to see but only to a extent. hopefully when we film during the night a shadow will be noticeable. All of this adding to the 'Horror' of the clip. (mis-en-scene)

This is the main path of my alleyway. I tried to take a photo as clear as possible for everyone to se the whole alleyway, as i do walk down here myself at nighttime i know just how silent and mysteriously freaky this place can be.

This is a shadow of my friend, but its relevent. i asked her to stand there so that i could analyse whether she can be seen or not. As you can all tell   she cant, meaning that out killer wont be seen which is exactly what i am after. The whole point is not to reveal the identity of the killer, for the audience to do the investigation themselves.

As the killer looks to different directions of the alleyway, i am hoping to get a point of view shot of him seeing this. i just think the metal wires adds to the un-comfert of the alleyway. It comes across as though there is no escape and no way out. Don't you agree?

This is the front door of my home where the victim lives and the killer enters. Hopefully we can produce a establishing shot of here, or the alleyway to instantly hook the audience and for them to notice the genre of film immediately. The establishing shot is just one of the factors that will give away to the audience the genre of our construction. Also the title should take part to show, although we haven't come up with names yet.

Shots
Our group were discussing the types of shots we could use and i thought that with conventions from other media texts and the idea of zooms being repeated throughout generally in Horror movies is done to show every detail of item or person/emotion for the viewers to specifically concentrate and then later let that slide. Pathetic Fallacy was one that i was aware of in films such as Hollowen, The Grudge and Scream these used the weather to contract there atmosphere. The dark night initially means fear for the audience and predictions are made that something bad is going to happen. The Guardian has written an article on special effects although they done this in 2008.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2008/jan/26/horror

First Group meeting
FINALLY! Today we had our group meeting and although we are all aware that allot of work needs to be done we have all come up with with out final idea. We decided to mix up my ideas with Daniels and have a mixed genre, mainly Horror but sub-genre it with thriller. We could not come to a agreement of whose idea was better to have multiple ideas/mix and match. I drew out a plan for our team so we know roughly what we want to include in the different sections of our opening clip. We wrote that maybe in the beginning we could have an establishing shot of the house outside in the night-time to show where all the horror is going to take place or maybe even an empty road, or even Daniels idea of  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3bRwB5fDFo lapses in light to show the whole area and city. In our middle most wanted to involve the main killing scene but some argued that they wanted that in the beginning with visions of body decompositions in the middle to make it different to other horrors/thrillers/Goore. We thought if we could come up with every day items to make them abnormal and scary this can contradict and play around with audiences emotions, Lord Of The Rings does this allot with the ring being a sacred treasurement  to them, in this case maybe use a plate instead of a knife and enrol the 'least expected' not only does this bring up questions but also keeps the viewers intrigued  and shocked. Simon and Daniel really like my idea of involving a radio and Daniel said that he can do more research on that and find out if his Granddad will let us borrow his. We had other suggestions that were out the box, i thought of having it based on Halloween Day this would be perfect and we could inspire from other films. Daniel planned that maybe we can record others wile they trick or treat but simon pointed out that no one comes around his area to enjoy the events which resulted to me and Daniel coming up with the same realization. We are definite with our setting in my house and cant wait to get cracking.

Preliminary video Evaluation/Analysis

The Preliminary task was by far the most challenging so far though i have had my ups and down in the experience but i have come out the other side more prepared and more realistic about the problems that i might later on face in my main task. As you know about i had difficultly with my first shot at Preliminary and was forced to go back and re-do it! this not only took away valuable time but also got me worried as to weather or not our group would hit the dead line date. The roles within the group were very fixed and everyone was positioned in a ordinary fashion. Daniel helped Simon with the filming and i acted as the person that wrote the script, story board and made sure there was continuity was controlled and presented. I also played a big part on how i thought the shots would look to a viewer and this i think was one of the hardest multi-task rolls that i have done so far in Media studies. Dean and Tylor how ever did help us dramatically and i would just like to thank them. :)

The post production sounds were humorous and Simon actually enjoyed using Premier Pro to do this, he also crafted some of this work on Logic Pro (this is another editing resource). However on a more negative note our work was analysed by the teacher and we could have made allot of progress. Firstly the shots where good but not fluent throughout and filming did honestly get lazy and more demanding as the hours went by. The sequence and transaction of shots were not followed trough continuously, in the beginning as Bushir came down the stairs there was a shot of his back and side but no signs of a shot from in front. This mistake will not be made again as it seems less realistic and not fully prepared for. The other main issue that was brought upon was the fact that not only were the shots to cut pace but also very long which dragged out the order and made it plain and and simply boring to the viewers, in my opinion that is the last thing we need! The match on action was not fully correct although we did try very hard and went over that several times, i guess the lessoned to be learnt is that filming takes allot of patience and ability to stay positive. Maybe we could have involved more mysterious shots and zooms just to make it a little more interesting. The lighting was also not very great and did not pursue our purpose, unfortunately the light from behind created a shadow and made the scene look like a bit of a horror clip which was the last thing we were going for. The 180% rule was not followed through correctly and was broken this will definitely be taken on board and not happen again as we cannot look like we haven't learned from our experiences today. As you can clearly see the dialogue was quiet so maybe next time before uploading this we can look back at it and make sure the sounds are on point. We need to make sure as a group that we know what is going on in our surroundings and learn from what has gone down so we can improve and produce better quality filming. Anyway enjoy, view and let me know what you think. 

Story Board for Preliminary 
This is our groups preliminary story board, it has been my first time doing this and i found it a bit of a challenge but eventually understood what it was asking me to do which improved my flow of drawing up story boards. I am not a very good drawer but hopefully the stick men still look presentable. I have learned that story boards take longer then i thought and they are there for the camera person o identity the shots that need to be achieved. The layout and structure of story boards is not enough so maybe i shall use more paper for more detailed analysis in the near time future. anyway let me know what you think, hope it don't look that terrible.

Evaluation of Preliminary and further problems faced:

After filming the preliminary we struggled with the conclusion that we were faced. Me and daniel took joint responsibly of camera persona and both decided not to use a tripod throughout. This did not come back to our benefit as we know have deleted all of the content in our film. So that we can start filming all over again, i guess this is a lesson to be learned! We were faced with even more issues such as  Daniels filming. When we played back a scene of this we could see his and his camera through the reflection of the door window which became to our disadvantage also. from now on i shall listen to what i am told. 

http://michaelmistretta.com/2008/the-importance-of-a-tripod/

Independent research:

This is my last update of my independent research. I have created a quick but useful mind map to show details of each sections during the narrative. I am now well aware of the specific function i want my clip to have. Due to the girl being in her pyjamas shows analysis of her image of being comfortable in her own home (safety and security). But the dramatic irony presents much different as the whole plot is presented in black and white effect but not to meet the convention of going back in time but to challenge it to give the whole clip a spooky vibe. I have decided a kitchen knife would be a good tool to use.