Blooper!!!

Film Script

Characters:
Killer- Katherine Poll
Lucy-Lucy Marshall
Kat- Katherine Poll

Scene 1
(Lucy and Kat are sitting on Lucy’s bed)
Kat- You know that guy there he looked exactly like Robert Pattinson
Lucy- He did, before the hair cut
Kat- the hair cut was bad
(Lucy cuts in)
Lucy-yes the hair cur was bad. Ooh, when I when to see it, I got a new skirt form river island...
Kat- ooh
(Lucy and Kat talk at the same time)
Lucy-...it’s all ripples and purple
Kat-I love River Island

Lucy- I know...
Kat-Hang on I hear someone coming up the gravel
Lucy- oh, I’ll go and get the door

(Lucy gets off the bed and starts walking out the door, whilst replying to Kat)
Kat- oh, ok................get some snacks......
Lucy-ok, I’ll get some food
Kat-feed me!

Scene 2
(Knocking on front door)
Killer-I’m here for the party
Lucy-ok, (enthusiastically) well I’m just heading to the kitchen for some snacks, do you want to come and get something?
Killer-Yes
Lucy-come on then

Scene 3
(Killer is inside the house)
Lucy-there’s...your...thing
(Lucy picks up the wand and hands it back to the killer)
Lucy- so where are you from?
Killer- far far away
Lucy- ah, not from around here

Scene 4
(Lucy has got a tray with random food stuffs on it)
Lucy- enreekay, I’m going upstairs now, enreekay? He’s eaten all the grapes! Hum.

Scene 5
(Lucy drops the tray)
Lucy-WOW! ARGH!

Scene 6
(Lights flicker on and off)
Lucy-Golly gosh and jumping jahovers! What is happening?! Kat?! Enreekay?! ANYONE!?

Scene 7
(Lights go out)
Lucy-AAARRRRGGGGGHHHHH!!

My Film 'Drop In'

Evaluation

After a gruelling 5 or so weeks I have produced an opening to a horror spoof film. I have used methods such as credits shown over the beginning scenes and music over companies’ names (which i have invented) that have produced the film; this, from all my research is what most films of this genre do.
My opening shows a friendship group, which is a representation of a social group in society, which the killer feels exclude from, this then if it was developed into a feature length film for the distribution to cinemas, would then show a bigger network of social groups, such as stereotypes of certain characters and the struggles of friendship and maintaining it. The audience at which my film is aimed at it for the certificate of 12A, this is because I feel they are easier to please, and it increases the range of the viewing audience, as older teens can watch it, whilst if it was a certificate 15, people over 12 wouldn't be able to watch it. I feel that my film will attack both male and female, as the main characters- if the film was carried on- would be all female. This would attract the male teens for obvious reasons, and females could relate/sympathise with the characters.
By doing a preliminary task before this, i think was a great help. Trying out match on action shots first really helped me in doing this task. i think i would have been able to do this film opening if i hadn't of done the prelim, but i think it would have been harder and taken me longer. Also by doing the prelim, it gave me a feel of the editing software, though this wasn't of much use to me this time, as i used a different one.
The music is credited to "Music: Kevin MacLeod".
I am not too sure as to whether i am totally happy with the music, i was going to have two tracks playing, one that was sinister and one that was humorous, but i couldn't find any humorous music that could blend in with the sinister track i had already chosen. So I'm not as happy as i could be with the finished product music wise.
Another thing I'm not to keen on, is the last 3 shots (not the black screens with screaming and the tile on), i feel that the continuity isn't up to standard; but try as i might i could not get the shots to flow as naturally as i wanted them to.
But apart from that i am overall happy with my final piece, not ecstatic, but satisfied.

Main Entry 3

At this late stage in the task, we still hadn’t filmed and time was running out. So lee and I came to an agreement that would show our skills more, and enable us to go our separate ways in production. We decided that the story board we had already produced would be the rough outline of the productions we were going to do on our own; but also at the same time it would show our ability to work together. For our individual pieces we determined these would show our personal preferences to how we would develop or change the production we can up with together.
I have now filmed, edited all the shots together, and produced my own story board, script and treatment sheet. But I still need to find some copy right free music that I can put in my film opening.
The age my feature length film would be aimed at if it was to be produced globally has changed from the original 15 certificate to a 12A certificate. This is because I feel that it would be more appropriate for the ideas of the full length film in my head, it’s more for younger teens than older ones.
The location of my film changed from Lucy’s house to Katherine’s, this was because her house was closer and more accessible to get to from college. The number of characters also changed from six actors to two, this was on the grounds that time was of the essence and these were the only two people I could find at such short notice, and also I felt that such a group of people in the opening scene of the joint production wasn’t necessary, as only one of them would have featured in the entire opening production, so the others weren’t compulsory. However the notion of one girl didn’t fit in with the theme of a sleepover, so there had to be two, this then lead to the problem of only having two actors. So Katherine agreed to play both Lucy’s friend and the killer.
I wasn’t quite sure what the Killer should wear, it had to be wacky and funny whist also concealing the killer’s identity. After a fashionably long time I found what I thought was the right outfit, and so proceed the filming.
I decided to use my computer at home to do the editing on, rather than the college’s equipment as I find it easier.
My opening sequence proceeding to a feature length film has now received its name. I spent a long time contemplating what to call it, but when I heard what Lee had called his, I thought to keep with the idea that our films were still linked and had sprouted from the same story board I’d call mine the opposite of what he called his ‘Dropout’, hence mine having the title ‘Drop In’. The title still has relevance to my film though, as the killer ‘drops in’ to see the people he is going to kill, then advances to kill them.
The outline of the plot for my production is similar to that of the joint one;
The killer is a girl who received low grades in her GCSE’s and grows insanely jealous of her friends who she believes will excel in life due to their college education, while she will amount to nothing as she didn’t receive high enough grades to peruse her dreams of becoming a Lawyer. So with her aspirations crushed she sets out to stop her friends from doing well in life by killing them. But as she is dim and not very skilled, her attempts of murder are unskilled leading to hilarious consequences!
My opening only lasts for 1minute 30seconds rather than two minutes; this is because I felt it was good enough as it was. I also didn’t want to add any more after the lights go out, because that would then spoil the surprise of the girl not being dead, rather she is just afraid of the dark.

Main Task Entry 2

Our idea has now developed more and we have a story board and a script. Sadly though it has no title yet, we’re still thinking and debating about it.
We’ve developed the plot, for the opening sequence, and know roughly if we made the film into feature length what the plot would be. I’ll summarise it even more for you;
The ‘new’ main character (Kayleigh) tries to escape from the house, but with hilarious consequences- similar to ‘Scary Movie’ series. In the end she ends up dying, but not after her friends have all been killed, and she herself accidently killed one of them. Then the killer skips off into the distance, and shortly hit by a car. There are no phony American accents in this movie, but there are lot of rubber ducks!
We’ve got our filming location (Lucy’s house) and actors sorted out (Lucy, Kayleigh, Rachel, Natalie, Katherine, Josh, Lucy’s parents/lee’s mum and little brother), but the problem now is finding a time when everyone is free as we all work.
This film is prominently based on other spoof movies, but our real inspiration is- as I’ve mentioned above Scary Movie. We’ve also looked on the computer at other opening sequences of films and students, and from that we think that our title will be at the end of sequence and the actors names will be running during the opening shots.
We’ve decided to do something that we feel will be quite challenging, if you look at shot numbers 1 to 5, you can see that the location has changed, and then in shot 12 we go back to the bedroom. Well during these takes we want to have diegetic music running playing, and in scene 12 as well. This is to try and show that what happening downstairs is happening at the same time as what happening upstairs, so no time has moved on.
So all we need to do now is film, edit, and evaluate!

These are the story boards- the first 3 are mine and the othre 2 are Lee's:

Main Task Entry 1

So far, my partner and I have had a lot of contrasting views and opinions of genre and story lines. Also we have the problem of thinking too big- Hollywood style. The first idea we came up with was a horror film, so set on the idea we started looking on the internet for appropriate music. But next lesson our feelings had changed and we no longer wanted to do that genre, on the reason of producing a scary opening would be too hard and out of our league. I then wanted to do a comedy, whereas he was set on a hero movie; I agreed to give it a chance, but then we changed our minds again to a action movie, but this for obvious reasons was going to be very difficult, so I demanded that we do something else and finally we settled on a horror spoof. This time was adamant we were NOT going to change AGAIN.
So far we haven’t developed a story board yet, but we know for what age group we are aiming at- Teenagers over the age of 15. Horror spoofs attract more teenage girls than boys, but by having an all female cast, we are hoping that this will attract the male teenagers too. We also have a rough idea as to what will happen throughout the whole film; a group of girls are at a sleepover where the main character for the opening sequence is killed by a killer out for revenge for being dumb, with a passion for rubber ducks.
I think that if any media convention was to produce our film it would be for cinemas as it could appeal to anyone over the age of 15, but our target audience are a large force of the population, and often go to the cinema with friends, so I think it would be wise to produce it for cinema watching.

AS Media Studies G321 Foundation Portfolio Main Task

This is my main coursework task; it involves filming and editing the opening to a film. It isn’t allowed to be longer than two minutes, in which I am to introduce the genre and audience of the film, catching the audience’s attention and get them wanting more.

Dramas

TV dramas and their ranges, is what I will be writing about in this entry. Range means different genres in dramas, such as:
Soaps; like Eastenders and Hollyoaks
Period Dramas; like Lost in Austin and Bleak House
Series; like Skins and Trial and Retribution
Conventions; like the Bill and Holby City.
For a programme to be classified as a Drama, it must show realism. What this means is the programme must be factually correct for the era/time it is set in. For example, in The Tudors a character couldn’t be wearing Nike trainers. Or in Coronation Street an alien couldn’t saunter onto screen, it has to be realistic to the viewers so they can relate to it. A drama mostly has a theme tune; this isn’t compulsory but it brings familiarity with the programme, encouraging people to watch it.
Soaps give viewers a place to safely watch a realistic programme which they can relate/sympathise/empathise with, but don’t actually enter the world in which they watch. They can tune in and tune out at any moment; which gives them a luxury of doing thus to someone else’s life, as they can’t do it to their own. It’s an escape from reality, to a fake one, in which many seek comfort.
Many people may moan when a story line is a little farfetched, and then go on to criticise the programme on a whole, but if they know that a story line is farfetched, it’s most likely due to the fact they religiously watch the programme. So that tells us, that even though they are moaning about it, the writers are obviously doing something right because they were/are watching the programme anyway.
Soaps:
The two most popular TV dramas at the moment, and have been for a long time are Eastenders (BBC1) and Coronation Street (ITV1), we know these are dramas as they try to portray realism, nothing glorified. So if a character is going to shoot/stab another character the writers can’t illustrate the criminal as an action hero, they have to write it as it would happen in real life, with the traumas and trials for both characters families, the legal routes and consequences both have to face, like they would if they lived down the viewers street and did that. Another example is when a character is in hospital they always have a private room, and unless they are paying for it or have private health care, which would be very unrealistic as they are meant to be working-class who are always portrayed to be short of money, therefore unable to pay for it, they wouldn’t be put into a room but onto a ward with other people. But I think the reasons why writers do this is because it cheaper to have one small room, rather than a big room full of medical equipment and extras.
It varies from soap to soap as to whether they use sound bridges for their shots. For example in Hollyoaks (Channel4) they often used this method to help create characters moods, but Eastenders very rarely use it. For example at the beginning of Hollyoaks there is sometimes mood music, whilst the camera is cutting from one character to another, then the music fades to diegetic music that is on the radio in one of the various settings. And for Eastenders it maybe the sound of a party in the Queen Vic carrying out over the square, while the camera is tracking a character.
This may have something to do with the target audience the soap is aimed at; Hollyoaks is aimed at teenagers and young adults, who are known for loving music and relating to it and the mood it creates, while Eastenders which is aimed at mostly adults as it contains adult themes and problems (though most ages do watch it), don’t use this theme as it is a more serious and widely ranged soap than Hollyoaks, and non-diegetic music takes way some of this realism.
Neither use Non-diegetic music placed over the shots, as this would be breaking the rule of trying to make the show as realistic as possible. Though some things can be made a little unrealistic, such as how long it would take of a trial to come to court. This in reality takes months and months whereas in soaps this can be achieved in around a month. This is so one story line doesn’t go on to long, without any new developments in which losing the viewers attention and interest.
Period Dramas:
These are mostly set around the 19th century- Victorian Britain. This era is perhaps the easiest, or the favourite of the public. Many of these are based on novels that were written at the time, such as ‘Pride and Prejudice’ and ‘Sense and Sensibility’. Or they are based on the authors themselves, such as ‘Lost in Austin’ (ITV1) this is about Jane Austin’s life, but given a modern twist where a women from the modern day switches places her, and finds out that may of the characters in her books do exist; whether this is true or not I do not know. But it is interesting to see the two completely different cultures mix and clash, in a society where women are meant to be meek and obedient, to meet a head strong ‘tomboy’ from today’s world.
The settings, clothes and the way characters speak are key to any period drama. Costume designers have to capture the way dresses, jackets, shirts and trousers were worn, right down to the types of fastening and patterns. Settings are also vital; set designers have to make sure that the right type of accessories end up at the correct set, so a working-class home wouldn’t have chandeliers, carpets, fine china or exquisite sofas, whereas an upper-class household would. The way the actors have to speak is also compulsory; in the 19th century people spoke in a manner which we have now lost, royalty and such in our world, may be able to speak how we used to, but most of us normal people no longer ‘talk proper’.
All of the above is used to keep to the code of reality; transporting the viewer back to a simpler technological time, but a more complicated social acceptance. Also many period dramas have the credits at the beginning of the programme, in the introduction, with the words ‘from the novel written by....’ or something similar.
These may use non-diegetic music over shots, this is because even though it is a drama, they are mostly based on books, and so the viewer knows the general outcome of the programme, but its how the characters get to them that is the key point. Period Dramas are about how things were realistic at the time, rather than at the moment. So already a piece of the realism has gone, so they can afford to add atmospheric music over dialogue or shots to create a mood.
Hospital Dramas:
These are completely ‘up to date’, by this I mean they have all the equipment that you would see in a regular NHS hospital, at the time they are set in obviously. Programmes of this calibre are ‘Holby City’ (BBC1), ‘Doc Martin’ (ITV1) and ‘Greys Anatomy’ (Channel 5), along with others. Hospital Dramas keep to the rule of realism, by characters using all the correct terms for injury’s and procedures, having the accurate clothes and the settings being true to life. The credits on most of these are in the opening sequence, accompanied by a familiar and catchy tune.
Some situations on these programmes tend to get dramatised- but then that is the name of this genre! But writers have to do this, as any programme would get boring if it was exactly like real life, they may as well go and sit in their local hospital if they want to see the reality of hospitals; which is why corrupt doctors, love affairs, and disasters have to be mixed into the concoction. It is all realistic, as these things do happen, but they are few and far between.
Crime Dramas:
A favourite of mine is ‘C.S.I’ and ‘Law and Order’ on channel 5. A more popular one I dare say is ‘The Bill’ on ITV1. Both of these have different aspects for example ‘C.S.I’ and ‘Law and Order’ tends to be less realistic, this may just be a cultural thing, as it’s an American production, whilst ‘The Bill’ is British. I feel that there’s too much glorify in the American crime dramas, with all the high speed chases, people being killed in magnificent ways that attract media attention, cops strutting around doing and going where they please. It is still realistic in all the names of chemicals they use, and some of the clothes. But- now, I may be wrong- but I don’t think that police labs in America have all the high tech equipment that they are shown to have, nor is it so clean, tidy, and new. But that’s Americans for you; they’re big on respect for law officials. So maybe they’re portraying the police how they want to be seen by the public or producers, that the ‘baddie’ always gets caught, and the cop always prevails over evil. And the amount of interesting/challenging cases that the team are always getting, there’s never a ‘normal’ and simple killing, it’s always a mystery, right up till the end. That to me doesn’t seem very realistic, though I may be wrong, this is just my opinion.
But in ‘The Bill’ it seems more realistic than C.S.I. The bill seems to deal with more realistic and everyday life incidents; like a car has been stolen, or someone has been stabbed. By using more realistic incidents I believe that viewers may be able to relate to the matter more, than if it’s out of the ordinary.
Both I feel are still portrayed to look more heroic-some more than others-but because both are fast paced, this gives the producers, writers and story boarders more freedom with the camera then with using the traditional contemporary styles, they can have strange angles, move the camera in a confusing way, and have many more angles than allowed on say soaps.
Teen Drama:
Channel 4 produces some of the best teen drama, such as ‘Skins’ and ‘Shameless’, as well as being dramas they’re also at time funny. These two examples are largely dramatised and inflated; in Skins it shows 17 year olds doing what they want, when they want. Though this is something we all wish for it doesn’t happen. For example in an episode Cassie goes to America (I think, I can’t quite remember where she goes) to try and find someone, she just packed up her bags and left. Now in reality, even if you didn’t have to have your parents’ permission- for various reasons- there would still need to be the problem of money, plane tickets, accommodation when you got there. There seems to be no parental supervision in the entire episode, though there are a few who can do as they wish for the majority of us, it’s not how reality is. And by showing this it’s sending a message that it’s ok to the things that the characters do. To make up for its fictional times, it does address some serious issues that affect teenagers, like drugs, anorexia, friends and parents dying, exams, relationships and pushy parents. So may be with in all this ‘fun’ the producers are trying to send subliminal messages about important issues, and show the consequences of silly actions. Also the setting and costumes are realistic of a teenager.