My initial idea was to create a scene at a third location, in a simple dark room with UV lights that would reflect the light of the glow paint on the characters' bodies. At first I thought it would be a great idea, but then, as I was looking upon my script I decided to eliminate it. In addition to the first scene of Alexis staying alone in the abandoned house, to then cutting right to the hospital location and furthermore her hallucination of the blonde girl at the end, it would have been too much to add another scene, as a reflection of her thoughts. On one hand it would have made my intro too long, exceeding the two minutes, it would have confused the audience to an undesirable extent, and it could have given a trailer feel to the opening. After taking this decision I cleared up my thoughts and had a more structed vision of what I wanted my film opening to be and feel like. As I cut out the scene, I also didn't use some props: the UV light, the glow paint or the fairy lights.
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The gear and equipment that I'm going to use are:
•nikon camera (my own) •iPhone 7 (my friend's phone) •fisheye (for the surveillance camera scene) •tripod •monopod Call sheet I thought I would organize my filming my days and necessary objects that I will use in making them, so I created A creative process is just that, a process. Therefore i was looking upon my script and wanted to give more a more elaborate view into Alexis' mind, it was too little given off, so I decided to use of my actors, Francesca Tighinean, whose picture is inserted below, to play as part of the protagonist's hallucination, accompanied by the same music used in the first scene at the abandoned house, as that too is surreal and doesn't portray a realistic scene. I asked and showed Francesca how to act in that scene, the posture and facial expressions. I can surely state that she acted just right, she gave off a dominant, scary feel, which is what I aimed for.
In order to help both me and the audience understand how the intro is going to look, I created a storyboard. It's done in a very amateur, rough way but my aim was to simply show how each scene is going to look like not to create beautiful art, therefore the characters are represented by stickmen and the drawings look childish. I enjoyed doing this storyboard, because this was the opportunity for me to think better about the script and make changes to better it. I put them on pretty pastel pink backgrounds for the aesthetic value and to practice my Photoshop skills. After creating my questionnaire for my target audience, I posted it on Reddit to see what people of that forum would respond but after trying three times, I got no responses so I decided to create my ideal target audience. For this particular message or the film and way it is filmed, my ideal target audience would be females, especially because the main character is female and no hard violence or action is involved, but I believe boys could enjoy it to, as the intro won't be 'girly' and won't target any issues that only girls have. The ideal age range would be 14-25, because teens and young adults tend to have the feeling of restraint, either from school or their parents. Any race or ethnicity is suited for this intro. Based on the psychographics chart, my audience should either be struggling poor, mainstreamer, or aspirer, as the resigned poor don't even have the intention of escaping their situation and succeeder or above them already escaped their own 'cages' and have other values.
Upon thinking about my narrative of the film opening, I decided to the church scene and add one at the end. This way the black light scene where everyone is free and dancing is only a mere fantasy or a flash-forward or Alexis', the audience shall choose between the two.
Music creates meaning and adds dramatic effects to my scenes. I chose a few so-called underground electronic songs to convey a party in a non-conventional way, not a crazy frat party full of drinks and stereotypical collage students, but place where Alexis can feel as though she is free; free from society and free from herself. Click the button and find out what mood they give you. After creating my video and editing it, I decided upon of the songs from my playlist that works the best, after many times listening all the songs. Its muttered screams and harsh electronic tones work perfectly with the atmosphere I wanted to give at the beginning. Afterwards, no music was used in order to focus the viewer's attention on the relationship between the two characters and get to understand Alexis as well as possible in those two minutes. At first I thought of using parts of the song in the short snippets where she hallucinates the blonde girl, but then I believed adding the tv static and parts of her narration at the beginning would make a lot more sense, as this is the 'entity', the devil she is talking out, haunting her. This way it adds more sense to the story and clears up some possible plot holes that the audience might have felt. As for the dialogue, I didn't record their voices while filming and only after I realized that the sound recorded on my camera wasn't good at all, so I asked my actors to say their lines again, this time recorded on my iPhone 7. What was a little hard was matching the visual with the post-recorded sound and getting rid of the echo, but I managed and I learnt to be patient with my work.
The following props will be used in my intro to match the genre and create either mundane realism, or an odd feel to the scenes. I. Black light - a spontaneous idea of mine to create an interesting twist on the ordinary scenes II. Little fireworks - same concept as the black light III. White and black clothes - for the party scene IV. Fairy lights - same party scene V. Old TV - used in the first scene, making the audience question Alexis' sanity and her possible reason for watching a broken TV VI. Pills + little paper or plastic cups - needed for Alexis' and patients' illness VII. A cigarette + lighter - to add meaning to one of the character's personae
I chose three different locations for my intro: An abandoned house - This is the place where the first scene is going to filmed to highlight Alexis' emotions of loneliness and sadness. It's all in a dark brown color, perfect for a dramatic effect and for adding meaning to the scene and the character. Hospital/Asylum - This is where most scenes will be shot as Alexis is a resident of the asylum because of her present or less present illnesses. I believe it's the best place to portray the type of image I'm giving her, of mental claustrophobia and despair. Simple room indoors - This location is the least important as it won't have much of a significance. The role of it is to locate the four characters is a dark place with a blacklight showing their beautiful patterns of glow paint, and giving off an ambiguous party mood.
I strongly believe that planning is a necessary part of any good media text, thus I jotted down a few ideas for each of the following: characters, locations, props, and music. In this post I'm going to talk about the characters, and implicitly, about the actors playing them The main character - Alexis, played by Alexiana Alexis is a troubled girl, she has been put into a hospital for the mentally insane for unknown reasons. Whether she is actually mentally impaired or not, is never revealed but only subtly understood differently by each viewer. She is in a negative mood most of the intro, as her only wish is to get out of the place taking over her every move. She feels alone and stuck, until KL (discussed more about him down below) tells her to follow him, where Alexis seems intrigued yet confused and reluctant to do so. I chose my friend, Alexiana, because she doesn't look 'basic', or common, she has auburn-ginger hair, which is shown in the media as more unique more 'sui generis', compared to blonde hair. She has a particular softness to her appearance, but some stronger, so to call them, facial features which represent a perfect balance for Alexis. She is a strong empath and has the capability to understand the struggles that Alexis is going through, therefore being able to portray her accurately. KL, played by Iulio KL is quite a peculiar character, not much is known about him either. I chose Iulio to play this role because has a mysterious aura to him which I believe matches KL's. He has black hair, in conformity with the ambiguity of the character and different facial features than most boys in my area, or my school. He dresses mostly in black, with unique pieces of clothing and jewelry, and not following fashion trends, which shows the fact that he's not afraid to step out of the mainstream and be himself. KL has been in and out of the hospital for ages, and seems to know his way around it. This is denoted by knowing a secret room in the hospital where him and his friends, that also seem to have been in the place for quite a while, meet and get away, even for a bit, from the mundane lifelessness of the hospital. He is the 'unofficial leader' of them all, as he is quite confident and has a plan of escape for his group. The reason why he chose Alexis to take part in this risky getaway is a willingness and power he feels in her. Two more characters have only small roles, played by Francesca and , two of my friends, to add to the idea of KL having spent a lot of time in the asylum and having acquired trust-worthy friends. Alexis' hallucination, played by Francesca Tighinean She is going to appear close to the end of the intro, and plays an important part in the creation of the story. She is a fragment of Alexis' distorted view of reality, and by her facial expressions and body language the audience will be able to view the world from Alexis' eyes, and will understand what she was referring to in the begging, in her narration. I chose Francesca to play this part as she is very expressive and can switch from one mood or from one role to another.
Costumes The first combination of clothes will be for the abandoned house scene, where Alexis will be wearing old looking clothes (ripped jeans and a flannel), to convey her lack of self care. Secondly, in the hospital scenes, Alexis will be wearing a rope and slippers, while KL will have sweatpants and a hoodie, as he has spent way more time in the hospital while Alexis is new, therefore doesn't have certain advantages such as different clothes. Francesca will be wearing some simple grey clothes, simply to stick to the grey color palette. |
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