Bleeding Pink

Testing out some blood recipes.

Locationings

For the location of the interview scenes, I wanted somewhere that seemed very cramp, unwelcoming and artificial. I also wanted somewhere that was authentic, both me and Jake Brownbill wanted to use somewhere like this, and seeing as we were both actors in each others' productions, it made sense that we should have just one session between us that we could both get our shots.

We got in contact with Norfolk Constabulary by first asking at the reception of the Wymondham Police Station, I gave them my details and a couple days later I got an email from the Communications Officer of Norfolk Constabulary. I called him up and he took down some basic information of who I was and why wanted to use the interview rooms. They also called up my Media teacher to confirm that I was a Media Studies student. The Communication Officer was very helpful, he sent along with some other emails a link for a short film which basically showed off the facilities they have at the police station for interviewing suspects.

This is the video here;

Around 3 minutes in, there is a short 10 second clip of the interview rooms that they have at the station. Although this does not give a great view of the room, it did immediately put me off using it as it has virtually no room to one side and behind either side of the desk. This would mean that if I wanted to use this room, I would have to completely change the shot list and therefore the interpretation of Jason. I talked with Jake and he also had the same views. We then tried to think of any other place that we could use for the location. Even though we won't end up using the official police interview room, the Communication Officer did say that we would have to wait for around a week for the Chief Inspector to come back from a trip, and until then he couldn't get any idea of whether we could use the facilities.

Both me and Jake asked our Media teacher if he had any idea of somewhere where we could use that would be suitable under being bland, artificial and still have enough room for a tripod and camera. He suggested the school's conference room, which is quite small, but if paintings and photos are removed from the walls, would provide that artificial and bland look. We have booked the use of the room for a couple hours tomorrow, and if it is too short a time for both us to shoot, we can still book it for another day in the next week.

For another location I have to shoot in, it would be a wood/forest in the near area. I've got an actor lined up who is going to play Jason's latest victim; 'Geoffrey'. The shots I wanted to get would show to the audience what Jason is capable of, without showing him doing it, which will help to provide the fear in the audience. The forest will help to provide a feeling that the character has had to run miles on end to try and get away from Jason. What I plan on doing is going to a few forests so that I can choose the best one what suits the rest of the shots, and also it can't be any harm to have the same shots in different locations.

Scriptings

Haven't really added that much to the script since last time, but this is the finished script. Not entirely sure of the length of this, but that can be changed in post-production with how I wanted to do this. I'll go over this again soon to see how my perception has changed and whether the script will need to change because the that change.

INT. Interrogation Room - EVENING

Artificial lighting shines down to the centre of the room. A man, JASON WARD is sitting covered by the pale light. On the other side of the DESK a detective, JONATHAN SPENCER, is sitting cross legged, with his pen held in his hand. A COFFEE sits steaming on the desk just in front of SPENCER.

JASON has half of his face spattered with blood and his entire chest and leg also spattered with blood. This is never suddenly revealed until the ending of this sequence.

JASON (V.O.)

(Stuttering)

It was around a, month ago. I met this man. In a bar. We, got talking on about his life. Mostly his, bad times. It was pretty obvious he had had a really bad day. He had been drinking for most of the two hours. Constantly. He ordered a new drink, every time he finished one. He finally said after the, two hours that he should probably go home. He left with a bit of a stumble, didn't really annoy anyone else. Most people had left. He got in his car. A 96' fiesta. Navy blue. He turned the key. I watched him as he went on his way. The next day I took the day off work. I went to his neighborhood, he said the night before, he said he lived on Greenway, went to the exit and saw him drive out in his car. I drove behind him until he got to his work. Found out from the receptionist he finished at, quarter to two. I was back at his house. He pulled into his, drive at quarter past two. stopped and waited for something. I don't know what, made me so angry. It was just him.

Jason is a character who should scare the audience, even from the outset his appearance should provoke fear or unease into the audience. Jason is covered in blood - the questions provoked in the audience are; why? how? It also makes the audience think that he has been involved with death, along with him being handcuffed makes him a murderer most likely. 

The camera shots of Jason are also going to increase the suspicion of what Jason has done to be in the jail cell. Slowly revealing characteristics of him to give the audience one new thing to focus on in each shot.

Jason; Mark II

I've been talking to my sister, who is studying Psychology in her final year at the moment. She's been specializing in multi-personality disorders, but also in schizophrenia. I asked her if Jason's disorder was feasible and turns out it more into the schizophrenia side of things; when some one 'hears voices', as my sister put it. She said that it is very common for a serial killer to have schizophrenia, when someone with the disorder does kill someone, it is very hard to charge them under the same charges as someone without the disorder. Most of the time the killer will end up having to go to an asylum.


Other films that involve a serial killer with schizophrenia include the recent Australian true story film; Snowtown. The character of James Vlassakis, who is currently serving a life sentence for being involved in four murders between '97 and '99. In the film, James finds out from his doctor that he has mild schizophrenia, although the real James Vlassakis isn't publicly known to have the disorder. In Snowtown the James is perceived as someone that could have something wrong with him. 

James Vlassakis in Snowtown [2011]. Played by Lucas Pittaway

The character of James is someone who just seems to go along with whatever really happens to him, he never makes his own decisions, he is told what to do and does it, and when someone wants something from him, James doesn't hold any will to stop them. James' schizophrenia may have been caused by many different things; growing up the rough suburbs of Adelaide, in his early life his father had left, leaving his mother to find another man who can supply money for the family and also care for her three children when she isn't around. Within the first 20 minutes of the film, the first man she puts her trust in, turns out to be a pedophile who abuses James and his brothers. Throughout the rest of the film, James is surrounded by things people of his age shouldn't be, his mother introduces a gay man into the friendship of the family, a new man (John Bunting) marries James' mother, John's son (Troy) from another woman starts to live with the family, Troy rapes James, eventually James gets involved with a series of murders that Troy and one of his close friends plan.


These events that have occurred throughout James' early life have tortured his mind into having schizophrenia. From this film it is easy to understand that the perception of schizophrenia is normally always associated with murder, and in it's worst cases serial killings. Schizophrenia always perceived as part of a villain in most films, with films like Silence Of The Lambs and Donnie Darko viewing it as a downside, but still the characters are the interest of the film.


I want Jason to be somewhat of a character like James from Snowtown, Hannibal Lecter from The Silence Of The Lambs and Donnie Darko from, er, Donnie Darko. These characters have always been the focus of the film, never has anyone said to me that they remember The Silence Of The Lambs for anything other than Hannibal Lecter or Buffalo Bill. Jason should be a character who has a control over the rest of the characters, where he knows the entire story of what the detective is trying to discover, whether or not he knows the man Detective Spencer is trying to find. Hannibal Lecter is a character who is scary because not much is known about him, other than he knows who Buffalo Bill is (possibly) and he also has leverage over the protagonist, yet he is in a jail cell. He is generally a scary character for how he is capable of so much, not much known about him and how he has such a reputation of a mass murder and a cannibal but seems like a relatively normal person.

Character Bio: Jason Ward

Kinda stuck on the rest of the script, so I thought that coming up with a better character bio of Jason would help come up with the rest of the opening speech. It's given me a bit more to think about on why Jason would want to kill his victims. I've thought that maybe there's something that Jason sees in every victim that he doesn't like, or that part of him sees something that reminds him of his rough(ish) upbringing and therefore tries to get rid of it i.e. the person. I think that quite a complex motive would make the story more interesting for people as they would want to see the film again to understand Jason's motives and what is wrong with him.

Jason is a serial killer who is only roughly 20 years old. He has a job as a an financier at a local communications company. He doesn't have much of a social life, but tries to get out to pubs or restaurants to meet people. His hobby's include painting, photography and hiking. Not much is known about him by anyone else, as he tends to keep to himself except when he is interested in someone else and they ask about his life. He hasn't spoken to his mother in a few years, and his father died when Jason was just four years old. Jason was clever from quite a young age, but never seemed to do anything besides work, he gets his relaxation and peace from doing mental exercises or working on something a little less complicated than his normal work. Jason has never been close to anyone in a relationship sense, mostly because he would never be sociable with anyone outside of his work, and was never interested in girls as a young boy. At university no-one ever mentioned him in conversation as he always stayed in his flat, and never left other than to go to classes or to get food. He's always had a job since he got out of high-school. After he left high-school, he took a gap year, then applied for a economics course at Oxford university, Southampton and Manchester. He was turned down at Oxford, but the other two accepted him, he ended up going to Southampton and doing a Post-Graduate course at Manchester university. After this he went back to where he was working before University.

Jason has a type of Multi Personality Disorder where one personality is thinking that the person should be killed because they have something that has reminded him on his younger life. This side of his mind cannot take full control of Jason's actions, so he is left with emotion that he doesn't know why he has it. He ends up killing people, mainly without knowing, yet still accepts that he has done it.

Four Walls II

I've finally got a pretty much finished logo of the movie;

It's only a first draft, but pretty much close to the final logo that I'd like to have, it needs a little more tinkering to get rid of the mechanical movements, but besides that I really like the blur effects I've added in, which was made by having three separate video layers and applying a fast blur on all of them in After Effects. One layer with a horizontal and another with a vertical to get the box blurring together, then another layer with an overall blur to get a fading in blur on it.


The font was blurred in and set to come together as it gets closer to the centre, the movement is still a little jerky, which I'll change to become more smooth.


Really happy with this draft, got everything how I wanted it, now moving onto the actual film...


I've started to write a bit of the script for it, not really in detail but I'm getting a set piece for the dialogue in the opening. Here it is so far...

INT. Interrogation Room - EVENING

Artificial lighting shines down to the centre of the room. A man, JASON WARD is sitting covered by the pale light. On the other side of the DESK a detective, JONATHAN SPENCER, is sitting cross legged, with his pen held in his hand. A COFFEE sits steaming on the desk just in front of SPENCER.

JASON has half of his face spattered with blood and his entire chest and leg also spattered with blood. This is never suddenly revealed until the ending of this sequence.

JASON (V.O.)

(Stuttering)

It was around a, month ago. I met this man. In a bar. We, got talking on about his life. Mostly his, bad times. It was pretty obvious he had had a really bad day. He had been drinking for most of the two hours. Constantly. He ordered a new drink, every time he finished one. He finally said after these, two hours that he should probably go home. He left with a bit of a stumble, didn't really annoy anyone else. Most people had left. He got in his car. A 96' fiesta. Navy blue. He turned the key.

JASON moves his jaw to make a liquid clicking sound.

This is just a little bit that I've put together, not much but it's early days...

It's a start...

I wanted to get a feel of what my movie might look like, of course this is only a rough animation of the first minute or so, but it gave me a helping hand for the order of the titles and how long the credits would take. I made this on Vegas Pro 9 so it isn't the best quality of animation and such that I would like, but that's why it's a draft.

I've included my false production company logo, the rough movie titling and the director's credit, but I've still got to think of what will go into the rest of the intro.

The shots I wanted the film to start with are;

• A close up of Jason's eye; to show that the person narrating or just talking over the shots is most likely this man. The following shots gradually reveal more about the situation and personality, which have an immediate impact on the audience as to what he is compared to everyone else in society and why the film focuses on this man.
• A close up of the handcuffs on Jason's wrist to show that he is a criminal or some sort of suspect in a case, but nothing else is known about him or what crimes he has committed.
• A pan downwards on his torso to show the blood from Jason's crime to let the audience know that he has been close to someone being hurt badly or killed. But because he is in handcuffs the audience immediately assumes that he has killed someone. Along with his calm demeanor it could suggest that something is mentally wrong with him
• A low angle shot of Jason's entire face to suggest he has power, but also revealing that he has blood over his face as well, which he hasn't bothered to clean off.
• The final panning away shot of Jason sitting in the middle of the room with the detective towards the left of the frame to reveal the entire situation and setting; an interrogation room in which Jason is the suspect and the detective is interrogating.

I also want to include a flashback to the killing of Jason's last victim, but only showing the chase between Jason and his victim to imply that Jason has killed this person. These shots will be interlinked with the other shots and used in a way to shock the audience and imply that he has killed this person.

Four Walls

This is a draft for the logo of my movie intro. I decided on a title for the film and a basic idea of the logo, pretty basic, the logo inside a box to suggest being boxed in and seeing as the title is a different way of describing a room it kind of makes metaphorical sense. Even though this a rough draft only made in 5 minutes on Photoshop I really like how it turned out, I'll leave my brain to come up with something awesome in the subconscious for a day or two, but I'll have another go at making something good.


The main thing I wanted to do with the film is for the majority of it to be set in an interrogation room, the story unfolding in spoken form from the characters, no flashbacks just everything described by the characters. The story's main protagonist is a detective called Jonathan Spencer, a detective in his late 30s currently working on a case about a serial killer who they have little idea about. Spencer is asked to interrogate another serial killer, Jason Ward, who has just been arrested after being caught in the act of killing his latest victim. Even though Ward has killed around 5 victims and suspected of at least 6 more, he is only in his early twenties. There is very little else known about Ward by the police and has been brought in to be interrogated to help find out more about him. Spencer has been asked by one of his colleagues to interrogate Ward about his murders.


Spencer finds out through interviewing Ward that Ward thinks he has killed at least 15 people. Spencer also finds out that Ward marks each victim by cutting the right index finger ligament on the right hand just in the fold of the wrist, Ward says that when the bodies are found, they will easy to identify as who killed them.


I haven't worked out the rest of the film, but I'll get there eventually.

Movie Titling

We've been having training from an After Effects specialist for a few lessons now, and we're gradually getting towards a final movie ident that we're going to use in our final coursework. I've gone through a few different ideas and I've come up with a look of the font;

I think that the title is pretty cool, that's the only thing I can really say about it, as most indy film company names don't really have any kind of joke or relation to anything, they're just there. The only thing that I can say about how [Curiousity] relates to the style that it's in is that there is no reason why it is a bit distorted by the fibre filter and why the square brackets are around, which to be honest I don't know why they are there.


This was one of my first ideas that I had, but it seemed a bit weird and too childish, so I came up with another idea and let it blend into something that I thought would be a good name;

Camera Angles, Movement & Shots

Camera Angles
Different camera angles can evoke different views in the audience. There are two different extremes of angles; high and low.

High Angle- The camera high up looking down on something which creates a vulnerable or weak sense towards the subject. At increasingly high angles the subject loses it's sense of height which makes it look even smaller.

Low Angle- The camera looking high up at something, making the subject seem a lot bigger than it really is, it can also make the subject look as if it is the same height as a background object.

Camera Movements
Pan - Pivot at a horizontal angle. Normally used to set the scene or reveal something.
Tilt - Panning, but at a vertical angle.
Track - Camera following a subject, normally on a dolly tracking system.

Camera Shots

 Extreme Wide Shot - Establishing shot.

Very Wide Shot - Object is still not fully visible, but takes the focus of the frame.

Wide Shot - Subject takes up full focus of the frame.

Mid Shot - Bottom of the frame is just above the waist, leaving a small gap above the head to the top of the frame.

Close Up - Normally focusing on the face, allowing a small gap below the chin, and just cutting off the top of the head.

Extreme Close Up - Focus on one object or part of the face.

The Opening Credits

Today we had a double lesson on how to create opening credits in Adobe After Effects CS4, it was really good just to have software like this and tuition on it to produce some really professional looking animations with shapes that we had made and font that we could edit ourselves.

Whilst doing all this it really gave me some info on how I could make my own titling look unique and have a style similar to that of what I would want the film to have. I constantly had an image of the 1995 film se7en by David Fincher. The titling was one of the most memorable for me, and I would really like to mix that style of font with some animation like on Terminator. I'm not sure how this would mix together, but I think that the crazy CRT blurring on the se7en would look good with some images moving slowly in the background also with a TV signal distortion aswell.

Here's both se7en's and Terminator's opening credits:

se7en [1995]

Terminator [1984]

Filters and Effects

I've been experimenting around with different effects that give a Watchmen look. I didn't really get anywhere for a while and eventually came up with a look that I liked and wasn't too hard to get to, I logged all the adjustments I had done to keep track of what was changed. I started with the basics of what I could pick out from the shots of Watchmen.

The shot is quite moody and sad. This is made by the contrast being very high, the saturation being quite low, and a photo filter which in this shot is a light brown. Although the background in this shot is probably a image laid over a blue screen, which would give the director an infinite choice of the mood of the shot in post production. The choice made was to have the shot reflecting the character, and made it a very depressing and bland shot. The focus is also drawn to a badge the character is holding, this is done by selecting a colour that isn't affecting by the filter. In other shots there is no focus and everything in the shot is drab. 

I tried reaching the same effects by applying what I thought would achieve the same effects. I started out with one tester image of what I was trying to get to:

I applied a full contrast, took away half the saturation of the image, sharpened the edges three times and an overall sharpen effect. Then I chose a filter to apply to all of the image, which I chose as a very dark blue with a density of about 30%.

I think that this effect worked well, although there was a bit too much noise created by the sharpening effects, also because the shot was outdoors looking into a dark area with an overexposed area to the left of it, the over exposed portion was blurred and wiped away by the high contrast.

This is the original photo, I did attempt to changed the over-exposed part but it only ended with one area being too exposed or the entire image losing it's contrast and detail.

I also experimented with layers that pronounced the edges more clearly, this worked but again it created noise on the edges.

Here are some more shots that I used a perfected the shot overall shot effect:

   Above: Edited. Below: Original

   Above: Edited. Below: Original

When I get the chance I will set up some sort of shot that will be similar to one that I plan to get in the final coursework I will apply the effects and tweak them to suit the shot.

The Coursework Is Here...

Yeh, that time has come. But on the other hand it is Media coursework, so if anything it's enjoyable. Yeeeeeeehaaa. Ever since I started this course I knew what coursework would be involved, so I began thinking about a story for the movie intro that I would eventually make. Ideas went through my mind, I had a few ideas in mind that I waited to have my full judgement on after my first experience on a movie set, and an experience about how to work with other people on set.

Most of the ideas I had were just wiped out by what would be possible as a student. I have a few left, but I'll see what the deadline is for the task.

The main things I've been playing around with are trying to get the right look of the overall visuals of the shots. I've been watching Zack Snyder's The Watchmen recently and I really like the way his shots have a high contrast & sharpness, and most of the shots have very low saturation.

The high sharpness and moody saturation really gives an overall emotion of depression and sadness of the entire film. I'm going to experiment with a few different effects and document them on das Blog.

I also wanted to use some really smooth camera movements, like we used in the Hangover project, but a lot more slower. Some form of dolly system that doesn't have have rails, as I wanted to use it to zoom in on a character to produce tension and curiosity, and if the rails are placed in front in the same direction as camera angle, then they'll be in shot. So something that can hold a camera at around sitting height and doesn't show it's railings in shots.

I'm going to go ahead with some, experimentation...

The Hangover

We've been set a task in preparation of one of our pieces of work, which will be to create the first two minutes of a film. Our preparation task is to recreate the first two minutes of 'The Hangover'. There was a group of six of us, we got straight to business and focused on what was in the opening shots, what the main things would be to overcome; the opening shots show a wedding which required a lot of chairs, wedding dresses and a tasty looking cake.

Another shot showed a sports car, but luckily on of the members' dad had a sports car which we were allowed to use. What a kind gentleman. We agreed that all of us would try out at different things in the production, but each of us would have smaller roles assigned to us.

Today we shot Phil's side of the phone call, which we did afterschool, 5 of us met up, with some extras alongside, and walked to our location. We had to settle with a baron looking field instead of a Nevada desert. We have got some behind the scenes shots, which I'll put on a reflection blog after we have finished the project. The shoot today went well, we got the shots we needed, unfortunately we had to change the location slightly, as we were close to tuttles lane, althought we can always overdub the shots if the background noise is bad, but on first review it seemed okay. We're going to shoot most of the other shots on Sunday, with Jake doing some other small shots with his family members.