Pre-Production: ANAMATIC

Animatics are animated storyboards. They are used for many different purposes depending on the medium for which they are being produced. They are used every day in the advertising industry to test commercials, and they're used to preview scenes of live-action films before they are shot. 

After the storyboard was completed, we created this animatic video from the storyboard in order to see how it would look before we went on to film and edit the sequence for our final piece. The animatic looked similar to how we had imagined and overall I was very happy with the way that it turned out.







                     


we also produced an animatics video from the recce we went on before filming:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QX_FCWC1h9Y

Pre-Prodction: RESEARH

We did our research based on three main elements; Primary, Story and Setting, and Genre. 

The primary elements were things such as  how we wanted the overall story and plot lines to run,even after to opening we made. For these we decided that the story line is a quest that can't be put to rest until solved and the plot was the protagonists journey to solve the mystery. we found out that the two main themes of thriller as the desire for justice and the morality of individuals. This 'justice' is often presented through he need to protect the object of innocence in an otherwise corrupt world ( for example many use the journey to find a child that's been kidnapped as a story line). Finally, thriller tends to be that either by accident or on purpose each character is dragged into a dangerous situation that they're not prepared to handle, this fitted well with the enigma of 'The Visitor' as no one really knew her full potential as a supernatural power.

the story and setting research that we did was based around the protagonist's ( the visitor) inability to escape. this was portrayed symbolically through the woods which, more often than not, everyone gets lost in and no mater what sub-genre of thriller our film falls into, it emphasizes the danger all characters in the film are faced with. there is also the chase scenes that area critical to the conventions of a thriller scene, the woods combines the urgency with both the danger of unknown terrain underfoot and the sense of urgency that is ever present in a chase scene. they need to have an atmosphere of creepy menace and sudden violence, to be characteristically 'thriller'. they also often present both he world and society that they're set in as dark,corrupt and dangerous.

our research into the basis of the thriller as a genre showed an overlap with the mystery and crime genres. the main difference however was the structure of their plots; in thrillers the hero has to stop n enemy rather than discover what's happened as in the case of the mystery genre. thriller crime films are often lacking in violence but this also depends whether the film is set around a particular crime gang e.g. the mafia, where the violence will be more intense. 

Pre-Production: SHOT LIST

We completed the shot list at the same time as the final storyboard was being completed. Making the shot list really helped on set as it showed everyone where we were in the filming process and what shot we were meant to be doing next. By following the shot list, it allowed things to run smoothly on set. It also helped when it came to editing, as we could rename each shot on Final Cut pro to the exact name on the shot list and therefore it helped when piecing the sequence together. 

Below are the pictures of our shot list :

Pre-Production: STORYBOARD

A storyboard is a sequence of drawings that represents the shots that you plan to see when you begin production for Film or Television.Much like with the storyboard we created, many contain directions e.g.  of what the shot will supposedly look like.

A storyboard is compiled of three main points these are; to Define the parameters of a story within available resources and time, to then be able to organize and focus a story, and finally, to figure out what techniques and to use for each part of the story.

This is our storyboard for 'The Visitor':

         

Pre-Production: RECCE

The term 'RECCE' refers to pre-filming a location to work out its suitability for shooting, including access to necessary facilities and assessment of any potential lighting or sound issues, and is closely related to location scouting.

THIS WAS A SECONDARY LOCATION WE THOUGHT WE COULD USE IF NEEDED:

Pre-Production: TREATMENT

A treatment of a film is synopsis of the film you're wishing the create and it details the way in which you are planning on going about producing the whole thing. Our treatment wasn't that hard to make and we easily delegated tasks between the three of us in order to get it done quickly and efficiently.

this is our final treatment:

TITLE- Visitor

PRODUCTION COMPAY- WHATEVER PRODUCTIONS
GENRE-Thriller/ short film / film opening
DURATION- 2 minutes or less

TARGET AUDIENCE- 15-35,

OUTLINE- Our opening is set in an unnamed town. There are rapidly increasing numbers of people of all ages going missing throughout the town and only the supposed sighting of an eerie figure linking them all together. Officer David Smith decides that he'll be the one to get to the bottom of these disappearances, but will he like what he uncovers the real cause of the situation that's slowly taking over the town.

CHARACTER BREAKDOWN-

The haunting spirit associated with disappearances, she’s un-named, presumed to be within in the age group 15-20, she has long black hair, very pale skin and we never really see the full extent of her face.

We might also have a voice over which would be a sort of police radio style thing, however this would only be included if we feel that it would add context to the opening.

Played by
Saffron Uppal (Understudy: Millie Stack)

VISUAL ELEMENTS-

LIGHTING-

It’s predominantly darkly lit/ natural lighting that we’ll be using. However there are certain times when we will be using the LED light in the camera kit.

CAMERA MOVEMENT-

*OUTLINED IN SHOT LIST /STORYBOARD*

EDITING-

Credits are on their individual black screen which interrupts the footage

Transitions between footage which has an ‘Earthquake’ effect

Transitions between film and credit which has an ‘Earthquake’ effect

Dependent on the weather b/w

Colour grading

SETTING-

Woods- Bray

Abandoned bus shelter in Bray

ACTORS-

Saffron - Main actress

Millie – Back up actress

EQUIPMENT-

LED light

Camera Kit

The ball sock tri-pod

Ordinary Tri-pod

Steady Cam

WARDROBE-

White gown

Make-up-

Dark Eye Shadow

AUDIO ELEMENTS-

SOUNDTRACK-

We have a track off the Moby website which is called 'Stock Radio'. We registered to the website and applied for the music and within 24 hours we had gotten an email that stating the approval of the music
EFFECTS-

Screaming sounds

Wind

Sound track

General eerie sounds

RATIONALE-

We based our film around the location which sounds inconvenient but really helped to create a good image for our film as it gave us an accurate final mental image and inspired us. Rather than creating a story but it then didn’t correlate with the setting that we imagined. We chose this particular genre as we felt that it was easier to create an idea for it and to also be able to execute it well with the settings provided e.g. Winter and i was then easier to create the conventions associated with the genre.

Pre-Production: SCREENPLAY

A screenplay or script is a written work by screenwriters for a film, video game, or television program. These screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing pieces of writing. In them, the movement, actions, expression, and dialogues of the characters are also narrated.

To help us focus on writing the screen play we used the proforma to construct it to as close to industry standard as possible. we wanted to keep as much enigma surrounding the character as possible, without it being cheesy and taking away this sense of the unknown from the final piece. one we'd finished the initial document, we then re-read the whole thing and then did two further re-writes before coming to the final screenplay that's in the treatment.

Although it took some time to complete, it eventually allowed our film to be portrayed in the way that we wanted, and the efforts of the team allowed our film to be as detailed and un-gimmicky as possible.

PRE-PRODUCTION

there are several different elements that combine to create the pre-production process of our film opening. These are;
>Treatment,
>Shot List,
>Screenplay
>Storyboard
>Logistics
>Risk Assessment
>Research ( locations, actors and props)

all of these are key to a successful production and the next few blog posts of mine will go into detail surrounding the ins and outs of each of these processes and the way in which my group went about them.