Fixation Final & Bloopers!

We hope you enjoy it :)
       


Bloopers :)

Our first draft and feedback

This is Fixation's first draft. We were planning on improving our draft a lot, and then once we received feedback we was reassured that this is what we should do. We received critical and positive feedback, but we decided to take a whole new approach to our way of editing to improve our opening by a lot. Below is our feedback:)

Here are some key words that people used when asked the question 'Think about the sound and the images- are they appropriate? Do they go together?'

People were also asked about the camera, attention to framing, variety of shot distance and angle? Close attention use of mise en scene? Below are some comments we received on this question:

-"Good angle of camera shots however could have more variety"

-"Good variety of shots, the long distance shot was done really well"

-Good camera shots, you used a wide variety"

-"The pan shots were a bit shaky and unstable"

-"There was not a large variety of shots"

-"I like the shots walking into the house"

-"Good camera angles, great mise en scene"

-"The foot shot of the group feet before the woman appears is confusing"

- "Party shot is confusing, you could have shown the 'birthday party' on the board to make it more obvious"

- "The shots are good but you could have made it clearer that there was a party by filming the '17th birthday' part of the map"

  

 

Scorpion Productions

This is the institution logo i created. We reviewed all of our original logos we created separately to decide which one we wanted to use, but we no one created a logo which would suit the genre thriller. Therefore i decided to created a new institution logo on premier to include in our film which can advertise our opening as 'Scorpion Production'.

This was my original logo:

This is James' original logo:

 

This is Becky's logo:

 

This is Charlotte's logo:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Filming Shots

Music Research

While researching the music, we thought it may be possible to turn a love song into an eerie song, so we looked up artists of the 50's Bobby Darin and his song' Dream Lover came up multiple times. Due to the age it does not come under any copyright rules so we are able to use this. The song is quite fast so I used audacity to slow it down however this made the music sound dreary. However I believe this could work.


After researching some more I found that there were a lot of copyright-free Media Music that other students have produced as see below:


We then discovered that this sound would be a lot more appropriate for our film as it consists of tingling in the background, as we feel that this gives the idea of our aim that something mysterious happening.
Within our film we have a party scene. Without breaking copyright we need a song that is recent but is remixed by an unsigned DJ to set the house party scene. It was either this or finding a song from the 50's but this would not set the scene of a teenage house party or the modern vibe that our film has. By doing this we searched on YouTube for unsigned DJ's and people that had remixed songs, that we could use for our party scene.
This is what we found:
The two songs are Calvin Harris remixes that have a house party vibe. They have both been published by unsigned DJ's so do not break any copyright rules.       

 

Next we found another song.

We have finalised our decision and thought that the Calvin Harris- Thinking About You was the most suitable for our party scene.


We then found another song that would be suitable in our opening, as the lyrics have deep meaning.
They read 'Tonight you belong to me'
This could be played when Eileen is looking through the window at James, and the song is coming from her point of view about James. We will edit the song so that is sounds more creepy and mysterious. But we decided that this song was not good as the feedback we got did not determine the genre from this song, and people thought it was a happy song.

 

Title's Influences

Whilst researching for thriller opening scenes, we discovered that most of the title sequences that we found had the titles put on top of the scene in the background and we thought that this is a good idea for us to replicate this idea and include this into our opening scene. The font flickers when they are shown on the screen and this gives a good thriller affect. They are also in handwritten font, but i think this is because throughout the opening scene there is lots of books and writing that looks as through it has been written so this incorporates well within the background scene and the titles themselves.



This title sequence for signs is not the type of title sequence we are looking for as it does not have any background movement, but we think that the font used is very inspiring. We think that this font is very suitable for our title sequence as it gives a scary, type mysterious feel to it.



After researching some more I found that the film 'Taken' is similar to our own so we watched the titles of Taken and believed that these would fit our opening perfectly, so we have taken our final inspiration from the film and will be using them in our own opening. This is what we will include:
Production 0:08-0:12
Participation of 0:15-0:19
Stars 0:36-0.42
Film By 0:43-0:57
Written by 0:51-0:54
Opening Title 0:57-1:02

Font title inspiration

Film Poster Feedback

Class Feedback for our original idea

This is the feedback from our class that we received when we pitched our original idea. Our classmates gave us beneficial feedback that we incorporated into our film openings.

Film Posters/ Research and Feedback

Here are some posters that we made. We put them together taking into consideration the different posters that are already out there that advertise films. We have made a selection and are continuing to develop our posters until we are happy with them and until they are going to appeal to our target audience.

We then decided ourselves that the posters needed to announce the names and casts of the film production in a more professional way, therefore we developed our idea and took inspiration. This is the research we found and used to be inspired by to make our own posters.

We then made these posters and went around and asked people for their feedback. We gained some research and some notes from the people we asked which helped us improve the posters. Some of the points, like add colour, we through of but we did not think that it worked and gave off the wrong impression of our film.

We though the coloured image gave off more a horror affect and because our film is a thriller, we did not want to confuse the audience and give them the impression it was a horror movie when it is a thriller.

This is the research we got from the public.
 


We asked every person a range of questions.
1) What is the genre of the film?
2) Who is the victim out of the 2 characters in the posters?
3) Can you tell what the film is about?
4) Is there anything we could improve?

What is the genre of the film?
All of the people we questioned guessed that the film was a thriller, so there is nothing that we need to change in that theme of the poster as it has given off the impression we want it to.

Who is the victim out of the 2 characters in the posters?
All of the people guessed that the victim was the boy and everyone guessed that the woman was the predator. They said that the woman looks more serious and aggressive than the boy.

Can you tell what the film is about?
Everyone we asked guessed that the film was going to be about conflict with the two characters and gathered that from the title 'Fixation' that the woman was going to be obsessed with the boy in some way.

Is there anything we could improve?
They said that a way we could improve would to be to add colour or change the expressions as they could  not tell the differentiation between the two characters. So maybe make the woman bigger than the man.

Synopsis, Prop List and Recci Shots

Synopsis

We will open with a shot of a ‘Stalker Wall’ covered in pictures stuck around a map, there will be red string stuck into the board with pins. We aim to have a shot of the stalker putting a pin into the board which we will film this close up to the wall on the angle so we see the pin get pushed into the board. We will then see the boy who is being stalked, James, send a tweet about his party, then a sudden cut to the stalker’s laptop where the tweet comes up and she grabs her car keys. We are then back at the boy’s house, and we are looking through the window at the party in action whilst he’s drinking; this shot is from the eyes of the stalker. We are then outside and people are leaving, we watch feet move past the camera as the stalkers feet come out of the shadows and head towards the house. The door opens, we then cut outside where we see the badge drop on the ground, the sound of car doors slamming and we watch the car drive away. Fade to black. We are now in an off-licence, James is buying alcohol when he gets a text through on his phone, its about his party tonight.

The rest of the film will be about how the stalker is following him online and in person, how she plans her every move and is waiting for her moment to strike. Later on in the film we see the kidnapping in more detail and where he ends up. At the end of the film we would want the audience to feel sorry for the stalker as her obsession over James only through the tragic loss of her own son and her husband divorcing her. The audience will only find this out about ¾‘s of the way through the film.

Prop List
Tripod
Map
Camera
Post it notes
Newspaper articles
Clothing( Coat, Shoes) 
String
Pins 
Images for the Stalker Wall
Laptop
Beer cans/bottles
Lighting amps
Birthday Badge

Recci Shots

MAP

 We are having this map in our opening sequence which will show the titles. We are going to incorporate the titles into our map by moving each point across. This then gives an insight to the story line as it shows that James' every move is being watched by someone.

We found this map on google, therefore this is what we decided we wanted our map to look like to take inspiration from. We thought that this map was very cluster and packed up, and we thought this is where the effect came from.










Then, we started to create our own board to get the same effect as the picture we found on google. We started adding string and images to create the creepy stalker effect.




 
 
 









This is our final stalker wall. We are all very impressed with this wall as we think that it gives a clear insight to the personality of Eileen, and also gives information and facts about James as we are opening our scene with a slow pan.

Risk Assessment

How research fits into our opening.

Shooting Schedule

This is our shooting schedule, this tells us when we are shooting and where we are shooting, it also tells us what type of shot it is and what the shot is involving. This is too ensure that the whole group knows what is going on at all times.

Scene number.	Internal/External.	Location.	Shot description.	Characters.	Props/equipment.
1	Internal	Eileen’s Room	Panning shot of map.	N/A	Tripod, Map, string, pins &pictures.
1	Internal	Eileen’s Room	Close up shot map, follow Eileen’s hand.	Eileen	Tripod, Map, string, pins &pictures.
1	Internal	Eileen’s Room	M/L shot- Of map, focus on Eileen.	Eileen	Tripod, Map, string, pins &pictures.
1	Internal	James’s Room	Close up of phone- James tweeting	James	Tripod & Phone
1	Internal	Eileen’s Room	Pan shot Eileen’s room, end @ laptop	Eileen	Tripod, Map, string, pins, pictures & laptop.
1	Internal	Eileen’s Room	Close up Laptop-James tweet up.	Eileen	Laptop.
1	External	Outside James’s house.	M/L shot James house. Medium shot through window shot, people round James.	James Party People	Tripod, lighting, cans, bottles, cups.
1	External	Outside James’s house.	Long shot, Eileen point of view- through bushes-feet leaving.	Party People	Lighting.
1	External	Outside James’s house.	Medium shot Eileen to James house. Back of Eileen.	Eileen	Lighting, tripod.
1	External	Outside James’s house.	O/S shot- Eileen knocking door.	Eileen	Lighting, tripod.
1	External	Outside James’s house.	Medium shot Eileen- side profile (head 2 waist) looking door.	Eileen	Lighting, tripod.
1	External	Outside James’s house.	Medium shot- door slight open. Eileen view.	N/A	Lighting, tripod.
1	External	Road	EL/S shot- Car Speeding away	N/A	Lighting, tripod & car.
1	External	Sky.	EL/S shot- backwards night 2 day. (Animation?)	N/A	Tripod.
1	External	Local Off-Licence	Medium shot- James in off-licence (picking drink)	N/A	Tripod, Beer/bottles.
1	External	Local Off-Licence	Close up shot-James- Phone with text.	James	Tripod & Phone.