Tagline:-Her parents didn’t know; now they never will…
Pitch:-
When a young and neglected Amy is taken, her parents go on a mission to find her, only to find themselves in a twisted game of neglect and perversity leading to the shocking truth of her daughter’s whereabouts. Will the Toymaker win more importantly will the parents lose?
Treatment:-
Amy, a pretty young girl neglected by her hardworking parents, has a daily routine. When her parents leave for work every morning she would make her breakfast and feed the cat down the street. Lonely and isolated she is easy prey for a deranged Toymaker.
After he takes her and leaves an “Amy-like” doll in her place, her parents, race against time to find their lost daughter and to win the game of the Toymaker. The Toymaker leaves a clue on the back of the doll left in Amy’s place that leads the parents to more doll’s and shocking revelations about their daughter’s location. When her parents find the last clue it chillingly reads “I Win”.
After conceding to the belief that Amy is gone forever her parents realise that they didn’t do the best by her, they leave to live with family in Scotland to grieve for their daughter. Some time later they see a news report of a series missing girls from their home town generating the need for them to help the other parents and hopefully get closure about their daughter.
The mother, soon returns to her hometown and is haunted by uncanny doll of her daughter in an abandoned toy shop window. Curious, she breaks into the shop, only to discover dozens of these life-size dolls hanging on the old shelves. When she goes to get a better look at the replica of her daughter, she notices the exact beauty spot, which Amy had on her cheek. Stunned and scared she alerts the police, and they discover the sick truth behind the disappearance of Amy in the Toymakers deadly playpen.
Thursday, 18 March 2010
Pitch And Treatment
Feedback
FEEDBACK
Before we made the final changes we got feedback off of other students in our class to help us to improve our opening sequence; we were told:
- The shots look confusing
- The music doesn’t flow in exact time with some of the shots
- A sound bridge is needed at the very beginning to split up your production name and the start of the actual opening
- Each shot needs to be cleaned up so it all runs nicely together
FEEDBACK
After we had made these final changes we again got feedback from the other students
They said:
- It works better when it’s simplistic
- All you need is a title and then it will be perfect
- The house looks really good down the street you chose as it stands out from the others
- Really detailed shots made the whole thing look like it wasn’t even shot in this school
Props List
4 Black cloth sheets
4 back-slats
Old table top
Desk lamp
Buttons (box)
Scissors
Images of children
Bottle of Red wine
Wine glass
Black marker
Sewing machine
Rag doll
Randsom note
Sewing needle
Thread (red)
Wednesday, 17 March 2010
Evaluation of Main task
Q1 in what ways does your media product USE, DEVELOP, or CHALLENGE real forms and conventions of real media products?
Our opening sequence follows similar forms and conventions of real media products, although we have developed some conventions of the typical psychological thriller genre to make our film more unique. Our film is a psychological thriller and we convey this through our opening sequence. As a group we needed to have a wide understanding of the genre we were creating so we could create out opening sequence. Here are some of the themes that appear throughout our film.
-Neglect: as seen with the toymakers desk and the character of Amy
-Obsession: as seen with the toymakers obsession with toys and Amy
-Revenge: the parents seeking vengeance on the man who takes their daughter
The toymaker is the antagonist of our film in the opening sequence he is seen making a rag doll and taking a lot of care in doing so. The group felt that he should be very intricate and delicate with the doll, and it foreshadows his obsession with little girls and the doll he is creating has a striking resemblance to Amy. The character of the Toymaker is similar to Robin Williams’ character in “One Hour Photo” (2002)
In “One Hour Photo” Robin Williams is a man that develops photos and stalks a family who are his customers he feels a lot of affection for the family making him think that what he does is necessary and harmless. We wanted to used this concept in our film by having a man who is primarily obsessed with doll’s and just wants to show his affection for little girls by taking them and making dolls of them. He doesn’t see what he is doing as wrong, he just does what he wants.
Originally the main focus of our opening sequence was neglect. We wanted to use a little girl to create a defenceless character, we were going to show the little girl walking down the stairs, making her own breakfast, and going down the road by herself to show that she is forced to become independent and we were also going to show her parents ignoring her. We ended up having to change this idea because we decided on a young girl we just had to cast someone for the part, after ruling out all of our possibilities due to booked holidays and our inability to take a child off of timetable, we had to change our entire opening and create it from Amy’s house to the Toymaker’s Workshop. Due to this we had to create a new storyboard and script. Although we had to change our original idea I think it changed for the better and now I prefer our final idea. The main inspiration for the opening was the opening 2 minutes of “Se7en”. A lot of our shots were inspired by the shots used in “Se7en” but we have developed it by changing the props e.g. not having the drawing of the hands on the table but instead using the toymakers hands, and instead of having a book as seen in “se7en” we used a sewing machine and loose bits of paper and drawings.
We developed the idea of a child being neglected in the form of Amy who is not noticed by her parents and is overlooked making her an easy target for the Toymaker. In our film Amy’s parents realise they did not appreciate her while they had her and now she’s gone they regret what they did. We also researched the film “Saw” for inspiration for our film; “Saw” is the story of a man who punishes people who don’t cherish their lives which is developed in our film as the parents are being punished for not paying enough attention to their child. The way that we used the idea from “Saw” is that there are notes on each of the doll’s that the parents find in their search for Amy, the Toymaker is playing a game to show them the error of their ways leading them to a dead end. We then developed it to instead of torturing them physical like in the “Saw” saga, the Toymaker tortures them mentally with false hope.
The film “Changeling” starring Angelina Jolie, is about a woman whose son goes missing and is given another child as a replacement. This is based on a fairytale that we researched about troll’s that replace human children from good families with their own children, so their children get educated and have a good life. The human parents are too busy in their own lives to notice the change in their children.
We used low key green lighting to create an eerie mood on set. This made the feel of our film quite dark and claustrophobic, suggesting that the Toymakers workshop was dusty and dirty. We used this idea from conventional psychological thrillers where the bad guys lair has low key lighting and usually a musty green, we looked at “Jeepers Creepers” where the workshop of the creature at the end of the film is musty and small which shows the simplicity of the bad guys mind and we used this in our film. We did not challenge many forms and conventions of psychological thrillers because we wanted our film to be recognisable within that genre.
ToymakerCaucasian male aged 47
Other elements that tell the audience that he is obsessed with doll’s is the sheets posted around the wall behind him of doll’s and newspaper cuttings saying words like “Dead” and “Baby” foreshadowing what could happen in the story.
He is clearly mentally unstable because of the way he caresses the doll throughout our opening sequence this is shown because of the direction we gave our actor to take special care of the doll during the shots when he puts her coat on and strokes the doll’s mouth.
Trying to find the character of "The Toymaker" was easy because we didn’t have to choose an actor by physical attributes or to have a certain voice because this character isn’t seen facially and isn’t heard. In the end we decided on having Rachel’s brother to play him, I believe we made a good choice by having someone that our director was close with because we didn’t start new with someone and didn’t have any working dynamic or ideas of their capability. Whereas having Rachel’s brother, Rachel knew exactly what he could and couldn’t do and knew how to direct him in a way that would be easier for him and beneficial to the group.The main casting problem we had was casting Amy.
Amy Noble Aged 6
· Neglected by her parents
· Over seen
· Pretty and “Doll like”
· Doesn’t have friends at school and likes to be on her own
· Talks to the neighbours cat every morning about her life
· Craves her parents attention
· Likes reading Winnie the pooh
· Her favourite character is Eeyore
· Has no toys of her own
Originally we wanted to see Amy get taken by the Toymaker and watch Amy fend for herself, making her own breakfast and being ignored by her parents. But we couldn’t show this because we had problems casting a girl aged 4-6 the first choice we had was family members of the crew because we knew that if we knew the child beforehand filming them would be easier than if we used a child we didn’t know that well. This was due to living too far away or pre-booked holidays. We were also thinking of using a child from theatre groups that happen at our school but we were not allowed to take a child off of time table so we finally decided to re create our entire opening.
Amy’s Mother aged 30
· Had Amy when she was 24 and had to drop out of medical school when pregnant
· Was Married at 23 they were together since they were 14
· In the past 3 years her Mother and Father Died
· Since then she as been in severe depression
We chose to represent the mother as a hard working woman with a stable job. This is shown by her Job as a Nurse. Also she is represented as centred because of her neglecting her daughter because of her own internal problems.
Amy’s Father aged 31
· Lawyer and works late every night
· Sees Amy for only an hour a day and is too tired to really pay attention to her
· Spends any spare time he has with his wife trying to help her with her depression
· He is also fighting hard to keep his job because people from his firm are being laid off
· Growing up he always wanted to have a son
Amy’s father is represented as a business man whose life is positioned around his work, he spends more of his spare time helping his wife than being with his daughter. He is also represented as disappointed that his child is a girl not a boy.
Setting:
Our setting is very simple with a scratched up desk top to suggest that the Toymaker is rough and edgy.
Also we have an old tin button box to show that he isn’t moving with the times also shown by the old sewing machine and messy buttons scattered around his desk.
Stool, Button Box, Photo of Amy, Lamp, Bottle Of Wine, Sewing Machine, Scattered buttons, Cotton Reel, Doll.
Overall I think our Opening sequence went very well considering the problems we had with casting and I believe that we had presented our characters in a very believable way even though the character shown in our opening belongs to the social group of the mentally unstable. This is shown through his obsession with dolls and little girls which is a sign of mental instability and also the way his desk is laid our in organised clutter which is similar to “Jeepers Creepers” because the desk we see at the end is cluttered and rusty, which reflects the mindset of a psychotic villain. I think that knowing that he is mentally unstable is shown clearly because nobody that is mentally stable would be doing the things that he is doing e.g. sketching little girls and making dolls.
Q3 What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
Our film "Silent Play" is a low budget student film it could be hard to gain a respective place for viewings in cinema chains. It doesn’t fit in with the conventions of a blockbuster because it doesn’t have the look of a highly budgeted film. It is likely to be distributed on a smaller scale. Without being distributed through cinemas our film would not be highly recognisable or be well heard of. However this could be achieved if we advertise our product in various places like the internet.
Optimum releasing
"The company has enjoyed success with a wide range of films"
Optimum releasing although they mostly distribute documentaries have also been known to distribute fiction films. i think this will be a good place to distribute our film because it has made a good name for itself and will be recognised globally giving our product alot of publicitiy.
Indie
“Dogwoof Indie” believes that filmakers need a better deal.
“Dogwoof” is the leading UK film distributor specialising in social issue films, Documentaries, independent films and world cinema.
"We release our films nationwide, on over 80 cinemas, backing the release with major campaigns. The aim of this approach is to trigger change, and get people to Take action. And the best way to do this, is by making the film available at cinemas and venues around the country, including our record breaking release of The Age of Stupid. Dogwoof acquires all rights for exploitation through theatrical, DVD, TV, Mobile and Online. Our main focus is ethical documentaries, such as The Age of Stupid, Black Gold, Burma VJ, and The End of the Line. We are also contantly trying new technologies, and new business models, which offer endless opportunities for independent distribution. Dogwoof has the freedom and the will to exploit them. The company intends to build on the success of the last six years and its vision is to develop, expand and, above all, innovate. Our approach – Simple – Transparent – Innovative"
Distribution is a main factor in creating a film.
Once the film is planned, shot, and edited the distributor determines the release date and strategy. The distributor then shows exhibitors the film who then determine whether they want the film to be shown in cinemas. If the exhibitors agree they start a marketing campaign, they target the films desired audience, distribute posters, adverts, websites so on and then Launch the film.
Our film could also be shown at independent cinemas,Like these
Greenwich Picturehouse
180 Greenwich High Road,
SE10
Tel: 08707 550 065
The recently opened Greenwich Picturehouse has 5 screens and will show a range of mainstream releases, foreign language and independent cinema, special seasons and visiting festivals. They will also programme a wide mix of live music, comedy, artists' film and video work and special film events in their dedicated basement screening room.
Curzon Soho Shaftesbury Avenue,
London
W1D 5DY
Tel: 020 7734 2255
The Curzon Soho show a broad range of art-house and independent films and shorts. Situated in London's Soho district, the cinema has three well equipped screens and there is also a café at street level. Curzon Cinemas also operate Curzon Mayfair. Both cinemas provide a path for independent cinema and also attract other types of audiences as well for example the Greenwich picture house also shows mainstream releases and foreign cinema which means that people that go to this cinema would see our film being advertised hopefully intriguing any fans of the “Psychological Thriller” genre and also will be seen by people that watch independent films e.g. scouts, or media students. Also we could screen our film at a night student film festival just to get the word out and if its popular we could prolong our stay there.
Also we could show our film at film festivals throughout the UK like Screentest and Exposures, the UK’s largest festival of student image work. Screentest is a National Student Film Festival that promotes student films and film-makers from the UK. we could also show our films at these places if we applied.
We could also distribute our film electronically through the use of the internet. For example www.youtube.com which is a well known internet site that is used by almost everyone. Youtube displays videos from all across the world, some are uploaded by independent film makers trying to plug there films.
People upload songs, tv clips, music videos, fanvids etc which means that a lot of people have access to everything posted there. If we posted our film on you tube people would be able to favorite it post it to their blogs or online profiles and comment it, this could provide us with valuable feedback on our film and also a way to show the world what we have created.
Our Production company Is called Phantom Films & would create mostly eery, thriller type independent films.We decided on the name PhantomFilms because it was easily recognisable and not overcomplicated. We also chose this because it was unique as there is no other production company with this name or a name similar to this. We want our work to be distributed on a large scale that is why we want to put our film on the internet so it can be viewed and appreciated by a w i d e r audience.
Female18-35
Silence of the Lambs,
One Hour Photo,
Dead Silence,
The Night Listener,
Saw,
Hannibal.
Although the main audience for thrillers is males, we think our film would be suitable for a wide range of audiences, we chose to concentrate on making it appeal to an audience of females aged 18-35.
We chose them because our film is about a little girl being taken and we wanted to play on the maternal instinct of our audience to provoke emotion and to forge strong opinions. We thought that women of this age group are very strong minded and protective and are also more likely to have children or be planning to have children. Also their interests would be things like puzzle’s, word searches, and riddles to show that they are smart and calculating. We chose a thriller because we wanted our audience to think and be involved in our film instead of just watching it.
Also women and mens mindsets are different when it comes to thrillers where women want to save the child and keep it safe, men want to catch the bad guy and save the day.
From our market research we found that psychological thrillers are more commonly watched by people of this age group, so we decided to target these people without excluding other ages and personalities in the process.
When we screened our film to other students they liked it but said that it wasn’t the type of film they would watch and that our story was a bit to “Real” and that they wouldn’t like to watch a psychological thriller that could actually happen.
Our secondary target audience Males Aged 18-40
Interests include crime dramas
Other films they might have seen:-
· One Hour Photo,
· Dead Silence,
· The Night Listener,
· Saw
We chose this as our secondary target audience because in our research we found that males of this age group are second most likely to watch psychological thrillers.
Q5 how did you attract/ address your target audience?
To address our target audience we decided to obey the forms and conventions of psychological thrillers and appeal to what the audience enjoy. Also the genre, as we found out, is already popular with the target audience we have chosen. Although we have stayed faithful to most of the conventions of a Psychological thriller we challenged it as well by adding our own twist to the narrative and not making just another conventional psychological thriller. We did this to interest our audience. We also wanted to play on the fears of parents, and also create a story similar to stories seen in the news about abduction.
We aimed to attract our audience by our use of the camera we decided to have CU and ECU’s and captured very intriguing intricate shots from a variety of angles I think this worked well because it absorbed the viewer into the world of our film. Also we took a lot of care in the small details for example the props and setting, we had used an old desk top and scratched it up to make it look like an authentic work desk, and also we had got lots of pictures of children, sketches of dolls and negatives to put on the walls around the desk so that everything looks really busy and unorganised reflecting the mind of the Toymaker.
This addresses our audience because our audience will be looking out for the little details in our film so they can think about what’s happening on screen. We also wanted our opening sequence to be as realistic as possible.
Also we wanted to build up tension throughout our opening sequence so I created a slow eery sound track to be played parallel to our shots this carried on during the whole of scene 1 in the Toymakers workshop the slow movement of the camera and the slow music helped to build suspense which is key to any successful thriller movie, this would attract my target audience because it is a familiar convention of the thriller genre.
In the last ten years, a lot of films relating to abduction have been released for example “Changeling” (2008) and “Along Came a Spider” (2001) so we thought we would adapt this theme because it has a lot of prevalence in today’s society with relations to the Madeline McCann case. I thought our idea of having the doll’s took the traditional story to a new level and overall changed our film from typical to original and therefore would address more people.
The second part of the set that we used was outside an average house down and average road to accentuate the underlying message that it could happen to anyone/anywhere.
In conclusion I believe that our film successfully addresses our audience and attracts them to watch our film.
Q6 what have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
During the making of our film I have learnt a lot about the technologies we have used.
SHOOTING
Camera
- Using the tripod, a vinten pro touch, allowed the camera to remain still throughout our shots helping with out continuity of shots also was versatile as all of the shots we needed we could do with the camera and tripod attached. It allowed us to pan the shots and adjust the camera between high angle and low angle shots easily.
- For example when we had the high angle over the shoulder shot of the Toymakers hands scratching along the desk to the next shot of the track along the workshop table.
- we took approximately 2-3 takes of every shot to make sure thate we had a total shot for back up and the shot we had planed for in case the tracks behind the Toymaker when he put the doll on the doorstep this shot didnt turn out great but we had used a master shot/crab shot from across the road showing the Toymaker walking up to the door placing the doll down and walking away from the house with his hood up as back up which was good because without it we would have made a huge mistake.
- The Canon XHAI is fully equipped with zoom, this made framing our shots a lot easier and quicker. The speed of the zoom's was also changeable according to how we wanted the shot to look, this was useful when we had the zoom from the back of the Toymaker's head down to the doll on the doorstep.
- We had a section of shots which required the use of the tracks. the camera had to track towards the door. We had trouble with this shot and rushed it because it was quite late in the day and it was getting darker which would mess up our continuity
- We developed our skills with the camera and filming equipment from out prelim to our main task in various ways
- We got to use the zoom and the filters on the camera and also had a chance to experiment with the tracks because i never used these in my prelim task
- The tracks were reasonably easy to use and was good because we had practise using them in our camera master class
- During filming we used a Sennheiser micro phone. The sensitive microphone was attached to the Canon XHAI via and XLR lead.
- Although our film had no dialogue we still wanted to capture some diegetic sounds for example the Toymaker's hands scratching the desk and the buttons rattling as they are pushed away.
- we had trouble recording with the Sennheiser microphone because we couldn't find the right setting on the camera so we ended up using the microphone attached to the top of the camera.
- I was in charge of sound in my group and created a soundtrack for our opening sequence i used Cubase4.0 for this, I composed a slower, Higher, more repetitive version of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" for our soundtrack i think this worked well but it did have to be cut during editing.
- When Editing we used the software Adobe Premier pro
- we had practise using Adobe Premier in our preliminary task
- we found out how to use the razor tool which we used to cut all of our shots to create cutaways within our sequence for example the cut between the shot of the Toymakers hands to him pushing the buttons.
- Digitize our rushes and discarding shots that were not useful
- Create titles and choose fnots to display the names of the cast and crew we used
- Add soundtrack to our sequence which we learnt to do during our main task as our prelim had no reason for a soudntrack
- set the in and out points of our rushes
- select transitions and effects we chose the cross fade for most of our rushes but used an additive dissolve for our titles.
- How to mute and raise the volume of our shots which we had to do because some of our shots like the shot of the photo developing we could hear the words "action" and "cut" so we muted the rushes with unnecessary sound
- How to dim and brighten our shots
- we used a lacie drive to store our project on, a LaCie is a portable memory device. We also used a LaCie to store our prelim task so we were familiar with how it worked
- We also usd a fire wire to connect the computer to the Canon HAI
Q7 Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
Preliminary Brief: Film and edit a character opening a door, crossing a room and sitting down in a chair opposite another character. A couple of lines of dialogue must then exchanged between characters & match on action, shot/reverse shot and the 180-degree rule should be demonstrated.
Main Task: The titles and opening of a new fiction film, to last a maximum of two minutes (all video and audio material must be original, produced by candidates, with the exception of music or audio effects from a copyright-free source)
In our preliminary task I only had a basic knowledge of camera use and continuity,
What went wrong:
- We recorded our shots with sound but when it came to digitising we didn’t digitise our rushes with the sound on the camera on
- This was a problem because when we completed our assemble we didn’t have any dialogue in our film
What I learnt:
- I learnt to check the equipment we use twice during filming and during editing
- I do this so that I can ensure nothing will go wrong
I was in a pair with Noriane.
Brief
When I heard the brief we thought that it would be easy and started to find ways to make it more interesting so we chose to give the characters more depth Iman and Esther were our original cast but due to Esther’s absence we had to use Rachel instead.
Our idea was to have Rachel walking down a corridor alone holding a briefcase and looking shifty and then cut to Iman looking anxious and ragged. Our original story was to have Rachel as “dealer” of sorts and have her delivering the briefcase to Iman who was the “Junkie” we developed this idea to give it a more humorous twist with Rachel instead of dealing drugs, dealing sweets.
Planning and pre production
We had to create a storyboard for our shots, write a script and make a shooting schedule. Although I was more excited about filming and editing the planning stages were vital to our task because without them it wouldn’t run smoothly and we wouldn’t be organised. Once we got into planning I found that making the storyboard was actually enjoyable and a good way to keep me and Noriane on the same page and seeing the same thing.
Filming
Filming went really well for us as it only took us an hour to shoot the entire sequence. We got the props we needed from home or borrowed things like the suitcase which actually was a flute case I borrowed from a music student because we couldn’t get hold of a suitcase.
Overall I think that our Preliminary task was a lot more challenge than I thought it would be and I’m glad we had that practise before we went out to start our Main task I think that the dynamic between me and Noriane worked well and I took with me aspects of how our partnership worked well into my Main task group.
Wednesday, 16 December 2009
Script
Phantom Films:
Scene 1) Int: Toy Makers Workshop
A scratched desk cluttered with photos of young girls, cotton and needles. A single lamp is the only light seen.
In the background a slow eerie “lullaby” can be heard
Toy Maker
(Scratches hands across table slowly, his hands are dirty and cracked)
A sewing needle and cotton are directly in front of the toy maker
(the toy maker pulls the needle through his fingers and twiddles it around he puts the needle down and reaches out and grabs the cotton unrolls it and slowly licks the end of the string and puts the it through the eye of the needle, when the needle is threaded he grabs a button and & the doll and starts to sew the button as an eye)
The Finished Doll Sits upright on the desk
The Toy maker grabs a sheet of paper and a butchers pencil; slowly he starts to write “Where am I?”
He attaches the note to the doll and starts to play with the doll’s hair.
(The toy maker starts scratching/colouring over the eyes/mouth of a picture of a girl)
Scene 2) Ext: Amy’s House an ordinary house in the middle of the street, the street is littered with rubbish and leaves are blowing.
The Toymaker places the finished doll on the doorstep
The doll is holding the tag with the words “where am I?” placed on its coat.
Friday, 6 November 2009
Thursday, 5 November 2009
Horror/ Psychological thrillers
Demme's 1980 film Melvin and Howard did not have a wide release, but received widespread critical acclaim, and led to the signing of Demme to direct the Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell star vehicle Swing Shift. A big-budget production intended to be a major prestige picture for Warner Bros. as well as a commercial breakthrough for Demme, Swing Shift was compromised by creative differences, with Demme renouncing the film. The film was released in May 1984, and was generally panned by critics and neglected by moviegoers.
After Swing Shift, Demme started making documentary films, making a notable series of concert films with Stop Making Sense and Swimming to Cambodia.
In 1991, Demme won the Academy Award for The Silence of the Lambs—one of only three films to win all the major categories (Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Actor, and Best Actress). Demme directed an Oscar-winning turn from Tom Hanks in his next feature, Philadelphia.
Since then, Demme's films have included remakes of two popular films: The Truth About Charlie, a remake of Charade that starred Mark Wahlberg in the Cary Grant role; and The Manchurian Candidate, with Denzel Washington and Meryl Streep.
In 2007, Demme's film Man from Plains, a documentary about former U.S. President Jimmy Carter's book tour in promotion of his book Palestine: Peace not Apartheid, premiered at the Venice and Toronto Film Festivals.
In 2008, the alternative movie Rachel Getting Married was released, which many critics compared to Demme's films of the late 1970s and 1980s. It was included in many 2008 "best of" lists, and received numerous awards and nominations, including an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress by lead Anne Hathaway.
In the Spring 2010, Demme will direct Family Week, a play by Beth Henley. The play will be produced by MCC Theater and co-star Rosemarie DeWitt and Sarah Jones.
One of his common directorial motifs is to allow characters to look directly into the camera. Demme formed his production company, Clinica Estetico, with producers Edward Saxon and Peter Saraf. They were based out of New York City for fifteen years.
Monday, 2 November 2009
Modern adaptations 200 word testament of 3 fairytales
Adaptation testaments
Little red Riding hood - adaptation
Little Red Riding Hood is a story which shows the dangers that occur when a young child loses their way. In the traditional telling Little Red was warned not to stray from the beaten path and go straight to Grandma’s house, but little red doesn’t listen and then she meets a wolf and leads it to grandma’s house where the wolf eats her grandmother and then eats little red riding hood but they are saved by Little Red’s father. I would adapt this to suit modern day problems regarding the safety of children, my idea is to have a girl be missing at the start of the story and have a film made about her parents search for her. The protagonist would be her father/mother on their quest to find her the antagonist would be a man called Peter Stump (who was tried and hung for “werewolfism” and satanic worship and also the murder of 14 children including his own son) I thought this would be interesting to do because it shows a different angle to the story and a more believable plot than having the antagonist be an animal I got inspiration for this idea from the Madeleine McCann Stories.
The Three Billy Goats Gruff
The Three Billy Goats Gruff is a story about three brother goats who are stuck on one side of a bridge where the grass is dead and dream of getting to the other side but a Troll under a bridge is stopping them. I thought this would be a good idea to do because it shows some problems that occur in today’s society and the problem of being stuck on one side reminded me of segregation and racism and the brothers dreaming of going over to the better side reminded me of poverty and wanting wealth, I couldn’t think of a good antagonist for this idea so maybe the thing stopping them from achieving their goals could be their own inhibitions for example the oldest goat would be too stuck in his ways to move and the middle goat could be too afraid of rejection from the other side but the youngest goat was carefree and wanted to make a change and makes it over the other side and becomes free. I think that this would be good for a film because it shows a good conflict of character from each of the protagonists and also relates to modern society.
The ugly duckling
The ugly duckling is a folk story about growth, coming of age, insecurity and not fitting in which are the basic things that every teenager goes through, the story is about a young swan that was born amongst ducks and thought it was ugly and didn’t fit in and then runs away and stays in various different places but still doesn’t feel like it belongs until after a year it finds a flock of swans and realises what they are and joins them. To modernize this story I would make it about a teenager that doesn’t fit in and leaves to find themselves or runs away and after a while becomes comfortable with themselves, I got my inspiration for this idea from the book “The Catcher In The Rye” by J.D Salinger where the main character Holden goes through four days of his life after his expulsion from his school and finally ending in a mental breakdown and also Holden’s way of always correcting himself and questioning his surroundings and also contradicting himself shows his naivety about himself and the world, this is the kind of protagonist I want in my film if I were to do the ugly duckling.
Sunday, 1 November 2009
Fairytales research
The Buried Moon
Once upon a time, the Carland was filled with bogs. When the moon shone, it was as safe to walk in as by day, but when she did not, evil things, such as bogies, came out.
One day the moon, hearing of this, pulled on a black cloak over her yellow hair and went to see for herself. She fell into a pool, and a tree bound her there. She saw a man coming toward the pool and fought to be free until the hood fell off; the light warned off the man and scared off the evil creatures. She struggled to follow until the hood only fell back over her hair, and all the evil things came out of the darkness and buried her under a snag.
The moon never rose again, and the people wondered what had happened until the man she had rescued remembered and told what he had seen. A wise woman sent them into the bog until they found a coffin, a candle, and a cross; the moon would be nearby. They did as the wise woman said, and freed the moon.
Little Red Riding Hood
The version most widely known today is based on the Brothers Grimm variant. It is about a girl called Little Red Riding Hood, after the red hooded cape or cloak she wears. The girl walks through the woods to deliver food to her sick grandmother.
A wolf wants to eat the girl but is afraid to do so in public. He approaches the girl, and she naïvely tells him where she is going. He suggests the girl pick some flowers, which she does. In the meantime, he goes to the grandmother's house and gains entry by pretending to be the girl. He swallows the grandmother whole, and waits for the girl, disguised as the grandmother.
When the girl arrives, she notices he looks very strange to be her grandma. In most retellings, this eventually culminates with Little Red Riding Hood saying, "My, what big teeth you have!"
To which the wolf replies, "The better to eat you with," and swallows her whole, too.
A hunter, however, comes to the rescue and cuts the wolf open. Little Red Riding Hood and her grandmother emerge unharmed. They fill the wolf's body with heavy stones, which drown him when he falls into a well. Other versions of the story have had the grandmother shut in the closet instead of eaten, and some have Little Red Riding Hood saved by the hunter as the wolf advances on her rather than after she is eaten.
The tale makes the clearest contrast between the safe world of the village and the dangers of the forest, conventional antitheses that are essentially medieval, though no written versions are as old as that.
Peter Stump
Peter Stumpp, whose name is also spelt as Peter Stube, Pe(e)ter Stubbe, Peter Stübbe or Peter Stumpf,and other aliases include such names as Abal Griswold, Abil Griswold, and Ubel Griswold, was born at the village of Epprath near the country-town of Bedburg in the electorate of Cologne. His date of birth is not known, as the local church registers were destroyed during the Thirty Years' War (17th c.). He was a wealthy farmer and influential member of the rural community. In the 1580s he seems to have been a widower with two children; a girl called Beele (Sybil), who seems to have been over fifteen, and a son of an unknown age. In the years before his trial he had an intimate relationship with a distant relative called Katharina Trump (also spelt "Trumpen" or "Trompen").
Accusations
In 1589, Stumpp had one of the most lurid and famous werewolf trials in history. After being stretched on the rack, he confessed to having practiced black magic since he was twelve years old. He claimed that the Devil had given him a magical belt, which enabled him to metamorphose into "the likeness of a greedy, devouring wolf, strong and mighty, with eyes great and large, which in the night sparkled like fire, a mouth great and wide, with most sharp and cruel teeth, a huge body, and mighty paws." Removing his belt, he said, made him transform back to his human form.
For twenty-five years, Stumpp had allegedly been an "insatiable bloodsucker" who gorged on the flesh of goats, lambs, and sheep, as well as men, women, and children. Being threatened with torture he confessed to killing and eating fourteen children, two pregnant women, and their foetuses. One of the fourteen children was his own son, whose brain he was reported to have devoured.
Not only was Stumpp accused of being a serial murderer and cannibal, but also of having an incestuous relationship with his daughter, who was sentenced to die with him, and he coupled with a distant relative, which was also considered to be incestuous according to the law. In addition to this he confessed to having had intercourse with a succubus sent to him by the Devil.
Execution
His execution is one of the most brutal on record: He was put to the wheel, where flesh was torn from his body, in ten places, with red-hot pincers, followed by his arms and legs. Then his limbs were broken with the blunt side of an axehead to prevent him from returning from the grave, before he was beheaded and burned on a pyre. His daughter and mistress had already been strangled and were burned along with Stumpp's body. As a warning against similar behavior, local authorities erected a pole with the torture wheel and the figure of a wolf on it, and at the very top they placed Peter Stumpp's severed head.
It is impossible to determine whether Stumpp really committed the crimes of which he was accused. He may have been a serial murderer, though there are a number of details in the London pamphlet that are inconsistent with the historical facts.
The years in which Stumpp was supposed to have committed most of his crimes (1582-1589) were marked by internal wars in the Electorate of Cologne after the abortive introduction of Protestantism by the former Archbishop Gebhard Truchsess von Waldburg. He had been supported by Adolf, Count of Neuenahr, who was also the lord of Bedburg.
Stumpp was most certainly a convert to Protestantism. The war brought the invasion of armies of either side, the assaults by marauding soldiers and eventually an outbreak of the plague. Murder and violence were the rule.
When the Protestants were defeated in 1587, Bedburg Castle became the headquarters of Catholic mercenaries under the command of the new lord of Bedburg - Werner, Count of Salm-Reifferscheidt-Dyck, who was a staunch Catholic determined to re-establish the Roman faith.
So it is not inconceivable that the werewolf trial was but a barely concealed political trial, with the help of which the new lord of Bedburg planned to bully the Protestants of the territory back into Catholicism. If it had only been just another execution of a werewolf and a couple of witches, as sprang up around this time in various parts of Germany, the attendance of members of the high aristocracy – maybe including the new Archbishop and Elector of Cologne – would be surprising.
Furthermore, the trial remained a singular event, nor did the judges refer to the new paradigma of werewolfism (explaining the animal transformation as an infernal delusion).
The Three Billy Goats gruff
The story introduces three male goats named Gruff of varying size and age, sometimes identified in the story as youngster, father and grandfather, but more often they are described as brothers. There is no grass left for them to eat nearest to where they live, so they must cross a river to get to a "sæter" (a summer farm in the hills), but the only way across is over a bridge that is guarded by a fearsome troll who eats any who pass that way. The youngest goat, knowing nothing of this, crosses the bridge and is threatened by the troll but is spared when he tells the troll that his brothers are larger and more gratifying as a feast. The middle goat sees that the youngest one has crossed and reaches the conclusion that the bridge must be safe after all, but when he crosses and the troll challenges him, he too tells him of his eldest brother. When the eldest and largest of them attempts to cross, the troll comes out to seize him but is gored by his horns and knocked into the river. From then on the bridge is safe, and all three goats are able to go to the rich fields around the summer farm in the hills.
The Ugly Duckling
When the tale begins, a lexi's eggs hatch. One of the little birds is perceived by the duck’s neighbors as a homely little creature and suffers much verbal and physical abuse. He wanders sadly from the barnyard and lives with wild ducks and geese until hunters slaughter the flocks. He then finds a home with an old woman but her cat and hen tease him mercilessly and again he sets off on his own. He sees a flock of migrating wild swans; he is delighted and excited but he cannot join them. Winter arrives. A farmer finds and carries the freezing little bird home, but the foundling is frightened by the farmer’s noisy children and flees the house. He spends a miserable winter alone in the outdoors but, when spring arrives, he is welcomed into a flock of beautiful swans for he has matured into one of them.
In reviewing Hans Christian Andersen: A New Life by biographer Jens Andersen, British journalist Anne Chisholm writes “Andersen himself was a tall, ugly boy with a big nose and big feet, and when he grew up with a beautiful singing voice and a passion for the theatre he was cruelly teased and mocked by other children". The ugly duckling is the child of a swan whose egg accidentally rolled into a duck's nest.
Speculation suggests that Andersen was the illegitimate son of Christian Frederik, the Crown Prince of Denmark (later King Christian VIII of Denmark), and found this out some time before he wrote the book, and thus that being a swan in the story was a metaphor not just for inner beauty and talent but also for secret royal lineage.
Bruno Bettelheim observes in ‘’The Uses of Enchantment’’ that the Ugly Duckling is not confronted with the tasks, tests, or trials of the typical fairy tale hero. “No need to accomplish anything is expressed in “The Ugly Duckling”. Things are simply fated and unfold accordingly, whether or not the hero takes some action.” In conjunction with Bettelheim’s assessment, Maria Tatar notes in ’’The Annotated Hans Christian Andersen’’ that Andersen suggests the Ugly Duckling‘s superiority resides in the fact that he is of a breed different from the barnyard rabble, and that dignity and worth, moral and aesthetic superiority are determined by nature rather than accomplishment.
The Wounded Lion
A poor girl got a job herding cows. One day, she heard a moan, and found a lion with a thorn in its paw. She pulled it out, and the lion thanked her by licking her face, but she could not find the cows again. Her master beat her and set her to herding donkeys. A year later, she found the lion wounded again, and when she aided it, the donkeys vanished. Her master beat her again and set to her to herding pigs. A year later, the lion appeared for a third time, wounded, she aided it, the pigs vanished, and she decided to wait and see if she could find them.
She climbed a tree and saw a man coming down a path and vanishing behind a rock at sunset. She decided to stay until she saw him come out. At dawn, a lion came out. She went down and behind the rock. A beautiful house stood there; she tidied it up and ate a meal before coming out to climb the same tree. The man came at the same time, and the next morning, the lion looked about before going on.
After three days of this, she could not discover his secret, so she descended and asked him. He told that he was enchanted by a giant into that form by day and was the lion she had helped; furthermore, the giant had stolen the cows, donkeys, and pigs in revenge for her aid. She wanted to free him. He told her that the only way was to get a lock of hair from the king's daughter and make a cloak from it for the giant.
The girl got the princess to hire her as a scullion. She dressed very neatly every day, and it came to the ears of the princess, who set her to comb her hair. The girl begged a lock of hair from her until she gave it. The girl wove a coat from it, but it was too small. She went back to the princess, who gave her another lock on the condition that she would find her a prince to marry. The girl said she had already found him, took the lock, and made the coat larger. The giant asked her what reward she wanted. She wanted to turn the lion back into a man. After some argument, the giant told her to kill the lion, cut him up into pieces, burn them, and throw the ash into water. The prince would arise from it a man.
She went away weeping, afraid that the giant had lied and she would kill the prince. The prince comforted her and told her to do it, and it worked. He said he would marry her. The girl told him she had promised the princess that she had found her a bridegroom. They went back to the princess, and her parents, the king and queen, knew him for their own son. So he married the girl who had saved him.
Beauty and Pock face
The older of two sisters, the child of the first wife, was beautiful and called Beauty, but her younger sister, the child of the second wife, had a pocked face and was called Pock Face. The first wife had died when her child was young and come back as a yellow cow. The wicked stepmother abused Beauty and set her tasks. The yellow cow did them for her, but the stepmother found out and had the cow killed. Beauty collected the bones and put them in a pot. One day, her stepmother did not take her to the theater, so Beauty broke everything at home, including the pot; when she did that, a horse, a dress, and a pair of shoes come out. She put on the clothing and rode the horse, but she lost one shoe in the ditch. Men came by, she asked them to get her the shoe, and each one agreed if she would marry him. She refused a fishmonger for smelling of fish, a rich merchant for being covered with dust, and an oil merchant for being greasy, but agreed to marry a scholar.
Three days after the wedding, Beauty went to pay her respects to her parents. Pock Face lured her to the well, pushed her in, and sent word to the scholar that she had contracted small pox. After a time, she went herself and explained her looks by the illness. Beauty, however, had become a sparrow and came to taunt Pock Face while she was combing her hair; Pock Face taunted her back. The scholar heard and asked her to come to a cage if she were his wife; she came. Pock Face killed the sparrow and buried it. Bamboo shot up on the grave. The shoots tasted delicious to the scholar but gave Pock Face ulcers on her tongue. Pock Face cut the bamboo down and had a bed made from it, but though the scholar found it comfortable, it poked Pock Face with needles, so she threw it out. An old woman took it home. She found that dinner was cooked for her whenever she came home. In time, she caught Beauty, who had her give her some cooking things, which enabled her to appear.
Beauty gave the old woman a bag to sell by her husband's house. When she did so, the scholar questioned her and brought her back home. Pock Face proposed tests to determine who was the genuine wife. First they walked on eggs; Beauty did not break any, and Pock Face broke them all, but she would not admit it. Then they climbed a ladder of knives; Beauty did not cut her feet, and Pock Face did, but she would not admit it. Finally, they jumped into boiling oil; Beauty emerged alive, but Pock Face died. Beauty sent her body back to her stepmother, but her stepmother thought it was carp. When she saw it was her daughter, she fell down dead.
Wednesday, 14 October 2009
Evaluation of short task
My Objective: To Become More Skilled With A Camera
What Went well?
What went well during this task was the group dynamic between Me, Halle and Thelma,
I thought that as a group we could discuss our ideas and put them forward without having anyones thoughts being over looked because we are all quite motivated we all had a say in what we did. For example when i was setting up the Camera and the tripod they were still involving me in the storyboarding and asking me what i thought, which i thought was important because if they had carried on without letting me know i wouldnt really know how to achieve the shots with the camera until it had to be shot.
what you need to improve?
as a group we need to become more broad minded for example we chose locations for our short task that werent far away but also so did the rest of the class so we had three groups trying to film different scenes at the same time in the same place. A way we could have improved was to as soon as we saw there were another 2 groups trying to film we should have changed location but at the time we thought that changing location would take us more time than waiting which isn't true because we spent over half of our shooting time waiting for the other groups or having to retake our shots because the other groups were in the frame and so on. so i would improve by choosing a better location in future.
Personal Objectives?
My Personal objectives were to become more skilled with the camera and also to have more experience working in a group dynamic because i think these are valuable skills that i will need to do well in media, i think i have become more experienced with the camera because it became kind of a second nature to pan and to move also to put up the tripod came quite easy to me and working as a team went well because we all had a chance to feedback on each other's ideas.
What would you do differently?
If i had to do this task again i would change the location and also i would have not panicked so much because when time started to pass i started to get frustrated by how behind we were but i never let my team mates know because then they might panic and then no work would have been done.
Key Skill's used?
Key skill's i used was the skills i have learnt about using the camera and also listening and communication skills with my group which is important so we all know what we are doing.
Tuesday, 6 October 2009
Research
Research
Independent cinema is when writers create and produce a film by themselves with little or no expense.
This has become more popular because of the amount of availability of recording equipment for example Digital camera’s and editing software, because everyone has or knows someone who has a digital camera and every computer comes with a form of editing software already uploaded e.g. Windows movie maker.
Many devices include digital cameras built into them. For example, mobile phones, PDAs, laptops and Blackberries often contain a digital camera integrated in them, also digital camcorders. In 2003 camera phones outsold digital cameras, and in 2006 they outsold all film-based cameras and digital cameras combined. Integrated cameras tend to be at the end of the scale of digital cameras in technical specifications, such as resolution, optical quality, and ability to use accessories. With rapid development, however, the gap between mainstream compact digital cameras and camera phones is decreasing, and high-end camera phones are competitive with low-end stand-alone digital cameras.
The independent film scene developed in the 90’s and 2000s has been created due to a range of factors, including the development of affordable digital cameras that rival standard filming cameras.
The cost of professional film equipment and stock was a problem for independent filmmakers who wanted to make their own films. The cost of 35 mm film is steadily rising: in 2002 alone, film negative costs were up 23%, according to Variety. Studio-quality filming typically required expensive lighting and post-production facilities.
But the advent of consumer camcorders in 1985, and more importantly, the arrival of high-definition digital video in the early 1990s, have since lowered the technology barrier to movie production considerably. Both production and post-production costs have been significantly lowered; today, the hardware and software for post-production can be installed in a commodity-based personal computer.
Technologies such as DVD, FireWire connections and professional-level non-linear editing system software make movie making relatively inexpensive.
Director Francis Ford Coppola, long an advocate of new technologies like non-linear editing and digital cameras, said in 2007 "cinema is escaping being controlled by the financier, and that's a wonderful thing. You don't have to go hat-in-hand to some film distributor and say, 'Please will you let me make a movie?'”
Another Good thing that has come from the rise of independent films is that they can get feedback from the public if they post their film on a website e.g. Myspace, Youtube and also they have the chance to re-shoot a scene without any major costs being incurred.
I believe that the future of film depends on independent films and that it is good that people have the opportunity to make a film without having to hand control over to a major production team and make it the way they want.
