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Evaluation - Question 6+7...

Evaluation - Question 4+5...

Evaluation - Question 3...

Evaluation - Question 2...

Evaluation - Question 1...

Film Synopsis...

     If our film was to be made into a feature length film the main protagonist the ‘taxi driver’ will be a psychopathic serial killer who kidnaps multiple people, in particular vulnerable women typically with small children. The woman and baby in the boot - heard at the end of the opening – will endure multiple types of abuse; physical, mental, sexual and psychological which will be inflicted  by the protagonist who we soon learn to find has psychological problems. One of the themes in the film will be obsession which sticks to the typical conventions of the thriller genre. We want our audiences to be shocked throughout, to achieve this we would make sure that the taxi driver appears as ordinary as possible which will make what he does even more shocking than it already is, this is why we felt it was important to show that he was a family man (included in the picture in our two minute opening). There will be a heroic character that will eventually ‘come to the rescue’, either a police detective or a family member, however we are undecided as to who it will be just yet. In contrast to the mystery convention of a psychological thriller our audiences will be very involved with what is happening throughout which is very different to the majority of psychological thrillers already out there. 

Script - dialogue...

Tara put together a video of the dialogue used in our 2 minute opening film. The main speech we used was of Stefani's dad speaking as if he has a passenger in the back of the taxi, we used close up shots every time he spoke to give it a creepy effect. We also did this so that audiences don't initially see all of his face which adds suspense and makes them question why.

Costume...

There was not much to post about the costume choice for our final film as there were not many scenes where you saw what the taxi driver was wearing, however there were a few qualities which we wanted to make sure we included. We wanted to create a feel of a family man, someone trusted and someone who the audiences would not automatically suspect as dangerous. This is why we made sure we had close up shots if the hand with the rings on, this suggests that he is married and with a family as does the picture of the children. The only costume requirements we asked for was that our driver made sure he wore ordinary everyday clothes just so that the audiences wouldn't not suspect anything.

Storyboard/Shot types...

Since none of us were very artistic we struggled to create a storyboard to express how we wanted our film to turn out, so we decided to make a list of our different shot type's as an alternative. Although we did use a lot of shots the majority of them were extreme close ups and close ups because we had a lot mouth of shots of the taxi driver speaking and lots of close ups of different objects. From finding this I can now see that if we was to redo our film I would try and incorpoate a wider range of shots rather than the repetitive close ups. 

Location...

When we was planning our film and brainstorming idea's although most of the footage would be of insde the taxi we still needed a location which looked out of the ordinary and would make our audiences question why they were there, so we thought of a couple of ideas and decided that a wooded area would be the best. We then searched some local places which would have enough space for us to film and to park and found Whitewebbs. Most of us knew the location already and we all decided that it was just what we were looking for. Below is a picture:

Delayed sound update!...

Here's a delayed post about a change we made in some of the sounds in our film. We decided that although we like the 'My Funny Valentine' song there was something not quite right about it and thankfully Tara found a new song which worked perfecty and here it is:

We found that this song was a lot more subtle than the Frank Sinatra one and was more appropiate for inside the taxi.

We also added a sound at the end of our film of a baby crying, we knew that this would be very extreme and would push the appropriate boundries but we needed something to shock our audiences and this was just the thing. When we first added the audio clip of our friend Georgie saying "let me out" we liked it but there was something missing and it wasn't getting the big reation we hoped for, but after adding the baby sound effect we definatley achieved this.

Props...

Although we have finished our film now I thought that it would be good to post some of the props we used in our film and why we chose some of them.

We knew that from the very beginning we didn't want to give away too much as to what might happen in our film and we wanted to make sure that our audiences didn't suspect anything from the taxi driver so we decided to include a shot of a family photo (below). We felt that by adding a family photo the audience will automatically see the taxi driver as a family man and will suspect nothing.

We also included a shot of the drivers hands with the rings on, this shows that he is married and again implies that he is a family man and there is nothing out of the ordinary.

We also included some shots such as the taxi badge and the taxi light (below) just to emphasis the taxi and make it the most predominant element in the film.

BBFC research...

Once we had completed our film what we had to do was decide individually what age certificate we thought it should be given, if it was to be made into a full length film. I went online to the BBFC (British Board Of Film Classification) website and found their guidelines to giving a film a age certificate.
Since our film is a physiological thriller we knew that it would contain some scenes of a sexual nature, violence and strong language so it would definitely not be appropriate for a U or a PG, however after looking at the requirements for a 12 and a 12A it would not be suitable for that rating either:

The two possible options for our film would be a 15 or an 18, so I looked at the requirements for a 15 first to see what it contains:

From looking at the elements for a 15 and an 18 I have come to the conclusion that our film should be given the certificate of a 15, this is because although we may have to reduce our limits to what we would have wanted to include in our film, making the certificate an 18 may reduce our audiences and may mean that our box office sales will be a lot less than if it was a 15.

Feedback to our opening...

We decided to get the rest of our class to have a look at our video and give us some feedback on what they like and what we need to improve or change. What we really wanted their opinion on was the ending, we have decided to add a baby crying onto the end of our film just to give it the shock factor with our audiences and here's their opinion:

Final but unfinished opening...

We are so close to finishing that we thought we would upload the opening at its current state, we just have to do add our titles and our production company and we are done! We are not sure if we like the speech which is suppose to be from inside the boot so we are going to record a couple more versions and then decide on which one is the most effective. Here's our ALMOST final film...

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title research...

It has taken us a long time to pick the perfect title for our film and most of them were either too obvious or just didn't fit in with our film. We asked the rest of our media class for any suggestions for our title and we started to think of films like Taken which are very similar to our story line for inspiration but what we loved was the idea of taking a line from a nursery rhyme song. This has been done before with films such as When The Wind Blows and we felt that since the last part of our film was a baby crying this link to a nursery rhyme would tie in brilliantly. We searched the nursery rhyme 'Rock-a-Bye Baby' and found that the line "When the bough breaks' has a sinister feel to it which would be perfect for the title of our film.

Reaction to our almost finished film...

We are so close to finishing our film opening, we just need to add a few more touches and it should finally be complete! We decided to see what some of our media group thought about our film and if they had any suggestions or comments which we can use, so here is a video of Shaileyee's reaction to our film...

Inspiration...

When we was planning  our film we got the majority of our inspiration from the opening sequence of 'The Bone Collector'. We particularly loved the types of shots they used and how they build up the story gradually. Once we had seen the clip it helped us have a better understanding of exactly what we wanted our film to look like and gave us some great camera work ideas!

What we liked most about the clip was that the driver was silent and we tried to incorporate this element into our own film by never hearing the passengers response. The silence works perfectly with our film as it doesn't give too much away at first which is just what we wanted.

Sound...

When we  were planning our film we all pictured the music to be classical because we felt that it had a creepy effect to it which we loved without being too obvious. We listened to lots of recommended songs but we couldn't find one that would fit, until, Tara suggested the song 'My Funny Valentine' by Frank Sinatra. Although it wasn't the classical idea we originally had it worked perfectly with our film.

To incorporate the sound into our film we filmed the driver turning on the radio, when we filmed this part as we turned the radio on there was a talk show which we have decided to include in our film and edit it to make it sound like the radio is then tuned into the song.

Editing day 1...

Since we have all our footage we all wanted to start editing as soon as we could so that we would have time, if we need it, to redo any filming. Our first day of editing went well but we began to realise just how much time it takes and all the elements you need to consider. What we found particularly hard was trying to organise the sound, we had the taxi motor in some part and then not in others and in other parts we needed dialogue, music and ambient sound, we needed help. So what we found worked best was watching a few YouTube tutorials and looking at some websites which told us how to fix our problems.

                                             

Once we resolved the sound problems our film started to look like a good 2 minute opening we just need to carry on editing and we should be finished very soon. There will be a post to follow about what sound we decided to choose and why.

Filming complete...

Now that we have created an idea that we are 100% going to stick to we wanted to start filming as soon as possible while it was still fresh in our minds. We arranged to spend all day Sunday filming so that we can film everything and get started with editing, and thankfully it all went to plan! We met up on Sunday, filmed all of our footage and it turned out just as we wanted it to. 

Surprisingly we didn't have any major problems, except for a couple of lighting issues, but we managed to keep it under control and from watching our footage back we have everything we need

                                                  

Change....

I know we've had this post before but we are changing our idea! Although we loved our last idea we had problems with the filming as we were told we had to pay to film and it was too expensive for just an hour. We considered changing the location but it wouldn't work as well, so after ringing many different stations we realised that we need to reconsider our idea.  This is when we revisited out old taxi idea however we have changed the story line, we like the idea of using the taxi because it is different to other films we have seen and we had to consider our original problems. so for our new idea we are going to focus on the driver rather than adding other characters, but there will be a new post all about our new idea.

First day of filming- Liverpool Street Station...

Whilst out on our first day of filming at Liverpool Street station we decided to make a few vlogs and do some filming of what we got up to. Although we were asked to leave the station because we did not have permission it was a very successful day of filming, whilst we sort out the permission information for our next visit we can in the meantime film our landmark shots.

Research work...

For the very beginning of our film opening our group came up with the idea of having very fast flashes of different, famous landmarks and iconic things to do with London. What we will do is film very short clips of each object/place and we would then have them play very fast one after the other, we felt that this would immediately tell the audience where we are setting our film and would then flow nicely with the scene that follows of the train station. Once we had settled on this idea we all got together and came up with a poster full of all the different things we needed to film so that we can refer back to it when we go out.                                                                 

                              

Inspiration...

The inspiration for our film came mainly from the film 'Friends With Benefits' although the ideas are completely different. When watching the film I loved the scene with the flash mob at Grand Central Station and as soon as I saw it I knew that filming in big station is a good, accessible and different idea. What I loved most about the scene is the different shots of the station and how busy it was which all tied together to make a really good scene to watch.

The inspiration for the music to go with our film came to us when we saw the Hombase advert. ,We knew we needed something simple and catchy and we liked the drum roll it has at the start so we knew it would work perfectly. 

Final film pitch...

Another idea we have had is to film in a train station and go back slightly to our original stalker idea. We decided that we needed to settle of either one of our ideas, this or the taxi one, and we realised that as much as we loved the taxi idea it was not easy to film, there was only certain days people had free and it seemed impossible to arrange a day which would work. This led us to our new and FINAL film idea we all love and is very flexible with filming days, here is our pitch:

Film research...

One idea we all love is filming inside of a London Taxi, this is different and will hopefully stand out from other groups. I have been looking at some films with the types of shots and angles which we will be using and the best example and guideline for us to look at is from Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason. During this film there is a brief clip which will show us how our film may look and will help us with planning, below is the clip.

What I especially like about this scene is the centre shot of 'Bridget' in the back of the taxi, you can see all of her and it flows well with the other shot of the driver talking to her. The shot of the driver is also good however I would prefer to have a shot from the drivers point of view in our film.