Saturday, 20 February 2010
Research- Film production
Phonebooth. I have decided to look at this film as the production of it is very unique. The 120 page script film which would usually take around 40 days to film, was shot in an amazing 10 days! The cast and crew got through 12 pages a day!
Another unusual twist is that even though the film is set in New York City it was actually shot in Los Angeles where an Avenue was transformed to look like New York.
The writer Larry Cohen originally pitched the idea of shooting a film in a phonebooth to Alfred Hitchcock in the 1960s (mentioned previously in my blog). Although Alfred liked the idea they could not come up with a reason for the film to take place in the phonebooth i.e the sniper situation.
Here are some facts about the production:
*They had a 38 man crew
*They had 4 cameras on every shot instead of the usual 1
*They carried out detailed character profiling (even on the many extras)
*It was shot in sequence
The last point is very important in the production of this film. Unlike in most films where they film whatever piece of action is most convenient for example the exterior of a scene may be shot at a totally different time to the interior, Phonebooth was shot in order of the script. This was very important time wise as it helped them to keep continuity. They did not have to worry about if someone was standing in exactly the same place as it is all shot in sequence and it "evolves as you go along". Another interesting feature of the production of this film is that all of the extras had not read the script so did not know what was going to happen next. This meant that the film crew were able to capture pure reactions and benefited the film greatly.
Another unusual twist is that even though the film is set in New York City it was actually shot in Los Angeles where an Avenue was transformed to look like New York.
The writer Larry Cohen originally pitched the idea of shooting a film in a phonebooth to Alfred Hitchcock in the 1960s (mentioned previously in my blog). Although Alfred liked the idea they could not come up with a reason for the film to take place in the phonebooth i.e the sniper situation.
Here are some facts about the production:
*They had a 38 man crew
*They had 4 cameras on every shot instead of the usual 1
*They carried out detailed character profiling (even on the many extras)
*It was shot in sequence
The last point is very important in the production of this film. Unlike in most films where they film whatever piece of action is most convenient for example the exterior of a scene may be shot at a totally different time to the interior, Phonebooth was shot in order of the script. This was very important time wise as it helped them to keep continuity. They did not have to worry about if someone was standing in exactly the same place as it is all shot in sequence and it "evolves as you go along". Another interesting feature of the production of this film is that all of the extras had not read the script so did not know what was going to happen next. This meant that the film crew were able to capture pure reactions and benefited the film greatly.
Planning- target audience profiling
As a group we have decided that our film will be certified as a 15. Although in the title sequence that we are creating there aren't any unsuitable images or clips, we believe that if we were to create the thriller there would be unsuitable clips in the film itself. So the thriller itself is going to be rated as a 15. We would like the title sequence to be rated individually as 12+ as we would like to show this to a wider variety of audience in order to get a wider response.I believe that the thriller itself would appeal to an audience between 15 to late 20's Particularly concentrating on students and younger, middle class adults. The typical conventions in thriller including music and storyline would help them to relate the film to other thrillers. A typicall viewer may be a student around 20 in their second or third year at university. They will be more mature than the younger students, maybe looking for a quiet night in. They will be looking for a well priced piece of entertainment and will not want to spend too much. Also they will be in a good location to pick up the film as it will be located in highly populated areas. A totally different viewer may be someone in their late 20's who has finished university, has a steady job and a disposable income. They will have money to spend and will be looking for inside entertainment. The third likely viewer may be a 16 or 17 year old who have a ful time or part time job so have a little money to spend. They are not old enough to go out and may get bored of going bowling ect so have a dvd night in with family or friends.
Research into voiceover and titles -The holiday
I particularly like the titles and the voice over in this trailer. The titles appear over half of the screen on a white background which makes them stand out. Also when the appear the clip freezes and helps us to relate the titles to the film still. This is really effective and i would like to use this in our film if we can. I also like the voice over. This is used throughout the trailer to give us an idea of the storyline. This makes the trailer unique yet very effective.
Planning-Editing- voiceover
In the phonebooth where the voiceover worked successfully, the voice was of a middle-aged man with a deep voice. It worked well and created a creepy atmosphere. As a group we think we are going to challenge this and have the voiceover of a woman. We hope we can get a creepy effect from this difference.
We are trying to decide where to put the voiceover and what to say. Here are some of our ideas that we wrote down:
Life is one big game
you have to lie, cheat and steal to win
how would you play the game
its how you play the game that counts
one life, one game, one winner
there are no rules
We think at the start we might have a voiceover saying "life is just a game", and then at the end of the title sequence, "it's how you play the game that counts!" We think that this help suggest what the film is about and also leave it on a bit of a cliffhanger.
We are trying to decide where to put the voiceover and what to say. Here are some of our ideas that we wrote down:
Life is one big game
you have to lie, cheat and steal to win
how would you play the game
its how you play the game that counts
one life, one game, one winner
there are no rules
We think at the start we might have a voiceover saying "life is just a game", and then at the end of the title sequence, "it's how you play the game that counts!" We think that this help suggest what the film is about and also leave it on a bit of a cliffhanger.
Planning- dvd cover, film image
I have been experimenting with ideas of imagery for the dvd case of our thriller. I have created this picture on my computer to help give our thriller an identity.
Editing our title sequence
After uploading our shots on to the apple macs we were ready to put everything together.
We watched all of the shots and picked the best of each to go together. We also added stills of photographs we took into the sequence so that they looked like flashbacks. These flashbacks are in the red lighting to fit in with our colouscheme. One thing that we are playing around with are the transition effects. These are how we are getting from one part of the sequence to another. We particularly like the cross dissolve transition as it enables us to merge to images together withuout there being an obvious jump.
We watched all of the shots and picked the best of each to go together. We also added stills of photographs we took into the sequence so that they looked like flashbacks. These flashbacks are in the red lighting to fit in with our colouscheme. One thing that we are playing around with are the transition effects. These are how we are getting from one part of the sequence to another. We particularly like the cross dissolve transition as it enables us to merge to images together withuout there being an obvious jump.
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