Voiceover Ideas

Before Sophie done the voiceover, we thought it would be a good idea to note down all possible lines which we may have or which may sound good with our storyplot. As you can see from the picture below, we have just wrote all our possible lines in lists.

Storyboard

Before creating our short film, Sophie and myself created a story board so that we could plan the content to our film carefully and have a structured plan to follow when filming.

Recce Pictures

 
In the presentation above, there are pictures from the graveyard which I feel will create a good atmosphere for shooting our short film. In slide 5 'Grave Stone' slide, Sophie has mentioned about using a females grave stone considering was originally Lilly's mother who had previously died in the short film. We made some changes to this and thought it would be more suitable for the girls father to have died as it would make the girl seem more vulnerable as she wouldn't have a father figure in her life.

Practice clips

During class, we practiced doing some possible scenes, shot and ideas for our short film.

The Last Scene

We have decided to shoot the last scene in a cupboard at school as it can be changed to be dark and scary. We feel that if we create the right atmosphere that it will be successful in what we want to achieve. Obviously we are going to need to take the things off the shelves and the back of the door however we could just cover them with big sheets of paper in order to save time. Because this is in the school premises, it will not take long to record and we will have everything planned out ready. Sophie recorded this clip sitting down in a chair and as you can see, Mr Swains head gets cut out. To overcome this problem, I will be filming it behind Sophie so we still get a point of view shot howerver it will display everything that we need it to.
Another change that we would have to test is whether to have the classroom light on or off when filimg. When Mr Swain walks through the door you can see a lot of light from the classroom, which contradicts the feel and mood of the film. If we turned the light off, then it might make the scene more spooky and eery.
As well as this, we are thinking to have a shot of Sophie, tied and chained up sitting in the cupboard so the audience know what is happening to her and it just gives the story plot more context. Other thoughts we had was for Sophie to have masking tape across her mouth so when shes screaming and crying, it will be muffled and sound more paniced. We are uncertain as to whether there should be any dialogue in this scene as we want to limit speech as much as possible and focus more on voiceovers.
I will be filming this from the enterance of the door and maybe in a high angle position so Sophie still looks vulerable and inferior to whats happening.

Sky and Leaf

As mentioned in the treatment, we are looking to open the film with a fresh, green leaf falling for the sky, but slow motion edit it so it looks like it is floating/drifting down to represent a life; to help represent the happiness of a life we want the sky to be clear, blue and sunny - however as Autumn is coming, this may be hard to achieve so we filmed the sky incase there isn't another nice day. To close the story we want to contradict this idea however has a similar style. We want a dead, brown, crispy leaf to float from the sky as it connotes death and misery and we are planning to get the sky quite dark, gloomy and miserable to reinforce the idea of death. 

As it was too windy to film the leave falling from the sky, we practiced doing it inside and then was planning to edit out the ceiling, hands etc on final cut pro on the Apple Macs. This didn't really go to plan as the leaf fell to the ground too fast and we couldn't capture the direction of it traveling the way we wanted it to. 

We have had a few ideas on how to overcome this (fishing wire) however we are yet to put it into practice. 

Slow Motion Leaf

Just to get an idea of a leaf falling in slow motion, we edited this clip in Imovie, however it is not suitable for short film as it has yet to be edited on final cut pro and the view of the leaf falling is not to the best standard in which it should be in.

Textual Analysis - Cupcake

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mXH2x4EDYs

Camerawork
The pan that opens the short film gives the audience a clear indication of the setting and location of where the film is shot. There are a lot of low angle shots throughout the film of Cupcake which could portray ideas that she is in the superior role within this setting and in control. This shot also makes Cupcake look more sinister and evil which is reinforced by the lighting and atmosphere. When the camera is on the blonde girl, there are a lot of mid shots which could have been used to show her lying down and reinforcing the idea that she can't escape. As well as this there are several close up shots of her face which displays panic and distress.

Editing
I like the way the opening title has a dripping effect which could show connotations of blood dripping from the girl when Cupcake kills her.

Sound
The opening ambient sound is of a telephone ringing which portrays the reasoning of why the person is talking. The conversation which is happening on the phone is edited as a voiceover on the first cuts and the sweeping pan of the short film.
Sound effects are added when the blonde girl is trying to get out of being tied up and these are projected on flashes of her struggling.

Mise en scene
The lighting is quite low key during the film but especially when the evil happenings begin to take place. The dark, dull lighting makes the setting more creepy and spooky, creating the right mood for the story. Sometimes the only light is from the candles that Cupcake has lit.