Focus Group For The Absence

In this focus group, we showed participants our first draft of The Absence and the final draft of The Absence. We then proceeded to ask Mia and Ayoola questions on what they thought about each of the drafts, what we should have improved on and more.

Fourth Draft For Our Film

Third Draft For Our Film

Second Draft For Our Film

First Draft For Our Film

Narrative Progress

In this Emaze, we show how we have changed the final piece of The Absence in comparison to the story arc.

Production Diary

Title Change:

We decided to change the name of our film from 'Cat And Mouse' to 'The Absence'. This is because we felt that there was not enough thrill or fear in our title from Cat And Mouse, and we felt that this title was boring and would not entice our target audience into watching our film. By changing the title of our film to The Absence, it creates a sense of mystery and missing, which is what we are trying to portray in our film. We felt that this name goes better with our film altogether, as the idea from Cat And Mouse was that the antagonist was chasing the protagonist, therefore wanting to capture her, however, without knowing what happens in our film, this could mean anything to the target audience. On the other hand, The Absence conveys that someone within our film is absent (missing) which is the exact narrative that we have come up with. Just by hearing this title, it is easy to tell the genre of our film, more so than it was from the name Cat And Mouse. Overall, we are more content with the new film name, rather than the old as it fits our genre better.

Mise En Scene - Props

Mise En Scene - Costume And Hair And Makeup

Mise En Scene - Body Language And Facial Expressions

Mind Map created by Jody Cook with GoConqr

Test Footage Explaination

We decided to film test footage in order to get a better feel of different aspects of filming for the opening scene of our film. We also learned where we could potentially have gone wrong when actually filming for our film and therefore eliminated any mistakes, therefore the test footage formed as a sort of practice footage for us. We realised that by filming portrait on an iPhone created black lines and limited the amount of video you could actually see, therefore, from this we learnt that if we were to film on an iPhone we would need to film landscape rather than portrait. We then went back and filmed certain parts of our test footage again to correct where we went wrong.

In filming our test footage, we used camera angles and techniques which proved to work well for the effect we are going for in our thriller opening scene. We created some good shots and come up with a few that we are certain we can use in the opening to our film. Even though we did not go to the location we are going to film at, we went across to one of the possible locations when location scouting which was Shenfield Common as it is still a wooded area and creates a creepy effect. However, when filming for our actual film, we will be sure to go across to Thorndon to film the opening.

Editing Test Footage - Final Cut Pro

Test Footage Compilation With Edits

This video is a compilation of all the test footage we used (without the vlogs) put together, with different edits expressed over the top to give a show and variety of what we could use in our film. In this video different sound effects, transitions and effects will be shown which will indicate a taster of what could possibly come to be in our film.

 

Test Footage 6 With Production Diary

Test Footage 5 With Production Diary

Test Footage 4 With Production Diary

This is the fourth part of test footage we filmed. We again, added a vlog which explain why this footage was bad and not going to be used.

 

Test Footage 3 With Production Diary

This is the third test footage we filmed. We added a vlog at the end to explain why we used this test footage and why we liked it.

 

Test Footage 2 With Production Diary

Test Footage 1 With Production Diary

This is the first bit of test footage we done. We also added a vlog to explain the why we used this test footage, and why we liked it.

Script 2 (Narration)

Production Company Name (dissolve)

Fade in:

Billie (Narrating):

This is my story...

Rear of car drives in and parks up at Thorndon Country Park.

My name is Nicole Ann Smith. I'm a pretty and popular 17-year-old. But none of that matters; what matters is, how I'm still speaking.

Fade to black

Billie Ayres (typography)

Undoing seat belt, looks at herself in mirror. Checks if she is looking okay. Gets out phone and looks through twitter.

This was my mate. Olivia. 

Fade to black

Jody Cook (typography)

See's tweet urging people to look out for a missing girl (Olivia). Gets out of car and starts walking dog.

She was taken from us.

Fade to black

Todd Fletcher (typography)

She continues to walk.

By someone… or, something.

Walks and sees poster on the floor, ahead of her path there is a shoe

No one knew where she was, or what had taken her.

Dog runs off into the distance

But I saw something that day.

Nicole trips over, looks up and sees Olivia on the floor tied up with antagonist standing over her 

That wasn't… human...

Nicole:

OLIVIA!!!

Nicole gets up and runs away, antagonist chases her. Gets in car, drops keys by feet and sees antagonist in wind mirror 

AHHHHHHH!!!

Fade to black: Title name on screen (typography)

Use Of Sound

Trailer Music - In order to find a backing track for our film, my group listened to a variety of 'Royalty Free' sound tracks that fit our genre of Thriller. In the end, we come to a decision of using the 'Forsaken' trailer music track as it was the track that most fitted our genre and the feel of our film. The high pitched, almost lullaby gives a creepy solemn feeling, which is what we are going for in terms of how we want to make our audience feel. The length of the soundtrack is also convenient as it is 26 seconds longer than what we would need for the duration of our film to be, therefore if we want this soundtrack to play the whole way through our film, then we will be able to do so.

   

Dialogue - We have decided to change the dialogue which we wrote on our script as we think that the dialogue of narration over the top of the film will sound a lot better and create a more sadistic feel on our film. We have decided that Nicole (the main protagonist) will speak over the top of the film, and therefore narrate each scene that we have filmed, however she will be talking in the past tense, not the present which will  be seen on the film. The only diegetic piece of dialogue in this film will be when Nicole screams when she sees her friend Olivia tied to the tree.

Sound Effects - The only diegetic sound which will be in our film will be the sound effects of a variety of different things in order to make our film sound more realistic as there will be no actual dialogue in the film. We have decided to use heavy breathing in various places when Nicole will be running, and maybe even the sound of a heartbeat as this will make the film more tense. We will also use the rustling of leaves and other possible noises that would be conventional of noises from woods.

My Role Review