Newspaper - Chloe McGlinchey

Whilst Hannah and Gareth were starting on the editing of the bits of filming we had done, myself and Matt thought we would make our newspaper prop for some car scenes. As our film is being based around more social realism as we have gone on we have encountered using "Tiredness Can Kill" slogan if you like. We had been researching articles and images on the internet and in the end we had produced the above. To make it more newspaper like we will cut and stick what we have done on to a previous newspaper to make it more realistic.

Chloe McGlinchey

Lights, Camera, Action!

Camera Shots

With our filming, we decided as a group that the shots we took for our film, looked better when the camera was hand held. We felt that this gave the shots we took a different feel to them. We also thought that we would be able to show the footage from the characters point of view, and what he can see. We felt this way would make it feel more realistic and with a slight shake, to add to the tension that he feels throughout, but some shots are made with a tripod. All of the driving/car scenes used a tripod as there is already a lot of movement in the shots.

Matt, Gareth, Chloe & Hannah

Technology Discussion - Gareth Allen and Chloe McGlinchey

The camera that we started to film with for our short film was a camera of poor quality when it came out on the computer. This meant that we needed to use a camera with higher quality, a mini DV camera was used. Once we put this onto the computer, we found that there was a drastic change in the quality of the shots we had filmed.
We did try some different angles when it came to filming. We tried doing shots from on the ground to only show the characters feet. This didn't give away who the characters were and what they were doing except they were moving. We did this also for a match on action shot of Matt getting out of his car. We are also going to try and create a split screen with the sets of footage that we filmed at the same time.
From our work last year, we have found that we have developed other ways in which the camera can be moved to keep the focus on people in the film. For one of our shots, we went on a footbridge that overlooked a road near our filming location. We used a tilt for watching Matt driving his car under the bridge. This was an improvement from last year as we only used a pan movement for the camera.
We found that most of the shots that we came up with in the planning part of this project we were able to produce. This was good as it meant that we didn't need to think about how we were going to create some shots.

Gareth Allen and Chloe McGlinchey

Deadline Feedback

More Filming...

Wednesday 17th & Friday 19th February 2010

More filming was completed on the two days stated above. Although two members of the group were unable to attend due to work commitments, the other two members of the group found parts of the filming which could be done with just the two of them.
Most of the film is quite hard to do with just the two people, so these parts were left to do when another if not all of us were there.

Matt Bull, Gareth Allen, Hannah Sell & Chloe McGlinchey

Filming Continued...

Monday 15th February 2010

Today we produced more of our film and tried to complete as much of it as we could.
Whilst deciding on the parts of the film we were going to film, we found another location along with the others named, that adds another variety of action in the film along the road of Parish Lane, near the scrapyard itself.
Once completed that filming, we decided as a group, due to the fact that the scrapyard in which we are using is only accessable at an earlier time than we want, we have added a dream element to the story which will enable us to use the scrapyard in more daylight as though it has already happened and therefore not battling with light problems.

Matt Bull, Gareth Allen, Hannah Sell & Chloe McGlinchey

First Day of Filming - 9th February 2010

Today (9th February) we started on filming for our final project.
Due to the demands our film has of setting, we did have to wait a little bit for the right light for us to film in, as when we originally arrived, it was too light.
This isnt the only time we are planning to film. Due to many members of the group being unavailable for the rest of this week (wednesday, thursday, friday and the weekend), we have decided to continue filming as much as we can on Monday 16th February, and probably all of that week as well.

Matt Bull, Gareth Allen, Hannah Sell & Chloe McGlinchey

Mentioning on "Mixtape" Director (Luke Snellin) Blog

http://lukesnellin.co.uk/?p=841#Comments

Film Production Logo - Gareth Allen, Matt Bull, Chloe McGlinchey and Hannah Sell

These are a selection of different film production logos that certain film production companies have. We think that these designs are ones that we are thinking we might use with our own Ninjabread Film Production company. The 'Tough Monkey Productions' seems to be a good logo for us as it uses a picture as the main part of the logo. This is what we have thought in our initial ideas for our logo. We have also thought that we will put the title of our film production company underneath the picture. This is the same layout as the one of 'Tough Monkey Productions' and also of 'Gutz Film'.

Gareth Allen, Matt Bull, Chloe McGlinchey and Hannah Sell

Existing Thriller Film Posters (Ideas) - Matt Bull

These existing thriller film posters are similar to the idea I have for our film poster, with the inclusion of a figure of the main character as the stand out piece. Although all of these 8 films are American thrillers, they are all based on focusing on the main character. I am also trying to incorporate an image in the background of a significant event of the film (not decided at this time).

Matt Bull

Existing Film poster Idea's - Chloe McGlinchey

This montage of films is a mix of thriller and social realism. The majority of the thriller posters use a lot of red and black which to me suggests a fairly dark and twisted story. Though the posters I have chosen are not very colourful they still catch the audience's eye. They are very effective and give a subjective view towards the film. The film posters are quite simple yet they are very well thought out and are as well eye catching.

Exsisting Thriller Film Posters - Gareth Allen

These films all have the genre of thriller in the film. Each of these posters include the main characters, but some of them only show one character on the poster. This could be so that it doesn't give away anything about the film with the people involved. They all do different things with the text of their film title. Some have the title at the bottom of the poster, others have it at the top and one has it covering the whole poster. The posters on the whole use dark colours except for one of the posters.

Gareth Allen

Existing Thriller & Social Realism Film Posters (Ideas)- Hannah Sell

These are examples of some existing Thriller and Social Realism Film Posters. The Social Realism Posters use more colours like oranges and black and white they all also show the characters in the film on them. Whereas the Thriller posters use darker colours like reds blacks and blues and more shadow to create a more tense feel. These are useful to our research as we plan to combine a mixture of the two genres.

Hannah Sell

Exsisting Social Realism Film Poster Ideas - Gareth Allen

These are all Social Realism films that have been out in the U.K. All of these posters include the main characters from the film, which is what I am thinking of doing for the poster of our film. All of these posters seem to have other people in the poster (except Take Out). In our poster for our film, we are hoping to include not just the main character in the poster, but hopefully some other characters.

Gareth Allen

''Billy Elliot'' - Film Review - Hannah Sell

Billy Elliot is by far the most honestly told depiction of middle boyhood I've seen in years, if ever. I was in joyful tatters at the end of this story of a boy struggling to stay true to his calling in an anguished northern English mining town circa 1980. Every working class character in this film is written and uncompromisingly played with great love and understanding of both family and class hardship. Personally I view this film as the finest piece of British "intimiste" cinema I've seen since Mike Leigh's "Secrets and Lies". Yet it has epic elements as well. Billy's personal story unfolds while his home town is occupied by uniformed British strike control forces.

This is a tale of inter-masculine struggle in a family and mining town almost devoid of (and yearning for) a balancing feminine presence. Billy's gift is slowly awakened in this stressed and violent male crucible. His relationships with his brother, his father, his genderally confused classmate, and his teacher all grow increasingly charged as the movie develops. For honesty and presence, Jamie Bell as Billy far surpasses Haley Joel Osment's debut in The Sixth Sense. And if that's not enough, Julie Walters, Gary Lewis and Jamie Draven as Billy's teacher, dad and brother are all heartbreakingly portrayed. All are perfectly cast and at the very top of their form.

After all these characters have passed through the warzone of the first and second acts, director Steven Daldry delivers perhaps the most perfectly executed third act I have seen in a family centered drama from England or elsewhere. There are countless insightful decisions Daldry makes in the course of this film that other directors will study for years to come. But they're all brought to touching and masterful closure in the third act segments.

Kudos to scenarist Lee Hall for an excellent script. It should also be noted that many of DP Brian Tufano's beautifully composed shots match those of the great Chinese and Italian cinematographers. The film is brash in its musical style and forthright in its language. It is a film of specifics and the locale is not dressed up. And unlike many other local color films from England since 1985, this film has a strong, eminently compassionate narrative spine. Many audience members in the show I attended were immobilized and overcome in their seats during credits.

Despite frequent profanity, boys 11 and up should be allowed to see Billy Elliot, if only to keep them from abandoning hope. If it helps even one oppressed and confused boy keep an ear to the faint voice within that might just be his true calling, this film will have been worth every dollar spent in its making. A truly uplifting film.

Review completed by Orson5 on IMDB, Directed by Stephen Daldry

Hannah Sell

"M" - Film Review - Matt Bull

"M" is a cinematic masterpiece of visual drama. The stunning performances define the careers of exceptional actors such as Peter Lorre and Gustaf Grundgens. Director Fritz Lang gives depth and dimension to his production by distinctly capturing the ecstasy of the film's many characters and focusing accurately on individual situations. This is an intriguing journey into the mind of a psychotic child murderer, blending terror, complexity, and malignity in one amazing motion picture.

Screenwriters Paul Falkenburg and Adlof Jansen construct the characters of "M" with distinctive personalities and three dimensional emotions. Many lesser filmmakers give their characters no creativity outside the confines of the script. In this movie each individual character has a mind of their own; they are free to roam the landscape of a inviting atmosphere.

Fabricating such an impressive atmosphere is some of the best cinematography and lighting effects that I can remember watching. This resplendent component creates the film's terrific moody ambiance. Suspense is one thing "M" contains in full context. The movie's third act is sheer peak-high tension.

Shot in black and white, "M" stars Peter Lorre as Peter-Hans Beckert, an extremely disturbed child murderer in the process of wreaking havoc on a neighborhood. Parents everywhere are living in fear of their children being kidnapped and abruptly annihilated.

This picture contains a brilliantly crafted setup. The visual setting creates a strongly developed opening. Every scene works to either complicate the initial problem or propels the story through a firm narrative through line.

The film captures the chaos of the town in terror perfectly. "M" is more about the results of a serial killer than an actual serial killer. Never do we directly witness a murder; the violent encounters are implied. This method of film making perhaps makes the movie's impact even greater. With an creative perspective through a third person point of view, the filmmakers repeatedly give us examples of a solid structure through characters and occurrences.

"M" offers a unforgettable, challenging performance by Peter Lorre. This extraordinary actor is tormenting and disturbing without embracing in extreme violent conduct. He perspires with momentum and rapture. This productions closing scenes are so deeply penetrating they entirely captivate the viewer. Isn't this what movies are supposed to do?

Review Completed by an IMDb user Blake French, Directed by Fritz Lang

Matt Bull

'Se7en' - Film Review - Gareth Allen

Seldom does a film elucidate the culpability of our culture,of our society, in the mayhem and madness we often find in everyday life. According to Se7en, our culture is drifting through darkness. The mouthpiece for this thematic undercurrent is Somerset, a literate man who also happens to be a detective, a man who can read a clue ("This isn't going to be a happy ending") or Dante's Inferno with equal aplomb. He even provides the film's final thematic statement with a quote from Hemingway. His quirkiness, perhaps the outgrowth of a brilliant mind, is no worse than that of any prophet or seer of old, those harbingers of Biblical insight whom others always find kooky and offbeat. He is not well loved for his cynical, pessimistic outlook (such that his consuming motivation is to retire and get out of town). However, by the end it becomes clear that it is Somerset who sees our dark world with the prophet's particular clarity. (It is left to his partner Mills to find this out the hard way).

Working on us to reinforce this world as Somerset sees it is the film's astounding mise-en-scene, a disturbing film-noir setting developed by director David Fincher and cinematographer Darius Khondji. Flashlights barely illuminate the slimy walls of the roach-infested tenement of one victim and the dark bedroom of another. Rain pours down in buckets. Bird's-eye-view shots of downtown (the city is never named- a generic, everyman's kind of place) show dingy, sooty rooftops and grimy streets. Only the film's closing scene is in bright sunlight, which by then only serves as ironic counterpoint to what we see happening.

This is Somerset's vision; both inhabited and described by him. He finds a surprising fellow traveler in, not his partner, but the elusive killer John Doe. Doe shares the vision and provides an unsettling echo to the rumblings and teachings of Somerset. If one looks at life through the Somerset lens, one must admit that John Doe has a valid point. He and Somerset have arrived at the same conclusion, the difference between them being how they have responded. (Somerset longs to escape to some otherworldly realm in the country. Doe has taken action.)

Though gripping and fast moving, this is not an action film. It holds our interest through the workings of horror and mystery: a stark, film-noir detective piece. Except for one tense pursuit through halls and alleys in pouring rain, as well as the bit of ending action, there is surprisingly little violence. We see each murder, save two, after the fact, as a crime scene. This only makes the final act that much more suspenseful.

This is a very tight film. Elements within: dialogue, actions, lighting, setting, all of these tend to reinforce one another to paint a solid picture. It is a perverse logic that makes the final and seventh sin complete perfectly the circle of events begun with the first.

This is the film review that an IMDB member wrote (John Pevoto) for the film 'Se7en' by David Fincher.

Gareth Allen

"This Is England" film review - Chloe McGlinchey

Plot
July, 1983. School’s out and 12 year-old Shaun (Turgoose) falls in with an amiable gang of skinheads and mods. Then National Front nut Combo (Graham) arrives on the scene, and being a little skinhead suddenly becomes far more than a fashion statement...

Review

Opening with a channel-hop montage that flips between images of Roland Rat, Knight Rider and one-time aerobics doyenne the Green Goddess, the first few seconds of This Is England suggest that Shane Meadows’ latest is just another exercise in first-base ’80s nostalgia and cultural-reference cheapshots. But then the hopper’s finger rests briefly at some distressing footage from the Falklands War before settling on shots of National Front marches and sneering skinheads. This isn’t a movie about nostalgia, Meadows makes clear. This is the ’80s as painful memory.

It's an era of pebble-dashed terraces, mushy-pea-green woodchip wallpaper and illiterate racist graffiti. Much like the ’80s we saw in Alan Clarke’s pugilistic social-realist cinema, and Meadows’ latest certainly owes something to Clarke’s Made In Britain. But, crucially, it owes more to Meadows’ childhood — specifically one life-changing event — and it’s this that powers This Is England’s bruising emotional impact.

If it has one weakness, it’s that the same event has influenced Meadows’ previous work; if you’ve seen the curiously neglected A Room For Romeo Brass or the chilling Dead Man’s Shoes, you’ll quickly sense where This Is England is going way before Meadows’ deft tweaking of the tension provides its own signpost. His work is preoccupied by weak-centred bullies — idiosyncratically charismatic personalities who elbow their way into his protagonists’ lives under the cover of friendship and unsettle the status quo; and This Is England utterly conforms to the blueprint.

Yet such predictability is superseded by the sheer quality of the performances. As thin-lipped, bulldoggish boot-boy Combo, Stephen Graham (Snatch, Gangs Of New York) joins Tim Roth and Russell Crowe as actors who’ve turned what should be purely hateable racist thugs into complex signature performances. Then there’s newcomer Thomas Turgoose, who, through intense workshopping, has moulded the character of Shaun through as much his own experience as Meadows’. Pinch-faced and awkward but brimming with prepubescent swagger, he’s the film’s shining core and we’ll be amazed if you see a better, more naturalistic child performance this year.

Verdict

Deeply impressive, as both a recreation of ’80s working-class England and an intimate tale of one childhood’s brutal end.



This was a film review from Empires' film reviews online.
http://www.empireonline.com/reviews/reviewcomplete.asp?DVDID=117705
By Chloe McGlinchey

Title Ideas & Colour Scemes for Poster/Review - Matt Bull

These are our initial ideas for the title and colour scheme for our short film. We have not made a final decision on which yet, but will decide once the group have got together and discussed which is best for the use in the film, on the posters, and magazine reviews.

Matt Bull

Film walk through and planning - Hannah Sell and Chloe McGlinchey

On the 02/02/2010, we have planned to go down to our location and do a walk through of shots that we wanted to include, and take out or add new shots we think may work. We will also work out our angles and camera shots, with this we will take photos so this can give us a brief reminder of what we wanted to do.

Genre Research - Matt Bull & Gareth Allen

Thriller:

• Thriller is a broad genre of literature, film and television that includes numerous and often overlapping sub-genres. Thrillers are characterized by fast pacing, frequent action, and resourceful heroes who must thwart the plans of more powerful and better equipped villains.
• If the genre is to be defined strictly, a genuine thriller is a film that relentlessly pursues a single-minded goal - to provide thrills and keep the audience cliff-hanging at the 'edge of their seats' as the plot builds towards a climax. The tension usually arises when the main character(s) is placed in a menacing situation or mystery, or an escape or dangerous mission from which escape seems impossible. Life itself is threatened, usually because the principal character is unsuspecting or unknowingly involved in a dangerous or potentially deadly situation. Plots of thrillers involve characters which come into conflict with each other or with outside forces - the menace is sometimes abstract or shadowy.

Top 5 Thriller Films:

1. The Godfather (1972) - Dir. Francis Ford Coppola
   
2. The Godfather Pt II (1974) - Dir. Francis Ford Coppola
3. Pulp Fiction (1994) - Dir. Quentin Tarantino
   
4. The Dark Knight (2008) - Dir. Christopher Nolan
   
5. Rear Window (1954) - Dir. Alfred Hitchcock
   

Social Realism:

• Social Realism is normally expressed in the visual and other realist arts, which depicts social and racial injustice, economic hardship, through obvious pictures of life's struggles; often depicting working class activities as heroic.
• "Better than any other genre, social realism has shown us to ourselves, pushing the boundaries in the effort to put the experiences of real Britons on the screen, and shaping our ideas of what British cinema can be. While our cinema has experienced all the fluctuations in fortune of Hollywood's first export territory, realism has been Britain's richest gift to world cinema." Richard Armstrong
  

Top 5 Social Realism Films:

1. Last Resort (2000) - Dir. Pawel Pawlikowski
2. Burning An Illusion (1981) - Dir. Menelik Shabazz
3. Life Is Sweek (1990) - Dir. Mike Leigh
4. My Childhood (1972) - Dir. Bill Douglas
5. Rita, Sue & Bob Too (1986) - Dir. Alan Clarke

The reason why we have chosen these two genres to be incorporated in our film due to the aspect that both have areas in which our film is based on. Giving it suspense and tension as well as being in a real life situation.

Matt Bull & Gareth Allen

Thoughts for Film title - Hannah Sell & Chloe McGlinchey

As a group we thought we would go for a one word film title as we thought it may be more effective. We came up with a few ideas; going from the help of everyday words then using a thesaurus to find a more in depth meaning to the word and using that.
Here is a list of our ideas:

• Oneirology
• Dillusion
• Disambiguation
• Hypnopomic
• Paresthesia
  
• Somnipathy
• Narcolepsy
• Parasomnia
• Insomnia

After a heated group discussion 3/4 of our group agreed on to call the film "Narcolepsy" however one member (Gareth Allen) disagreed as he wanted to call it "Disambiguation". After talking to him and asking for pros and cons for this name, he did in fact come to the agreement to call this short film "Narcolepsy".

We have decided to rethink our title and keep it to something simple. After a group rethink we have decided to change out title to thr3e. We have decided to call it this as three significant event happen to our main character in our film he also sees three figures in the scrap yard.