Updates

This week my group and I are going to film and I'm super excited. I think we have all the materials and I really think our film is gonna look good. I can't wait to see how creepy the doll is going to look on camera and I know it's gonna make our short film look very realistic. I know we're filming really late but I still think our film will turn out really well and we had a lot of time to plan everything. The one thing I'm stressed about is the music for our film because the music company that I emailed for the rights to the song we want to use never emailed me back, so I don't think we'll have enough time to obtain the rights for the song. 

I really wanted to use the song Tonight You Belong To Me, but I think we will be able to find a similar royalty free song. Kylie's sister, Taylor, gave us a great website for royalty free music. The website is called Fesliyanstudios.com/royalty-free-music and it has a pretty good variety of songs so I know we'll be using this for our film. I've also been thinking about my CCR because I know I have to start that soon and I want to start it, but it's hard to make one when we haven't filmed yet, so I've just been thinking about how i'll record my CCR. I think I'm going to do a screen recording because those seem to be the best CCR's. I'm going to record my voice as I show clips from our film and I'm going to show the editing program we use, along with our website and postcard. I'm going to answer the CCR questions soon and make a script so that it'll be easier to record. 

Website

Since my group and I haven't filmed yet, we decided to start on our website and begin the research for it. We focused on horror films websites and I found that most of them are very simple, but they have a lot of nice visuals to attract consumers. I also noticed how most of the websites have the same themes as the films. The website for the movie Us has a split screen that shows the main character and her doppelganger, which is the main plot for the film and it is also very visually pleasing. The drop down menu is very simple and the website focuses on videos and clips from the film. 

Another website I found that has an interesting website is the website for the horror movie Annabelle.

This website is super simple, probably because the film hasn't come out yet, but it's really cool because it's very interactive and makes the mouse a flashlight that you can move around the screen and it shows the doll, Annabelle. I think this is super creative and I like how creepy it is.The homepage of the website has a pop up for the trailer of the film to promote it, but the website doesn't have a drop down menu. 

After looking at these websites I think that our website should have an interactive feature for promotion and it should be very simple. I want to have a small drop down menu that has a tab for character descriptions, a tab for a summary of the film, a tab for pictures or short videos, and a tab to buy tickets. I noticed how all these websites have links to their other social media accounts, so I think that's something that we should also include in our website. I think our website should focus on the doll to enhance the creepiness of the film and I want the website to be visually appealing to attract audiences.  

Inspired

So yesterday I saw the new horror movie called Us and it was amazing! Jordan Peele is someone who inspires me to make movies because all of his movies so far have been so well done and unique. Peele knows how to make a good horror movie and I think that's rare in today's world. When I finished watching the movie I realized that there were elements in the film that are like our short film and the movie inspired me to make those elements even better.

There's a huge plot twist at the end of the movie and that made me realize that it's still possible to use plot twists in a movie without it looking cheesy. The plot twist ends up making sense once you think about other scenes in the film and that's exactly what I want our short film to do. Peele left little hints leading up to the plot twist and the audience doesn't realize the hints until you think about them or rewatch the movie and our short film does that too because we're going to leave small hints that show that the doll is actually a person being held hostage. I want our short film to be something you have to watch twice in order to see the hints and I really hope we can achieve that.

Song rights

I had been struggling to find exactly who the song "Tonight You Belong To Me" was owned by, so today in class Joanne and I researched about the song and we think we found the label that owns it. The label is called Universal Music UK and luckily their contact information was easy to access on the website. We wrote and email and made sure to let them know that we are not using the song for profit and that it is just for our school project. I really hope that this is the actual label that owns the song and that they can help us get permission to use it. Below is the email that we sent to them.

Hello, my name is Taylor Wolf and I am a senior at Cypress Bay High School. I am currently in the process of creating a short film for my AICE Media Studies class. This project is worth half of my Cambridge final exam grade. I am interested in receiving permission to use the song “Tonight You Belong To Me” by Patience and Prudence. I would like for it to be played as the background music for my short film. I want to make it clear, that I will not be making profit off of this and it is purely for educational purposes. I will make sure to credit your label if given permission to use the song. The song would be in the background of our video, the video would be on our sample website and private YouTube page. Please contact me back when you have the opportunity. Thank you for you time.

- Taylor Wolf

Promotional photos

Yesterday we decided to come up with ideas for a promotional poster and ideas for our postcard so I went home and took a couple photos of the the doll. I realized how realistic the dolls eyes look so I made sure to focus on them while taking the photos and I really like the samples that Kylie made. The samples are very creepy and I like how simple they are. The last poster is probably my favorite because it shows how realistic the dolls eyes are. I'm excited to create our postcard because I know it's going to look really good.

Stressed out

Okay so my group and I were planning on filming before Spring break because we wanted to get ahead but we ended up not being able to because we kept realizing that we needed more information in order to film and time just got ahead of us. We were planning on filming this week but the three of us have a lot of school work to do and Kylie and I are going away for Spring break so that just makes things harder. I'm starting to get really stressed out because I know we need to film soon and I really want to because I'm excited to see how our film is going to look on camera.

Even though I'm stressed I know things are going to work out and we plan on filming right when spring break ends. Kylie has started our postcard and we're going to start working on the website so it's relieving that we've started on those portions of the project. We're using the website Wix for our website and I'm confident that it will look very good. Today I am going to take pictures of the doll so that Kylie can begin including the doll in the postcard and she's also going to create posters on Photoshop. We know what we are going to film, but I'm worried that we're not going to have enough footage for our film to be 5 minutes so I'm going to think of more scenes that we can use in our film. We still have to think about a couple more shots so I'm going to work on that

Rights for the song

Since I realized that I want to use the song Tonight You Belong To Me by Patience and Prudence, i've been trying to figure out how to get the rights to the song and I know it's a difficult process. I found this video, which sets out all the steps I need to follow.

First I need to figure out who owns the rights to the song and that's probably going to be hard because the song that I want to use has been remade and covered by so many people. It's a very old song so it has a lot of history and after looking at the song's Wikipedia page, I'm a little hazy on who I have to contact. I actually found out that the song was originally sung by a different artist, and Patience and Prudence re-recorded the song in the 1950's and that's when the song became popular. The song originally belonged to Banner Records, but the Patience and Prudence version was released by Liberty Records and that is now London Records. I think I have to contact London Records so I'm going to figure out how I can get in touch with them.

“Patience and Prudence.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 25 Jan. 2019, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patience_and_Prudence.

Changes in coloring

My group and I realized that there are some issues with the doll we ordered. The doll has red hair, and a bright green dress and me, Joanne, or Kylie do not have red her or a bright green dress so we realized this is an issue. This is a problem because we wanted the person who is being held hostage in our film to have similar features to the doll, so it wouldn't make sense if someone without green hair and a light green dress played the doll. We were thinking of ways to fix these issues and the only solutions we came up with were finding a red-haired actress or dyeing the doll's hair a darker color, but we do 't want someone who is not in our group to act because it's going to be hard to schedule filming with them and we are afraid that if we dye the dolls hair, it could ruin the doll. 

We also talked about just buying a light green dress but we really don't wanna spend anymore money on this project. Finally we realized that we can just make our film black & white. We think this will bring a unique aesthetic to our production and it will add to the eerie feeling that we want to create. It's a common convention for horror films to be shot in black and white because many old horror films from the 40's and 50's were shot like this. I also think that shooting in black and white allows for more artistic looking shots and I think it will inspire us to do something different with our film. I also think making it black and white will add to the darkness our or production. I think it would also be cool to make the blood in our film red to highlight that it's an important part of our story. 

Www.facebook.com/davidgeffinphotography. “Why It's Still Important to Shoot In Black And White.” Fstoppers, 3 Dec. 2014, fstoppers.com/education/why-its-still-important-shoot-black-and-white-48141.

Creepy Tunes

I decided that I wanted a really creepy song for our film so two days ago I began searching for one and I couldn't find any that I thought would fit our film until I remembered a song I heard on the show American Horror Story. The song is called Tonight You Belong To Me and it is performed by Patience and Prudence

This song would work perfectly in our film because oh my god it is creepy. I found out that many other shows have used the song due to it's creepy nature. The song has been used in American Horror Story, You, and Bates Motel; these are all dark shows with sinister themes, so this song works perfectly for a thriller/horror film. I kept imagining this song playing in our montage of our main character doing normal things with the doll because this song will make the scene super creepy and eerie and I think it will work really well. I can also see this song playing at the end of our film when we reveal that our main character was keeping someone hostage and I think it would be cool if the song led into the end credits.  I know that if I want to use this song I'm going to have to get the rights to it so I'm going to begin to research who I need to get in contact with to use it in our production.

Here is an example of the song being used in American Horror Story:

Schedule change/Planning

On Monday me and my group were supposed to start filming our project, but we decided not to because we need to plan more and finish more of our storyboard. We're going to try and film everything in one day so we need to figure out all the props we need. We decided to use duct tape to show that someone is being held hostage, so we're probably going to have to buy that. We also decided that the ending of our film will be the main character screaming at the doll and asking it to speak to her, so we're going to show her get very upset and frustrated and have her end up stabbing the doll and then have it transition and show that she actually stabbed the girl that she was holding hostage. Since we're going to film this scene, we need fake blood and I have a friend who has fake blood, so I asked her and we can use it!

Today in class we had some time to work in our groups so me and my group worked more on our storyboard. We worked on the scenes where the main character, Amber, is doing daily activities with the doll because we want to show how lonely she is. This whole scene is going to be shot kind of like a montage and I want to have a creepy song playing in the background.

Sound conventions

Sound plays a super important role in horror/thriller films and I want to use it to progress our story. I really enjoy natural sounds in a film so I think that we can use the natural/diegetic sounds of the environment when we film the scene where the main character is eating alone at a restaurant because she is going to be seen eating outside. I think the sounds of cars passing by and people chattering will emphasize how lonely our main character is and I think it will work really well.

This scene, from the movie Nocturnal Animals, is an example of what I'm picturing but without the music in the background. The scene has diegetic sounds of a restaurant, you can hear people speaking, silverware clanking, and the waiters seating guests.

Since our film has horror conventions I know that we're going to need to use stings and loud noises if we want to create a sense of fear and suspense. The stings will make certain scenes very intense and the audience will be very anxious to see what happens next. I definitely want to use stings for the scenes where the doll is in one place and then our main character finds her in another place. I also want to use suspenseful music when there's just shots of the doll because it will make the doll creepier and show that something's off. I also want to use sound in scenes where it's very silent and then a small noise or loud noise is heard to scare the audience.

This scene from the movie, The Boy, shows examples of intense music when the doll is shown and it shows how silence is used to create suspense.

Location and filming

On Monday my group and I plan to tart filming because we want to film early and we need to film earlier because Kylie won't be in Florida for spring break, so we're going to try and get all the filming done before then. On Monday we're going to film the opening scene, which is the main character, Amber, eating alone at a restaurant. For this scene we decided that it would be easy to film outside of Panera because we'll have a lot of space to film and we'll be able to get a shot from across the street of the restaurant to show Amber eating alone. We want to emphasize how lonely she is, so we're going to do a medium hot of her eating from the side and then'll we're going to cut to a long shot to show how isolated she is.

Our other location is going to be at Kylie's house because most of our film takes place in a house. On Monday we're also going to try and film some scenes at Kylie's house because we need to shoot the scenes of Amber being alone in her home and we need to show how she does various things around her house with the doll. We're also going to try and film subtle hints to show that the doll is actually a person and Kylie has a lock on one of her doors, so this can be a hint that someone is being locked in a room. We're going to film as much as we can and I can't wait to see how the footage turns out.

Getting the perfect doll

My group and I knew that getting a doll would be an obstacle for us because we knew that we wanted a really creepy one to make our film more realistic. At first we thought that we could just go to a thirst store and find a cheap one, but we were worried that we wouldn't find one creepy enough for our film. Fining a creepy doll is really important for our story because we want our audience to be frightened and we want it to to feel realistic, so getting a creepy doll would actually scare viewers and it would make sense that our main character would eventually become afraid of the doll. We needed a doll to fit the mood of our film.

We talked about the type of doll we could get like a porcelain one or a rag doll and we decided that porcelain would probably be best because those are usually the creepiest. We also talked about how we wanted our doll to look realistic and not have cartoonish features. We referenced the doll from the film The Boy because that doll is super creepy and it looks very realistic. We began to search for a doll on Amazon, but all of the realistic looking dolls were super expensive and we couldn't afford them. I remembered the website Etsy and thought we could probably find a cheap and realistic looking doll on that site because most of the items on it are handmade and usually not too expensive. After searching for a little while I finally found two really creepy dolls. The seller of the dolls is called HauntedYardSale and they sold creepy and realistic looking dolls for pretty cheap prices. The seller named the dolls Carrie and Tatianna and I thought they were perfect for our film. We decided to buy Tatianna because it was cheaper than Carrie, but the doll is still super creepy looks very realistic. Tatianna's pictured on the top and Carrie's on the bottom.
                                                                                       

 

                                   

Starting the story board

Yesterday Joanne, Kylie, and I started our storyboard and it made me super excited to film! So far we've thought of really cool shots that we want to do and I can't wait to see how it looks on camera. I've been trying to come up with cool shots that we can use and I want to use a lot of different types of angles. I imagine our film to have a dark look and I hope the shots show how eerie our story/film is. So far we've made sure that most shots show the main character being alone and isolated because we want the audience to really see that she's longing for human interaction. We decided to have our first scene show the main character eating alone at a restaurant and we want her to look longingly over at a couple eating together because we think that this really shows how lonely she is. Our drawings aren't the best but here's the start to our storyboard.

Research on Thrillers

So since my group and I are doing a thriller movie, we're going to need to research the conventions of thrillers and how they are filmed and edited.

I know that many thriller movies use unique camera movements and I would like to incorporate a lot
of dutch angles and different type of tilt shots. I want the shots to make our audience feel uneasy and like something weird is happening in our film. I also want to try and use tracking movements because I know those usually look really nice. We plan on using a lot of close ups because that can cause discomfort and I want to use high and low angles.







Sound is a really important part of the thriller genre because it helps to create suspense and intensity. When a scene is very suspenseful, the music indicates that the scene is leading up to something big which informs the audience. Intense music puts audiences on edge and makes them anxious for what's going to be revealed. Loud diegetic noises usually work to frighten audiences and I definitely want to try this in our film. I also want  to have scenes that just have the sounds of environment and I think we also need a lot of silent scenes so indicate that our character is alone and isolated.

We've also been thinking about mise-en-scene and how our film has to look. I know I want it to look dark, but not too dark so that you can't see what's happening. Most thrillers have a dark color palette because that relates to the dark story lines of thriller films. We plan on filming our protagonists in empty places so emphasize that she's alone, so we're gonna try and have shots of her to the left or right to show show that she has no one by her side. We're also going to use low-key lighting to create that sense of eeriness.

Editing also plays a key role in thriller films and I really want to focus on the editing of our film. Most thriller films have fast paced editing and I want to use a lot of eyeline matches because I think that will help with the creepiness of  our story.

Mac, Lauren. “Conventions of the Thriller Genre.” MindMeister, 14 Apr. 2016, www.mindmeister.com/685037204/conventions-of-the-thriller-genre.

Outline

Title: Pupa


Underlying message: Loneliness will drive people to do crazy things


Main character-Amber (Female):


Lonely:

In the house by herself 

Getting upset that she lacks a lot of human interaction

Watching TV by herself

Walking by herself

Has a dog to try to cure her loneliness


Summary: Amber is a very lonely individual who operates independently in everything she does. She is very awkward when she does converse with people, and feels most comfortable at home. She even got a dog to try to cure her loneliness, but it didn’t work because she is truly lacking human interaction. She has a doll that she has had since she was little. This doll is creepy looking, and seems to randomly disappear. Amber becomes scared when the doll seems to have a mind of its own. Amber hears noises in her house and even her dog starts barking at nothing. One day when she walks into her room, the doll is sitting on her bed staring at her. Amber is very scared and runs out of her room, but the doll then appears in the living room where Amber ran to. Throughout the film, there are shots of the doll being there, then a girl who is tied up and looks scared. At the end of the film we find out that the doll is what Amber is hallucinating, and the doll is actually someone Amber kidnapped. Amber kidnapped this person to combat her loneliness, by forcing someone to be her friend. The film ends with Amber finally realizing that the doll is really the person she captured.


Schedule:
Next class: Storyboard

Film hopefully by next weekend

Improving our story

Me and my group, Joanne and Kylie, were struggling to come up with a solid idea and I think that's because we didn't have a concrete message that our short film will lead up to. We weren't sure how we would clearly portray the doll moving and we needed ideas on how to show that the doll is an actual person. Today we met with other groups to help us improve our projects and stories and I think it helped my group a lot. The group that I was with told me that they like our idea, but that we need to realize that our film is only 5 minutes so we have to think of how to fit everything in our time limit. The group also told me that we need a lot of scenes that portray the girl being really lonely and how she's very close with the doll. They told me that the plot twist should be subtle, but subtle enough for the audience to understand that the doll is actually a girl that the main character kidnapped, and I think we can think of really cool ways to reveal the plot twist. The group also told me that the plot twist should just involve revealing that the doll is a girl and it shouldn't be that the main character destroys the doll and as a result kills the girl who's being held captive.

 Joanne, Kylie, and I thought that it would be a good idea to hear sounds throughout the house when the main character thinks the doll is haunted, because that can be a subtle hint that there's an actual person in the house and we also decided that our message is that loneliness can drive people to do crazy things. We also want to do POV shots of the doll because that acts as another hint that the doll is an actual person. Joanne found out that the latin word for doll is Pupa so we're probably going to use that as our title and I really like that title. I'm really exciting to start our storyboard and plan out the shots.