What I have been doing

I have finished my storyboard, which will be uploaded promptly.

I have also decided to look at my finished storyboard and script. With the deadline of all my courses fast approaching, and edit needs to begin fairly soon. I have been looking at making changes in the storyboard and script to perhaps make it more doable.

Various Videos which could aid in Camera Technique.

Match on Action

Videos that can help me.

Here are some videos which, if i decide to use the traditional ghost will help me create that spooky ghost effect.



Here is a video of how to create the fast moving car.



If I decide on any particular weather effects.

These are some videos in particular which could be very useful for my film, particularly the car crash sequence, this is how my protagonist will kill the antagonist by accident, the whole story revolves around this sequence, so I feel that it is important to get it right.

Sixth Sense 3rd Textual Analysis

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vc5B-ercdKE

Sixth Sense 3^rd Textual Analysis

This is the scene in which Cole, leaves the safety of his tent one night to go to the bathroom, Cole hears a noise coming from the kitchen in which he decides to investigate.

The sequence opens with a shot of Coles bedroom door, Cole slowly peers his head through, we already know of Coles emotional feelings, he is scared of the ghosts that may appear upon leaving the safety of his tent. The shot is a medium close up of Cole face and shoulders sticking out from the door.

As Cole fully steps into the hall way, we get a cut. This changes to a long shot down Coles hallway. This creates distance between Cole and the audience, showing us that Cole is alone. The only source of light in this sequence is coming from the safety of Coles bedroom. We know that Cole is hesitant to leave, because he is afraid of what he might see.

The camera stays fixed until Cole runs by into the dark bathroom. As he turns on the light the camera cuts to a shot looking into the bathroom, Cole faces away from the camera. There is no backing sound to the scene, the only sound we hear is Cole as he urinates, this is diegetic.

As Cole stands there for 5 seconds, we get a cut to a shot of a thermostat, the temperature is decreasing rapidly. It is a common convention that the presence of a ghost is cold and chilling.

We go back to a shot of Cole at the toilet, Knight brings us back to this previous scene, all the codes of the horror/drama have lead us to this point, were the audience expects something bad to happen, in this film Cole will interact with another ghost.

Needless to say after 4 more seconds stood at the toilet a ghost walks in front of the camera and past the doorway in which we can see Cole through. The movement of the figure is accompanied by the loud sound of a drum, this is a sound on action.

As the figure walks in front of the camera we get a medium close up of Cole face turning around as if he heard something. As he turns around we hear the sound of a stringed instrument, this is often used in the horror genre, a sound of tension and fear. Renown sound that was used in Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘Psycho’.

As Cole ventures into the hallway, the camera changes to a point of view shot, the camera is handheld as it slowly moves down the hall displaying Coles caution. The shot is also voyeuristic, the light at the end of the hall makes Cole look as if he is sticking in the shadows trying to hide as he ventures towards the ‘light at the end of the tunnel.’

As he moves down the hall, we hear the sound of various stringed instruments, which create a haunting sound. We are also now in the shoes of Cole. Before we the audience kept a distance from this character, but now what ever Cole suffers we will be with him.

As Cole moves down the hall, we cut to a shot of the kitchen, medium shot. As Cole fully enters the room he says ‘Momma?’. As soon as he says this we cut to a medium close up of the figure from the hall, as she immediately spins round to look at him. She appears to be badly beaten as she says something completely irrelevant to what Cole asked. Through use of shot reverse shot we see Coles terrified face as he looks upon the ghost.

Followed by a wide shot, displaying the ghost stood in the corner, fully body and also showing the kitchen. As the woman hysterically says “You cant hurt me anymore”.

Cut to a close up her wrists in which she has been, as we see them we get the high pitched screech from the string instruments.

The next shot we see Cole running back down the hallway towards his room, the safety of his tent which Is covered in religious ornaments and crucifixes. The camera follows as hand held moving closer towards him, which could be represented as the ghost moving in on him.

A cut to the dark as we see the ghost stood looking down the hallway as Cole closes the hatch on his tent. As it closes we are in darkness until Cole flicks the torch on, revealing his sanctuary, as soon as the light is switched on the music begins to fade, the stringed instruments are cut immediately, this symbolises how he is now safe from the ghost. We get a series off different shots of various ornaments in his haven.

The scene ends again using the sound bridge from the next scene which connect the two.

Sixth Sense 2nd Textual Analysis

This is a textual analysis of the party scene from the Sixth Sense In which Cole sear, the young boy in the film, is locked in ‘the dungeon’ my two boys at the party.

The sequence begins with a wide medium shot of Cole and another boy at the party facing each other, this is represented by profile shot. The profile shot already indicates a sign of confrontation between Cole and the other members of the party. Cole is a isolated character, always battling, whether its with his disbelieving mum or the other boys of his class, the profile shot shows a sign of confrontation. In this shot the first use of M. Night Shyamalan’s use of the colour red, a colour which is used throughout this film as a sign of danger. Within this scene the only character involved with Cole is the one that is represented in the profile shot, the one which is against Cole, the boy also doesn’t appear to be entertained by Coles efforts.

The next shot is one of Cole sat on the stairs, in the background his mother, Lynn and another parent are talking. Cole is separated by his mother and the other parent via bars, another way of showing how Cole is both separated and isolated from even his own mother. The 2 talk about Cole, how his ‘problem’ and lack of social standing doesn’t get him invited to a lot of parties, the last one being a year ago.

As the discussion develops the camera slowly zooms in on Coles face, as he looks up the stairwell, represented via a point of view shot to see a red balloon, once again with the use of colour.

The next shot, we see Coles shadow walking up the stairs towards the Balloon. As he walks up the stairs we see his feet, the red carpet, is shown in which Cole walks upon. We have diegetic dialogue of someone off screen talking, pleading for someone to open the door and let him out, “I cant breathe, if you can hear me open this door”.

A point of view shot from Coles point of view looking into a open door that leads into darkness. This shot is followed by a shot looking out of the dark hole at Cole stood on the stairs looking in, this time the voice is more aggressive “Open this door or ill break you”.

The camera looks down the stairwell at two boys, talking until one looks up and notices Cole at the top of the stairs, the boy explains that his dad made him invite Cole. The music begins, we have high pitched spaced sounds. The screech of a violin and other stringed instruments follow, similar to the sound of the theme associated with Jaws.

The next shot, one looking at Cole, as the two boys behind approach him.

Cole turns around to look at the two boys, the boys on either side of him, inter framing him within the scene. Cole wishes one boy happy birthday. We have a shot reverse shot for the conversation.

As the conversation develops, then decide that the boys are going to put on a pretend play, in which requires Cole to be trapped in the dungeon, the dark hole in which Cole can hear the voices off and is clearly afraid.

After the 2 boys drag Cole to the dungeon, we have a shot looking at the closed door, we hear Cole banging on it and screaming for them to let him out, his voice is muffled, as it is clearly being obstructed by the wooden door.

Another shot looking up the stairwell to the red balloon popping.

Coles mum is then seen looking up the stairs as she hears screaming coming from above. She walks up the stairs, the camera constantly above her, as she moves up the stairs, we see all the boys from this whole sequence, the boy which wasn’t amused by Coles magic trick and the two boys that locked him in the dungeon. She realises It is Cole trapped inside the dungeon, as she frantically tries to open the door. We have a line of bars behind her which can be symbolic to that she is trapped and cannot reach Cole, there is also a physical barrier between the two, the wooden door in which her son is trapped behind. We hear the child screaming from within.

The door opens, as she pulls him from inside the pace of the action goes in slow motion, this is to show the trauma of the incident, as the use of slow motion is often used in war films, when the camera witnesses something traumatic, for instance the use of slow motion in Steven Spielberg’s ‘Saving Private Ryan’ in which actor Tom Hanks witnesses the slaughter of his fellow troopers.

The scene ends with dialogue from a different scene over the top of the end of this scene, the dialogue is off a doctor, which is sure enough the next scene.

Half Term Tasks

Over the course of the week I will hopefully brng the planning of my video to a close

This will include:

Finishing of storyboard

Properly create script

Sort out props

More Textual analsis

Locations and actors.

What I have been doing this week. - Unfinished

Film script and storyboard draft

Opening shot. Interior. Inside a house darkly lit. Only half of body- rest behind, talking on the phone “Let me know when you hear anything, yeah, ok bye.”

4-5 seconds

Long black fade. Re fade to a close up of mouth talking into phone.

“oh my god, I,” character trembles covers mouth with phone in hand 10 seconds.

“I need to go” as person on phone ends the call another black fade.

Medium shot- character sat sobbing in the dark Head in Hands. Camera slowly pulls away from character, loosing focus then fade to black. 4-5 seconds

As fade to black comes again music begins.

Sound: Saint John – Cold war Kids. Faintly no lyrics

Whilst faded title flashes up. “Crash”, the words come up shaking as if they had crashed. 5 seconds the words “I’m sorry Tom she’s dead.”

Song finished.

 New shot EXT, establishing long shot of the college dining hall, through window from the outside. 2-3 seconds

Slowly moves in on character walking towards table. 10+ seconds

Close up, Int Camera quickly cuts to a shot of character sitting down at the table however the camera is place on the table. So we only see up to about the shoulders, maybe bottom of face. No full face reveal yet. – This is too show the character has lost identity from the accident. A “Sigh”, the character picks up the knife and fork then starts to cut up the food. 6-7 seconds

Close up, mouth eating the food very slowly, long pauses of eating. 5-6 seconds

Swallows food and puts down the knife and fork, before he drops his head into his hands. 4 seconds

Shot from behind him, wide shot- medium. Showing more of the room, perhaps empty or just show a distance between him and the rest of society. 3-4 seconds.

Back to the table, the camera place on it. The boy pushed the food away from him and gets up.  Head not revealed yet. 4-5 seconds.

Cuts to the bathroom scene. Black fade, then fades back in. 2-3 seconds.

Bathroom scene, people leave as he enters. The character walks past them with his head down, then walking into the stall. Camera follows him over his shoulder. Until he enters his stall 5-6 seconds.

Point of view shot from the inside of the closed stall, he looks around and up at the ceiling, then looks down into his hands as he turns them around and makes a fist with his right one then punches it into the palm of his left. 6-7 seconds.

He gets up after we hear a gulp, a indication of being sick. The shot starts as a first person, but as he gets up it seems to pull back over his shoulder, changing the shot to a over the shoulder shot. He walks towards the sink as the camera moves to the right of him, changing again into a profile shot of him hunched over the sink, gagging.

10-15 seconds.

If possible I want a reflection in the water, obviously the ripples may distort the reflection, then the character puts his hand in the water and cleans his face.

7-10 seconds

Then we have a close up of the characters face finally revealing them. The camera then zooms in on the eyes of the character. Extreme Close up 3-4 seconds.

As he blinks, we get a white cut which takes us to a flashback, I will use conventions of a flashback to portray this and make the viewers aware of this. Within the flashback we have the camera of the bonnet of the car or the dashboard looking at the driver. The driver/protagonist’s phone starts to ring. 10 seconds

Close up of phone ringing on the seat 1-2 seconds

Then a shot from were the phone is, as the driver looks down and reaches for it

2-4 seconds

Suddenly we have a shot of a girl, the camera moves towards her fast as she stands and shouts, this could be a silent scream as we can only hear the roar of the engine.

2-3 seconds

A shot of the driver as he puts his foot down, this is a medium close up 2 seconds.

As they collide we hear the crash, the screen fades to a shot of the boy with the girl, the boy desperately tries to communicate with her, however we do not hear him, only the sound of a heart monitor. The shot fades to white and back to a shot of the boys blinking eyes in the bathroom.       6-10 seconds.

The camera stays fixed on the boys eyes which blink rapidly until he is sick into the off screen sink below the camera. 3-4 seconds

A long shot of the character walking down the street towards the camera, the girl from the flashback walks towards him, her back to the camera, wearing the same clothes from the flashback.  5-6 seconds

As she walks past him we get a shot across the protagonist’s chest as he looks at her and she looks at him, blood on her face. 3-4 seconds.

The camera then rotates to the front of the character looking at the protagonist’s body as he stops and wonders. 2 seconds

We then go back to the long shot as he turns around and she is not there. 3-4 seconds.

2.40

This time a tracking shot of the character walking down the street, as he passed the bus stop we see the girl again this time our protagonist doesn’t see her. 5-6 seconds

The next shot is a medium close up of her face as she turns and looks at him, and then walks forwards and past the camera towards him. 2-3 seconds.

The next shot a medium shot of the protagonist walking towards us the girl is hidden from us because of him being in the way, but then she steps out from behind him and carries on walking towards us, following him. 4-5 seconds.

The next shot is a wide shot- similar to the style of the tracking shot, however the camera doesn’t move and the character walks of screen, the girl is gone, but we still have the boy in shot. 3-4 seconds

We then have a shot of a door, the protagonist walks onto screen and opens it. 3-4 seconds

As the door  opens we cut to a shot from inside the house, so he opens the door into the camera, he drops his bag and sighs, the door is still open in which we see the girl walk by in the background. 5-6 seconds

The boy closes the door and we get a fade. 2-3 seconds

The next shot is a medium shot of the boy laid on his bed looking up at the ceiling.

3-4 seconds

He looks towards the camera which is so his side – so he is looking into the camera. 2-3 seconds

We then get a point of view shot of the clock that he was looking at.1-2 seconds it reads 10pm.