Christmas Holidays

We are now off school for Christmas break for two weeks! Our plan over the holidays is to attempt to finish our shot list for our film and also a filming schedule.

Equipment

We will be using a digital camera similar to the
photo on the left. We may need two digital cameras to capture two different angles of a shot.
The advantage of these is that you can carry them around easier and they are not heavy to hold, therefore improving the steadiness of hand held shots.

We also are using two tripods to hold our cameras on instead of doing all hand-held cameras. This is to improve the steadiness of the shot.

We may be able to use a dolly for certain scenes where we want to create the illusion of following, which is helpful as our film is about stalking and following. We will need only one of these.

-Sophie

Updated Gantt Chart

Gantt Chart


Since we began our project, we have continually updated our gantt chart. So far this has helped us to keep the work equally contributed between us, making the work easier to finish on time with everyone's take on it.
-Sophie

Location Scouting

As a group we discussed the key places to shoot the first two minutes of our film. These included Chelmer Valley High School, around the school in Broomfield and also in Chelmsford town. We took pictures so we could easily explain the concept of our idea. To begin with, below, we have images of the school itself and locations around the establishment.

Here is an image of a stairway inside Chelmer Valley, we would use this location to show Katie perhaps following or watching Mr Jones. The stairway itself is rather old and worn looking, giving the effect in the film that it is actually a school environment. In the film, either a lot of school children will be rushing down these stairs or the scene will be focused on Katie and Mr Jones.

This location is a long pathway leading into fields and a forest, it is literally one minute away from the high school. The location pictured is ideal for our film as it can give off a sense of horror and fear in certain light. The pathway is next to the school fence on the right and has a small ditch on the left hand side. Katie will be seen following Mr Jones down the pathway on one occasion whilst he is on his way home.


This image shows the other end of the path, with the school fence. This time you are able to see the school fields from up there. This is the same location as above and we will use it to show Katie continuing to follow Mr Jones. As it will be winter when we film, the bare trees and muddy ground will make the location seem dirty and as a whole, not very safe.

Here is the field and path that follows after the previous pathway. The gravel path shown in this location has been key in our minds as when we have both Katie and Mr Jones walking along, we should be able to hear the crunches of the gravel. We feel this will be highly effective as it will give the scene more of a horror effect, with diegetic sound effects. As the location is rather bare, the focus will be entirely on our characters emphasizing the situation at hand.

This image shows a spare room in Hazel's house, we will be using the room as Katie's bedroom for our film. We will clear as much as we can from the room, not including the tumble dryer, this will be covered with a white sheet. In the room, there is already a spare mattress, we could use this as Katie's bed to show that she may be deprived. Other than the covered tumble dryer and the spare mattress, the room will be bare.

This image shows a part of Chelmsford town, although it is not in the centre. The road shown is nearby the central park and a few shops as well as a few bus stops. The reasoning behind this particular location is that we would be able to travel from one location to another easily enough to get our film prepared quickly. Another possible location for our film is also near this road, a cafe called 'aCanteen' where both Tamer, our chosen Mr Jones, and Hazel our group member both work. Filming here would be an appropriate location as well as being easy to get to.

Here is the outside of 'aCanteen', it is a cafe on the outskirts of the town centre. Whilst filming here we will have to make sure that it is not busy, because although it may be on the outskirts, it is still rather popular. The inside of the cafe is rustic and family friendly, so it will seem more like the place Mr Jones would like to visit. As we can all get the bus or even walk to 'aCanteen' it would be ideal for our scene with Mr Jones and his friends.

Final Cast

As a group, we looked through our auditions and decided and thought out who would be best for each role in our film. We looked at points such as:

• Appearances closest to the ideas we had about the character.




• Dramatic performances and being able to adapt to the conceptions of Katie. So we looked especially at the A-Level Theatre Studies class for these.




• The availabilty to film. So whether their free periods coincided with our Media Lessons and also would be available to film during lunches, breaks, after schools and weekends and will be 100% commited.

We looked at three girls, as we have stated before; Jennifer Pike, Hannah Blakemore and Rachel Short. For Katie we have decided to cast Jennifer (Jenni) Pike. With furthur group discussions today we have decided to cast the other two girls as a "Star Pupil Of The Week". Below are photographs of our female cast.

Jennifer (Jenni) Pike.

Jenni is a member of the Theatre Studies class, of which Sophie and Jo are also a part of, so we know on a educational level that Jenni is more than capable of playing this role. She also has the same colour hair for the idea we had of Katie and also the slight bodyframe we imagined her to have.

Hannah Blakemore. - Again, Hannah is part of the Theatre Studies class and is capable of acting the part. We felt that Hannah related to the part in the calm but threatening manner in which we wish the part to be portayed, but physically she didn't fit our ideal description. We will use Hannah's approach to the role and apply it to Jenni. We have cast Hannah as a "Star Pupil".


Rachel Short - Like the others, Rachel is part of the Theatre Studies class. We decided not to cast Rachel as Katie because we were decided on Jenni . We decided to use Rachel as one of the four "Star Pupils".


Jasmine Lee - We didn't audition Jasmine, but she is another student from the Theatre Studies class. We cast Jasmine as a "Star Pupil" also.


Catherine Turner - We didn't audition Catherine either, as she missed our actual auditions but we casted her as a "Star Pupil" also. We originally were thinking about using Catherine for the role of Katie, but after auditioning Jenni and Catherine was being used by another group in our class.



Male Casting

Tamer Saleh (right) - We decided to use Tamer mainly for his appearance. As the role we need him to play involves an older man, we needed someone who could easily pass as someone older. Furthermore, as Tamer and Samuel (our other male casting) are friends, it was simpler for them to engage in conversation, illiminating any awkwardness.

Samuel Hickey - We decided to use Sam because again, the friendship between him and Tamer. Also, Sam is an able actor and we know this from outside experience.

-Sophie

Audition Video

Yesterdays Auditions

Yesterdays auditions were a total success. We were pleased with the turn-out of people willing to audition and the results of this will be posted on our blog later today with our final decisions and reasons behind them. We thought that everyone was extremely adaptable to the role, unfortunately we cannot cast them all. Due to there being only a certain number of roles all 6 auditionees will recieve a letter explaining whether they have the part or not, giving it a more professional feel.

-Sophie and Hazel