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Finn Hanley

Candidate Number 1824

Claremont Fan Court School 64680

My production team included: Matthew Heyns 1828, Ben Richardson 1853, Sam De Bruin 1815

My brief was to produce a film opening that lasted a maximum of two minutes. The title of our film was Suspect. Our murder mystery explores three suspected murderers who are linked with the death of Lottie Wilson. The film captures each characters daily routine, allowing the audience to piece the puzzle together of who the murderer is.

Editing:

Due to Matt having previous experience with Final Cut Pro X, he was operating the application, however we all chipped in to the editing sequence. My idea as an edit was to create the 3 step establishing shot with the help of the drone. I took inspiration from a video game, where the same edit takes place. The camera pans out one step at a time and it creates an effective establishing shot. I explained my idea to Matt and the group and then we were able to recreate the establishing shot. With Matt already having experience with the application, editing was a smooth process when piecing the storyline together.

Directing:

I took responsibility with directing, especially in the scenes which I featured in. At the time of filming, we didn't completely follow the plan which meant we had to improvise in a short space of time. For my first appearance as Kieran Tucker, I directed myself and my peers with the scene of KT waking up on the driveway. I directed the dialogue and explained what I was going to do and how I wanted the other character to interact with me. I was also able to explain my thoughts about which camera angle best suited the scene, in this case, a wide angle shot was used.

Camerawork:

Matt took charge of most of the camerawork, his iPhone had the best quality camera and we wanted to film in a good resolution to give the film good visuals. Whilst Matt did film most scenes, he also piloted the drone. This was where I was able to step in. I gave my thoughts as to what shots the drone should be capturing and where the drone should pan over. Whilst I wasn't able to fly the drone, I inputed key information to Matt and we were able to achieve the establishing shots which I desired.

Design:

Matt took responsibility for the design of the poster as he had full access to specific applications. This meant he could produce the poster quickly and efficiently and as a collective, we all agreed that the poster suited our production and we were fully satisfied with the result.

SUSPECT - FILM OPENING

 

CHANGES

 

CHANGES by Finn Hanley

REFLECTIONS

 

REFLECTIONS by Finn Hanley

REFINEMENTS

 

REFINEMENTS by Finn Hanley

EDITS

 

EDITS by Finn Hanley

RISK ASSESSMENT

Risk Assessment	Hazard to health and safety	Risk posed to whom	Risk level	Control measure to reduce risk
Method of Transport to Location of Filming	Walking out of Claremont into Esher.  Walking from Esher back to Claremont. Travel via SW Trains to Surbiton Railway Station to go to Ben Richardson’s house for filming. Walking through Surbiton to get from Surbiton station to Ben’s house and to film on High Street	All four of us (Finn Hanley, Matt Heyns, Ben Richardson, Sam de Bruin) walking to Esher; at risk of being hit by a car. All four of us (Finn Hanley, Matt Heyns, Ben Richardson, Sam de Bruin) walking back from Esher and to Claremont; at risk of being hit by a car. All four of us (Finn Hanley, Matt Heyns, Ben Richardson, Sam de Bruin) at risk of falling through the gap between the train and the platform edge. All four of us (Finn Hanley, Matt Heyns, Ben Richardson, Sam de Bruin) walking to Ben’s house from Surbiton Railway Station; at risk of being hit by a car.	M M M M	We will be looking both ways before we cross the road, at every road we aim to cross. I believe this will minimise the risk to a large extent as it will allow us to see if any cars are driving towards us. We will be looking both ways before we cross the road, at every road we aim to cross. I believe this will minimise the risk to a large extent as it will allow us to see if any cars are driving towards us. We will make sure to take a large step when coming onto the train, whilst also looking at how big the gap is, making sure we are completely out of risk of getting stuck. We will be looking both ways before we cross the road, at every road we aim to cross. I believe this will minimise the risk to a large extent as it will allow us to see if any cars are driving towards us.
First aid issues	Trips/falls when walking during filming or getting to the filming location	All four of us.	L	We will keep a first aid kit including plasters and anti bacterial spray With us at all times.
General public theft/assualt	Theft Assault Major external incident (terrorism, natural disaster etc)	All four of us, as we are all carrying valuables; phones, AirPods, cameras, schoolwork, laptops. All actors involved in filming All actors involved in filming	H H H	All members of the group will carry a backpack with a zip securing the items inside the bag, reducing the risk of a member of the public attempting to steal from one of us. We will also be checking we have all of our valuables every 20 minutes when in a populated environment. We will walk in groups when on the High Street and will not approach other members of the public or respond to any comments intended to provoke one of us We will follow the guidelines given to us extensively and make sure we do everything we are told, reducing the risk of us being in danger in a scenario of this sort.
Accommodation eg risk assessment from centre	N/A (no overnight accommodation necessary for filming)	N/A (no overnight accommodation necessary for filming)	N/A (no overnight accommodation necessary for filming)	N/A (no overnight accommodation necessary for filming)
Major public incident	Act of terrorism given national threat level	Group could become caught up in a terrorist incident, possibly leading to them being injured of the group being separated	H	When entering an area, making sure every member of the group knows exactly where to exit if something of this levity did occur and we were forced to take an emergency exit. Make sure group members know what the national advice is for a terrorist attack First aid kit carried at all times, allowing recovery for injured student due to this major public incident

HOT SEATING

 Hot seating is great way for each actor to better understand the character they are playing. It allows them to get used to how the character thinks, talks and acts both by themselves, and around others. Each character is going to be asked a few questions, including:

What is your name?

What do you do?

Do you know Lottie Wilson?

Have you heard of Munns Park?

FILMING SUCCESSFUL

 We filmed our first scenes on the 19th March for our film opening - SUSPECT.

We set out to use different camera shots like wide angle, panning and tracking shots with the help of a drone. Using a drone in our film feels more professional for the viewer as we are able to capture a variety of shot angles which you can't do with just a handheld camera. We felt this would improve our film massively with the help of this equipment. Our successful shoot consisted of two of the characters, Alan and Herbert as they are first shown to the viewer. Alan fishing on the river bank and Herbert going for a run behind him. Using the drone for these scenes allowed us to get a birds-eye-view of the location, showing the river flowing along the edge of the park. We used a tracking feature built into the drone in order to follow overhead of Herbert. Using the drone also allowed us to capture a shot over the river, looking back onto Herbert allowing the viewer to understand the setting. Not only did the drone allow us to capture more shots, the stability from it also helped with a lot of the scenes.

This shoot was successful compared to our previous attempt as we had a plan and we all knew what we were doing prior to filming. With knowledge of how to use a drone and knowing how we wanted to capture these scenes made us more productive and time efficient.

FILMING UNSUCCESSFUL

 Our first film shoot turned out to be unsuccessful. We used the drama studio for our interview scene where three of the characters were being questioned. This was our original plan for our film opening however post filming, we realised this film was not good enough for the standards we wanted to achieve. Since this, we have changed the storyline to our film, however we still kept the same characters. From this unsuccessful shoot, we realised that we needed to be more time efficient with filming after being very close to running out of time. We also realised we can be more efficient with our production by planning out what we are going to film before actually filming. This means we could plan out our different camera angles and be familiar with how everything is going to work rather than turning up and figuring it out as we go. Not only would this make us more efficient, but it would turn out better as we would know what we would be doing. This also helps us in not wasting time on the shoot as we are limited with the times we can shoot so it is important we know what we are doing before we start filming our shots. Another thing we could have done differently is using another camera. By doing this it would be easier to achieve all the different angles that we wanted. It would also be better for the outcome of the film as having another camera would allow for a wider view of the whole scene and it would give us freedom to capture different shots and pick out the best ones so it gives us more options and more to work with.

PLANNING CHARACTER PROPS

 

Made with Visme Presentation Maker

PLANNING STORYBOARD

Made with Visme Presentation Maker

LOCATION

We started filming at West End Recreational Ground. We thought this would be a good filming spot as there was an opening to the river and there was space behind. We utilised this by shooting a fishing scene and a running scene with the help of a drone.

West End Recreational Ground

TREATMENT

SUSPECT

As you may know our film is based on a girl being murdered and we place the blame on three main suspects. Therefore, this creates an idea to the audience that only the three suspects are involved. However, as we don’t show the girl’s dead body or any crime scene it means that the girl is possibly still alive. This might make the audience question whether this girl is really dead, or is she framing three suspects, if so why? 

Suspect starts off with a Detective receiving an envelope from his assistant followed by the assistant telling the Detective that someone is on the line regarding what’s inside this envelope. The detective picks up the phone and looks concerned when he hears that a girl called Lottie Wilson had died. This cuts to a flashback of the detective leaning over a man’s hospital bed saying “As long as I’m alive, nothing will happen to Lottie”. There is then a cut back to the detective looking sad, determined and angry. It's as if at the moment he heard what was said on the phone, he was determined to put the man behind this, in prison or worse.

The next scene shows Alan Cook fishing by a riverside, talking to an imaginary person next to him, showing his insanity, whilst laughing to himself about how he thought he caught a fish but it was actually an orange peel. 

As he is fishing, Herbert Crafts is walking by and bumps into him. Alan Cook gets angered by this and shouts “watch yourself lad”. Herbert retorts under his breath with “calm down you prat”. He is on the phone to a colleague, evidently running late, asking if a meeting can be delayed for his purpose. While he is walking in a hurry, he passes by a house with blaring music coming from the top window and says “Jesus” in a disgusted manner. 

The next scene goes from the street where Herbert was walking to where Kieran Tucker is waking up with a can of beer and possibly a cigarette in his hand. 

After this, there is a hard cut back to The Detective, where he picks up the phone and says that he will take the case. After this, he opens the envelope in front of him, showing the three men’s profiles. 

SEMIOTICS

 Semiotics literally means the study of signs (the way we make sense of everything around us).

What is a sign?

It could be a symbol, a colour, a camera angle

Sign (signifier) -- Denotation (the literal meaning) or Connotation (the signified meaning)

Polysemic - to have multiple meanings 

You can find signs in moving image. In this case a Japanese extract to which there is an awful lot of dead silence, which builds up the tension and fear.

Mise-en-scene - basically just everything within the scene (set, costume, hair, makeup)

Sound - tone of voice can show anger or danger. Some clips have no sound to make it more scary and dramatic for the audience 

Camerawork - composition, movement, framing

Editing - how one clips move from one to another. Some clips are longer than other which creates a held-breath situation as it drags on with tension.

Myth - widely accepted meaning of a sign

Denotation - is the literal meaning of signs

Connotation - is the signified meaning of signs. It's what the sign represents

Tales of Terror from Tokyo

The extract shows how we rely on language to represent meanings. As the film is in a foreign language it means the audience needs to use signs to understand. The audience can tell that the child in the film is scared, due to the high tempo music that dominates the natural sound. When the person on the other side of the door starts to bang and shout, the tone and screech that it produces connotes danger. Camera angles also create the tension throughout the film. The camera often matches the height of the small girl, which means the audience feels as small and as vulnerable as the girl.

Roland Barthes

Barthes' Semiotic Theory broke down the process of reading signs and focused on their interpretation by different cultures or societies. According to Barthes, signs had both a signifier, being the physical form of the sign as we perceive it through our senses and the signified, or meaning that is interpreted.

The Rhetoric of the Image