Playing around with PhotoShop

From the images we took in the church, we thought that the pictures that were taken in the church can be our potential poster. I decided to go onto PhotoShop to play around with the images I had from the church we went used as our main location. Here you can see our actress is standing in the middle of the isle facing towards the exit of the church and her back towards the front of the church (where people would worship to.) The element I tried to create here is that something is wrong as the Nun would be praying to God but is facing her back towards God. Also I have cropped one of our actresses and stuck her up on the wall in between the windows to create an illusion that she is different from others and that the Satan has control of her soul which is why It look's like as if she is going up in the air. 

Footage - Behind the chase scene

After filming our scenes in the church, we went to the nearby park in the morning to film the chase scene which would be towards the end of the trailer. Why we decided to film early in the morning is because it would be empty so it would have been easier for us to not get other people in the scene we film. 

More behind the scene shots!

As my group and I didn't get time to film the rest of our footage yesterday which was Friday, we decided to meet up on Saturday morning as we also did arrange with the vicar from our local church to use the church on Saturday which is called The Parish Church of Saint Philip Norbury. As our narrative is based with a girl in a nunnery/convent, we decided it would be more realistic to get a church as our main location as it fits in with the concept of our character and narrative as it was quite hard to find nearby convents for nuns. The filming in the church seemed realistic meaning this was successful as it fitted in well with what I had imagined in my head. 
After we filmed in the church, we had to have a scene of our main character running through a forest to give the element of her running away or escaping from something. Near the church we was filming in, there was a park up the road with loads of trees and hills so we thought this was be an ideal location to film our running scene which would be the put towards the end of our trailer. I did take some photos whilst we was behind set!

Behind the scenes - exorcism scene

For one of our scenes, we had to record the main characters friend taking part in an exorcism. How me and my group thought of doing this was by drawing out a pentagram on the floor (a star shape in a circle) which is spiritual icon. In order to create an perfect shape, we made this by sticking masking tape on the floor. The location we used was the enterprise hall in our college as we thought it was suitable for the scene as we can close the curtains and get the room to be dark as possible. 

After creating the star shape with the masking tape, we put salt all over the outline in order for the shape to stand out on camera. After this we put candles around the pentagram and in the pentagram in order to give that spiritual and realistic effect as the actress would be inside the shape. 

Main costume - Nun outfit

As our narrative is based upon a girl that is in a nunnery/convent, due to mise-en-sense she would have to wear a nun's costume. My group and I thought it would be good to create a nun's outfit from scratch but I thought too much time would get into the making of a costume and that would be time consuming. So we went online on Amazon to order a reasonable priced nun outfit which we did eventually find. The costume was cheap and all group members would contribute money towards the outfit. The outfit includes a head peace and a long black gown.

Music for our trailer

Due to all the research on looking for potential music for my trailer, my group and I finally came up with the music that would be suitable for our trailer and it is by Two Steps From Hell.


Why we decided to use music from Two Steps From Hell is because I had an idea in my head that as we had religion as a big element in our trailer, we should incorporate music from an orchestra in the beginning of the trailer as it would have religious connotations and imagery. Slowly building up towards the middle where all the fast scenes begin right towards the end of the trailer, we are going to have the slow low pitched music turn loud pitched and become more faster until it gets really fast with the montage of fast clips. By this it creates tension and panics the audience as it sounds more sinister this was the effect we are going for. 

Scary makeup tutorial

As it is shown on our storyboard, the last seen in our trailer would be a scary face popping up. I thought it would be interesting and creative to do a scary makeover on the actor/actress who would be playing our scary role part. I went on YouTube to look at scary makeup tutorials and came across one which was a look inspired to look like 'The Grudge' which I found scary and suitable for our trailer.

Finding music/sound effects

In order to include sound in our trailer, I was researching on some scary background music and scary sound effects on YouTube which may be potential enough to include in our trailer. 

Inspiration - The Devil Inside

Our inspiration came from the movie The Devil Inside, This is a popular and recent talked about film that has released not along ago in 2013. The similarities in The Devil Inside and our trailer is that they both involve nuns and convents. Why we thought having our narrative based on  nun would be effective is because it would be different rather than having your standard horror movie with a vulnerable teenage or adult getting attacked. By having a nun as our main character gives the element of religion which we would mix with horror so that it is not your standard horror film but is scary. By having religion involved in our trailer (which is a big element in our trailer) gives the sense of confusion to the viewers. This is because they would feel that people would turn to and feel safe when they are praying and turn to religion. By our trailer having different aspects of horror and religion, this would most likely make the audience uncomfortable and scared which is our aim to do so. Our main character is a Christian which is a popular religion and nun's are mostly known to be Christian or Roman Catholic. 

More test shots!

Here are some more test shots we had carried out during our other test shots. What we tried to do is create a slow motion on the camera settings and we used the torch light on an IPhone to create a special effect without editing to see how it would turn out. These test shots came out good due to the unique idea as we got someone behind the character and to wave around the phone light behind them and around them to create that bright wire light effect. Why we thought to try tests shots like this is because we thought it would give it more of an pocession and supernatural element due to our trailer narrative is based on pocession and supernatural.

Test shots for our poster

 I have created a presentation explaining and showing what these test shots are taken for which is mainly for our poster. There are some good test shots that have come out and can potentially be used for our real product of the poster of our trailer. We thought by having the main character on our poster would be more effective as the audience would know clearly what the film is about. Mise-en-sense plays a huge part in our poster as it shows the person is a Nun through her outfit that we have purchased online. 

Door handle tests shots

Trailer in the making - feedback

As we are in the process of making our trailer, we have started of with the shots that we are going to use in our final product. We did not get all of our scenes filmed as we are struggling to find a church that would allow us to film inside so we are still on the hunt for that location. We asked our teacher to look at what we have so far and to give us constructive feedback so that we know what we need to do as a group in order to improve our trailer. Overall, our teacher said we had good work so far.
Here is the feedback we received from our teacher:

·         Likes how we filtered the colour out on the scenes of the young girl playing with the ball

·         Needed to include music in most of the scenes for the background

·         In the possession scene, the crackling music is too long and the actress looks like she is dancing – cut down the scene

·         Likes the shots in the beginning as it flows well together

·         Cut a bit of the back shot of the actress in the beginning if possible

·         Likes the slogan of our trailer

·         Loves the ball scene when the girl drops the ball and the scene of the ball rolling underneath the bed

·         Good actresses playing their parts well

·         Not quite sure about the Latin dictionary – make it look more realistic if so

Test shots - Book flicking

In one of our scenes in the trailer, we need to give the element of a book 'flicking through it self' and to land on a page that says 'LUCIFER' in blood. In order to make this scene happen, my group and I took test shots in the girls toilets underneath the hand dryer to see if the book flips properly. If not, we are also thinking of using a hairdryer or a fan. 

How to make fake blood?

As one of our props is 'fake blood' I thought it would be a good idea to see if it is possible to make your own fake blood by stuff that would be lying around at home! I decided to go on to YouTube to see tutorials of people showing how to make fake blood which I took into consideration. Why I thought of making your own fake blood might be a good idea is because we had already fake blood bought from a costume shop but I wanted to see if the quality of making your own blood would be better or not than the already made fake blood we had. Here are some tutorials that I had looked at. 

Making the props...

As part of our narrative, we needed to create a prop which required us to use the art facilities (paint, brushes and big A3 paper.) We needed to create the note that would be laying underneath the wallpaper so that in the trailer, when June (as a child) rips her torn off wallpaper completely off, the Latin phrase would be there. We used dark red paint to create a blood effect and used brushes and fingers to give the effect of it being 'written by someone.'

What the Latin phrase stands for is 'I proclaim my soul to Satan Lucifer. He chooses me.'

More research into nuns!

I decided to go on to YouTube to find out more about nuns! I came across this video which is about Catholic Sisters (nuns) are talking about their experience of being a nun and how they got intrigued in their religion in their own words. 

Timetable!

I have created a short presentation explaining the timetable my group and I discussed about and created in order to help us when everyone in our group have free periods in order to be present during our filming time. Most of the times we do not have free periods together but we have our media lessons together through out this entire week. 

Shooting Schedule

Here is my shooting schedule that my group and I created to help us when certain scenes should be filmed and what props and actors would be needed in different scenes.

Prop list...

I thought I would create a animation speaking about the props I and my group would need during our filming. I choose this because I thought it would be more of an exciting way of presenting a list of items rather than typing them down. It also seems a bit more personal with the readers/audience so that they can understand clearly. 

Location - Nun's Room

We needed a location for the Nun's room as most of the scenes would be filmed in her bedroom. We decided to look around the college for potential locations that would be suitable for a bedroom and came across the medical room in our college. The medical room was appropriate to use for our Nun's bedroom as it did include a bed and looked basic which most rooms would have looked like in a convent ages ago. Although we did find this challenging to use this room due to having certain things in the room that came across as 'modern' so we really put effort in mise-en-scene to try create that vintage look. 

Research into Nuns

Group Discussion

We decided as a group to film our group discussion over the location of the Nun's room which would be filmed in our trailer. We decided to use the medical room in our college as the bedroom as it looks suitable for a Nun's bedroom due to the dullness in the room. We were also discussing what props would be needed in order to make it look more effective and realistic. Here is what we thought of the props we would include in the room.

Props for bedroom location:

- Religious wallpapers

- Bed sheets

- Pillow(s)

- Cross symbol outside bedroom door

- Cross on her table

- Standing mirror