FMP Ideas.

Here are a few pictures of what I have written in my notebook for FMP so far.

Editing.

It was time to edit my 'The Conversation' piece. This was a different experience to edit from the first film, because I was less happy than my last footage because of the bad sound quality.
I had to record Jade's voiceover, and it took some work to get the sound to all be of the same level, because the diegetic sound was quite loud and then the voiceover was quiet, so it sounded wrong.
I started off with a title saying the conversation, because I wanted a clear beginning and ending.
I didn't use any other background diegetic sound because I wanted a sense of isolation and realism.

Filming.

Today I began filming 'The Conversation.'

This proved to be a stressful experience because I had never recorded sound, and there were a lot of interfering factors such as people walking, traffic and wind. So even though the shots looked ok, the sound was not that good because it was hard to make the protagonists be heard.
It was also my first time actually using people in it, in the other film I made it was with props only, and a title sequence so this was a lot different.
It was difficult because I had a script for my actors, and had to give them a line each to say and then pretty much cut and let them look at the script again so that they would get it right, as you can imagine they were a lot of outtakes!!!
I was saying 3, 2, 1 as I filmed to give them time to compose themselves and remember lines.
I used a range of shots; an over the shoulder shot of them talking, as the main protagonist is talking about a lake, you could see a body of water past them, and a wide shot of Holden walking and Horowitz catching up to him.

After I filmed my film, I also acted in Jade's.

Recce Notes.

Before I planned to film 'The Conversation' I did a recce of the location that I wanted to use.

Pros;

• It is a nice location, spacious and isolated.

Cons;

• Because I'm actually recording sound, the main road nearby may be a problem.
• The park may be busy, people may disrupt filming or sound quality.
• The weather may not be on our side.

Script.

* Screen is black *

HOLDEN

What made it worse, it was so quiet and lonesome out, even though it was a

Saturday night.

EXT: 7pm. Saturday night, wood area.

[Low angle shot of Holden’s feet, walking past the camera. Long shots of his surroundings to show his isolation.]

HOLDEN

You can hear it for miles. It makes you feel so lonesome and depressed.

[Close ups of Holden zipping up his coat and putting his hands in his pockets, then wide shot of him walking, then someone catching up to him and stopping him to talk.]

HOROWITZ

 Holden? Where’ve you been?!

HOLDEN

 Hey, Horowitz.  

[He suddenly looks deep in thought] 

You ever pass by the lagoon in the park? Where the ducks are, you know?

HOROWITZ

 The what?

HOLDEN

 Well, you know the ducks that swim around in it? In the springtime and

all? Do you happen to know where they go in the wintertime, by any

chance?

HOROWITZ

 [curiously]

 Y’know, I haven’t seen you at school so much lately.

HOLDEN

 [Distracted, looking off in other direction]

 What, so do you think that

someone comes around in a truck and takes them away?

HOROWITZ

 You know, rumour has it that you got kicked out, thoughts?

HOLDEN

 [Distractedly]

 Or, wait

 [Turns to look at him]

 don’t they like, fly south or something?

HOLDEN

[Voice over]

 He was a very impatient type, once he gets something in

head that’s it, always yapping on about something or other. He wasn’t

a bad guy though.

HOROWITZ

 [Annoyed]

 How the hell should I know? How the hell should I know a stupid thing like that?!

HOLDEN

 Well, don’t get mad about it.

HOROWITZ

 [Irritated] Who’s mad? No one’s getting mad.

[He walks faster; his body language shows his irritated feelings, Holden stops for a moment and then speeds up to catch up to him.]

HOLDEN

 [Voice over]

 I stopped having the conversation with him then, if he

was going to be so damn touchy about it. But he started it up again

himself.

HOROWITZ

 [Sounding stressed, as if he was talking to someone younger]

Look, if you lived in that lake, Mother Nature’d take care of you,

right? Wouldn’t she? You don’t just think they die do you?

HOLDEN

 No, but…..

HOROWITZ

 You’re goddamn right they don’t.

HOLDEN

 [Voice over]

 And just like that, he was off. Like a bat out of hell, he was

about the touchiest guy I ever met. Everything you said he got mad about.

[Camera fades out with voice over, again showing his internal isolation.]

Character Profiles.

Name: Holden Caulfield.

Gender: Male.

Age: 16.

Appearance: Average looking, brown hair, tall, thin, wearing jeans and a checked shirt.

Employment: School.

Hobbies: Reading.

Traits: Extremely judgmental, everything is ‘phony’ and he criticizes and philosophizes about everyone and everything.

Strengths: He has a brilliant imagination, and an insight into the world not many people would look around him and consider where the ducks would go when the weather is cold.

Weaknesses: He is not great socially, he has difficulty understanding conversations, and social hints such as when to answer specific questions.

Likes: Books and thinking about unusual things.

Dislikes: People who he has not met before, and people he thinks are ‘phony.’

Name: Horowitz.

Gender: Male.

Age: 19.

Appearance: Taller than Holden, looks physically tougher, more intimidating.

Employment: School.

Hobbies: He is into sports, on the school lacrosse team.

Traits: He is a lot more aggressive than Holden, and becomes agitated very quickly when he doesn’t get the answers he wants about not seeing him at school.

Strengths: He is good at intimidating people to get information from people.

Weaknesses: He loses his temper quite frequently.

Likes: He likes to socialise with people, and is not a hermit.

Dislikes: He does not like it when people don’t listen to him, like Holden.

Elements of drama.

Elements of drama;

Ä     Situations- what is the story? Surrounding the main protagonist of The Catcher In The Rye, Holden Caulfield. He is walking around, in his isolation and I am going to translate that through shots of his surroundings and how he acts in the conversation he has. 

Ä     Roles- who is involved? Holden Caulfield and his former classmate before his expulsion Horowitz.

Ä     Responsibilities- how do the characters feel about each other? Holden has a tense relationship with everybody in his life at the moment because of his recent expulsion from his school; he doesn’t want any one to know and so he is being secretive and wants to talk about other things, in this case, when Horowitz asks him about not seeing him at school in a while. He is more interested in asking strange questions, which gives of a more pronounced view of isolation within Holden because he in socially incapable of answering the question, which ends up with Horowitz becoming infuriated and leaving, with Holden still trapped in his pensive state.                 

Ä     Place- where is the setting? The film is going to be set in a woodland, this is because although I considered trying to show isolation in a crowded place, I thought it would be a lot more visually pleasing in an isolated place, where is alone both physically and metaphorically.

Basic Idea.

Basic Idea;

Ä     Blank screen- main protagonist Holden talking, using an extract from the book.

Ä     Low angle shot of his feet walking past the camera, and then a close up of him zipping up his coat and putting his hands in his pocket and walking off.

Ä     Wide shot of someone catching up to him and trying to talk to Holden about being kicked out of Pencey Prep. 

Ä     For the dialogue, use slightly altered quotes from the actual conversation between Holden and Horowitz. 

Ä     Ends with Horowitz quoting from the book about Mother Nature, then leaving, then it fades to black with Holden talking again.

Reasearch 'The Conversation'

Primary Research: The book I am taking inspiration from is ‘The Catcher in The Rye’ written by J.D. Salinger and was published in 1951. I am going to be basing the one-minute film off a few specific pages in the book, pages 74-77.  This will be focusing on the characters of main protagonist Holden Caulfield and Horowitz, potentially Phoebe Caulfield. I wanted to use this book because I always liked the conversations in it, they often include themes such as alienation and identity and I thought it would be interesting to try to project some of that on screen.

Secondary Research: I did quite a lot of background reading and internet research on Salinger so I could get a better feel of his influences and how his writing process for the book developed- such as how a play for the book was nearly developed in a collaboration with Ernest Hemingway.  In preparation for writing the script and starting to plan the shots I would be using I also read the book, and wrote out the pages I knew I wanted to use for it, highlighting quotes I thought I would want to be used, this is mainly dialogue spoken between two characters.

Editing the film.

It took me the most part of a full day to edit the entire one minute film. I started off establishing the location and the props, and added a lot of close ups of the dolls. I loved the way that the colour palette of the film turned out; the location was dull and crisp and the props are bright and in your face. I started off with this shot;

My favorite shot from the film was one when I spun the doll from a branch and used a birds eye view to show it from the top, I though it was really interesting and unique and came out great.

I only showed the main protagonist for a extremely short amount of time, and this was only a shot of the hand taking the head out of the jar because I wanted a constant air of mystery to be present in my film to make the audience to feel suspense and want to know more.

I used bright shots and darker shots, to make it look a bit disorientating and dizzying, because that reflects the protagonist and I want the audience to feel that too.

And I used titles in Finnish because I used a lot of Finnish horror techniques, and wanted mystery again. The title means 'Real Horrorshow' in Finnish which I really liked.

For sound I used the American Horror Story theme because I loved the creepiness of it, and the suspense and thought it would work best.

Production; Filming.

Today we planned to film.  I took Jade and Chelsea for help in carrying the equipment, and because it was my first time filming properly I thought Jade could help me in figuring out the more complicated side of filming.
Everything went smoothly, but as we went through the shot list we realised that we could make it one minute just by exploring the narrative of these dolls.
The weather managed to stay fine which was amazing, because the slightest bit of rain would have been disastrous because it was an EXT location.
At first when we filmed I was worried that I wouldn't have enough footage, but looking back I had more than enough.

Production: Making props.

A few days before I planned to film I enlisted the help of Jade and we got a few supplies to begin making the dolls for my film.
We started by cutting off the hair and colouring in the roots and then put the body parts around them and stuck pins in them, etc.
This was the end result, I'm quite happy with the outcome.

Recce Notes.

Before I went to conduct the first shoot, I did a recce of my location to see what it would be like to shoot it.

Pros;

• It has the potential to look creepy, which is the image I want to show for my film.
• It looks isolated.
• It is a woodland area, so could be anywhere in the world really, it is mysterious and doesn't give too much away about the exact location.

Cons;

• It is a fair way from college, and means a trek through woodland areas to get to it with equipment.
• I need people to come help me carry equipment because of the location.