Deconstruction of Dolls

In The Horror of the Dolls (2010), the dolls are given a mind of their own. They are 'possessed' and kill people as a result - supernatural & horror genre.

In a few shots, some of the dolls are crying blood which we could include in our film opening because it conforms to bloody horror conventions.

In the shot, the doll is standing in the corner and the camera focuses on it for a couple of seconds then the doll blinks. This reinforces the supernatural horror genres as well as scaring the audience because dolls are not alive. Though this would scare the audience which is what we want to achieve, live dolls would not be appropriate for our film opening as our genre is not supernatural.



Other films with dolls in are the Chucky films. Chucky is a talking doll however turns out to be alive. Again, this would not be appropriate to our genre and its conventions however Chucky's face is scarred and his eyes are wide and devilish. We could make our dolls look like that which will show the audience how the killer mistreats people; leaves them bloody and scarred and does not care.

The Conjuring (2013) features a possessed evil doll which looks innocent and pretty which subverts the usual convention of evil dolls looking malicious (like the examples above). However, looking closely you can see her 'rosy cheeks; are actually cuts and she has several cuts all over her face and neck.

In the trailer, a quick shot appears of a muddy dolls head buried beneath branches and we could include something like this; a quick shot of a stereotypically evil-looking doll (possibly soaked in blood - conforming to horror conventions) to shock the audience.

Other films featuring dolls include the Saw films, Dead Silence (2007) and Demonic Dolls and these dolls are also alive, some being possessed.  These emphasize their supernatural genre even though they are horrors as well. Possessed/living dolls will not be appropriate for our film opening however having female dolls around his 'den' will be interesting to the audience and will further add to the killer's personality and his obsession with women. The Saw doll has strange make-up on his face which we could do on our dolls as well.

Evaluation of Filming the Chase Scene

On Saturday 8th February, we filmed the chase scene under a bridge in Bexleyheath. We liked this area because it had this triangular construction < which we felt would be appropriate for the killer to corner the victim upon, and then strangle her. Filming this part went quickly and smoothly; Hayley filmed (she filmed and directed the whole of the chase scene) and Annie and I provided lighting.






When we were filming on the stairs, however, it was difficult to illuminate the actors without making them too bright, otherwise it would not have looked like the scene was at night. Annie and I had to keep the torches still because of some of the footage, we could see the light moving on the brick wall, so we had to re-do it.







These are the roads surrounding the tunnel which we filmed along. As it was tedious to keep moving out extra equipment, I stayed with it under the bridge while Annie and Hayley went down these roads to film.

The victim's make-up by Annie. This was very quick to do, it took about 5 minutes then we filmed the strangle part.

The killer's mask.

Hayley filming, Annie and I holding the torches.

Also, we filmed on the bridge, along the pavement which was easy to film because it was late in the evening and there were not many cars driving past.

We filmed a low-angle shot of the victim running along the bridge, with camera under the bridge. This was quite difficult to film because the railing on the bridge covered most of the actors, we were only able to see the top of their heads. To resolve this, we told the actors to stand closer to the railing so we could clearly see their heads as they ran.

Us watching through footage to see if we needed to make amendments.

During the filming process, it began to rain so I held an umbrella over the camera and Hayley.













Overall, the filming process of the chase scene went very well; better than the first attempt. Our actors' clothes and props were as my group wanted, and the location was good because we were able to utilise the stairs, bridge, under the bridge and side roads to create an effective chase scene.

Editing of Production Company and making changes

 Now that I had created the dripping text of our production companies name, "KILLS PRODUCTIONS", and we had the footage of the wound that Raman had created dripping blood within a sink, I needed to merge them together, creating the effect that my group and I had discussed.

However, on trialling this out, I was unable to manipulate the footage of the special effects make-up to incorporate the video of the dripping text made in Photoshop, and when I researched on how to do this, I found that it wasn't really possible unless you had "After Effects" software downloaded. I wasn't even able to add an effect to make it look as if the text was dripping down with the blood, adding a caption rather than using the Photoshop video. And therefore, I was forced to have to think of something else to make our production company extract, rather than what I had planned and created- the dripping text of the production companies name.

On researching, I found a number of different inspirations that I could apply to the special effects footage, however, there was one picture that I saw that really caught my eye- shown to the left.

I decided to re-create this image, applying the name of our production company, "KILLS PRODUCTIONS", rather than "ZOMIE". The idea was to then have the image follow the footage of the sfx wound that Raman had made.

So, after I had created my version of the image above, shown to the right, I carried out my plan, adding it to the footage of the special effects makeup created wound, also applying the original music that I had been planning to use in my previous blog post about the production company.


You can see the result in the video shown below:

As you can see, this experiment didn't go very well- I really didn't like the finished result. I decided to start yet again, taking the sfx wound footage in the sink, and seeing what I could do with the resources on final cut pro.

Below shows screen shot of what I did to this footage, creating the result that I was finally happy with as our production company:

In the screen shot above, you can see the user face of final cut pro, of which I have uploaded the sliced wrist special effects makeup footage onto. On here, I have many effects- sound and visual- that I can experiment with, compared to what I have been using- MovieMaker at home.

Looking through the options of titles, I found a title called "Dramatic" that takes the title, and makes the words get bigger on the screen. Liking this effect, I added the name of the production company "KILLS PRODUCTIONS", looking at the effect that it gave.

To get a better idea of what it would look like, I also changed the font, choosing "GAZ" which was a block lettering font with parts of the letters looking "damaged"- adding more texture than the normal block letting.

This is what the words looked like, zooming out as a transition- and I found that I really liked it.

Looking at the footage I had so far, I felt it looked too plain for a production company extract, and so I looked at the effects that were given. Eventually, I chose to add the "Quick Flash/Spin" effect to the first section of the clip, creating close up shots of the wound before the rest of the video was played with no effects, introducing the "KILLS PRODUCTIONS" text after the Quick Flash/Spin effect.

Going through the sound options available, I chose to add two "Low Frequency Hit FX" sounds where the Quick Flash/Spin effect occurred, using the dramatic thumping sounds to add to the building of tension.

I also added the sound of a photocopier to the rest of the extract, adding background noise that fit the image on screen, not sounding too out of place.

To the photocopier sound, I also edited the last few seconds, making the intensity of the music die down so that it would have a smoother transition out of the production company extract and into the film opening footage.

At this point, I was happy with what I had done, but wasn't completely finished with the audio. It just needed something else to finish it off. To resolve this, I added a low level, background water dripping sound to the whole of the extract, adding a more realistic sound to be seen in a bathroom- where the footage is filmed- and also linking to the dripping of blood into the sink.

Finally, I edited the sound of the water dripping so that it got quieter at the end of the extract, again making it have a smoother transition when leading into the rest of the film opening video.

Below, you can see the finished video of the production company extract:

Sound Investigation: Chase Scene (Diegetic Sounds)

For the chase scene, we knew that we were going to have to put sound or music over the top as the audio we could hear when we were filming would not be very good.

I decided to look into diegetic sounds that we could put over the top and I found a YouTube channel which specialise in professional sound effects.

There are also numerous sound effects on Final Cut Pro itself which could be used, for example the breathing noises sound a lot more scared and would therefore be more effective.

Sounds we could use:

• Footsteps
• Heavy breathing
• Heartbeat
• Clock ticking
• Panting/crying
• Police Siren
• Car noises
• General background noise

1) The footsteps are very slow and cautious meaning they would only be useful at the beginning of the scene when she hasn't realised he is behind her and therefore is just walking normally. However with the footage we filmed, our victim is running slightly faster than in the videos and even though we could speed it up, I don't think it would be effective.



2) The beats are quite slow-paced and I feel that it wouldn't be relevant to our high-paced dramatic sequence, although the sound itself does sound good and quite realistic.



3)  The beats for this video are a lot faster and would be more relevant to speed of our footage.




4) The location of the chase scene is an urban area, next to a motorway, at least for the bridge shots it would be necessary to have the traffic noise, but it wouldn't have to be that loud considering it's the middle of the night. I thought a police siren would emphasise the dangerous situation she's in and it would add to the atmosphere and the irony that he hasn't been caught by the police.




5) The sound effect of a male heavy breathing would also be good to heighten the urgency of what's happening and as we have one shot from his point of view where he catches up with and strangles her so it could be effective to show his desperation to kill her.

6) It would be good to have female heavy breathing as a contrast but hers would need to be more scared and at a faster pace. I don't think the one below would be as good to include as it doesn't sound like she is fearing for her life.



7) I liked the idea of including a ticking clock noise as it would exaggerate the time pressure and resemble how little time she has left of her life. If we gradually speed it up so it becomes more intense as the scene plays out, then that could reflect how quickly she dies when he catches her. The only thing is that I don't know if it would be relevant to the atmosphere as she doesn't look at a watch or anything.



8) This is similar to the background noise we would expect to her when she's running across the bridge, although it doesn't sound like a motorway as it's been described as relaxing which would not fit the atmosphere very well.



9) This sound effect is specifically from a motorway so would be be more relevant to our setting, although it does sound slightly busier than you would expect we can quieten it down so it's only in the background.

Evaluation of Filming - 2/2/14

When we first filmed the chase scene, there were a lot of aspects that we weren't happy with as mentioned in Annie's post.

When planning our second attempt at filming we took into consideration all of the aspects we wanted to change such as the location, time of filming and costumes.

 ~ We decided to film in Bexleyheath as it was a local urban area and would fit in with the storyline.

 ~ We aimed to film in the evening, when it was completely dark as the street lighting would be sufficient enough for our characters to show up clearly on screen. 

 ~ With our victim, we changed her outfit from the dress to the black skirt and red top but kept the bruise and her extreme makeup. We also decided against her wearing a fake stomach as it would be more obvious in the next scene that she was pregnant. 

 ~ We also didn't like the fact that we could see the villain's face and the outfit he was wearing so he would wear just casual dark clothing with a hood and a white mask.

How it turned out:

We had planned to meet in Bexleyheath, travel to my grandparents house to film the death scene and then back to Bexleyheath for the chase scene. 

The main problem was that one of actors had a family emergency, on the day of filming and so was unable to join us for the chase scene and the scenes in the garage. As we wanted to get a majority of the filming done on that day, I had to play the villain for the shots we had planned out. 

'Back-up villain'

Candles

Annie taking the candles shot 

Doing Emily's makeup

Annie's 'killer' hands

Raman setting up the camera 

Preparing to film

Fake tears

Raman filming

Annie filming

When looking at the footage from the day, I really wasn't happy with myself playing the villain as it didn't look right and would be much better if it were our preferred actor. Although I liked the location that we chose (the alleyway) it was extremely difficult to film in as the lighting was too dark for the camera to stay focused for a long amount of time.

This also meant that our villain didn't show up on the screen as well as we would have hoped. It was quite dark and blurry and I didn't think this would look good enough for our final coursework. Also with the location that we had chosen, we didn't realise how many people would be walking past on a Sunday evening which interrupted the shot a lot.

Here is a selection of screenshots from our footage, showing why I wasn't satisfied with the result.

While we were filming the chase scene, the camera ran out of battery due to the amount of times we had to film the different shots and this meant only part of the chase scene was filmed. Therefore as we would have to set another day for filming anyway and after looking at the footage, it would make sense to re-film the whole thing.