Evaluation

Voices is loosely based on and inspired by the idea of psychological thrillers such as the films: Secret Window directed by David Koepp, or The Others which is directed by Alejandro Amenábar. Advancing and combining the ideas within these films, the thought of a girl hearing voices in her head came upon us. Not only looking within the film industry, I came across a story within a local newspaper about a man stalking a young girl, which inspired me to tell the group to make our film about a girl who is being stalked by someone she knows, which then leads to the voices in her head. Media and other famous films can motivate many directors in the filming industry and so that is what we thought we should do to collect more then one suggestion.

Stereotyping happens a lot in films, such as a social groups and cultural gangs; as an audience you assume things bad could happen, never the good. In Voices we have stereotyped the typical blonde haired young female teenager which could connote a ‘blonde bimbo’, as seen on wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereotypes, but that was not the way we were trying to convey her. To us she was just trying to bring across the fact that it could happen to any young girl, any person. The average criminal doesn’t have a stocky build either and looks terrifying, which what many people feel they do look like, as we like to see what we want to see. Our criminal is the total opposite to a man that is stocky and who looks terrifying, he is not that old either, probably the same age as the young female and therefore does not fit the usual profile of this type of suspect. Voices isn’t your average psychological thriller as you don’t get a hero, which contradicts Propps’ theory that there is always a villain, a hero, a false hero, etc.

Our film, Voices, touches different aspects of the serial world of psychological thrillers. Many studios do the genre of thriller, as it would keep the audience in suspense, and that is the key, to keep your audience hanging on. One company in particular that would take to our film is Shamley Productions, who are one of the biggest holders of this type of genre. Movies such as Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds (1963) and Psycho (1960) have encouraged other directors and companies to follow in Shamley Productions’ way of producing films to keep stock of a wide audience - Shamley Production's link http://www.imdb.com/company/co0137800/. The Voices would come greatly into the category of the thrillers, which would fit right into Shamley Productions’ many films. The creepy characteristics of our film would stir the mentality of many viewers, which is what the majority of the movies do in Shamley Productions, such as, Dark Intruder (1965).

The target audience for our movie Voices, in my opinion, would be older teenagers and above, for example 15+, as the entertainment in installments has a high rate of eeriness. My group and I felt it best to make the age rating 15+ as lowering it to a 12, even though giving it a wider audience, would not be suitable due to the complexity and the inter-twining of the thickened plot.

Keeping the target audience in mind whilst making the film, we tried to maintain the level of intelligence appropriate to our age rating, not only to keep our viewers interested, but also to remain keeping them hooked. For example, the language we used was of a caliber that related to our target audience. We also tried to stay true to our genre by keeping the suspense elevated in our film.

Filming was the most important part of the whole process since without it we would not have had the film. The greater part of our movie was shot outside, where it was freezing cold and due to some unfortunate event, we lost our first filming of it, leading us to go out again. The second time of filming though was admittedly enhanced then when we went out originally. So I guess it was a good thing when the first one had gone.

When we filmed we learned that we should collect more then two minutes, giving us more then we need so that we could pick which were the better snippets out of the lot. Also we learnt that we should do more then one of the same shot so that it gives us more of a variety.

The first part of the shooting was walking to the place were the argument was situated, as shown on the right. This was to build up suspense as the audience wouldn’t know what was happening or what was coming round the corner.

We then moved on to the alleyway where the first part of the dialogue came into play. Thinking of different ideas, we used something which was one of my favourite parts of this film - my feet walked past the camera, which was held close to the ground and zoomed in a fair way, then someone else’s feet walk past. This creates the idea of the unknown for the targeted audience.

Moving on, we then came onto our final piece of filming outside, which was where the young girl finds out her friend was the one who was following her, also that he is the one who is stalking her and putting voices in her head. Although this was the most challenging scene of all, we had it done within two shots as we were professional and kept a straight head when being filmed.

The filming inside was quick and simple. We also had to re-film these three clips as we had accidently filmed over them when filming the outside parts. Yet again, the second time we shot them, they were 100% improved (shown below). From the first time we had filmed the three clips, we had to consider the mise-en-scène – the lighting and costuming, as it didn’t seem right at first. So learning from that, we used Adam’s phone camera light and I dressed up all in black for the reason that it seemed to make it creepier then wearing the usual ‘white straight jacket’ for a mental person.

Later on in the editing stage, we decided to use a clock for the opening credits, which I took home as my clock looked an old eerie one. The ticking, the look and the angle set, made the right atmosphere for the rest of the film.

After filming, we jumped straight into editing. Through the process of editing I learned many things by assisting in the editing. Sarah Palmer did the bulk of it as Adam and I were in all of the film and Sarah did not participate in any of it due to the fact that there was only two characters and we discussed thoroughly which role would suit who, but we helped when we could, for example, cutting most of the film down from approximately twenty minutes to two minutes thirty seconds. In my opinion, this is the hardest part of the task given - the editing, because this is where you can’t go wrong otherwise your film could be lost or ruined. The first thing we did was cutting and chopping all the little snippets, making sure all ran smoothly as we cut them, if it didn’t, then you would get jumps from one clip to another.

Subsequent to that, we then had to decide which part if the film would be in black and white, as we didn’t want most of our film being in that colour because the majority of Voices is in the past, and black and white is the typical colour to set the past in.

Meanwhile, with the present snippets in black and white, we wanted to settle on a way of linking together the past and the present, as a result, we took a look at other colours and links. Choosing a perfect link, which would be where the two clips over lap – seeing both past and present, we also chose for the colour to run together – black and white mixed with colour; it added an effect of confusion, improbability mixed in with creepiness.

With that in mind, we had cut more down as we realized that we still had to put the credits on the opening. Cutting it down to at least two minutes, as we were unable to chop out more otherwise the story line would be unaware; we had nearly finished the editing.

During all of this, the music was added bit by bit, which underscores the whole performance. Even though the music runs through all of our opening of the film, it adds different effects when the dynamics progress or digress. Also, keeping the music throughout, holds up the suspense when the dynamics do come through.

The final editing we had to do was the credits. For this, my clock which I had filmed came into plan. Using the clock ticking round – fast forwarding, showing time passing, we placed naming over the top, such as, the character and who was staring as it. We also used the title, with a foggy style to it, which faded in and out again. The style of writing which we used was also used for the staring roles, as we wished to link everything together, including the strangeness.

Looking back on the preliminary task I think that our group has progressed immensely. Seeing the way we combined our skills and used the knowledge of what we new, we worked better as a team and cracked on with things we should be doing in spare time as well as lessons. Although we did work well on the preliminary task, because it was the actual task, we it wasn’t easy to work hard because we were comfortable with who we were working with. In my opinion I feel that our film Voices was a top notch opening, and I would happily work with the same people for the next task given.

Story Boards

These are the fianl shooting schedules as the previous ones did not have the detail that has been added to this.

Group Dynamics

Sarah-Ann Palmer

Sarah was our guide, she new everything and was a great asset to our group. Although she wasn’t seen on screen, Sarah did focus mainly on the footage, for example, filming, editing and directing. I think that Sarah is an easy person to work with due to the fact that I have known her for years and we get along very well. I would defiantly work with her in the next year to come.

Adam White

Not being in the class to start with made it hard at first for Adam to fit in, as he is an external student. But knowing that he is in my tutor, we got on well.
Adam had great acting skills as we tried to portray a certain character for JACK and he had it off to a tee. Hoping that Adam stays on doing media next year, I would gladly work with him again, as I think he is such a fantastic guy to work with.

Ami Fitzpatrick

I was in most of the film as SKY and loved to do so, as acting is my passion. Also I did some of the editing and inputted ideas towards the angles, etc.

The Group on a whole

In my opinion, this group had a great atmosphere about them as we never argued about anything, if someone disagreed with one thing, we would all listen. Most of the work we shared out, as sometimes, wee were unsure if people would be off school for some reason i.e. being ill. We had a great time, and I wish for it to stay the same for our next year in this subject.

Editing

In my opinion, editing has been the hardest thing to do, as we had 20 minutes, possibly more, when we are supposed to have 2 minutes of film. Cutting it down was simple enough, as Adam and I had done most of that whilst Sarah was ill once. I think we had cut it down to around three minutes.

When Sarah came back, we had cut it down to two minutes exactly, but that’s all we could cut, otherwise the film would have been ruined, yet we still had the credits at the beginning to do, which rounded our film up to about two minutes forty.

Sound and Effects

Sound effects such as non-diagetic music were all in aid of the effect of the film. We decided to use eerie music for when SKY is walking to her destination as we were trying to bring across the fear of the unknown. The loud, heavy blasting music is when something happened, for example SKY was walking along the alleyway, and then, all of a sudden we see another pair of feet walk past. The diagetic sounds, such as the breathing were situated to keep the audience in suspense. Also the dialogue was played with music to mute the speech to give the effect that the audience should still be unaware of what is about to happen.

The special effects we used were black and white to show the present time. We decided to use it for the present as most of the film was set in the past and I do not think it is advisable to set most of the film in black and white.

Limitations

During filming we had a few technical limitations, such as sun glare.

The sun glare was the biggest problem as we wee shooting at the time that the sun was setting. It shone right in the camera most of the time, which then limited where to place the camera.

Also, unfortunately the tripod we had collected was broken, therefore, leaving us to not use it in some of the shots. To be honest, in my opinion, not using the tripod sometimes made the film better, for example, walking to SKY; it made it seem like the camera was the stalker.

Location

The location we chose suited the effect we were trying to portray across. Where we were situated was only a ten minute walk from our school, but as we were walking to our ideal place, we came across another alleyway and space that would suit our film more.

The outside was going to be on a place we students call ‘Pit Tip’, but our new place was closer to school and had the right effect, for example, the lighting, the proxemics (space).

We had to hurry along on the outside filming as the weather took its turn. The time we went to film outside, I was freezing cold as the costuming was not exactly winter material. But on that note, we did exceptionally well that cold day, as we finished the whole of the outside section.

The inside filming was quick and simple. Although we had recorded this previously, we had to record it again as we had lost the filming of it because of recording outside. The new filming of it was better then the original anyway, as we decided to work with different effects on the lighting.

Finally, I had filmed my clock at home over an hour and half approximately, due to the fact that as the credits ran at the beginning, my group and I thought it would be different to run some footage through the title and credits.

Shooting Schedule

The shooting schedule was tricky to start out with as Sarah and i had a rehearsals for the school show, plus the show. So due to that, we missed approximatly two weeks of filming. But we did it in the end and eventually we were the first to be finished too.

Script - first chapter.

1. INT. MENTAL HOSPITAL-DAYTIME- (PRESENT)
2. EXT. IN PARK. DUSK.

(Past) The bell had gone for school to go home and SKY is walking through the park to get home. Hearing a branch snap SKY stops to look.

SKY
Hello.......

She turns to look around her.

SKY
Is anybody there?
Come on, this is not funny!

She then paces on; quickly away.
SKY then goes back to the present

1. INT. MENATL HOSPITAL-DAYTIME- (PRESENT)
2. EXT.IN PARK. DUSK

Remembering back SKY carries on pacing. Next, she comes across a friend at the bench, JACK. They pretend to speak (muted). JACK hits on SKY and she gets up to run away. SKY starts to hear voice’s in her head, not knowing it is JACK

JACK
(The voice)
Go on.... you know you should kill him. That’s right KILL HIM!!!!

Still running SKY is wondering what is happening to her and faints.

SKY
(Faintly)
Kill Him....

Camera Map

The first Camera Map is showing when we taped my clock for the opening credits.

This second Camera Map is of the sections in doors - where everything is in black and white.

This Camera Map is for the while of the film where we shot outside.

Before creating these final camera maps we had a different place to film the outside, which was bit further down. But the reason we had changed was due to the cold weather outside, we couldn't make it that far. Along the process of editing we had decided to film my clock for the effect of time never ending - whilst the credits where running through it.

Detailed Treatment

As we fade in, we notice a woman who is sitting quietly in the corner of the room, cramped and issolated. She was wearing a straight jacket and was rocking back and forth, to connote madness and loss of sanity. A high angled shot helped to show how belittled she feels as the audience is looking down apon this woman, also the room is dimly lit and a non-diagetic music will be playing to emphasise the tension within the room.

After zooming into the womans face, a transaction takes place; a white flash which leads into the title sequence. The music is still playing at this point as we were still unsure of what is happening within the scene. There is another non-diagetic sound within this transaction, which is a school bell, this indicates the awareness of what has just happened and the surroundings. The title Voices pops up through the white screen. The word 'voices' made an audience think about what happened throughout the movie.

The white then fades into a fog like substance and analeptic jump comes into view when we see the exact same woman as before. Sky, 15 years of age, is walking through park at dusk. Wearing a school uniform and carrying a bag and books, a wide angled and panning shot was watching the young woman walking through the dark,dingy and dismal walk through leading to the park. She fast fowarded a few times, to create that aura of suspition and confussion, yet the audience do not suspect her as a threat or a victim.

Getting closer to the camera, the woman finally stops when the camera was close-up, the camera then zooms into her eyes for the reaction and then some diagetic sound comes into play. The darkness of outside means a little bit of light would be needed so that we can see the eyes to help us capture the image. Until this point the music is still be playing, but queitly, which shows the link between the first section to this section after the title sequence.

Whilst she is walking, and stopping on the odd occasion, a person was amongst the trees is watching the young maiden.

When all of that has been astablished, we then have that flash of white again, which goes into the young girl in a straight jacket and into the corner again. The music comes back on, still queit, and the camera zoomed into her, getting closer, to build up more tension then needed, but the lighting doesn't change from the first time we see this image, as it shows the link between the the analeptic jumps. We added the flash for the end of this section to help know that it is the end of the image.

Coming back to the young woman walking, we used tracking shot as she pace's herself a little faster as she is spooked because of what had just happened. She turns around and there behind her is a friend. The lighting is of the sun setting as we wanted it to be natural light (from outside) because it gives all sorts of atmosphere's. We also hear the girl out of breathe to clarify that she is scared.

As the music gets louder, a close-up of the characters miming a conversation came into play, we then jumped cut into the mantrying to talk her into loving him.
The music softens again as there was a mid-shot of the young girl getting up to running away. A close-up of the mans face was then shown on the screen as he is angry. A diagetic sound came out of the mans mouth.

We track the girl for a while, then the camera turned around to her face as she was holding the camera to give the effect that the audience are running with her. No music was playing anymore, but we heard the sound of her breath and the non-diagetic sound of 'voices'.

Still holding the camera, the girl falls down and is then unconsious, this gives the effect that we are with her at the time of the confusion.

Technique Anaylsis

Louis Lumiere, a frenchman, is often noted for his invention, which is the first motion picture in 1895, even though there were many other similar inventions made around the same time. Lumiere's creation was a portable motion-picture camera, a film processing unit and a projector called the Cinematographe. There are three things which is covered in one invention.

Films then advanced into into the 1900's from moving picture's to black and white silent movie's. The thriller/horror in black and white tended to be comical, as the villan would get a pie in their face, and the usual damsel in destress would eventually be tyed to a rail-road track. Within the early 1900's camera angles were simplistic, as they were not technalogically advanced as us nowadays. The sounds were generally non-diagetic, as all the sound would be was music over the silience. Transactions where used alot as writing would pop up for the sudience to know what was being mimed.

Now we are in 21st century technology has advanced steeply. Films are in colour, they have both diagetic and non-diagetic sounds, e.g. dialogue and music, and we have now special effects, just like in Star Wars. Star Wars has many diegetic sounds which is the dialogue, it has non-diagetic sounds when the lightsabre's and guns are in action. The film Star Wars is a good example as it has been through many stages of technology; With the early years came film 4-6, then they decided to make 1-3. There is a definate difference with the way the later films look to the earlier films as they were film over many many years. But also with the 6 films comes the new animated movie Clone Wars, which is simply most of the movies placed together.

Genre Conventions

Lighting

The lighting within any type of thriller is usaully a colour that connotates something, for example, a dark alley way can connote suspition, death or even violence. Whereas in any typical romantic film you might have a red light to connote lust.

Sounds

For a thriller, as an audience, we gennerally notice alot of non-diagetic sounds, such as; music. This helps to create that certain aura that the director is trying to bring across, leaving the audience in a state of shock or unsure.

Editing

Editing is quite simple throughout a thriller, as you would want to keep the viewers on the edge of their seats, and by doing that, jump cuts would be used, with the occassional transaction like disolving - but only at the end of a section would you use a transaction like disolve otherwise it could get to complex.

Changes in Convention of the Thriller Genre

Over the later years of film making, psychological thrillers have grabbed the attention of an audience better then the average love film, for example, on Rateitall.com the average psychological thriller is rated somewhere between 4 or 5 out of 5.

Going back to the early years of film making, where setting and acting was abysmal, the psychological thrillers, such as Blackmail (1929; Directed by Alfred Hitchcock) didn’t seem to make a good impression on a wide audience as the industry lacked the understanding, knowledge and expertise that makes a better class of psychological thrillers as we know today, for example The Others (2001; Directed by Alejandro Amenabar).

Synoptic Treatment

The Voices

The whole film is based on a psychological thriller, which will most defiantly leave you with the hairs standing up on the back of your neck. Similar to The Secret Window (2004; Directed by David Koepp), I recommend watching The Voices, as both plots are a mystery and keeps your mind ticking throughout.

The structure of this film has such an intriguing atmosphere that The Voices can change your perspective on many things, such as the way you think. It creates an aura of madness, not confusion, throughout the film as the tension builds up with underlying tones of music and voices, along with atmospheric lighting. Another film in which the structure is psychological, is American Psycho (2000; Directed by Mary Harron), as the plot unravels as it gets deeper into the movie.

Zooming straight into the first scene, a young girl, Sky, approximately 16 years of age, is walking through a dark, dingy and dismal park, when she comes across this dim figure. After approaching this ‘dim’ figure, she immediately runs off.

After that excitement, the camera ends up somewhere we all know is not at all cheerful. Using a 360-degree turn around this particular room, we see Sky in the corner, looking pastier then ever. Flashing back, we then notice how she ends up in the place that she is, but when the present time pops up occasionally, we discover that she has only one visitor.

Years pass by and Sky leaves this place, but decides to take her revenge.

Who is this ‘dim’ figure? Where does she end up? Who is this visitor? And why does she wish to take revenge? All these questions can be answered by watching the movie.

There is no particular scene in this movie that is unique, as with out all of it, it would not be understood the way it should be, therefore every single part is as important and unique as the story unfolds scene by scene.

The genre, psychological thriller, has been used very carefully to create the apprehension and anxiety for the audience to be hooked, just like the film The Ring (2002; Directed by Gore Verbinski). After personally watching other psychological thrillers, I wouldn’t put this genre on the top of my list, but due to watching The Voices it has changed my perspective on this type of genre, as I find that it keeps the audience on the edge of their seats until the final moment; whereas in some other genres the audience can tend to get bored after the first forty-five minutes.

Finding many other psychological thrillers dull, such as The Grudge (2004; Directed by Takashi Shimizu), I can certainly say that The Voices does not come into that category, as to previous reasons mentioned. The acting and scenery has captured the eyes of many other film directors, so hopefully we will be seeing something just as fantastic in the future due to the heat of the competition. The Voices has all the right formula for the inquisitive mind, which enjoys solving riddles. Therefore I would give this a top five star rating.

History of Trailors

The films that make film makers open to different choices in my opinion are ‘Flags of our Fathers’, ‘City of God’ and ‘Sleepy Hollow’, which are three completely different styles of films.

Within ‘Flags of our Fathers’ the analeptic opening is of a dream sequence or a memory, which is then interrupted by the awakening of an old man. The dream consists of a one man in battle, with nothing around him apart from smoke and the earth. When the man is running; trying to find his way out (as if he is lost) we hear muffled voices, which connotes that the man cannot get out of were he is – he is lost forever. This film has many choices to use, such as the dream sequence. The opening creates tension, as the audience are unaware of what is happening until we come across the old man, which then makes us think that he’s had something on his mind ever since that day.

Next is ‘City of God’ where we see a merge of cuts between the chicken, the death of other chickens and the dancing and music of the people. This creates that aura of suspension for the chicken, as we think he will be chopped up like the others. But when it comes to the time of his death, there is that sigh of relief because the chicken manages to set himself free, yet as he is running off we again are on the edge of our seats due to the fact that the people run after it. We then come to a boy, who is a main part as he is in the title sequence, and is asked to try and catch the chicken with out scaring it. As the camera circles around him, we go to an immediate analeptic jump, as it reminds the main character of his childhood trauma of letting down his friends, which is ironic due to the fact that he cannot let the people down with this chicken or he might get shot. ‘City of God’ has a weird opening in my eyes as I had know idea what was going to happen next.

‘Sleepy Hollow’, unlike ‘Flags of our Fathers’ and ‘City of God’, creates that sort of horror atmosphere. The title sequence at first helps that, as the names/ titles are surrounded by fog and has mysterious non-diagetic music. To help create that horror and tension, the director has a series of close ups and extreme close ups to make us question what is happening, for example, drops of red liquid make an audience think it is blood, but as we get into the film, we notice it is candle wax for a seal. Then we come to the tense part, as it links to the title sequence as there is fog surrounding a carriage. Throughout ‘Sleepy Hollow’ we never get a moments piece, because of the atmosphere.

All these openings of have different influences on the mind, all being good in their own way, but they also have influences for directors as every good director looks at different openings to take piece’s and ideas and that is what we will do as media students too.