Scene Breakdown for filming

I compiled a scene breakdown to ensure I knew what we needed for each scene and what we would film, including how long the scene would take.

Scene 1
Arrive at location of Beth's Flat and film Lydia knocking on the door, she rings the client but no answer, she walks away frustrated.
Equipment: Lydia's outfit, Briefcase, badge, camera and tripod.
Estimated time filming: 15 Minutes.


Scene 2
Arrive at the runners murder location, film Beth running with her hood up, a point of view attack of the runner will be filmed. The jogger is killed with a blow to the head.
Equipment: Hooded jacket, wrench,leggings, trainers, camera.
Estimated time filming: 25 minutes.


Scene 3
Begin scene with Lydia sat in the car talking to someone who we can not see. Film the exterior shot of her speaking to an empty seat. Film interior shot of her viewing a chase scene tape, she sates she will not buy it and leaves the car in distress at the images she has just witnessed.
Equipment: Camera, tripod, ECG tabs, tape, briefcase
Estimated time filming: 60 Minutes

Scene 4
Lydia slouches on the wall from distress of the chase scene she has witnessed. She touches the wall and receives a flashback to a murder taken place in the exact same spot. She runs away terrified.
Equipment: Camera, tripod, briefcase
Estimated time filming: 20 Minutes

Scene 5 
Film the scene in which Lydias client is attacked in the underpass.
Equipment:The clients costume, camera.

The Chase Scene Symbolism

Symbolism within the film
The chase scene features the character Vera and her protagonist. They are running through stair wells to which leads them to a roof. The shared point of view and constant switches back and forth evokes the struggle of Vera as she battles to keep her alter ego and inner demon inside. I wanted to suggest to the audience that the end scene in which the audience can infer that the alter ego has metaphorically pushed Vera off the building which also symbolises that the alter ego has taken over. the symbolism is a common convention of short films and I feel we have portrayed symbolism within the short film to signify to the audience that Vera is insane. The fact Vera gets out of the car in distress form viewing the chase scene was used to indicate that she does not want the alter ego to win.

The change in perspectives indicates that the Playback footage is from one person. It subtly indicates that Vera and the blonde running is the same person, yet they have different perspectives to demonstrate the differences between them. The glimpses of the blonde girl in this scene is again an indication to the audience that she is of importance, the fact the alter ego is revealed in the end allows the audience to realise that it was in fact her in the chase scene. 

Multiple Personality Disorder: Mental health Research

Mental Health Research

I wanted to research the mental disorder we present in our film to ensure we had an understanding of it and represent it in the way it is medically described below.

Dissociative identity disorder is characterized by the presence of two or more distinct or split identities or personality states that continually have power over the person's behavior. With dissociative identity disorder, there's also an inability to recall key personal information that is too far-reaching to be explained as mere forgetfulness. With dissociative identity disorder, there are also highly distinct memory variations, which fluctuate with the person's split personality.

The "alters" or different identities have their own age, sex, or race. Each has his or her own postures, gestures, and distinct way of talking. Sometimes the alters are imaginary people; sometimes they are animals. As each personality reveals itself and controls the individuals' behavior and thoughts, it's called "switching." Switching can take seconds to minutes to days. 

Similar Film-Black Swan

Black Swan

Within Black Swan Bulimia, Self Harm, OCD, sexual repression, psychosis and schizophrenia is featured. The protagonist battles with hallucinations which gradually leads to her death. Black Swan plays on the well known children story and manipulates it into something sinister. Black Swan explores the mentality of Nina who battles to achieve her dream of becoming the star of the show in an upcoming ballet show. She aims to play the role of the white swan and the black swan but in doing so causes her to become obsessed with the alter ego black swan. Within Black Swan, the swans symbolise how society expects women to act and her dance instructor is a microcosm of how harrowing society can be. The death of Nina was brought forth due to her mental illness she endured due to the constant abuse of herself and how tough her instructor was on her. Nina in the beginning is a symbol of the white swan as she is pure and innocent, this gradually changes through sexual exploration and drug use. From beginning to end the main structure of the film aims to turn her purity to something sinister and tarnished. It is ironic as at the ultimate section of the film, Nina is the black swan both physically and mentally. Nina suffers from a wide variety of mental health issues such as Schizophrenia, Eating Disorders and hallucinations. The film explores each of these mental health issues to show the ways in which society can be individuals biggest problem, when Nina finally conforms and becomes the black swan and kills herself it is the end of her social torment and her mental illness. In some ways Black Swan can be considered verisimilitude in the ways it is a smaller scale of how society can be and how mental illnesses can happen to any individual. The fact Nina is in a career where weight is an issue is realistic for audiences to relate to, despite the transformation into a swan  being somewhat of a fairy tale. Nina experiences a break from a reality due to the social pressures she has on  her, she enters psychosis which subsequently sends her mind in a spiral of hallucinations that were damaging. She visually transitions to her alter ego who ultimately ends up killing herself and harming her co-star. I wanted to create a similar ending, where the alter ego triumphs, 

Hallucinating

Psychotic

Nina switches between her alter ego



Her alter ego presents itself physically via the colour change in her eyes

Easter Eggs

Easter Eggs

As we are creating a new film, I thought it would be interesting to reference the original film plot in which there were Henchmen. In order to do this, I printed off stills from the previous film and our As project and placed them around Vera's office, these are known as Easter Eggs. 

Easter eggs within films can create visceral pleasures for the audience as it is an entertaining accompaniment to films, whether it be a reference via a physical object or a reference through the use of dialogue. I identified the uses of 'Easter Eggs' within existing products and explore the ways in which it is presented.


Create Posters from old film to reference in the new

Within Kill Bill, the name of the protagonist isn't revealed until
the sequel, however, in the first movie, there is a brief shot of flight tickets with her name clearly stated as Beatrix Kiddo.
This has become an Easter eggs has fans have identified the name before the sequel.

Within Disney's Aladdin, the tigers transformation has an Easter Egg of Mickey Mouse's Ears on the top of his head.

Within the film Tron, the holographic screen clearly has Pac Man on the background, this is to entertain fans of both the game and the film as Pac Man was a popular 1980's game during the era of Tron's release.

For fans of Harrison Ford in star wars, the hieroglyphics clearly have R2-D2 and C-3PO carved on the beam in Indiana Jones.

In Monsters Inc, Finding Nemo and Jessie from Toy Story is featured for fans to identify.

A Bugs Life characters feature briefly in Toy Story 2



New Script for Playback

film update-why we have changed some aspects

We have come to the decision when completing our film and watching it back that some changes need to be made in order to make sure that our film has  been completed to the best of our ability.
When carrying out audience reactions on our film the main thing that stood out to us was that it wasn't a clear plot as it was very confusing for individuals to understand putting ourselves aside, so we came to the conclusion that it would be for the best to change some scenes.
We strongly felt that some aspects of the film let others down as some shots wasn't varied enough and some of the camera angles wasn't up to our standard as well as the lighting so we decided to re-shoot the murder scene and the outcome was very good as now we have better shots and the lighting is very good in comparison to the previous shooting that we did.
However I felt that our strongest part of the film is by far the chase scene in the stair well as it has a variation of shots and the sound and editing is what we did to the best of our ability.

 I strongly felt that the following scenes had to go as it complicated the film a lot and it was not very well planned as we didn't think too much and looking back we realized that it needed to go, furthermore we felt the idea of a 'dictator' was confusing to the public eye as the majority failed to understand the concept of this.

One of our original scenes we wished to have dictators whom works for the distributer, both Leah and Beth dressed as men due to us having difficulty finding males to contribute and help us. However when looking back on our footage after editing we found that it looked very comical and this was the polar opposite to what we wanted so we made the big decision to delete all the scene and start over as we needed our film to fit our genre to the best we could.

We decided that the film needed to be simplified so by this what we did was make the story line a lot better and easier to understand to others not just ourself so we incorporated our ideas in order to make our film simple but yet effective. We also decided that the shots we used was not to the best of our ability as we had not used the camera to its full potential in order to create the bet shots. We found after reshooting we included a lot more shots making our shots have much more variation and this would allow us to show different aspects in our film and engage the audience more as this was what we needed to do.

Alter ego usage in films

Alter ego is seen as a second self to be different from a persons original personality, some believe that they live a 'double life' due to this and the disorder has been popularized in many films, such as mystery and murder films. We decided upon this idea in order to fit the genre and create a more mysterious story line as well as educate people on personality disorders as it is a growing thing in todays world. We felt that it would create a tension and atmosphere in the film that would keep the audience engaged as our character Vera is unstable and is carrying out actions that come with great consequences.
Many films have incorporated the thought of alter egos and some examples of these are...

Mr Brooks 
Mr Brooks is a thriller film where a man is controlled by his muderous loving alter ego, he has attempted to keep his killing addiction under control but his alter ego 'Marshal' reappears and begins to punish him, he is egged on constantly by voices telling him what to do and the two of them negotiate the murders.










The nutty professor.

Comic scince fiction film is based on Sherman Klump whom is a loving man but also obese, he develops as a scientist an experimental weight loss formula in order to fill his intentions of winning the girl of his dreams. His stylish but yet arrogant alter ego "Buddy love" makes him 300 pounds lighter and everyone is astonished his miraculous weight loss and develops an independent personality causing him to be overly confident.

Multiple personality disorder

Multiple Personality Disorder, also known as Dissociative Identity Disorder, is a severe form of dissociation, a state in which there is a lack of connection between a person and their thoughts, memories, feelings, actions or sense of identity. It is thought that this disorder stems from a traumatic experience in the persons life, therefore the disorder is thought as a coping mechanism. The individual literally will dissociate their selves with a situation in which they are unable to cope with.

Dissociative Identity Disorder is characterised by the presence of one or more distinct personalities. This can also be seen when a individual fails to remember personal information that is too far-reaching to be characterised by forgetfulness. There is also highly distinct memory variations, which fluctuate with the persons split personality. A persons different personalities may have their own age, sex and/or race. They may have their own distinct personality traits such as posture, gesture and thir own way of talking. When each of the personalities takes control of the individual and their behaviour, it is called switching. Along with the personalities, they may experience some of the following symptoms:

• Depression
• Mood swings
• Suicidal tendencies
• Sleep Disorders
• Anxiety
• Phobias
• Substance abuse
• Compulsion and rituals
• Psychotic symptoms
• Eating disorders

Multiple personality disorder can be seen in a number of films. It is usually seen in murder mysteries, as a red herring plot development. In popular culture we see MPD more than we realise. Here are a few examples of characters who suffered from MPD;

• Earl Brooks (Kevin Costner) - Mr Brooks
• Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) - Shutter Island 
• Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) - Psycho 
• Eve White (Joanne Woodward) - Three Faces Of Eve

Treatment for Playback new film

Title:
Playback


Genre:
Short film/ Sci-fi Thriller


Duration:
5 Minutes


Audience:
Our typical audience will be within the age range of 18-30 as this is the largest group of cinema goers, and they will most likely male as they tend to seek out thrill and action, where as, stereotypically, women prefer genres like romance and comedy as these are lighter types of entertainment. This would be the most appropriate age as our film will include graphic violence and other content typical of a 18 age rating. We believe Sci-fi appeals to younger ages as they are more open minded and with the development of video games, Sci-fi is more popular with the younger ages. However a more mature audience would be attracted to our film because of the mature themes and the thriller aspect, which is usually preferred by the older audiences. As already mentioned our audience is likely to be male,  nonetheless our film will also appeal to some females as our main character portrays a strong independent woman who goes against the stereotypes of the woman being the weaker gender. Therefore more woman would go see our film than in previous years. The audience that is likely to watch the film lead a digital, creative and free spirited lifestyle. This type of lifestyle will appeal to my film because young people are open-minded. As our Target audience will be more open minded, I believe it will be easier for them to understand the film as it will be complicated and dystopian. Also, the film will be current as we will be using new filming and editing techniques.

Synopsis:
The film will begin with a conversation in Vera's office. This will explain to the audience how the ECG tabs will be used and what Playbacks are. This scene will include an exchange of money for the tapes, and will include a phone call at the end of the scene. This phone call will explain that there are such things as underground tapes which are illegal, and they contain violent and inappropriate content. Following the phone call, Vera will leave the office, and using elliptical editing, we will portray her getting from her office, through town and to her home, during this scene some upbeat music will play and we will use rhythmic editing. When Vera arrives home the doorbell rings and a tape is left outside her door. She picks the tape up and puts the ECG tabs on. On the tape there is a continuous handheld shot of a gruesome murder taking place in a car park. There are cuts between the tape material and Vera's reaction to what she is seeing on the tape. She rips the ECG tabs off after she witnesses the victims liver being removed. As soon as she removes the tabs the doorbell rings again and there is a second tape left outside the door. Vera enters her house once again, and proceeds to watch the second tape. The second tape reveals a rape, once again filmed using a handheld shot. Vera once again rips her tabs off, for the doorbell to ring again, and for her to again find another tape outside her door. On this tape we see a jogger being stalked and hit with a wrench. This she once again rips her tabs off, picks up her briefcase and leaves the house. In a new scene Vera enters a car, and begins asking if the person in the car (we never actually see the person in the car) if they have been sending her these illegal tapes. A hand passes Vera a new tape and it shows a chase scene in a car park, an individual is being stalked, and the stalker is pushed off the roof of the car park at the end. Vera removes the tabs and storms out of the car, leaving the tape behind. She walks away to the underpass. In the underpass Vera places her hand on the wall, and has a flashback off a murder. Scared, Vera runs away and returns home where she finds a final tape. She picks up the tape and enters the house, where she proceeds to watch the tape. The tape is of the same murder she just had a flashback from in the underpass. This then cuts to a handheld shot of someone's bloody hands. This then cuts to a point of view shot of someone being pulled up the stairs. This then cuts to a shot of Vera looking in the mirror, and her alter ego flashes in and out of the mirror. This scene shows Vera confused and scared, frantically trying to understand who the alter ego is. This then cuts to the car scene, showing Vera talking to herself and the alter ego flashes in and out of the drivers seat. It cuts to the underpass murder once more, this time showing the victims point of view, revealing Vera is the murderer and it is her who has been committing these crimes. It ends with a shot of Vera and her Alter ego looking smug in the mirror, this will be slowed down to portray the mental instability of Vera.  

Character Profiles

Short film analysis

https://youtu.be/9c0U-4Axvbw

Hybrid is a short film that I cam across on youtube that is about an Alien invasion, the beginning of the film sets the scene and subtitles is used as we are listening to a foreign language of the 'Hybrids' talking that we can not come to understand. A special forces daughter is killed by the Aliens and she is seeking revenge and sends a team into the alien territory but she finds out that they aren't Aliens they are a failed experiment by the government t crater a bio-hybrid soldier, she exposes they in order to save the city form falling.

 

We hear a voice over of the woman talking about 'the key' and asking what is the key but we do not know? this is done through a flashback and through very slow editing techniques. We see her daughter and what happened before the attack by the Hybrids, fade in and out is used and close ups of the young girls face using high key lighting issued in order to show her innocence to the world. 

The mother then says 'they won't stop until they find it' but what is it and why do they need it?

Then we witness a cut away which then we are faced with a close up of the mother in a totally different atmosphere in what looks to be a distopian setting holding a rather large gun. Both digetic and non digetic sound is used to set the scene and give us a feeling of what is going to happen and this keeps us on edge thinking what will happen next. 

In terms of shots high angle shots are used to show that this woman is somewhat superior and is the leader of  her pack. Then a transition is used and we see when the little girl got abducted and one minute she is there and the next she is gone, we see the woman run to find her girl and a sound bridge is used to transition the shot and carry on the music back to present time.

In terms of stereotypes we do not typically expect to see a woman geared up to go to war and fight we would expect this to be a man, who is strong and independent looking to fight his own battles but intact we are shown the total opposite and from the flash backs we see a woman wearing a dress and bright colours what we normally

From the setting and the shot variation we immediately see the film as a science fiction due to the stereotypical view of science fiction and what we would expect to see from the film such as burnt down buildings and guns and futuristic elements such as aliens etc.

How to approach personality disorder.

our main character in out film Vera is suffering from a personality disorder and when we have been planning our film I had decided to do further research into this in order to get a real life perspective of what and how to approach the subject in an appropriate mannor, by doing this i felt that I would learn more from it and it would help when writing about our film.

Paranoid personality disorder is when a person is distrustful and suspicious and also this includes..

• A person feeling that they can not trust anyone 
• Thinking that people are lying to them and manipulating them.
• wording that ant information will be against them.

I have done further research into films and these include 

Halloween 1978 

• Halloween is a dilm that is set in Haddondeild and on halloween night in 1963 a six year old dresses in a flow costume and kills his older sister by stabbing her with a knife, fifteen years later the 21 year old escapes from a psychiatric hospital and returns home and stalks Laurie and her friends, his doctor suspects what his intentions are and follows him in order to stop him murdering again.

Editing analysis.

Editing a film is the most vital part of the success of a film, without the correct editing techniques a potentially good film could be ruined. Editing is the technique of putting shots together in order to create a sequence that flows. The relationship of shots can be rhythmic, graphic, spatial or temporal, these are known as 'The four dimensions of editing'


Rythmic editing- is when the relationship between shots function correctly in order to control the pace of the film. Rhythmic transitional devices include, wipe, fade in/fade out, dissolve and jump cut.

Graphic editing is the comparison of pictorial elements from shot to shot. They relate two scenes together or make the establishment between two important elements in a film and they work by a frame of the same size or similar shape to make a connection between two things, or potentially foreshadowing something. Phsyco is a good example of this as in the show scene of the film shortly after a brutal murder the camera focuses on the plug of the bath and this then changed to a graphic match of the woman's eye.

Spatial editing is is when relations between shots work in order to construct film space.

Establishing shot is also linked as it provides the audience with the introducing of the place and characters in a film. Shot reverse shot is a technique used and defimed as multiple shots edited together to alternate between characters and shows typically a conversation, this can be done by the use of over the shoulder shots.

Eyline match is a shot when a character looks directly at something and the another shot is shown to what the character is looking at, this is implying significants of what a character is looking at. 

Tempral editing is when shots function in order to control time.

Match on action is part of continuity editing and cuts between two different shots of the same action, this is done to allow an action to be seen from multiple directions and an example of this would be walking in or out of a door way. This allows a shot to still be continuous.

Paralell editing is used in order to pot ray multiple lines of action in different places, different actions are shown simultaneously as there could be some connection between the actions and this can be understood by the audience by doing this.

Kuleshov theory of editing.

His experiment consisted of showing an audience three clips and followed by a shot of a face yet the audience was un aware of the fact the same shot of a face was used every time, this experiment helped him conclude that a shot was determined not by the material content of the shot but aslso the association of the shot shown to an audience.

The Black Hole - Short film analysis

Mise-En-Scene
This film is set in a typical office setting, which allows the audience to relate to the film and also it makes the film more believable. This is believable as most people work in offices, therefore most people see the inside of an office day in day out. So most people are used to the office setting and can understand the film. The office in this film is typical of a normal office setting and contains features of a typical office, for example the paper work, and computers which are seen in the background. The actors clothes are also usual of a office worker, conforming to the stereotypes of an office worker.  His clothes also demonstrate the fact that this film is set in modern times as the clothes are modern and up-to-date. Despite wearing a shirt and tie, the actor doesn't look overly smart, probably due to the rolled up sleeves and the fact his top button is undone. This portrays the fact that he is tired, along with his facial expression.

Colour/Lighting
A dull gray colour is used throughout the film and the edges are darker, and fade into the rest of the scene. The dark colours combined with the empty office signify the fact that  he is probably working over-time and late at night. The dark colours also portray the characters boredom and loneliness of the character.

Editing/Cinematography
 The director of this short film uses a point of view shot from the perspective of the 'black hole'. This shot is also low angle shot, showing the power that this black hole gives to the actor. This shot shows the intrigue on the actors face and portrays his confusion at this time.

There is also the use of a shallow depth of focus as can seen in the shot displayed here. This is used as the filmmaker wants the audience to focus solely on the actors facial expression and his actions at this time.




The Director also uses a eyeline match and elliptical editing in this scene seen on the right. The use of the eyeline match allows the audience to see the actor get an idea, and then see for themselves what the idea is. This is used twice within the film, allowing the audience to interact with the character and the film. This allows them to guess what he will use the 'black hole' for next and keeps them intrigued.  The use of elliptical editing also means that the characters journey to the vending machine is missed out, therefore any unnecessary time isn't taken up, and the audience isn't bored by the film.




Sound
The diegetic sound of the photocopier is heard at the very beginning of the film to the very end. This emphasises the actor is the only one in the scene as they cannot hear anyone else in the setting. This also reinforces the idea that this film is set in an office, making the setting more believable to the audience. The fact this is one of the first sounds heard emphasises the fact that this is a main prop in the film and is important to the storyline. The audience can also hear a sort of magnetic sound, which is believed to have originated from the black hole. This sound implies the supernatural element to the film. When the actor enters the room which holds the safe, the sound of a fan can be heard, which is used to emphasis the fact that this is a key element to how the film might end.