Throughout our coursework we have had different ideas as to the soundtrack we wanted to use in the film. Our original idea was Teddy Bear by Elvis but we felt that the rhythm of the song didn't fit with the film and din't add to the thriller element we wanted to achieve. Our second choice was Teddy Bears Picnic with our actress humming the tune, however both of these songs we thought were trying too hard to link with the bears in the film and that Teddy Bears Picnic had been over used.

Our final choice was:

We felt that this was a good use of contrapuntal sound that linked with the fairytale theme but completely contrasted the murder that had just taken place. We also feel like this piece of music after the scene also mirrors Goldilocks' character quite well with the psychotic death followed by upbeat, childish music showing the contrast between bipolar criminal and innocent girl. 

Towards the end of the soundtrack it slows down:

The music slowing down we hope will represent the slowing down of the DCI's heart beat as his life comes to an end because of Goldilocks. 

I wanted to help with the editing process so Zoe taught me how to use the editing software Sony Vegas. After showing me how to do basic editing I helped Zoe to edit some of the scenes and suggest which shots to use where.

Here is a short 1 minute clip of an editing session:

Managing time tables: Even though we only had two main actors there were major timetabling issues and that meant that we could only film with both actors one or two days a week for a couple of hours. This meant that we could only do the main bulk of filming in short bursts. To get around this we had to sort of the scenes into shots with one or both of the characters. Any shots with only one character in could be done on a separate day when that actor was available. This was hard to do as it was both time consuming but also making sure that the actors were looking in the right place and the positioning of their eyes would make it look like they are maintaing eye contact.

Lighting: The drama studio we were using was also used for classes during the day and other clubs after school hours. This meant that all the lights in the drama studio were changed meaning that we had to find the lights plug them in and sort out light intensity and took a long time from 10 mins to 40 mins and this time was taken out of filming time.

A second way that lighting affected the production was later in the filming. When we were filming our last few pages of script a problem occurred. All the lights in the drama room we were filming in were taken down for the school play, Romeo and Juliette. By speaking to one of the schools lighting technicians I was able to get another light in the drama room. This meant that the lighting changes at the end of my short film due to this problem but the same chiaroscuro effect could be created and filming resumed the next week.

Booking room: Other than clubs there were some external bookings and exams in the room. I had spoken to the head of drama and the person in charge of external booking to let me now via email if there were any bookings. However, I was often given less than 24 hours notice of booking which meant that I had to tell my actors who have cleared their schedules that we can't film which was both frustrating and meant that were weren't keeping to filming schedules.

Camera focusing: During our filming we used extreme key lighting. My camera struggled to focus on loose frames and this lead to many of our shots to being blurry and out of focused. This meant that many of the shots had to be changed changed to a tighter frame to avoid this. This also meant that we had to set the camera to record for a few seconds to minutes before acting out the scene so the camera had time to adjust to the light levels. This meant that each time we filmed the SD i used (8GB Sandisk) was empty so there was space for all the extra film. To still include loose frames in our short film I decided that I could edit the shots to make it a loose frame. As the background was completely black i was able to -----zoom---- out on each scene and add a black background behind it to create space around the character. ////add footage/screenshots to describe//////

Script: Our actress had difficulties saying some words such as baby bear and lines such as "they still put out their bowls of porridge" forcing changes in the script so the actress could say the lines that the audience could clearly hear. This caused time setbacks as we would have to film several scenes many times and then implement changes until the scene worked. ////add footage/screenshots to describe//////

Length of film: The length of the film ended up being over 6 minutes. This was too long to fit into the specification so we had to cut scenes out. However, the film is mainly based on one conversation between two characters which made cutting scenes out difficult if we wanted the interrogation to still make sense. In the end one monologue was taken out completely to cut down on the film length.

The camera we used was Panasonic Lumix DMC-GF2 MP Micro Four-Thirds interchangeable lens digital camera with 3.0-inch touch screen LCD and 14-42 mm f/3.5-5.6 II ASPH. MEGA O.I.S. Lens

On Wednesday we met with Maggie to do a photo shoot for the poster. Earlier in the week we bought the dress for her and used Zoe's apron with frills that stuck to our 60s theme:

 We used our drama room with has black drop curtains and controlled lighting, we made the room pitch black with only one soft/dimmed light coming from behind the camera to add a yellow softness to the shots.

We attempted to keep most of the shadowing to be on Goldilocks' side and the light to be on the bear to imply a connotation of darkness/antagonist of Goldilocks to the audience. From our previous audience surveys on our tester posters we found that the audience preferred the shots where she was hugging the bear and looked friendly but the lighting around portrayed a more sinister side. Out of the shots we had we chose this one:

We uploaded our photo onto www.pictaculous.com which then recommended a colour pallet for us to use for our fonts and other decorations: 

With this we decided to alter the colour in the main photo and use reduced opacity pastel colours for our font and decoration. 

From this and our research into short film posters and fonts we developed the decoration around it and altered the colouring of the photograph. We first made the awards/recommendations/stars that would entice our audience into watch it: 

We made up the award and used known newspapers/magazines etc. to use to quote the star ratings. We decided to stick with a pastel blue/grey for the colouring of the font and stars alongside the use of white for the award wreaths so that it didn't all blur into one. I found the wreaths online and used the instant alpha and crop tool on Mac to isolate just the wreaths, I took the stars and line from my Macs basic image collection and the font we used was Supercalrendon. 

 Then going back to our research we took our font from fontspace (Beauty and the Beast) for our title although we may change this later. Using our recommended pallet we used a light pastel yellow, using this in KeyNote, we reduced the opacity to 66% so the colour didn't look too primary against the black background.

Putting these two together we originally put the layout like this:

We then added in the release date in the same font, after re-arrnging the layout and looking back at our research we decided to put the awards/recommendation above the title with the date at the bottom like so:

We then had to look at the arrangements of poster credits, from research we found this template:

Looking through fontspace, we found Caledo which we found was very close to the template, we then used the same pastel yellow colour as the main font. Within the credits we wanted to break it up so it wasn't just a block of text plus we wanted the release date to stand out - we therefore put the release date in the middle of the credits but in the Beauty and the Beast font we used for our main title:

We are taking this and putting it through Photoshop to emphasise the quality - the font is likely to change. 

We have booked our auditions for Goldilocks this Friday in our school drama room.
We have advertised to girls in year 8 and year 9 as we feel like they would be small and young enough to play Goldilocks but be old enough to understand the role and play it well with confidence.
   Zoe and I will be discussing our thoughts on Friday afternoon and consider call backs. The results will be sent on Monday morning.

1. Interrogation room
   School drama studio (completely black room with no windows)
   Characters needed - Detective, Goldilocks, DC
   Props - 2 chairs, table, overhead light, files, voice recorder

2. Police Cells
   The Island - Bristol (stairs, and cells)
   Characters needed - Detective, DC
   Props - Cigarette, Files
You can see our blogpost about it here.

3. Woodland
   Weston Big Wood
   Characters - Goldilocks
   Props - Bear Skin

4. The 'Skin' Room
   3B Cabot park, Avon-mouth - Warehouse
   Characters - Goldilocks and Red Riding Hood
   Props - Collection of skins, sofa/comfy chairs, plate of biscuits, lamp
-Zoe has written a blog post in further depth about the warehouse, as its her dad's and has previous knowledge about it.

VOTES: 29

VOTES: 20

VOTES: 12

VOTES: 4

From our results we can see the publics favourite choice of of the 4, we particularly like this choice as you can't see the girls face and it adds an element of mystery to it. In addiction to this, she is hugging the bear, suggesting friendship and innocence, we will be testing out different colour schemes and effects to the pictures that we will take with our actress to suggest darker connotations that link with the short film. We will experiment with different shots as well including the focus, the enhanced/weakened definition of the colour however we will be keeping the same pose at the bottom of the shot in a medium-long shot.

We will also play around with our text (whats actually written, size of font etc.) as we have a lot of room around the picture of Goldilocks and the bear. Once we have done this we will create a second survey to give back to our audience to vote on their favourite. 

Similar with our fonts, we wanted the innocence element to the posters as well, therefore we looked at existing images of young happy girls hugging a teddy bear, having the young girl hugging it initially looks innocent, but by then editing the image onto a black background, softening the edges so they merge and adding dark brush strokes onto the image creates a far more sinister essence to the poster. Also the hugging can provide hints of strangulation and death. These are just testers to use for reference, audition posters and surveys for the public to see and give their opinion to which they feel best suit our premise. Once we have completed the surveys and casted Goldilocks we will then be taking our own photographs with the actress, and editing them according to our audience research.

- All effects and editing were used in powerpoint.

My script falls into the suspense/thriller genre of film, using a 'drip-feed' method throughout Goldilocks' monologues building up the story and tension until the 'big reveal'. Researching the suspense/thriller genre, these particular films caught my eye with regards to design and lighting of the shots using chiaroscuro create elements of suspense, tension and mystery;

 Hitchcock Movies
1. Birds

2. Psycho

Throughout the research, old black and white movies pradominantly adopt the usage of high key lighting with several shadows for the use of symbolism as well as adding to the suspense. Although its unlikely we'll be doing this for symbolic reasons we will be looking further into how to create this chiaroscuro lighting in our interrogation room.

-The Godfather

However, The Godfather uses this style of lighting in the way we wish to also, using it in specific scenes focussing on one character or the tension between two characters, occasionally similar to an interrogation - using the lighting to show power and characteristics as well between the two. I also particularly like how the men are wearing black tuxedos, forcing their bodies into the back ground and emphasising their faces, and in turn forcefully focussing the audience.

After looking through all of the options with my partner Zoe Ellis we deliberated between the music video option and the short films option. We concluded with the short film idea as I already had several short scripts I had written over the past year. The script we are using is called 'Just Right' and depicts the twisted, darker version of Goldilocks and the 3 Bears, where Goldilocks is under arrest and the entire film takes place in the interrogation room where she is held.

The film will be between 5-7 minutes long depending on filming as the 'minute a page' rule may vary as there with be several long monologues and different shots of characters and setting in the interrogation room with Goldilocks and the detectives/police officers. In addition to this, other characters such as Little Red Riding Hood in a completely different setting.