Our feedback made it clear to us that we needed to refine some of our previous ideas to make sure that the piece was as effective as it possibly could be with regards to the codes and conventions of the genre. Firstly, we had to ask people about the flashbacks, these were hard to integrate without it being unclear that they were flashbacks. At first we only had transitions of a few of them and the flashes weren't used at that stage. Feedback suggested that the flashes would be useful as they enabled people to understand that she was thinking back to previous events that had happened (e.g.: her eye makeup reminds her of the make up of the darker personality, as seen in the gif created below).
The toilet scene was used after we realised that our previous bathroom scene was ineffective in showing the narrative. Miriam suggested to us that 'it may be useful to present her using a more public toilet, to show her desperation and her vulnerability as she has to take refuge in a place where most people wouldn't consider'. As a result we then made the Danson Park toilet scene more prominent in the sequence.
Originally our actress was only seen running down the underpass, but again this didn't make the narrative clear on its own. Seen running down the park pathway we were able to show a continuous running pace that made the narrative clearer. Ria thought that, "by showing the running both in the underpass scene and now the park scene, it shows that despite her only running from what she thinks of in a mirror, the narrative is clearer".
Juliet told us that 'by having the scene where she rubs her smudged makeup off in the mirror, the sequence becomes similar to Black Swan, which helps to clear up the narrative'.
Set in a big/modern city such as London or New York
Multiple deaths including that one really liked character
Futuristic vehicles and big explosions
Cat and mouse chases
Villains and Heroes
Comedy
It's dependent on the type of comedy but usually set in generic places; bright, well populated towns and cities.
The camera tends to be very naturalistic, medium shots are used generally throughout to present dialogue and facial expressions.
There are many stereotypes, especially if teen comedy and set in a high school. You usually have the dumb person, the smart person and the socially awkward.
Sound is so important with comedy films as the dialogue needs to be extremely clear for it to be funny.
Three significant types of comedy; slapstick, dark humour and wit/wordplay.
Horror
Urban environments - dark streets/ narrow alleyways and empty houses
Often dark colours such as red and black to represent darkness, evil and blood etc
Common mise en scene objects include masks, weapons and religious icons etc
Lighting is expressive and non-nauralistic, where low-key lighting is used to create dark shadows.
Always, a hero, a final girl or a villain- most commonly being a man. The hero would most likely have a mission to accomplish ideally to defeat an evil villain.
Here are some of the initial ideas we had in terms of what make up should be used on our main protagonist and (any other characters if we choose to add any).
Eyes
We thought it would be suitable to use plain and dull colours to represent the character's personality, so we selected grey and black. Here are the three stages in applying the eye make up:
Stage 1 -
Stage 2 -
Stage 3 -
Lips
At first, we thought it would be effective to use nude lipstick to create pale lips making the character's appearance somehow rough. But after some consideration we wanted the lips to come across as more extravagant looking. Using dark red and black lipstick created this look that we liked very much.
2nd idea
Hairstyles
We tried out a variety of different hairstyles to get a sense of what would best suit our character. We ended up with the decision that having loose hair with no particular hairstyle would show the 'rough' side of her personality. We made the decision to not use a black wig on our actress as her natural hair colour is red in which we feel is perfect for the role she is to take on as we aim to stay clear of the stereotypical victim look. Here are examples from the internet of the few variations we tried out:
As a group, we thought it would be a great idea to gather some feedback on our film opening from people around the age of our target audience (16/17), we saved a section of our film opening onto our phones and showed 20 people around are school. We made sure they were not media students and asked for their opinion on the opening.
The clip was 1.12 seconds long and we gave them earphones so they could hear the accompaniment.
Here is the feedback we received:
Gloria - Good build and great music
Abdullah - Very weird but interesting
Jordan - I was glued to the screen throughout
Rola - This was so good, quite confusing as I didn't know what was going on but yeah it was good
Eman - Confusing but that's good as it's not too revealing
Davelyn - Music is intense and as a whole it was scary
Esther - Good and quite sinister
Phoebe - Very good footage and music suits it really well
Lily - The make up was really good and so was the costume used
Georgia - I liked the fast editing, it was effective
Miriam - Quite confusing - especially the shot of the wall at the beginning - but confusing is good
Megan - The acting is amazing!! It seems so professional
Tori - Would be scarier if the girl died at the end, but it was intense
Alex - I would definitely go and watch that film in the cinema, it was very good, my kind of film
Lucy - It's intriguing, I like it just add hints to show what it's about
Alice - Very dark, right up my street!
Favour - Didn't really understand it but it was pretty cool, and freaky
Nicole - It should be longer, I need to see more of it!! I want to see the whole film
Rebecca - Storyline is not clear but that makes it more fun to watch, I like it
Yasmin - Was it about a crazy girl? a psychopath? not too sure but that was an interesting watch
Our Response
Once we gathered all the feedback on our film opening we decided to take another look at the aspects that the people we asked liked and disliked. We decided that as we asked non-media students, some of the comments were just personally preference. For example, with Tori's feedback we decided that if the girl was to die within the opening of the film then the plot for the rest of the film is not really clear. However, feedback such as Miriam's proved to be useful where she hinted that one of the shots at the beginning confused her, we look over that shot and decided that actually it didn't have a place there after all so we removed that particular shot.
From the feedback we received we realised that our storyline isn't made clear enough. This is something we will work on and improve.
This new production by Nicolas Winding Refn has resemblance to that of Black Swan. As he stated "One morning I woke up and realised I was both surrounded and dominated by women. Strangely, a sudden urge was planted in me to make a horror film about vicious beauty."
We took inspiration from the framing in these long shots, where the protagonist is positioned in the centre of the frame surrounded by symmetrical mis en scene and locations on either side, the use of symmetry makes the scene lose its qualities to catch the attention, instead having the audience focus their attention on main character who is isolated in the centre of the frame.
The use of mirrors is another symbol and motif of duality within a person especially in an over the shoulder shot or a close up, demonstrating alter ego's perceived on either side of the pane of glass. We use this especially within our sequence as in both the public and private bathroom, where her reflection of herself spurs the flashbacks to her eventual inevitable realisation of her alter ego.
The representation of the darker alter ego, is especially representational in the darkness surrounding them especially within lighting such as in the flashback of the bedroom where she is immersed in the darkness, since we only used a key light and no back light. The dark colours even of the costumes and makeup especially in the bottom of the three pictures, with the dark eye and lips to outwardly depict the darkness of the persona. This is the atypical rebellious character, depicted in more hollywood productions likely as promiscuous.
Juxtaposing this, you have the use of white light and high key lighting with the more passive persona, surrounded by reflective objects. This is the atypical fragile "girl next door" character who is timid and vulnerable hunted by the darkness of her thoughts. The lack of intense makeup combined with the paler clothing complimenting her skin tone, produces an angelic quality.
We further used the domesticated settings of bedrooms and bathrooms as they do here, despite the above location depicting a hotel room, we use a similar concept of the public facilities evident in the bathroom, where she attempts to find refuge yet cannot, hence is driven home to her own bathroom.
Our Decision
We came to a final decision that if we were to choose a film production company logo to display at the beginning of our film opening, then the best option would be the Intrepid Pictures introduction. This was the most suitable option with the atmosphere being dark and full of suspense; which fits in well with the theme if our opening.
Intrepid Pictures is a film production company founded in 2004 by Trevor Macy and Marc Evans. It's specialised film genres are horror and action, making it the perfect fit for our film opening. Most of the films produced by Intrepid Pictures have been targeted at young adults which is our target audience.
The production company logo itself is very appropriate for our film opening making it all that more perfect. It begins with a dark red background featuring a dark sky filled with lighting and assuming thunder. The lightning is made clear with it being yellow contrasting with the dark surrounding colours. This is then followed with a black silhouette of a man slowly raising his arms out to the side. The wind is reflected through the chaotic movement of the man's jacket showing the conditions to be similar to that of a storm. The words 'intrepid pictures' are then displayed in a red and scratched font.
The music used throughout logo is full of suspense as it also features the sound of rumbling thunder towards the beginning of the logo as well. All the accompaniment vanishes at the end as a flash concludes the opening. The music is rather threatening which adds to its scare factor.
The point of view eye level close up shot of the tap, we found was particularly not only creepy, but built greater tension in this sequence due to it developing a normal bathroom necessity into a method of death and ultimately an embodiment of fear. We attempted to replicate this within our opening, to determine the more passive persona's fear for everything, how everything reminds and demonstrates to her her alter ego which she is attempting to escape from. Thus we used this close up point of view shot of the tap also.
The editing of the London walk in St Trinian's uses editing where frames are separated into blocks to seem like individual shots and frames, as a means of transitioning from one to the other. We replicated this in our piece, to transition her travelling, not only because it synchronised with the music but it separated the frame which illustrates the separation of our characters personality where she is torn and split between altering characteristics.
We had decided to call our film opening "Non compos mentis", which means 'not of sound mind'. We thought that this would be a good title as it would show off the idea that our main character was troubled and that the storyline would closely follow the title. However after feedback we found that many people either thought it wasn't the most fitting title and some did not know what 'non compos mentis' meant off of the top of their heads.
Miriam claimed, "Not everyone will know what the title means, thus leading to some confusion."
Rachel said that by having this as our title, we 'risk having the effectiveness of the opening compromised'.
Along with several other comments from fellow students that we showed the idea to, we decided that 'non compos mentis' was not the most effective title to use.
When we presented a group of our peers with the storyline of the film opening and a list of possible title names (mentioned in previous blogs), the vast majority decided that 'Psychosis' was both an effective and almost chilling film title.
To fit the title into our opening, we have placed it at the end, when the climax is imminent and the music has built up. We found this to be effective as the screen blacks out leaving a blank space for the title, we overlaid this title screen on top of a montage of clips that we had to carry on showing footage rather than having a still frame of the title. Psychosis is also a fitting title as the word means 'a severe mental disorder in which thought and emotions are so impaired that contact is lost with external reality'. This is an accurate title name as it is able to describe the mental state of our main character. It is also more likely to be understood as it has 'psych-' in it. When presented with this film title, people who gave feedback were able to more easily associate the storyline of our opening with someone who has a questionable mental state.
Our finalised idea consists of a journey, whereby the protagonist is running home after spending a day as her alter ego side of the split personality condition she has. The piece will include flashbacks of events that our character has been through that day and previous days of where she acts as her second personality. The idea of the opening is to show her coming home, not understanding what has happened or what she has been doing all day, getting into the bath to try and relax. If the film were to continue, the opening sets up for a story of how she lives with a double persona, and that she is completely unaware of the damage she causes when subverting into this. It stimulates confusion, tension and frustration.
New location:
Danson Park toilets
The toilets are a cold metal cubical that have 2 perpendicular mirrors, symbolising our narrative of a split personality disorder. We liked the green, rusty folding sheet that we utilised in the piece to show how the protagonist is trying to escape. The toilets had high key daylight lighting present already, which we thought would give a good urban-realism feel to the opening, as the setting is in a sub-urban town. The location is run-down looking, and uncared for, suggesting dereliction and isolation; parallel to how our character is feeling, so we thought this would work well to project her fear.
The house
Again, taking advantage of natural lighting, we used a small family home (Welling) to show where our character lives. It's an ordinary home, which contrasts well with the idea of our character's personality. Inside, there are wooden features such as the char, staircase, bannisters and doors, making the home look traditional and warm. In the bathroom, there are more mirrors to keep continuity of ideas and symbolism, and the mirror in the home is round in comparison to the rectangular, sharped edged ones of the public toilet. Also, in the bathroom we added cosmetic products and bathroom items to enhance the mise en scene and conform to gender conventions a little bit more - suggesting she is a normal girl who looks after herself, making the scene look slightly more relaxing than the 'flashback' bathroom scenes which are cold, blue and uninviting.
We decided due to the nature of it being a psychological thriller, and the use of a schizophrenic multiple personality main character to take and gather inspiration from Black Swan with the use of mis en scene and camera angles/ framing.
Dance of the White Swan
The high key, key and fill light used here accompanied by the top lighting, within an eye level close up shot, emphasises her innocence and naivety but also accentuates the pure sadness and distraught facial expression. We used a similar shot within the bedroom by the innocent persona, using torches to highlight her expression, but lacked any back light to demonstrate the immense darkness she experiences as a result of her mental health issues.
We additionally, use light as a medium of disorientation or confusion of the innocent persona, as a means to demonstrate the distinct difference between her dark and light personality traits. This is generally a key light, such as the spotlight in Black Swan which is instead a light in the tunnel within our chase scene.
Here the makeup reflects the face of our character within the contrasting bath scene, the eye level close up shot with the shoulders included is parallel to the character within the bath tub. The pale face to highlight her cheekbones, determines her as thin and ill whilst colour on the lip here being red the alternative in ours being black connotes tension and suppressed anxiety.
We use a similar close up eye level shot of our character crying, as a means to demonstrate the depth of sorrow and anxiety they are feeling, in both there is a greater use of back light to contrast the character to the great darkness surrounding them.
Similarly, the use of the pastel colours and lighter colour scheme within her dressing room we imitate further in our bathroom with the stereotypical beige and wood inner decor to contrast greatly to the flashback images of the alter ego.
Odile Appears
These two close ups of the alter ego "Odile"'s eyes demonstrates the inner battle between her sanity and her sanctity, yet here we finally see her relinquish to this demonic part of her mental state, evident in the close up and more extreme close up of her face with focus on her eyes. We took inspiration from this by having a number of close ups of her face within the mirror(s), in the bath tub, and further in her flashbacks, with the flashbacks having white contacts as a contrast.
Despite the dramatic makeup being used in Black Swan being used as stage makeup, we used a similar concept as a means of contrasting with the two aspects of her personality. The extremely dark and more manic eye makeup is used on the darker aspects of her personality, as a visual representation of her alternative personas. Even with the more passive and innocent character, we use shots where she attempts to rub off this enhanced eye makeup, to reveal and free herself from this part of her soul.
The Bedroom
The most iconic part of this scene is the use of mirrors as a symbol of duality within a person to demonstrate the two distinctive alternative personalities found in one body. We thus used this in the more intense and industrial toilet setting, but again also in the more domesticated bathroom in her house. The two bathrooms also providing a clear contrast from each other, being an extended metaphor of her two personalities within the surrounding setting. The cold, lifeless public toilet in contrast to the cosy, homely bathroom.
The extreme close ups of the scratches and injuries as an outward representation of her transforming schizophrenic state, we use visually with dramatic makeup the focus on her eyes as this visual representation with her confusion and extreme rubbing of them demonstrating her intense fear and desperation to be separated from this alternative persona.
The red contacts here imitate the white and black contacts we use in her alternative personalities, these are clear to distinctly identify along with the costumes which persona is dominating the main character at that point in the sequence.
After showing our first draft to teachers and fellow peers, we have decided to alter our storyline in order to create a clearer narrative.
Alena Fitzgerald has a split personality disorder caused by a lifetime of obeying strict rules suppressed upon her from her proud parents, and pressures from school, the agony of pushing herself to be the top achiever throughout her schooling life. She is at a breaking point and therefore, a rebellious side of her slowly unravels to reveal her lack of personal control and stability.
To portray this, we plan to contrast her innocent side with the rebellious, using a completely new morning scene in the opening.
Things to include: Setting
Girly bedroom
Morning daylight
Bedding, cushions, mirrors, books, fairy lights, glasses, school supplies, sensible clothes hanging up, neat, ordered and tidy
Train journey
Costume, hair and make-up:
Plaits
White nightgown
Slippers
Face-cloth
Mascara
Natural nails
No make-up
Sensible clothes/ school uniform
School bag
We plan to use jump cuts to form a more impactful, clearer montage to show the contrast of her two personalities. This way, the narrative is made evident, as we experienced some confusion when showing the opening to fellow students. Many said that the story was "weird" or hard to grasp, so by including the new idea of Alena having an innocent side should help boost our opening's strength and impact, but also to establish what the film is about if it were to carry on.
During a peaceful morning routine scene, we will see Alena brushing her hair, wiping her face and putting on some mascara. She will see a slight cut and bruise on the side of her eye, of which she doesn't remember getting. This is the signal to show how she does dangerous things in an unaware state, and to notify that there is something wrong. Then we will cut to the fast-paced running scenes and bath scenes to establish the difference in the way she acts when she is released from the constraint of her parents and teachers - her sudden rush into maturity that breaks away her sanity.
Conditions or health problems: Mentally ill with split personality disorder.
Cause of mental illness: A lifetime of the "good girl" reputation, conforming to her parent's and teachers needs, and consequently being bullied for this.
