Soundtrack for Victoria. (Practice)

In today's lesson, our group focused on researching the soundtrack/s for our thriller opening. We will be using different sounds for the narrative opening, and different sounds for the overlapping discrete section. We researched many classical ballet orchestral soundtracks, and loved the one from 'Black Swan' when Nina becomes the black swan, composed by Tshaykowki. However we realized this is copyright and we cannot directly use it for our opening, so we will try to mix sounds that are non-copyright in soundtrack pro.

In our opening we would like to include the 'ring around the rosies' childs song in a creepy way. This is something no other group has thought of, recording our own voices singing it, then editing our voices to them sound slower, elongated, higher and echoing. Here is an example, our inspiration.

Production Schedule Group 30.

Costume for Victoria.

We want to make all the elements of our thriller opening sequence look very naturalistic that is why, we are going to use a basic costume for a ballerina and plain and simple nightdress for the other half of the opening.

Her hair will be tired up to to show her face and innocence. This is a classic ballerina hair style.

She will have a tutu to emphasis the ballerina like sense of style.

Obviously, she will have ballet shoes on her feet.

            She will have a low back leotard, inspired by the Natalie Portmans costume in Black Swan. 

                                        Plain nightdress with grey childish socks to cover scar.

Special effects.

To make our opening sequence look realistic and believable, we decide to use some of the special effects like scar, bruise and cuts. It will give a great hint to the audience that the sweet looking dancer, has a horrible past and experience which are inside her all the time. It doesn not olny effected her mind but also her body. I have watch a video with a tutorial of how to make the scar, to know how to make it look realistic.

We also think about some kind of ribbons or scarf to hind this scars and cuts at the first point, to create greater suspense.

Evalutaion of the Pitch.

During this couple of weeks,  I have been research the most essential ideals and things about thriller opening sequence. Since, I and my group start to work with camera, we came up with idea of what our project will be about : an young her affected by abuse. We were adding some new ideas, new things to it, but the main idea stayed the same.

On the Monday lesson (14.02.2011) we have to present our project to teachers to get their agreement and fully support.
We had to think about title, genre of opening, location, mise en scene, ideas about sound etc.

We wanted to use the same ideas of opening like in movie 'Seven'. It is district structure with used of many close ups and shots over lapping each other. We felt quite confidence and strong about our idea, but when it came to presentation of pitch, I lost faith that it going to work. Our treatment looked like a narrative movie ; Young girl sitting in the corner, someone comes into the room but never fully reveal. Then the girl cries and tries to escape from the room but its locked. She gets mad and trash up whole room, through and kicking dolls all around the room. Then her face appear on the screen the the titles come up. To shot that she got a mental problem we wanted to show her playing with dolls. However, suddenly she will rip off one of the doll's head, to emphasize her anger. She will looks at the mirror, to see her scars. We use variety of different shot, which does not suit the distinct opening structure. Our teacher gave us a key idea : "Keep and starts it with a narrative structure, but then concentrate on the fast shot of close-ups using overlapping"  . Suddenly, I came up with the great idea. Because some of us in the group do AS Dance, we are going take the ideas from Black Swan. We would like to start the opening using the dance studio.

We will concentrate on the dancer and slightly come towards her, while she dances. When she drops into the floor, we will gradually zoom in into her face as we will taking the audience inside her mind. Then we will use the same structure of pitch as we showed to our teacher. However will we use a close ups and extremely close ups shot to meet the goal of distinct opening.

Black Swan.

Few weeks ago, I watched a fantastic psychological thriller called "Black Swan'. It is a story of Nina (Portman), a ballerina in a New York City ballet company whose life, like all those in her profession, in completely consumed with dance. She lives with her retired ballerina mother Erica (Hershey) who jealously supports her daughter's processional ambition. When artistic director Thomas Leroy ( Cassel) decides to replace prima ballerina Beth Macintyre (Ryder) for the opening production of their new season, Swan Lake, Nina is his first choice. But Nina has competition: a new dancer, Lily (Kunis) who impresses Leroy as well. Nina fits the White Swan role perfectly, but Lily is the personification f the Black Swan. As the two young dancers expand their rivalry into twisted friendship, Nina begins to get more in touch with her dark side with recklessness that threatens to destroy her.
I did not expect to see what I saw. 
A film about the ballerina? This does not sound especially appetizing. A psychological thriller about a ballerina? Movie with an elements of a horror? It's getting interesting. If we swap ballerina with dedication, which requires the highest art, or growing up, discovering the repressed sexuality, the extraction of secure world of childhood we will get fantastic image. The scenes preparations for the Swan Lake premieres, including ballet imagery used in black and white, have alloweda director to find a visual representation of the psychological darkness, and hence the form thriller-horror films.

This movie is full of contrast: innocence and evil. It constains lots of promiscuous scenes. The audience can see split personalisty of the Beauty. The suspance is really high, becuase audience through whole movie ask themselve " which Nina is true , realistic ? " 

The opening sequence starts with Nina is on the stage. When she begins to move, camera starts to focus on her feet. The moment of suspense appear when the man in black costumes comes to her. The music change into more dynamic, harder and dramatic. Camera goes all around her as well as lighting. The suddenly, the man disappear and Nina is alone on the stage again. The camera slowly movie back while the screen fade out and then we see Nina in the bed. 

Things which I love the most in the movie are the camera. There is lots of use of handheld camera to create a feeling of chaos and distraction. 

Also camera is like a pathway. It take the audience from home to the dance studio and then from the theatre to home. It creates a sense of watching and being in her live from the morning till the last night. This feeling of 'followers' is emphasizing through the camera, when we see Nina's back as she is walking. 

The next fantastic point is use of mirror. Mirrors are the essential props. Dancers needs and use mirrors to watch themselves and correct during classes, but as Nina starts to losing herself, the mirrors are use to show her dark side, the Black Swan. 

The dance is fantastic, filmed in every detail. I love the shot when Nina dances in her room. There is a close up on her feet in the slow motion. For me, it works perfectly. 

Also the, ballerina music box make it more scary and tells about her mental problems. 

  

Here are some very useful video about the Black Swan.

Inspiration for our thriller.

We were inspired by many different film openings because of their different type of shots and amazingly edited scenes. We have taken the idea of someone who loves to dance, just like Nina (Natalie Portman) in Black Swan who's obsession takes over her mentally. As you can see from our storyboard we have started off introducing the main character by showing her dance and doing what she loves, however as the heavy orchestral music builds, so do her movements to reflect her anger and anxiety. As she suddenly drops she starts heavily breathing, as the camera zooms in on her face, we wanted to represent going 'into herself' her life and her past.

This (image to the left) is the type of shot we would like the girl to start off with, but in a studio. Her costume will be a leotard, ballet shoes, tights and hair pulled back, like a typical ballerina.

Also, the opening of Seven has a very effective and mysterious feel to it, as it has many quick and fast shots confusing the audience. The discrete opening is achieved with fast and short shots, changing speed and the length a which the shots are shown. We would like to incorporate these fast edited shots after the scene of her dancing to represent her dark life at home, how she is neglected and unloved, even abused, bruises and cuts will be shown using make-up.

I have also researched many films about mentally and physically abused children, in order for our character to play a convincing role, they must know all the know consequences and problems abused victims go through. Films:

The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things - The dysfunctional twenty-three years old Sarah takes her six years old natural son Jeremiah from the home of his beloved foster parents with the support of the social service to live with her. Along the years, the boy shares her insane and lowlife style and is introduced to booze and drugs and mentally, physically and sexually abused by Sarah, her lovers and her religiously fanatic family.

Gardens of the Night - An 8 year old girl is taken from her home and convinced that her family does not want her anymore. After enduring years of horror, she and her fellow victim are dumped by their captures. Now, 17 years old and no one to turn to, except each other they do their best to survive life on the streets, until one day she finally accepts the help of a shelter counselor to find her way home. However, what she truly finds is the love of her life and that you can never go back. "Gardens of the Night", is a haunting, gritty and topical story which delves deep into the world of child abduction and where it often leads...for the "lucky ones." The writer/director, Damian Harris bases his story on the kids, counselors, cops and pimps he met during two years of research.

Precious - In Harlem, an overweight, illiterate teen who is pregnant with her second child is invited to enroll in an alternative school in hopes that her life can head in a new direction. Her life at home takes over as she is raped by her own father and her mother is addicted to drugs and living off nearly no money as she doesn't work. Precious gets brutally abused physically and verbally for no reason and gets constantly teased about her appearance, losing her confidence and dignity she loses herself, and gives up. Meeting new people at her new school gives her hope, away from her home and so called 'family.'