Costume list

Cannibal

• plain coloured shirt 
• woollen jumper
• black jeans/trousers
• watch
• black boots

Teenager (running)

• dark coloured hoodie
• t-shirt
• scruffy hair 

Recce Report

There are four locations needed for our trailer, a forrest, a field, a kitchen and a road. The forrest shot can be taken outside college as it simple to get to and requires no travelling. The lighting will be fairly dark as we will be covered by the shadows of the trees, plus we will be shooting in autumn so sun light is limited. This area can be accessed any time during college hours so will be shot during lesson time.

The second location needed is a field which will be used as a backdrop for the barn on fire scene, this will be fairly simple to get as one student lives close to fields and can take a photo from a public footpath, so no permission is required. This area is fairly open meaning it should be well lit.

For the prolonged kitchen scene we are filming in one member of the group's house and it should be easy to do as we only need to use a small section of the room, and the fake blood shouldn't be too messy. Artificial light will be used for this scene.




The final location is a road, which can be shot anywhere as long as there are no large industrial buildings nearby, so a country road would be best. Of course the photo must be taken whilst there is no traffic and should be shot in the daytime to produce the best lighting. 

Prosthetics special effect

This effect is needed to show the audience that this character is a cannibal and a killer, it uses shock factor and gore to gross out the viewer. There are two possible ways of completing this effect, the first is by making a fake hand out of papier mache and cutting the fingers off with a knife. The second method is by using someone's real hand covering it in fake blood and cropping it in post-production. The total cost of this effect including the fake hand equipment and blood is £8.50.

Scale model special effect

This effect is another cut within the kitchen scene designed to give some insight into the movie and to scare the audience. To create the barn we will use cardboard and paint it to match an image found on the internet. Then it will be placed on a concrete slab to keep it stable with a green screen background to be replaced with a sky image in post-production. The total cost of this effect is around £1.00.

Miniature special effect

This special effect is needed for one of the cuts in between the kitchen scene, it is designed to shock and to give a small insight into what happens in the rest of the film. First the toy car must be slightly damaged with a hammer, making it seem it has actually crashed, then it will be placed on top of a home made road. The camera is positioned on the ground, level with the car so it takes up roughly a half of the screen. Then the green screen is then placed behind the car and replaced with a road image in post-production. The total cost of this effect, including the toy car and the materials used to build the road, comes to £7.

Animatic

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The animatic works well because it includes all the scenes and sound effects that will be seen in the final trailer. It is also able to give the basic camera angles and positions across to both the actors and camera operator. However it was difficult to replicate the specific camera movements and actions performed by the characters as it would've taken too much time to draw each image.

Story board (first draft)

This is the first story board I created showing the basic camera shots and objects/actors that will be visible in each.

Mood board

Here is a mood board containing various photos collected from the internet to capture the overall effect I wish to show in the teaser trailer.

Mind map

From the SFX grid, I chose on idea and began to expand it, as you can see in the picture I decided on the question "What if a God cam to Earth?"

Special effects in movies

Here I have analysed three effects used in three different films; World War Z, Evil Dead, Mad Max: Fury Road.

SFX ideas grid

This exercise involved every student to come up with three 'what if' ideas and three genres, for example, thriller and 'what if females went extinct?' After placing them all together in a hat, I picked up three of each, paired them together and decided on potential effects that could be used in the trailer.

Star Wars teaser task

For this task we had to analyse 12 different frames featured in the 'Star Wars' teaser trailer. Several techniques have been used, including green screen, mechanised props and various costumes made to look battered and worn.

Green screen (snowy mountain) effect

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Much like the miniatures, the strengths of the snowy mountain effect are the costs and safety; we didn’t have to physically fly to the area or have the risk of an avalanche. We were also able to use simple make up, shaving cream and salt to create snow on the actor’s face and had them wear a hat, coat and goggles to improve the illusion. However it was difficult to make t convincing that the actor was actually walking as in reality he is just walking on the spot. The problems with the props are that the actor maybe be allergic to either the cream or salt, creating a health hazard.

Miniatures effect

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The miniatures task was fairly easy to shoot as we simply used toy vehicles without the need to travel to an actual construction site. We also used a simple costume composed of a hardhat and safety jacket to make the actor seem like a real builder. Having the actor walk far away from the toy trucks looks fairly realistic, but matching up the two individual shots failed as the lighting difference emphasises the seem between the two. The use of miniatures is extremely essential in order to set the scene and allow the actors to be placed in whatever location is needed.

Knife throw effect

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The knife throw worked well as we had two different fake knives, a full and halved one, meaning we could attach this broken prop to the actor and have the other person hold the complete knife. Adding in the sound effects really helped this scene seem as realistic as possible, without the risk of anyone getting hurt. However this effect was difficult to shoot as the camera had to move quickly whilst still keeping it at the height. The shot where the victim fell back was also hard to make look realistic and fit with the fast pace of the previous scenes. Fake props are very useful in cinema as they allow the actor to feel safe and it means the weapon can be placed anywhere on their body. The one threat with this effect is the chance that the attacker may accidentally release the knife and have it hit the other person.