Coursework Development.

Coursework development

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Final project storyboard explanation.

This is our final storyboard for our project. We filmed this last week some time in our free period. Unfortunately it was other people's free period as well and they also wanted to work on their Media. Ignore Luke and Livvy in the background. I couldn't as I was there and could feel them behind me but you can try to. I'm sorry that this video is so long. We had to explain what each individual shot meant in our Dream Sequence and that took quite a while.

P.S Don't listen to us when it says there is still time for a coke. There's never time for a coke when that sign comes up.

Vladimir Propp's 31 functions

Vladimir Propp was a Russian literary critic and Scholar who studied/analyzed basic plot components of Russian fairytales/folk tales. With his findings he came up with his 31 functions that he claimed most folk tales and fairytales mimic. You will have already seen this on both Sarah and Jess's blogs but I thought it was better if we all do it so you (the examiner or whoever is reading) can see what we as a group discussed would happen had we continued with the film from each of our perspectives.

Our story would've followed these functions -

• Interdiction - A warning addressed to 'the Hero' against some action. Jess isn't neccessarily 'The Hero' but this does match up with our dream sequence where we hear her best friend (Sarah) ask her what's going on and Jess replies by saying she can't tell her, warning her not to pry.
• Violation of Interdiction - The interdiction is violated (I think the name is pretty self explainatory) This isn't shown in the actual opening/film though it is apparent that Sarah has ignored Jess's warning as the opening is centered around the concequences of whatever Jess and Sarah have done ("You promised me you wouldn't tell her.")
• Trickery - The villain attempts to deceieve the victim to take possession of victim or victim's belongings. The Villian (Hannah, so me.) is deceiving/tricking Jess into killing people by convincing her that she's trying to help. (In our first draft my character says "Jess i'm trying to help you." and would more than likely continue to do so throughout the rest of the film.)
• Complicity - The victim is taken in/falls for deception. Jess can be considered as 'The victim' with this idea as my character convinces Jess to go along with my plans. (In the dream sequence we hear Jess say: "Fine i'll do it." in response to my character saying: "I need you to do this for me.")
• Beginning Counter-action - The hero now decides to act in a way that will resolve the problem or lack. Although this isn't shown in our opening two minutes we agreed that later on their probably would be 'A hero' who tries/succeeds to stop Jess/Hannah killing people. We also discussed Jess's character becoming 'The Hero' and trying to stop herself from killing people by rebelling against my character in some form (will be explained in another function) though by showing Sarah finding out what was happening and that resulting in her death suggests she did try to stop her and foreshadows someone else trying.
• Hero's reaction - Hero reacts to actions of future donor. As I mentioned above Jess would probably return to her senses in some way and try to stop herself from hurting anyone else under my characters influence. We discussed the possibility of Jess going to prison because she turned herself in or something of that dramatic nature as her way of stopping it.
• Receipt of magical agent - Hero acquires use of a magical agent. In the opening sequence Jess is using some kind of magical book that contains a Satanic Ritual. It is likely she received it from my character.
• Struggle - Hero and Villain join in direct combat. This wouldn't neccessarily mean my character and whoever the hero turned out to be actually fighting but later on in the film we would have shown some kind of struggle between the one's doing the killing and the one's trying to stop it. Perhaps the struggle would occur between Jess in the form of 'The Hero' and Esther as Jess tries to stop herself from being manipulated by my character by turning herself in.
• Victory - Villain is defeated. While discussing how we would end our film we came up with the idea that Jess (after having been arrested) realising that Esther was in her head the entire time (as it's a Psycholoical thriller. Well it was supposed to be...) and the only way to escape from her and the influence she has over Jess's character would be that she kills herself. It's a very depressing ending to a very depressing film. We sound sadistic. We're not usually. I promise. :)
• Unfounded claims - False hero presents unfounded claims. The Police or detective or whoever is involved in solving the murders (though they probably wouldn't be shown) would take credit for catching Jess and everyone would believe it as Jess isn't around (mentally or physically depending on the ending) to prove them wrong.

A celebration of our finished first draft!

Firstly i'll begin with our First Draft being completed! It did take us a while to finish but we've finally got it done to our liking. Though after a discussion with our Media Teacher we've decided that for our Second Draft we're going to colour correct the shots of Sarah dying to make them more pale and frightening rather than yellow and warm. We were going for this sense of security and homeliness when we filmed but while watching over the final product of our First Draft we all agreed that it looked mismatched to our themes of Death and Satanism. We're chuffed with the music. I feel like the music was a great success as it does build the tension which was what we were going for and the pace suits the timing of Sarah dying and Jess reading the ritual really well. We've also decided that we're going to be re-recording the voice-over of Jess reading the Ritual after receiving Feeback that Jess's voice was as frightening as a Kitten. Well...not in those exact words.

The big thing change that we intend of making to our second draft is...(drum roll)...we're planning on scrapping our current second half (the discussion between me and Jess in which she viciously attacks me and throws me out of the room...) and replacing it with something more abstract. This wasn't a spur of the moment decision though. While watching the whole draft through and discussing the pro's and con's with our Media Teacher we noted how the Second Scene just didn't seem right within our piece. We either needed to re-film the scene so that it establishes more normality in Jess's life because of the sudden change over from this dramatic death scene to a conversation in her bedroom a month later or to film a new scene that fits in more with our film genre (a Psychological thriller). From the two options we were given the one that made the most sense and we felt would be more interesting was obviously the second one and that was why we chose to film a new second scene. I'm going to add that as I said in the title of this post...I am a very bad Media student as this decision was made about two weeks ago and we've done pretty much all of the filming and most of the editing for that scene now. I will post it above later for reference. I'm sorry. :)

Our first ever filming diary! (Sort of)

I added sort of at the end because this video diary comes from the first time we ever filmed and at that time we didn't really know that we had to do video diarys and constantly keep our blogs updated. But fortunately for us i'm the most annoying person when handed a camera. I HAVE TO FILM EVERYTHING. And that is what I did. So yesterday we put together a compliation of clips that could suffice as a video diary of the many things I filmed. You're welcome. :)

This is my third post today. I'm such a good media student.

Our first filming diary.

This was scene/diary was really fun to make. You can tell that we didn't realise how much work we'd actually be putting into this project until we actually started doing it because we were very naive when we first started this and thought we could get it all done in two/three days...you can't...it's impossible. And no we were not making fun of sir or the examiner during our Health and Safety despite how it may seem. It's dry humour according to sir. :)

TOODAH. ENJOY.

For Sarah + Jess.

Since i'm off today (with the world's most annoying headache...which is being made worse, if that's possible, because paracetemol is useless and has done nothing to ease the pain) I decided i'd have a go at doing a first draft of our "Padamoose Productions" sign with moose antlers. Please don't judge me for these awful edits...

As you can tell I have no editing ability what-so-ever however i'd like to give a special thanks to paint for being the simplest yet most amazing programme ever created. If it weren't for you paint i'd have never been able to (crapply) edit these together. Even if they are only first drafts it means alot. :) So yeah...I hope you like them? If you guys (Jess + Sarah + whoever is reading) let me know what you think, keeping in mind that i'm sick and have very low self esteem, in the comment section...

The Adventures of Ralph: Editing our final piece together post 1.

So today we decided (now that we've got all of our filming done) that we were going to eliminate the shots that we didn't feel worked (and there were lots of them...) and put down the ones we liked in the order we intend them to be in. We haven't added our transitions yet but when we tested a few on some of the clips they looked quite effective so hopefully we'll be adding them in next time. Unfortunately though today God decided that he would put an end to our short-lived luck. It turns out that the footage we filmed actually isn't that long. Well, not as long as we thought it would be. Infact it's about a minute and 20 seconds too short. Damnit. However being the film making geniuses that we three are we came up with a good idea of what we could add to the end of our footage to make it longer (not filler though...it's all relevant to the idea of Death and Satanism). In this extra footage you should be seeing Jess (the Satanist) talking to her 'friend' (Me) who actually turns out to be a figment of her imagination that's telling her to kill people. We're so original. :) Oh and also one of her other friends informs her that her friend (Sarah) was brutally murdered and wishes her well. Which is nice of them. But this isn't a nice film opening so we decided to make my character angry at the friend for interfering and tells Jess to go ABSOLUTELY CRAZY at them. Oh well...here's hoping everything goes okay from now on. Fingers crossed. I mean it can't get much worse from here, can it? *touch wood*

Any extra information.

Our film opening is set in the 21st century, modern era. Where we see a girl kill another girl using a Satanic Ritual. So the main themes of our film our death and satanism. Where did we get inspiration to make such a creepy film opening? Supernatural. Supernatural, all of Supernatural and nothing but Supernatural. Though Sarah and Jess have probably added in other things that have inspired them. For me it was all Supernatural. I wanted to do something that would relate back to Supernatural as i've always wondered what it's like to film scenes that involve...unnatural things. I think...yeah. So by doing a horror film opening based around a Satanic Ritual that was my way of attempting that.


The scene of the victim should be filmed in a natural setting. Somewhere like a house (which we ended up using) where there's no signs of something shocking about to happen. The victim should be doing something normal like sitting watch tv or reading a book rather than doing something that wouldn't fit in with the setting like something really energetic. The only props the victim uses in this scene is a phone and a water bottle. The character wears a set of pyjamas to give off the idea that she's relaxed at home.


The scene of the Satanic Ritualist should be filmed in a dark, quite space. The actual setting shouldn't be clear to the audience to give off the sense of mystery. The only lighting visible should be from the candles laying around the pentagram. The only props in this scene are the candles, the pentagram, two glittery skulls and the notebook she uses to read the ritual from. The character is wearing dark clothes that blend into the background with a cloak hung around her shoulders. Only her face is properly visible in the dim lighting.


Colour Palette...i'm stumped as to what that means. But I think I may have answered that in my paragraphs or I hope so.