Month: February 2019

I almost burst into tears when my media instructor told me that the production company we pitched to isn’t a thing anymore and the hours I spent researching was basically for nothing. Nothing at all. But, luckily not much needs to change, just the production company.

Next Wave Films, unfortunately, doesn’t exist? Even though I literally spent a ton of time looking up movies and what their style of film was but it’s fine I’m fine. Even though Next Wave seemed like the best path for us, we obviously had to switch to on that, you know, existed. Thankfully, we found one that appeared to work for us well enough since it’s had many independent films with a low budget like what we wanted to go for.

The production company we have decided to go with now is MGM, which stands for Metro-Goldwyn Mayer. Now, this is a production and distribution company, so it doubles as both. Through my research, however, in November 2010, MGM filed for bankruptcy. So at that time, it would not have existed. Though, within December of that year, it came out of bankruptcy.

MGM mostly co-produces with other large production companies (Fox, Sony, Warner Bros. etc.), though still a production company on its own. Our original selection for production company may stay the same, but it could go through the outlet of simply staying with MGM throughout the entire process. Other mystery movies coming through this production company is Murder At The Gallop, Sherlock Jr., The Mystic, The Mystery of Mr. X, Mystery Street, and The Mysterious Lady. They were all considered independent films and earned back most of their money. These movies are considered much older than what we have to work with, but we want a somewhat older feel, so looking at how these successful movies did back then, we have hopes through MGM that they will provide the same feel we want. Finding this production company in a quick manner has made things easier for us since no we can really focus on trying to edit and finalize our title sequence. If only I had known that Next Wave wasn’t a thing this literally wouldn’t have happened but it’s fine, I’m fine. Everything is back on track now and we will now be able to focus on the main task at hand: finishing this. Seeing this fiasco has shown me how careful real movie producers have to be when choosing a real production company.

Recording sound might be a tad difficult for us, but hiding some of the mics we want to use shouldn’t be too hard.

The main way we are going to record sound is through our headphones, specifically through Apple AirPods. Without the wires of regular headphones, it can easily hide behind someone’s hair and be useful to record sound. We would also use the “Voice Recorder” utility that comes with the iPhone itself. This would most likely happen on my phone since I would be the one editing the majority of the title sequence. It would most likely hide behind the hair of our actors and actresses, or in the fold of some of their clothes as seen on other actors/actresses. While this technique is used mostly for wire microphones, wireless headphones in this way could work as well.

We will only use ambient sound for the part which our detectives trying to figure out the case. The sounds will mostly include typical office sounds like keyboards, phones ringing, doors opening and closing, footsteps, etc. Having these sounds and the few people in the back will create more mundane realism within the clip and draw the people into the movie more rather than show that this is just a movie. We want to establish more cinematic invisibility than anything. The office sounds should sound something along the lines of the video I have linked here. We will record sound from the office we record in and try to soften the ambient noise we pick up on any microphones.

With these sound recording devices, it should end up having pretty good sound, and if I can mix it correctly then everything will turn out alright. Plus, they look fancy and modern.

Our shooting schedule will happen all in one day because of how busy both Sitara and I are. If anything were to go awry, then we can always re-shoot the little scenes we need, but we’re hoping the bulk of our shooting can get done in the time frame that we’ve set. Our only issue would be to get Thomas at the same place again, so we’ll be sure to over-shoot if anything were to go wrong.

On Friday February 22nd, we will shoot at 3:30 at our high school for however long we need with our two detectives, Rebecca and Thomas. Once we shoot what we feel is enough for our film, we will move locations to Sitara’s house which is the scene of the crime.

We are shooting out of order just because our evidence would need to be seen in a darker setting to give off that mysterious sort of vibe that we want. That will take place at 6:30 pm so we have enough time to set up and get our mise en scene and be able to shoot everything we can. We are shooting the evidence in her room so we have a secluded, personal space to the victim so she’s truly vulnerable and she’s killed in a place she’s most familiar with. It’s also small enough for us to capture every part of the room that we need. The simple decor of the room also keeps the focus on the evidence and the dead body rather than shift the audiences’ attention to something else in the room.

We’re using two different types of cameras; an iPhone’s camera and a Sony camera. We also might have to edit in some stuff in post, and I will either be using Adobe After Effects or the Video Star app on iPhone, whichever can deliver me the best result that I’m looking for. We will also use our Apple laptops to keep the clips together as well and make things easier for us to deal with.

Making the storyboard was a bit of a struggle at first since the website was really strange to work with and I was quite unfamiliar with it, but it ended up being pretty simple as long as I explain what’s going on in each scene. I used http://www.storyboardthat.com to create this masterpiece. It also had a watermark at first, so I just screenshotted it instead.

Scene 1- There will pedaling shots with close-ups, mid shots, long shots, low angles etc. of all of the evidence. The evidence will include various bloodstains, a bloody knife, foot prints, and the victims body itself. This will be the majority of our title sequence, but with the limited space I had with the free trial, I could only use three squares.

Scene 2- There will be a graphic match cut between the evidence and the picture of the evidence on the newspaper. Thomas will come up behind Rebecca and will snatch the newspaper out of her hand. Multiple shots will be used here such as close ups, mid shots, and possible long shots to show the conversation between the two detectives.

“Scene” 3- This is still technically still from the second scene, but Thomas leaves the building. Rebecca is then left to grab another newspaper from the desk and have a realization about the case. This will include another midshot, and possibly a close up transitioning into the title of the film. We have a few ideas for the ending, so we will decide which one we want to use while we make our rough cuts.

Sources

I used https://www.storyboardthat.com/ to create the storyboard.

Since our film features a female detective, we have chosen Rebecca Wolff to be our candidate.

We chose Rebecca because she is also a student in this class, so she would understand our artistic vision for the film. She also has a intuitive vibe to her person, and as a detective you kinda need that. She’s also taller than the supporting actor we cast for the male detective, which shows a shift in power in the blocking between the two. She’s also shooting her film that same weekend, so we would need to shoot quickly, but efficiently as well. Other detective leads have shown to naturally have power over others, like Benedict Cumberbatch in Sherlock, so having a tall female detective will give us that subtle power over others easily.

For the male detective, we cast Thomas Mitchell.

We cast Tommy because he has a good voice of a “sexist” detective. Having it raspy and bratty makes him seem overly cocky and not really moving with the times. He’s also significantly shorter than Rebecca, so having that height difference would show the difference of power between the two of them. A good example is also from Sherlock with the difference between Benedict and Martin Freeman. They have a height difference to show that Sherlock is the head detective with the more power/ability to find out things easier.

For our victim, we cast Victoria Conn.

We mostly cast Victoria because she wanted to be the dead person, so we couldn’t say no if we had a volunteer. She also works in our film as we’re already challenging genre conventions with our lead female detective, so having a female victim is more normal for what we’re going for. Challenging too many things at one time and changing the norms for movies like this would be a bit much and a stretch for our movie to deal with at the moment.

Sources

I linked various TV shows and actors within this post where they are mentioned.

The main goal of our brand is to get our audience thinking. It’s a murder mystery after all, so with the mysterious vibe and twists and turns within the mystery, we would want our advertising and marketing to draw people in to know the answer to the mystery, or to try and solve it themselves. Other movies in our genre have been marketed and portrayed in this way, so following suit and just using a female lead instead will give us a good leeway into the distribution and exhibition of our film.

Since our film stars a female lead, our film could be aimed towards female empowerment. It’s not our main goal, but with the idea of a female detective solving a difficult mystery, that sort of ideal comes along with it. With the very few and sparce mystery movies with a female lead detective, our film could be considered “groundbreaking” or out of the box.

We pitched our film to Next Wave Films to produce it for that exact reason. Being an indie film would allow us the creative freedom we need rather than having constraints from such a big studio like Fox. We also don’t need a huge budget to work with, and Next Wave Films has worked with many low budget films in the past that have gained tons of popularity, like Pi by Aronofsky.