Special Effects & Make-up Research

After last year, myself and my group wanted to push the boat out just a little further and try out some special effects in make-up and actually doing realistic looking wounds and doing make-up to do that final touch for our actors and actresses to get into their roles and to help represent their characters more. This post shows you the rough ideas that we have about how to go about this and what they will look like. 

Alice's Make-up

As I have said in my previous post on costume research, Alice is a very natural and innocent looking girl, so the use of bold colours like reds and blacks are out of the question. We want soft warm colours or the gentle pinks and blues and only a small amount to highlight her features just a little. 

Idea 1 - Warm Neutrals

This is a rough idea as to how Alice's eyes would look

The natural warm colours would simply give our actresses eyes a glow that makes her eyes stand out. This make-up idea seems to have more of the natural look that an innocent, christian girl would go for instead of the intense rich colours like deep red or brown.

A gentle shade of pink maybe

The pale pink lipstick is perfect for a nice natural glow for our character Alice. It again gives that innocent look and strengthens the fact that perhaps Alice is a quiet girl who doesn't want to make herself stand out with bold colours. Could symbolise how she is the less superior of the couple.

Idea 2 - Soft pastels, most likely pink

Another rough idea for the second look

The soft pink eyeshadow seems like the colour make-up that our character Alice would wear, instead of the bold colours like red or black. It adds to the girly, innocent look of our character. 

Stacey's Make-up

Deep red nails and lipstick

Because Stacey's characteristics are that of a promiscuous office lady, we felt that doing her nails and lipstick as a deep red would bring out the stereotypes due to the connotations of red being promiscuous and lust. 

The Wounds

So for the wounds I thought what would be best would be to use some scar wax and realistic fake blood which you can get from more face-painting or special effects shop. We thought this would make Alice's death look more realistic and any cuts and wounds on Richard's hand would just give our film that extra authenticity. Also, using the scar make-up and fake blood would look much better than buying a wound already made and sticking it on - sometimes they can be a real pain.

One drawback with this is that we would  have to make sure the wounds are done in the same place and the same way each time - however we are aiming to get all of these shots done first as to not have to worry about that later.

The video above is simply showing how we would go around creating the wounds using the wax this lady uses in her tutorial. The wolf marks on her cheek are one way of doing the cut marks on Alice's forehead from where she hits her head on the stair banister rail, however it would only be one cut and wouldn't look so wolf like.

This fake blood is perfect for realistic wounds as it doesn't dry or drip - its stays moist which gives that perfect look for our film

Example of the scar wax used

For Richard's knuckles, if we don't do the cuts on the back of his hands, I was thinking about simply using a type of blusher to make them look rather red and sore looking. This would stop the hassle of recreating his cuts to look old when it comes to the end of the film when he is waiting for the funeral, because red marks fade over time. 

Special Effects & Make-Up research by Deanna Hopps

Next post will be the Location research and the risk assessment

Prop Research

Myself and my group now had to come up with a formal prop list of what props we are using in our film. This post shares this list and for each prop I have put why exactly we have chosen that particular prop item. All of the images displayed are just an example of what our props will look like.

Necklace

 

We wanted the girlfriend, Alice, in our film to be an innocent christian girl, somebody very sweet and pure looking. The symbol of a cross on a delicate chain seemed fitting for her characteristics, and the silver colour itself represents her innocence. Furthermore, after a little research, we found that Christians don't were gold much as it seems to have connotations connected to greed and mixes with the devil a little. 

We also wanted this necklace to seem dear to her - a present off her boyfriend, Richard. Through this we are going to have her clutching it a lot, and in her death scene we are going to draw attention to it a bit more. Furthermore, we want Richard to be holding it near the end of the film while he is waiting to go to the funeral, and also have a match-on-action as he drops it to the floor before he leaves.

Engagement Ring

 

The engagement ring was a new development in a narrative, however we think it really works well. We want the ring to again be silver because of the whole innocent look and the connotations of gold. The reason behind the ring in the first place is to show that Richard had actually been out late buying an engagement ring for Alice, but she thought he had been out late cheating on her: hence the argument. The idea of the engagement ring gives that extra twist at the end because it looks like he meant the ring for Alice, but he could actually have bought it for the female friend that we will have enter at the very end.

Book

 A minor prop that we felt actually had a strong impact on the film; if you noticed it. The front cover is a foreshadow of what is to come in the film and we wanted Alice to be reading a book while waiting for Richard to come home. The front cover of a man fallen down the stairs foreshadows to the audience that Alice at some point also falls down the stairs.

We also thought about placing the book at the bottom of the stairs during the argument so that when Alice falls down the stairs, the book is laid upwards revealing its cover once again; making the subtle foreshadow a lot clearer. 

Plates

 

Although these are more of a set piece rather than a prop, I felt I'd put it on the prop list also because the characters throw them during the argument. Richard mostly does this as he loses his temper. This display of shattering plates is typical during arguments, along with photo frames etc, and we felt the shattering noise the plates would make against the wall would be perfect during the argument as it sound violent and angry itself

Keys

The keys are going to be used in two shots of our film in two different scenes. The use of the keys in the first scene will be to signify that Richard has just come back from work and it just gives it a casual look. In the second scene the use of the keys is signifying the fact that Alice is leaving Richard and giving him back the keys as if to say this is actually final.

Football

The football will be used in the very first shot of the first scene within the establishing shot of the house. It will be kicked around by two young girls as they walk past the house laughing - this is meant to demonstrate the idea that they don't have any clue of what is going on behind the door of the house we are filming in - they think everything if fine when really, in our film, it turns out it really isn't fine. The football adds to this carefree look on life that children have, because they are simply having fun.

Newspaper

The newspaper will be used in the first scene, where (this was a new idea we came up with) a newspaper boy will bring the paper early in the morning and post it through the letter box - which really links to our films title and meaning which is that he, the same as the two girls, doesn't know what is going on behind that door, he's just got a job to do. It really shows how we have no idea what could be happening in somebody's house at any time.

Another idea was that we could do another foreshadow of Alice's death within the paper itself, somehow. Whether we mange this is yet to be seen but it is an idea. 

Formal Prop Plot 

Costume Research

Onto the costume research now. This is where you can find out what the Protagonist and Antagonist will look like in our film and exactly why we have chosen for them to have this particular look.

Antagonist - Richard (The Boyfriend)

First Costume

We are aiming for the Antagonist's clothes to be the typical office worker uniform: the formal, smart look. This hints on wealth and importance - perhaps of high rank. The office clothes are meant to give off the sense that perhaps he was late because of work - office jobs tend to cause those working there to work late - or maybe because his work clothes are already formal, perhaps he went out on a late night date: which starts off the argument with his girlfriend. 

We wanted the colour red for his tie - just like in the image to symbolise two of the seven deadly sins that are major centre points; Lust and Wrath. The black slacks, white shirt and black shoes are the other typical office look that we want to attempt at getting our antagonist to wear.

                                     

These image of Ryan Reynolds is the look we wanted for Richard - we wanted somebody who looks manly, but with a potential to do harm to people and lose his temper. The clothing he is wearing in the image is also a good representation of what we want Richard's office look. 

Second Costume

This costume will be worn at the end scene of our short film, where Richard is sitting on the stairs waiting to go to his girlfriend's funeral. The typical clothing he will be wearing is a suit that is completely in black apart from his white shirt. 

We are thinking about still getting him to wear the red tie, however after a little more think, I'm wondering about changing the tie's colour to something more subtle or simply just black.

Protagonist - Alice (The Girlfriend)

To coincide with the characteristics of Alice we wanted her attire to be innocent looking - almost childlike. To do this we wanted to use soft, pastel colours instead of bold. This represents the fact she is rather a quiet and meek woman. The innocent and childlike look links to the fact Alice is a sweet religious girl with a good background and links to the main theme in our short.

       

We wanted to find an actress who could portray the look we wanted for our actor: Zoey Deschanel, from the E4 series New Girl. She has the same wide-eyed and innocent look while looking very natural and simple. 

Antagonist 2 - Stacey (The Work Colleague)

Stacey is Richard's work colleague that he has had an affair with. Because of this simple piece of information and the fact she works in an office we wanted to follow the stereotype of the promiscuous female office worker that sleeps with everybody in the work place. To also go along with stereotypes we wanted to try and make Stacey blonde. 

The costume Stacey will be wearing is completely black as its funeral wear but we want to still keep that promiscuous theme so we may dress her in a little black dress. The black is both related to funerals and death as a sign of respect AND a little black dress is often associated with a confident ego and promiscuous ideas.

Second idea

To keep with the promiscuous and revealing costume idea, we thought that instead of a little black dress - should the actress not feel comfortable wearing one for example - then a small black skirt, white blouse and black blazer. 

Formal Costume Plot

Real media products that share our costume ideas:

The Jennifer Lopez film"Enough" is the main inspiration for our film as it follows the same theme of 'domestic violence'. Within the film the main antagonist Mitch Hiller often wears a business suit which makes him look superior to his wife as well making him look professional and also can give him an evil look. This is what we wanted to portray with our character's costume.

Screen shot from "Enough"

The female from "Enough" backs up our protagonist Alice's costume choice as she is often presented when she is in her marriage wearing thin, pastel coloured clothing which makes her look smaller, weaker and more innocent than her husband. 

Men in Black

The main characters in Men in Black, more importantly the men, are all dressed in formal suits which represents the idea of "men on a mission" and they are normally serious and professional. We took this costume idea because the men in the film work in an undercover job and this normally involves an office for headquarters, this links to our character Richard because he works in an office and the fact he dresses in a black suit conforms to the stereotypes of formal uniform.

Veronica from 'Heathers'

Veronica from the film Heathers shares the same characteristics as Alice with the fact she is the innocent girl of the group. She starts off wearing clothes that don't actually reveal anything. She also wears subtle clothing/pastel clothing instead of the bright colours which makes a statement.

The next post will be on the special effects & make-up we will be using within our short film. :)

Risk Assessment

Following the location research, myself and my group had to come up with a risk assessment that states all of the possible hazards that could occur while shooting on set. 

The importance of completing a risk assessment as it allows everybody in the production company and the cast to be aware of possible dangers that may occur and know how to control them should they encounter them.  

A2 Media Risk Assessment

Location Research & Set Pieces

In this post I will be showing you the locations that will be used within our film short and I will also be adding in the set pieces that will be used within each area of the location.

Exterior image of our Location:

The location for our 5 minute short is a house setting - somewhere that many arguments take place between couples and it also relates to our film's title which is "Behind Closed Doors" as in you don't know what happens in somebodies home once their front door is closed. 

The stairwell created the perfect death scene idea as it could be both an accident or on purpose should somebody fall down the stairs and its something so simple. 

The house's look itself looks like a family home, which is the atmosphere we want for our film. 

Although Richard works in an office and the audience can assume he has money, we feel that having our characters still living with Richard's parents allows us more give on the ages of our characters and the actors we get to play them.

Kitchen/hallway:

   

The hallway & kitchen are one of the three rooms we chose for our film to be set. We included the kitchen because not only do many arguments often start there, it has that element of danger in it - especially if there is somebody - like in our film - who is getting incredibly angry. The sharp objects like knives add that extra aspect of suspense - especially if we have Richard standing right next to some while the argument is going on, because at any moment he could reach over and grab it or for the woman to use it as defence. This won't happen in out film, however that aspect is still there and makes the kitchen one of the best places.

The hallway, although it is rather narrow which could cause us a slight problem with the filming equipment, is where we will be filming Alice lying at the bottom of the stairs and using it mostly at the end of our film when the female arrives to take Richard to the funeral.

Set Pieces

A photo frame will be needed for a film short so that Richard can pick it up and hopefully smash it on the floor. Inside will be a photo of Richard and Alice which he will then tear in half and let them fall to the ground.

Living Room:

We chose the living room as another area of out location to shoot because it is meant to be a place where you can sit and relax and many memories happen within a person's living room more than any place in the house. By using the living room as a place for our argument we are subverting this idea of tranquillity and replacing it with the sense of hostility and an idea of being trapped.

 The table in the background is where we will be staging the romantic meal by using set pieces.

Set Pieces

These wine glasses are what will be placed upon the table for the romantic meal that Alice has made ready for Richard to come home from work. They are also one of the things that Richard will be throwing and smashing during the argument.

Obviously we won't be getting our actors to really drink wine and we don't want to have the glasses with wine in them due to one of them being smashed, so we are going to have the wine bottle placed near the centre of the table between the two meals. I thought red wine would be best as it links in with Christianity. The wine bottle in the picture won't necessarily be the wine brand we use - it's just an example. 

For there to be a romantic meal set out, we thought Alice could either have laid out the food just before he was meant to arrive home OR we simply have clean plates where they are supposed to be sat. The second idea may prove easier so we don't have to worry about serving up food and making it look exactly the same for each scene and cut that we do. 

 The digital clock is what we will be using for Alice to be monitoring the time. It's easier to film the time changing on a digital clock rather than a 24 hour clock. This will possibly be somewhere rather close to the sofa where Alice will be sitting at the start of the film.

Cutlery will be used to lay the table for obvious reasons. We don't want the audience thinking our characters eat with their hands - especially not at a romantic meal. 

 A romantic meal wouldn't be the same without candles, however these candles will be melted down rather a lot to show the length of time Alice has been waiting for Richard to come home. The candles we will use will most likely be in jars or candle holders as to stop the mess.
We decided later on that we would make a link between christianity and the candles through using the Christian's Advent Wreath which includes 4 red candles and the white candle that is lit on Christmas Day. We felt that using 2 red candles and 1 white candle would subtle symbolise Alice's religion but still keeping the romantic theme.

The flowers in the centre of the table are needed to just set the scene and to make sure the reader understands that this meal is certainly a romantic occasion at first glance, and that it is obvious Alice is angry at the fact that Richard has missed it. 

Stairwell:

The stairwell is probably one of the most important locations in our short and possibly the most difficult. This is where we will be shooting the climax of our film where Alice falls down the stairs - of course we won't literally be getting out actress to throw herself down them. They are also important as they are where Richard is first seen sitting on the them and the last place you see him at the end of the film before he gets up to leave the house.

Script for "Behind Closed Doors"

After completing our treatment, we are now able to move on to writing our script (screenplay). This is another important document myself and my group had to complete because it allows us to give them to our actors for them to learnt their lines and to know what they will be doing at which points. It's a simplified version of our treatment basically; with all the long narrative cut out. It makes it easier for the actor/actress to find their lines instead of hunting through lines of text.

Behind Closed Doors Screenplay

Treatment for "Behind Closed Doors"

'Behind Closed Doors' Treatment

Okay, so now our film idea has been commissioned we are now able to get on with writing the treatment, auditioning actors as well as looking into locations, props, costumes and also thinking about our script, animatic and storyboard. It's busy-busy from now on.

This post is the treatment for our film idea, allowing you to have a good understanding of the narrative of our film short. 

Behind Closed Doors Treatment

Target Audience Research and TAP

Just like last year, our film idea needs to have a target audience: people who would be interested in watching out film. It needs to be appropriate: we can't produce a horror film for example and aim it for 5 year olds - that would be silly. The same as aiming a romance film solely at males is also not a good target audience. We also needed to come up with a rough idea of our age certificate for our film, just so we have a guide line while we are shooting and planning.
In this post I will briefly be covering the BBFC Certifications again, whilst also supplying a TAP (Target Audience Profile) of our typical target audience member.

BBFC Certification 

British Board of Film Classification

Films that fall into the age 15 certification have certain aspects within in them that make the film suitable for people above the age of 15. These include:

- Strong violence - the violence can e strong within a certificate 15 film, however incredibly strong gory images are not likely to be acceptable. Strong sadistic violence is also unacceptable in these films.

- Frequent strong language

- Strong verbal references to sex

- Drug taking

- Sexual nudity

- Portrayals of sexual activity - sexual activity can be portrayed within a 15 through subtle ways - nothing too graphic and detailed

- Only brief scenes of sexual violence or verbal reference to sexual violence

- Discriminatory behaviour or language.

If you want to read more about the BBFC certificates then you can either go to their website: BBFC Certification Website or you can check out my AS media blog from my previous film where I looked further into the different film certificates: Jarlinc's Target audience research & BBFC Certification research.

Our BBFC Certificate for our film:

We were thinking about putting the age rating of 15. This is because we researched and found one film I have watched before: "Enough". The age rating for this film is PG13 - so the closest we could get. We believe our film to be a 15 because it contains a sensitive issue that could be distressing to younger viewers, however we could always use 12a instead should our film turn out not so bad.
We are using "Enough" as a guideline because it is about domestic violence and an argument between a wife and husband, which links to our story plot.
We also feel that our film falls into a 15 because of the topic that it is based on, which is a domestic argument that results in death which we were unsure about whether this would be something that would be given a 12A of not, so we went for 15 as it does have some scenes of violence in it and rather heightened emotions that could disturb younger viewers.

Our Target Audience

     'Behind Closed Doors' is aimed to a young age group, nameable those between the age 17-30 of both a male and female gender - possible couples. This is because we feel that this is the age group where domestic violence is the most common, because this age group are still finding their feet in the outside world, stressing over everything and its the time where relationships are often not as solid: they can be rather rocky. 

      We thought that by aiming this type of film at this age range, not only does it raise awareness to what can happen, it also gives the audience a sense of thrill, tension and suspicion which is often what people within this age range is looking for in films.

TARGET AUDIENCE PROFILE (TAP)

This is an idea of what our typical target audience would look like for our film "Behind Closed Doors."

Couples that are young and often have silly arguments over silly things 

 This is Katie West and Adam Smith. She is 20 years of age while Adam is 22. They have been together since college. Adam studied business and maths which then lead him into an office job while Katie is still looking for work. She studied Drama through college. 

Katie and Adam both have hobbies: Katie enjoys going to the theatre, art and reading books like "Murdoch Mysteries" and "Mortal Instruments" while Adam enjoys watching tele and a bit of sport like football and gold while he sometimes enjoys some time to play musical instruments like the keyboard.

 They both enjoy watching thrillers and horrors that have good twists at the end that they never see coming or have good jump scares. One of Katie's favourite films stars Jennifer Lopez: "Enough",which is a suspense film, as its the woman who takes a stand while Adam rather likes "Taken" where the man goes out to save his daughter and is the hero at the end of it. 

Being still young and at the start of their relationship Katie and Adam have many arguments about many silly things that often cause huge heated shouting matches that can make either Adam or Katie storm out or throw something because they are under stress from work or money problems. They have just moved in together, Adam owns a BMW which is his pride and joy, while Katie owns a small mini which she likes as its simple and gets her from A to B: which is often shopping.

Real film media that backs up our choice of target audience:

Fifty Shades of Grey

Screen shot taken from the Pearl and Dean website

So this film hasn't got the same theme as my film but it does share connections: for example the bloke in it is portrayed as the more dominant character, while the woman is less superior. Its genre is drama which I felt went nicely with our film which I feel falls into both drama and suspense genres. The target audience for this film is females around the age brackets 15-24 + 35-45+.

The Gambler

Screenshot taken from the Pearl and Dean website

The Gambler comes under the drama, thriller and crime genres and is mostly aimed at males 15-24. This could be used as evidence that boys around this age bracket are interested in dramas ad suspense films, which matches my own film. 

Final Idea Pitch 'Behind Closed Door' (Commissioning Interview)

Behind Closed Doors

It's time for the big interview! After a week of meeting up with my production team and discussing our new film idea it was now ready to be pitched to Mr Hood. This pitch had to defend out film idea from major scrutiny while also persuade Mr Hood to commission our film. It had to be creative and original whilst again, realistic and achievable.

Unfortunately, during this film interview our fourth member of our production team, Charlotte Smith, was not present.

Evaluation:

The pitch went incredibly well - better than we thought it would: which resulted in the end with our film pitch being successful and our film idea was commissioned. 

For our main idea we didn't go with just one of our group member's original ideas but we mixed together parts of each one to create the big one which falls into the 5 minute time limit. 

While we presented our idea, Mr Hood pointed out certain pros and cons with our idea that we should address to make our film idea even better. He pointed out that perhaps we should have more of an in-depth storyline where the husband was actually out late because he had bought either an engagement ring, instead of simply just out late and cheating on his wife. It would give multiple twists in the story as the audience wouldn't know whether the engagement ring was the wife or for the female friend we are going to have in the film. 

We are going to attempt to use our own sound effects in our film instead of using those in the sound editing because we didn't give that aspect ago last year for our AS media project. Mr Hood encouraged us to give it a try also.