DETAILED SCRIPT: IDEA ONE

EXT. COBBLED STREET- LATE EVENING
EDWARD: (A tall young man with a friendly face, red hair and big eyes) in a suit is running down a dark cobbled street or lane heavily breathing and panting, clutching onto a innocent looking china doll ( brown hair –big eyes ), he looks frightened and panicked.

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Extreme Close-up of the woman’s feet (pretty pink ballet), walking very fast which appears intimidating

CUT TO:
Edward continues to run down the street; however he stops abruptly and turns around awkwardly

CUT TO:
POLLY (A tall young women with brown hair, big blue eyes and heavily made-up) comes into the light, quickly strikes across screen with a weapon (hammer)

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A horrific image of Edward is lying sprawled on the cobbled floor, emotionless and blood dripping from his fore-head and mouth (he is dead) next to the china doll.

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Whilst chuckling to herself, Polly picks up the doll and licks her lips, clutching onto the china doll in one hand and the hammer covered in blood in the other

FADE TO:

INT. ENSUITE BEDROOM- LATE AFTERNOON

FADE IN:
Polly is in the bathroom, frantically putting on her makeup whilst crying. She is looking into the mirror. The names of the cast and crew appear on Polly’s face in her hair, on her cheeks and in her eyebrows (look a bit like scars) and whilst applying her makeup, the names of the cast and crew disappear.


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Polly keeps on applying makeup; the image she sees of herself in the mirror is disturbing; her face is heavily scared and distorted. Then the real appearance of Polly is shown, her face is normal, with no distortion or scars.
CUT TO:
A very rusty tap in the bathroom is slowly dripping. Instead of water the tap is dripping blood.

JUMP CUT TO:
Polly’s eyes are crying, following the rhythm of the blood in the tap. The tears are smearing the makeup she keeps on applying over and over again. The fact that the make up is smearing her makeup is frustrating her.
CUT TO:
Polly’s eyes are shown again, her eyes look very plastic and doll-like, with all her makeup perfect. Her skin looks porcelain. Polly’s eyes look very inhumane and false.

BLACKOJT

CUT TO:
On the mirror of the bathroom is written DOLL FACE in dripping RED blood and RED lipstick

Doll Face TREATMENT

Title Sequence
ACTION
A variety of little girls playing with dolls (brushing hair, playing tea parties, dressing them in pretty dresses)
A variety of dolls laid out in a line, all with unusual and scary facial expressions
MUSIC
Children laughing and singing with scary music played all the time
Act One:
- A women is applying her makeup at a bathroom mirror; she sees her reflection covered in scars, the camera pans 180 degrees to show the women’s face appearing to be normal. The woman begins to cry and frantically applies more makeup (foundation, blusher, eyeliner, mascara). A tap is dripping in the background.
- In the mirror her makeup appears very over done and doll-like
- Cut to an establishing shot of a modern bedroom, the room is very tidy (clothes folded neatly, no mess on the floor, bed made) however at second glance (360 pan) the room appears to be slightly strange with disfigured toys and a cracked mirror which seems to be slighting unusual strange pictures, photographs in which the women’s face has been scratched out, a broken mirror and unusual toys.
Then an extreme close-up shows a very strange disfigured china doll laying on the women’s bed (with scars, burns, and a tear of blood)
- The women then begins to get ready for work however instead of wearing the clothing that is laid out on her bed, she goes to her wardrobe, opens a box (which appears to be like an old dressing up box) and pulls out a very pretty red dress and does her hair identical to the dolls (plaits) and there is a split screen shot of both the women and the doll to highlight the similarities between her and the doll to the audience. We then see the women look into the cracked mirror and smile to herself
Act Two:
- Flashback of a girl finding a doll in an old dingy antique shop, a very strange old lady gives her the doll for free
- Cut back to real life, a series of tragic events occur for the women. It starts with her beginning to have a recurring dream; in which firstly a child is playing happily with a innocent looking doll, and then suddenly it turns on her, and its face becomes disfigured and the little girl becomes violent and aggressive. She wakes up screaming
- One morning after having one of these nightmares, the women wakes up bleeding. She and her husband go to the hospital to find out that tragically the woman has had a miscarriage. However both the husband and the doctor are horrified as the women reacts by laughing hysterically.
- She begins to have serious problems with her husband due to the miscarriage, and she locks her self in her room and just plays child-like games with her doll all day, not going to work etc. and they have an argument and he threatens to burn the doll. This ends in row where the women scratches her husband down the face, making him bleed.
Act Three:
- After the row, the husband packs his bags and leaves the house.
- The woman begins to have a break down, and goes into her bathroom and takes some pills. After taking the pills she runs back into her bedroom and frantically pulls the heads and cuts her old toys and dolls around her room.
- She then notices the doll on the bed and in a dramatic scene tries to burn the dolls hair, but ends up she burns her own hair. Then the women pulls off the dolls ‘tights’ and wraps it the dolls neck, then in a blurred shot the audience would she the women walk to her wardrobe and pull out a pair of tights (to show the women was about to hang herself)
- The husband arrives back with flowers, as he opens the door he rushes upstairs and realizes his wife is dead, the audience notice how the previous scars on the dolls face have disappeared. In a frantic rage the husband throws the doll out of the bedroom window. It then Cuts to a little girl playing on the street and notices the doll and picks her up off the street. The evil continues.

Analysis Of Our Intitial Film Sequence

DENOTATION

· Establishing wide shot, man opening door.
· Focus pool on girls face and the opening of the door
· Extreme Close Up of feet walking
· Variety of high/low angle over the shoulder and mid-shots conversation between two people
· Extreme Close up on mobile phone
· Longs shot of man exit
· Mid-shot of half girls profile

CONOTATION

• Focus pool on the girls face (looking afraid) suggests she is a victim
• The extreme closeup of the feet makes the man look powerful and intimidating
• The fast jump cuts create suspense and fast-paced action
• The lighting was diffused because we hadn't yet learnt about Three Point Lighthing however if we had, i think we could have used under-lighting for the man so that he would look dominant and scary

Initial Film Sequence

Pre Production

What we did to facilitate the shoot
To facilitate the shot our group blocked and rehearsed the actors and decided what camera angles and shots we would like in the sequence.
What was done for us?
The camera was already set up in place; we had a script and a storyboard.
What we could have done better
Our group could have used a different location and used our space better.

Production
We filmed a conversation between two people; we took guidance from the storyboard of Camera shots such as close-up, over the shoulder and wide shots. I was director for the sequence, Millie Driver was the camera operator and Sinead Melloy was the continuity girl. I thought that our team worked really well together, we made effective decisions and we came up with original ideas for the camera angles and shots.

Post-Production
I thought that our sequence was effective and that our group had a variety of unique camera ideas and shots. I think that our group successfully fulfilled the brief required for the sequence. However I think we should have used a better location possibly outside and I think as the director I should have used the space better. I really enjoyed filming our sequence; it taught me how important a successful team can be. Also as I was being the director it showed e what an important and responsible job it is, as I needed to be organised, focused, make decisive on the spot decisions and direct the group in a positive way by listening to their suggestions which I really enjoyed. I also learned about the restrictions of camera rules such as 180degree and learned the effectiveness camera focus can have on a sequence.

The Trees Poster

Our brief for the project was to come up with a A4 genre based poster called the Trees and use the tagline 'Don't go down to the woods today'. We were sent of into groups and using my knowledge from digital camera work and photoshop, i created my poster.

My Elephant Poster

We had to create a film poster after watching the film 'Elephant', it was a challenge as we had to make our poster relevant to the film and use our own images.

Using Digital Film Cameras

We were set the challenge of using the manual settings of a FUJI FINEPIX S900 Digital still camera and to take a variety photo shots at different camera angles. The exercise was really fun and I learnt a lot about digital cameras such as; what an aperture is (the cameras eye, it is like a pinhole letting in light) which is useful if I were to take a picture of the moon at night and I would use the aperture to let in light and also use a fast shutter speed as to not blur the picture. The exercise also taught me about the various composition rules such as; the rule of thirds which divides your image into three sections across and down and creates hot points within your frame. This will useful especially when filming as the rule of three affects the feeling towards from the audience (viewer) to the character.

-The M on the camera screen is maunal setting

-F.2 is the F- stop or Apertue

-The number 50 is the shutter speed(the speed which the shutter opens and closes to take the photo)

Introduction to Media Studies

My name is Clare Dodkins, I’ve started to study Media Studies for AS to further my knowledge of production and filming as in the future I would like to be a director or involved in media and broadcasting of some sort. I haven’t had that much media experience in the past except I was an extra for the television series Jam and Jerusalem; the experience really showed me the exciting and un-usual jobs available within film and television. In the next two years I would like to have the opportunity to create my own film such as a pop video or a horror film.