Character Costume

Character Costume

For Holly as the character of the protagonist, I wanted her in plain simple clothes so that her movements and emotions were the main focus of the viewers attention. She wore plain black leggings and a grey hoodie. I initially wanted her to wear a white dress but it was incredibly cold on the day so I didn't want my cast to be uncomfortable on set. We also made sure that they were clothes that were not of great value incase they got muddy or damaged, however as the director I was willing to replace them if it came to it.

Douglas wore blue jeans, wellington boots and a Barbour jacket. I was aiming to achieve the typical huntsman look. I chose wellington boots as they are big, clumpy and intimidating. 

George Méliès

George Méliès

Georges Méliès is one of the most influential filmmakers in cinema history. Just a few years after the birth of filmmaking in the 1890s, the French filmmaker began releasing his own minutes-long silent shorts. However, it wasn’t until the groundbreaking 1902 short A Trip to the Moon that Méliès became a bona fide international star. The film’s widely popular image of a spaceship crashing into the moon’s eye turned Méliès into a legend. By the time of his death in 1938, the prolific talent had starred in, written, produced, and directed almost all of his 500 films.

1. GEORGES MÉLIÈS WAS AN ILLUSIONIST BEFORE HE WAS A FILMMAKER.

Méliès’ background in magic undoubtedly aided him in becoming the first master of special effects in cinema. According to Turner Classic Movies, after finishing his studies, Méliès moved to London to work for a family friend, and there he began frequenting the magic shows of illusionist John Nevil Maskelyne. He began practicing tricks himself, and eventually started performing in public back in Paris.

 2. HE PIONEERED SOME OF TODAY’S MOST COMMON FILM TECHNIQUES.

According to Méliès’ official website, the director is responsible for three still widely used techniques: the first double exposure (which he used in 1898's The Cave of Demons); the first split screen with performers acting opposite themselves (in 1898's Four Heads are Better Than One), and the first dissolve (in the aforementioned Cinderella). He first discovered that cameras could manipulate images in the fall of 1896, when he developed the footage he took after his camera jammed filming a basic street scene.

3. HE BUILT THE FIRST MOVIE STUDIO IN EUROPE.

As one of the earliest film pioneers, Méliès had a hand in all facets of developing the film industry in Europe. According to World Film Directors: Volume I, 1890–1945, in 1896, Méliès ordered the construction of Studio A in the vegetable garden of his property outside of Paris. The building was made entirely of glass walls, with a shed used as a dressing room. However, according to his official website, Méliès was forced to turn his studio into a variety theater (which was then turned into a hospital for wounded soldiers during the war) once the novelty of his films began to wear off in 1915. Bankrupt, he eventually abandoned filmmaking altogether.

4. MÉLIÈS TEAMED UP WITH YOUNGER BROTHER GASTON TO BRING HIS MOVIES TO THE UNITED STATES.

As piracy of his films increased overseas, Méliès needed to protect his work. As noted in George Méliès, by Elizabeth Ezra, Georges sent Gaston to set up shop in the U.S. to guard his copyrights and distribute his films to the American market. Eventually, Gaston himself began making his own films under George’s Star Films banner. First based in New Jersey, Gaston relocated to San Antonio, where he started making westerns and changed the company’s branch name to American West.

5. MÉLIÈS DIRECTED THE EARLIEST ADAPTATION OF CINDERELLA.

Although the most famous adaptation of the fairytale is Disney's 1950 animated version, Méliès first brought it to the big screen as a short in 1899. The film starred Jeanne d’Alcy (as the Fairy Godmother), Méliès' second wife, who appeared in most of his works.

Hans Zimmer

Hans Zimmer

During the process of looking through various clips of thriller music of youtube, one of the youtube adverts actually turned out to be very relevant and interesting to what I am doing. Hans Florian Zimmer  is a German film score composer and record producer. Since the 1980s, he has composed music for over 150 films. His works include The Lion King, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Original Score in 1995, the Pirates of the Caribbean series, The Thin Red Line, Gladiator, The Last Samurai, and The Dark Knight Trilogy. Therefore, it is easy to take inspiration from Hans Zimmer due to his great success and unique outlook on film scoring.

Thriller Music Reference

Thriller Music Reference

To help with the music creation for my final Thriller piece, I have been listening to music created my other people using technology like garage band. I have observed what kind of beats they have when they want to build tension of create suspense or when they want it to perhaps fade into a different beat. 

Filming - On The Day

Filming - On The Day

We spent the day at Trent Park filming my Thriller movie and although it was incredibly cold, we managed to get it all done. We encountered difficulties such as, actors being cold as they has to be in costume, daylight fading very quickly and also areas being very muddy. However, overall it was a successful day of filming. 

Film Location

 Holly after filming her barbed wire shot with fake blood on her face

 Setting up our falling shot

Mid-fall

 After filming our very last shot

Starting To Edit

Starting To Edit

I uploaded all of the videos from the SD card that was in the camera i filmed on, directly to a mac desktop that had Premier Pro installed. 

 I then started piecing together all my the different shots that I had in order according to my storyboard. We are using Premier Pro CC 2017. 

A-Level Trip To New York

A-Level Trip To New York

From the 15th to the 20th of December, students from year 12 and 13 went to New York to learn all about how the media industry works over there. We visited the NBC studios and had a tour sets of various American talk shows such as The Late Night Show With Jimmy Fallon. We went to the Museum of Moving Images and the International Centre of Photography which were very interesting.

We also went on a tour of New York looking at all of the movie location sites that we might recognise from films such as Home Alone, Elf and Friends.  

When in New York, it was interesting to try and notice the differences and similarities between media and advertising between there and here in the UK.

(Queens - home of the Museum Of Moving Images)







              (Graffiti in New York)

(Times Square)