FURTHER RESEARCH BASED ON FEEDBACK

Based on the feedback given to us after our pitch, i decided to do further research into some areas we were questioned about. For example, we were asked about the symptoms and side effects of being diagnosed with schizophrenia as this disorder plays a significant part in our film. I thought it would be appropriate to do some further research into this illness to ensure we do not offended anyone and we get our facts right. I visited rethink.org to find out more about the symptoms involved when struggling with this mental illness, and how we could accurately convey this within our opening sequence.

 For example, i discovered that negative symptoms that may occur includes a lack of motivation, less interest in socialising, and a change in sleep patterns. We will aim to depict some of these symptoms in order to achieve a more realistic account of what it may be like to live with this disorder. As many people can suffer with a change in sleep patters, when we show the close up of the alarm clock - we will show our protagonist awakening at an unusual time, to give an insight into her illness. We will try to show the lack of motivation through our protagonists bedroom and attire. The bedroom we are using includes a mattress on the floor, with very minimal decoration - which is not really what you would expect from an average teenager. The costume she will be wearing will include jeans, a hoodie, and trainers - this will prove she is not worried about impressing anyone as she has less of an interest in socialising than possibly an average teen would. 

As it is very common for people who suffer with schizophrenia to differentiate between the reality and non-reality, this is something we really want to shown within the opening scene. We will attempt this when editing by slowing down some clips and speeding up others to make it seem like we're inside the protagonists head. 

DAY 1

DAY 1 OF FILMING

Before Filming we discussed which scenes we would aimed to complete on the following day. As a group we decided to begin filming the very first opening shots which included our main character ( Kirsty characters). Day one was very hectic for us as we had to mange both our feelings of excitement and our nerves in order to insure our first scenes were completed. Sophie filmed the very first scenes which included the close up of the clock and the main characters belongings. We experimented with a range of camera angles to ensure the shots looked visually exciting .

After doing this we had to shoot the close ups of our main character sleeping, again Sophie filmed this shot making sure we had a perfect angle. It was exactly this scene we had difficulty with as we wanted a close up of our characters face but due to filming on a extremely the tri-pods feet where at uneven heights causing the camera to wobble and produce unstable moving images. We had to ensure Sophie kept extremely still when filming because of this.

Below we have our main characters outfit she is wearing pyjamas as she has just finished her sleeping scene  her outfit was chosen in  order to represent a  really gritty and rough teenager, for example oversized t-shirt  

IN ONE SCENE NAOMI HAD TO TAKE ON THE ROLE OF THE PROTAGONIST AS KIRSTY HAD FRESHLY DONE NAILS WHICH WERE AN OBSTACLE WHEN IT CAME TO FILMING. WE FELT IT WAS VERY IMPORTANT TO CONSTANTLY MAINTAIN THE IDEA OF THE PROTAGONIST BEING UNCONSCIOUS OF HER APPEARANCE AND ALMOST NEGLECTED. AS NAOMI HAD BITTEN DOWN AND ROUGH NAILS IT WORKED REALLY WELL.

scene without question.

These are the props we used in the opening scene and had many close ups of, which help the audience to infer the personality of our protagonist. The diary we used contains disturbing imagery and words which help to establish the mind set of our character. We had done previous research of the medication taken by a person diagnosed with schizophrenia, and we found out a common medication is 'Clozapine'. We took a regular box of tablets and printed out the label of Clozapine and stuck it on. We decided to have some loose and crushed tablets to the side of the bed to give the audience an insight into how much she isn't worried about taking her medication. The candle symbolises light in the darkness of life especially individual life; however, as the candles aren't lit, they're burnt, highlighting the fact that there might once of been light in her life - but this has been erased. 

Here we have Kaeja trying to position the lighting in the correct place. We were aiming to create balanced lighting without a shadow or a spotlight - we found this to be a difficult task which took a lot of tries to get right. 

EXPERIMENT WITH SOUND

The use of sound in psychological thrillers is very important in order to create an atmosphere of tension and suspense. These sounds are what make the scene more tense, jumpy and has the audience feeling ON EDGE with each movement. It gives us the audience an idea of how the character is feeling. The audience can tell by the type of music whether it's getting louder, more eerie and high pitched that something could jump out at any moment and when the music relaxes again for when nothing is expected. Music is used as a kind of warning, and to get the full atmosphere.

Other psychological thriller sounds involve around rain, thunderclap, footsteps, loud bangs, scratching of the floor whispering and screams. Most of the sounds are from music they created to fit well into the scene.

Rain I would say is the most common and stereotypical of psychological thriller sounds. Its meant to be a calming element but something about rain is rather menacing it's unlikely to have good outcomes, unless coming from a romance. An example of rain is throughout Identity.  

Identity focus there opening sequence around a storm. Storms are always associated with having a bad day because its insinuated with negative emotions and then with that things going wrong, so from the start of hearing the rain and only rain you can tell something will take a bad turn. There is also a lot of lightning and thunder. Lightning always means something is going to break or strike sudden as which thunder does.  During Identity everyones experiencing some sort of car trouble. The thunder is used as loud bangs to create intense and jumpy scenes.



Above is my very first example of our soundtrack I have included both whispering and a rainy weather soundtrack in order to follow the conventions of thriller openings.The whispering in my sound track is used in order to communicate the fact our main character has a mental illness and is hearing voices which are causing her paranoia.The rain used in my sound track is to express feelings and emotions of the main character whilst she completing her journey to the doctors also rain also creates a melancholy atmosphere helping the audience empathise with the character.

BY NAOMI.GRANT

OUR PITCH FEEDBACK

After our pitch we were asked a couple of questions by our audience in order for them to gain a better understanding of the opening sequence we had envisioned. Some of this feedback included the fact that we had stated our sequence to be discrete, it was in fact narrative as it tells a story even though later on in the film it may begin to jump around a bit. Another question we were asked a couple of times included the fact that schizophrenia is a sensitive subject, and people were concerned we may portray this in a negative light. Our aim of this topic was to bring awareness to mental health - we will achieve this by ensuring we do a lot of research into this illness in order to get all our facts and props accurate. 

https://www.canva.com/design/DACFS7fEcKk/nTQHSul43B4d72qw-McBCA/edit

Research into schizophrenia 

My group decided that it would be more effective if we had research on schizophrenia  before we had the role of the main character played. This was important to us because we didn't want to offend our audience by playing the role in an unsympathetic way and we also wanted to raise awareness for this mental illness. After doing some research I discovered that There are five types of symptoms characteristic of schizophrenia: delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech, disorganized behavior, and the so-called “negative” symptoms. However, the symptoms of schizophrenia vary dramatically from person to person, both in pattern and severity.We decided to focus on the delusions aspect of our film. Highlighting the fact that our main character was intact hallucinating and because of this believed someone was following her. I  did some research on the following page; https://www.livingwithschizophreniauk.org/advice-sheets/schizophrenia-and-dangerous-behaviour/
-In an ideal world the patient would be interviewed by the doctor and would describe their experiences fully and in detail and the doctor would be able to make a diagnosis there and then. However, reality is often very different. Sometimes if the patient is suffering from paranoid thoughts they may be suspicious of the doctor or they may be under great pressure from their psychotic thoughts to cover things up rather than tell the doctor everything. This is not their fault it is simply another cruel feature of this illness. 

By Naomi

Written by Kirsty

Institutions from Kirsty Kessie