Main task - Crossfire

https://youtu.be/G925gjBwsYs

Story board

Script:

[Ext - Several shots of London city, fade to black, Karen is inside car on drive, opens door, gets out and walks over to the front door. See's door is open and walks back to car to get some form of defensive weapon. Looks in boot and finds large metal torch. Approaches house again and enters]

[Int - Karen walks through front door into dark living room flicks switch and no lights come on]

Karen: It's so dark [As she turns the torch on]

[Karen pans torch around and large bang comes from upstairs and torch shows swinging chandelier]
[Karen shines torch through dinning room  door, then shines torch up stairs]

Karen: Is anyone there?

[Walks into kitchen and takes pan out from cupboard below the hob.  When leaning back down to close cupboard masked figure appears behind her. Masked intruder runs up and knocks her out with bat. Phone rings and he walks into dinning room to answer it]

Karen's friend: Hi, is Karen there?

Masked Man: I'm sorry she's not available right now...



Shot list:

First shot is a point of view shot of an early sun set over the houses of parliament. It was shot whilst walking along south bank to give the impression that the person who was looking at it was one of the crowd.
The following shot is then a wide shot of people walking past beside the river Thames. This and the other shots of London are all done to show that the location of this film is London and that the following scenes will be in close proximity.

The shot after these is of Karen (Beth) getting out of her car and walking down the side of it towards the house. This shot is a one shot and was filmed with Karen facing forward so that you can see how her facial expressions are that of someone who doesn't expect anything out of the ordinary.

As she walks around the car the shot is changed to a medium long shot from behind the car so that she walks between the car and the camera you can see how fluid she is in walking and the audience gets a sense of realism and that she isn't just acting. It also reveals that she lives in a quiet suburb as the camera reveals the house across the street.

The shot taken following this is a long shot of the character Karen, looking at the door closely, inspecting it. This was taken using a tripod so that there would be no shaking and it would have a level of professionalism to it. Of course the only problem is it is very difficult to push in and pull out wit a tripod attached to the camera.

This is a point of view that is cut to straight after the long shot, it tilts up and down in a quick, frantic manor and slightly pans left and right for an effect of the person who's point of view it is to be panicked.

The next shot is a long shot of Karen leaving the door and returning to the car, again this was filmed using a tripod to the point where she reaches out and starts to lift the boot up.

As the boot comes up the shot is cut from the medium long shot outside the boot to a creative angle with a shot from inside the boot next to the torch that Karen picks up.

Having picked the torch up Karen then closes the boot with the camera still inside and the shot then becomes another creative angle, a sort of tilted worms eye next to the door as she walks in cautiously.

Making sure we didn't break the 180 degree rule, the next shot was of Karen entering the frame through the front door (left) and opening the porch door and going inside.

This shot is a cut-in of Karen's hand flicking the switch on and off, with no lights coming on it was made to appear as though they didn't work.With he use of editing tools I made this shot a lot darker than it was when filmed to give the impression it was dark inside.

After the cut-in shot of the light switch, the shot is changed to a medium shot of Karen with the torch in the dark (also edited to make look darker). She turns the torch on as she says "It's so dark"

This shot immediately follows Karen turning the torch on, it is a point of view of Karen and the camera pans left keeping in line with the beam of the torch, then the beam goes back the right with the camera following it. This implies a sort of scanning motion.This shot I like because I felt it  helped continuity. The shot also helps with building tension, as when the camera pans back to the right, a loud thump is heard and the torch quickly moves to the chandelier which is swinging. The hardest part of constructing this shot was creating the sound for the thump, I tried searching for the sound on the internet, creating the sound on audacity with a pod-cast kit, but I ended up just putting a camera next to a wooden floor and recording blank video but stamping my foot next to the camera so all I did was decrease opacity on the video until you couldn't see it and put the sound of the video over the video of the chandelier.

This shot is a medium long shot of Karen approaching, the door with the torch. She shine the torch through the door sweeping it left and right as though searching for someone/ something. A devise we used was when she shone the torch through the door, we made sure the beam of light crossed the camera so that it felt like the person watching was hiding in the room.

This shot appears straight after the one above, showing very little (because of the darkness) apart from the torch shinning up the stairs and Karen  says "Is anyone there?". This supports the idea that she is searching the house.

This medium long shot then shows Karen walking down the stairs and (pans right) walking past the camera towards the cloak cupboard.

Karen crouches down and this shot is the point of view shot that follows. The camera is pushed in and Karen's hand appears from the right of the frame and flicks the only switch that is down. She also says "Why are the lights off?"

This is one of the key shots in our project, it starts of as shot of the empty door frame and Karen walks through it and towards the camera (Medium Long shot to Medium shot). Karen then leans down to open the draw with the pans in it, takes a pan out and puts it on the hob. She then leans back down to close the draw and as she leans down a figure in the doorway is revealed. This was done by placing the camera at an angle where when Karen's actor (Beth) stands at the hob the door ways is blocked from view, which allows a well timed movement into the door frame with out the audience knowing.

This shot is a two shot of the intruder and Karen, it is a short shot and is quite fast paced. The start of the shot is the intruder approaching Karen rapidly, then swinging the bat at her and just as the bat is about halfway the shot ends.

This is where the previous shot picks up; mid-swing of the bat, about to hit Karen and this point of view that only lasts less than a second of the intruder hitting Karen (the camera) with the bat and a soft thump noise as it connects and instantly fades to black. The thump noise was relatively easy to obtain and put into the video the only slightly challenging thing was taking the shot so that the swing of the bat was convincing enough, but also didn't touch or damage the camera.

This shot fades out of black and shows an over the shoulder shot of the intruder examining Karen.

 

This then changes to a point of view of the intruder as he turns his head looking up and down her. At this point the phone rings and the camera quickly moves up to put the door frame in the in the camera frame and the shot ends there.

This shot is similar to the one in the car boot, where the camera is next to an object that the character in the frame interacts with, in this case the intruder walks into the frame (from left), towards the camera and picks the ringing phone up and answers it.

This is the final shot in our project, it is a medium long shot of the intruder talking on the phone talking to the friend of Karen's and after a voice (make through audacity) asking if Karen was there, in a deep menacing voice the intruder replies with "I'm sorry, she's not available right now". We chose that line to end the scene with because of it's formality, with contrasted with his brutish violence displayed earlier in the clip.

initial ideas

Our initial Idea was to have the film about a women who's house is broken into and she is kidnapped for a reason that is later revealed. The main focus of the scene would be the tension built up in the house as she creeps around. We also had the idea of her putting the kettle on and it being a screaming kettle so it would add to the tension and make the audience feel uncomfortable.

Pitch audience feedback