Initial Ideas and Sleep Paralysis Research

OUR INITIAL IDEAS - MR, MS & SA

 Idea 1:

Idea 2: Development of Idea 1

Idea 3: Development of Idea 1 & 2

Idea 4: Sleep Paralysis - (EP, SA & MR)

As a group we decided to construct a rough outline of our film as to put our ideas together in a way that is coherent and chronological. Whilst we may change elements of our plan, our storyboard has given us an indicator of how the story will map out as well as the different locations, characters and props that may be involved in our film. At the end of the plan we made a brief mind map of some of our ideas that we weren't completely sure how to insert into our film as to provide a reminder of some of the things to consider adding whilst filming.

As part of our research, we analysed short films to help us gain an understanding of how narrative is constructed and to identify the codes and conventions associated with short films in general as well as the romantic genre and the concept of blindness. Each of us selected a short film and discussed the key moments in relation to camera shots, angles and techniques as well as a brief plot synopsis highlighting the genre and type of storyline it follows.

UPDATE: After having a group discussion, we have decided to change our genre from a 'romance' around the theme of blindness, to a piece about sleep paralysis with horror/thriller undertones. We were unsure as to whether we would be able to find actors willing enough to play romantic leads and were unsure as to how we could incorporate romance into the theme of blindness in a way that is empathetic and accurate. We chose sleep paralysis as our new theme for our short film as it is a topic so rarely discussed yet something that so many people experience. Sleep paralysis is something that people in our group had personally experienced thus we felt as though we could represent it in a way that is accurate and unbiased.

Our Original Idea - A Romance Film based around Blindness

Short Film Reviews

I MISS YOU - Melissa Sebata

Blind Devotion - Ella Ponting

Film Reviews - Psychological Thriller (Our Final Idea)

Thirteen (2003) - Ella Ponting (EP)

Mid-Shot of Protagonist
This shot allows the audience to see the protagonist's new
clothes as well as to show her reactions to the popular girl
Evie Zamora. The red colour of the top contrasts to the dark
chic clothing of Evie and reflects Tracy eyeing her with jea-
lousy. 

Thirteen is a semi-biopic psychological thriller dealing with adult themes such as drug and alcohol abuse, self-harm and underage sex revolving around the protagonist 'coming of age' and entering a realm of self-destructive behaviour. The plot revolves around a thirteen year old girl called Tracy who begins the film as a smart, well behaved girl living with her mother (a divorced ex-alcoholic) and her older brother Mason. Tracy feels isolated from her mother who doesn't appear to have time for her and is busy balancing a job as a hairdresser and regularly gets teased at school for her 'Cabbage Patch' clothing by the popular girls in school Evie Zamora and Astrid.

Long-Shot of the protagonist and lady on the phone
This scene demonstrates Tracy's first dabble in criminal activity
as she pockets a wallet from the woman as she is speaking on the
phone. The low saturation of the shot reflects the dark mood of the
scene and is imminent of the downwards spiral the protagonist will
enter subsequently to this event.

In an attempt to fit in she persuades her Mom to buy her some trendier clothes, she is complimented by Evie who gives her her phone number, which turns out to be fake and tells her that they should go shopping. Nonetheless, Tracy finds the girls and sees them shoplifting which makes her feel uncomfortable and she walks out and sits on a bench right by the shop. She notices a woman on her phone, not paying attention to her bags and manages to sneak her wallet away without her noticing, triumphant from this success she shows it off to Evie and Astrid and the three of them go shopping with the stolen cash. After this, Tracy and Evie become best friends and Tracy is introduced to a world of sex, drugs and crime.

Close-Up of Evie and Tracy doing drugs
A close-up is used to heighten the intensity of this shot and the
action that they are carrying out. It allows the audience to see
the protagonists from a unique perspective and gain a better
understanding about the emotions they may be experiencing as
they take these drugs. This scene isn't the first displaying Tracy's
drug abuse and the way in which she is taking the drugs indicates
that this isn't the first time she has done it. Evie's smiling face
reflects her encouraging and manipulating Tracy into becoming
more like herself. 

 Tracy becomes almost like a duplicate of Evie; this is shown through the costume design where both girls begin to wear similar dark coloured clothing, both with lots of piercings and stylish jeans. This reflects both the merging between the two in terms of sharing a similar identity and showing the depth of their friendship. It also indicates the time period this was set (12 years ago in modern day America). This in effect adds to the realism of the film as the issues the film deals with are very much prominent in today's society. The film also displays Tracy mirroring Evie's behaviour, this is shown in one of the scenes in the film where after taking a lot of drugs the two men they were with begin to make-out with them. As Evie and one of the men begin to make-out more passionately, Tracy is shown to look over her shoulder and do the same. This creates an odd visual effect as the shot shows a long-shot of each couple in the same position on two chairs and reinforces the audience's belief that Tracy is becoming more and more like Evie.

A still taken from footage
This shot shows the two protagonists dressed in
a very similar top, both with big hoop earrings
and wearing necklaces with each other's names on.

Evie moves in with Tracy temporarily as her guardian Brooke sent her an email about going away for a few weeks for a convention. In the space of the stay Tracy's self-destructive tendencies begin to heighten such as her hurting herself with a razor to release her stress. Despite the obvious family issues in the Freeland Household , Melanie (Tracy's Mother) lets Evie stay despite being wary about Evie's influence on Tracy. Though it is never revealed to be truthful or not, Evie tells Melanie that her guardian's boyfriend is abusive putting Melanie in a place where she doesn't feel she can turn her away. The plot thickens continuing with the protagonists reckless behaviours showing the friendship between Evie and Tracy deepening and consequently the bridge between Tracy and her mother widening. Some of the behaviours induced by the two girls include attempting to seduce Tracy's 20 year old next door neighbour, ditching family film night to get high on the streets of LA and inhaling gas from aerosol cans which they become extremely intoxicated on and proceed to hit each other to see whether they can feel anything.

Close-up of protagonist
This was the first shot of the film,
indicating a use of flashback - something
we too are similarly incorporating into
our film. This was effective in not reve-
aling who it was that hit her as this may
reflect once again Eview being the inst-
igator of a lot of the problems.

Other shocking events occur throughout the film in succession such as a scene where her brother and his friends check her out, unknowing that it is Tracy due to her revealing clothing and thongs which are visible over the top of her jeans. This is shown to act as a major warning sign for her older brother Mason and he attempts to seek their Dad's assistant without success. Similarly their Mother Melanie begins to find Tracy too difficult to deal with and attempts to release her onto her father's responsibility which would both give her less responsibility and separate her from Evie. In desperation, Melanie goes over to Brooke's house who she's been trying to contact for several weeks and finds out that she has been hiding as a result of some bad plastic surgery. Evie goes to Melanie to ask her whether she can adopt her and when she refuses Evie runs away hurt and angry.

Over-the-Shoulder close-up of protagonist
This shot occurs later on in the film and we
can visibly see the blood on the side of the
protagonist's mouth from being hit by Evie.

At school, Evie and her friends ignore Tracy leading Tracy to become even more isolated and alone which in turn adds to her depression. On top of this, Tracy is informed that she will be held back a year, this juxtaposes with the hard-working academic Tracy at the start of the film who was a binary opposition to Evie. The film ends with Brooke, Evie's guardian blaming Tracy for Evie having drugs in her house when despite we know that it was the other way round. They pull back Tracy's sleeves to reveal her scars that were there long before Evie came into her life to indicate how 'fucked up' she is. The film ends rather ambiguously not quite satisfying the audience as it hasn't brought a conclusion for Tracy's life. The last shot shows Tracy and Melanie lying on the bed holding each other, possibly reflecting a more optimistic outcome to their dynamic.

Over-the-shoulder shot
The protagonist reapplies her makeup
yet no colour appears to be added to her
lifeless face.

In conclusion, this film holds a lot of conventions which we may want to apply to our film about sleep paralysis. The colour and saturation of this film have been highly manipulated for certain segments of the piece, the film begins ever so slightly desaturated and is reduced to a 'glowy' effect after she becomes friends with Evie. Beyond this point the film becomes increasingly more desaturated, especially after the friendship between Evie and Tracy ends. This is especially effective in the scene when Tracy walks into the bathroom to reapply her makeup, at this point the colour is almost completely desaturated giving Tracy a dead lifeless look reflecting her depression and state of mind. The use of mirrors also reflects the character's inner turmoil and is a convention often used in psychological thrillers. This is something we intend to use in our final piece to reflect our protagonist's distress after having an episode of sleep paralysis. In the final editing stage we also intend to manipulate the colours to create an unsettling eerie effect and to reflect the build up to the main piece of action in our film. This was something that we tested out in the genre conventions exercise and will definitely be something to consider applying to the final editing stage of our film.

SHORT PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER FILM REVIEW

By Sara Avramovska (SA)

                

SHORT PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER FILM REVIEW

By Sara Avramovska (SA)

                

CHOOSING THE NAME OF OUR MOVIE - BY SARA AVRAMOVSKA (SA)

(SA) The title of a film is astonishingly important as it provides an essential function in terms of cinematography's promotional methods (central role in sucess), some film writers even use the title of a film as their staring point as the main source of inspiration, however for our personal film we have decided to discover the title post-production. As a group we had decided to discover our film title post production in order to effectively reflect the story/plot-line an the identity of our film to it. As the title provides an insight indication and portrayal to a film's genre in order to seek encouragement within it's target audience, I believe the agony of coming up and discovering our own film title was rather immense. FIlm titles intent to be unique in order to communicate the film's concepts such as mood and tone while obtaining an ambiance of ambiguity which made this process rather difficult. Below are the titles I have come up with for our film:

Celestial : ''belonging or relating to heaven.'' 

Aura: ''the distinctive atmosphere or quality that seems to surround and be generated by a person, thing, or place.'' 

Semblance: ''the outward appearance or apparent form of something, especially when the reality is different.''

Illusion: ''an instance of a wrong or misinterpreted perception of a sensory experience.''

Nightmare: ''a frightening or unpleasant dream.''

Malignant Spirit: '' evil in nature or effect; malevolent.''

Spirit: '' the non-physical part of a person which is the seat of emotions and character; the soul.

Themes:

Delusion 

Vision 

Preception

Incapable

Incubus:

More themes:
interchangeable 

memorable

good and evil 

profitable 
spark

expectations 
reflect time period era the old and design 
defining representing 
characterising 
while it does not portray 

Typography - Sara Avramovska (SA)

Ella Ponting (EP)

We decided to use the font 'Helvetica Neue' for our film's title, this font is simple yet understated and is the same font both Sara, Monisha and I will be incorporating into the Ancillary Tasks. We decided to capitalise the title to appear more bold, dramatic and gripping, similarly to how we wish our film to be depicted. 

Sleep Paralysis research and my story - By Monisha Roy (MR)

Sleep Paralysis research and my story from monisharoy

 

Sleep Paralysis - By Sara Avramovska 

Once we had officially begun our Year 13, A2 Media Course, as Ella has previously stated we had changed our original idea of the typical Romance genre. As one of our previous group members Melissa Sebata had left school to attend college instead,  Ella Ponting had joined us as the newest member to work along myself and Monisha Roy, As a group we have all concluded that it was best to come up with a new idea all together. We had used a lesson in which we discussed all the different film genres we admire and in which we were mostly interested in creating. We stated off by simply writing down all the movie genres and circling our favourites: Thrillers, Horror and Documentary. Once we had decided on the Movie genres, we set ourselves homework consiting on simply dropping down any initial ideas for each of our favorite genres, 

The following day, I was occasionally texting one of my close friends who wishes to remain anonymous. The sleep paralysis topic randomly arised as he claimed that he had experienced sleep paralysis himself but I personally was not aware of what sleep paralysis was at the time therefore I asked him to share his experience , describe it to me. He begun by recalling the symptoms such as the inability to move speak or react to a strange, terrifying, hideous looking figure resting on his chest, staring down at him. He described this experienced to be very realistic, I quote '' It was not a dream,'' I couldn't believe it! All of a sudden I became increasingly and utterly absorbed by the topic that I begun to explore my interest, I thought it would be a fascinating topic for our shot film! I used YouTube as my main source n order to complete  basic research at this point and I had come across a very shocking and marvelous video.

The following day, I displayed this precise video to my other group members, Ella Ponting (EP) and Monisha Roy (MR). There were also very captivated and interested within this matter,As I was sharing my anonymous friend's story, Monisha Roy (MR) had also claimed that she had experienced Sleep Paralysis personally! But I'll leave that to her to tell you her story! It was not as extreme, however we all believed her experience would be beneficial to our short film. This is how we came up with our final idea.

SLEEP PARALYSIS RESEARCH - By Sara Avramovska (SA)

Sleep paralysis research from saraavrsaraavramovskaaaa

Ella Ponting (EP)

We were tasked to research our film genre/topic as to put ourselves in the position of someone experiencing an episode of sleep paralysis. Some of the members of our group have personally experienced this (although not as extreme as the example we are using) so we felt as though we would be able to portray it in an effective way. We researched more about sleep paralysis through the NHS website as well as watching videos in which people discuss their experiences with sleep paralysis. We want to capture an accurate portrayal of this topic and to learn more about it in the process. The research conducted also provided us with facts and statistics based on the amount of people affected by sleep paralysis and the age range and gender that it mostly commonly occurs in.

What is sleep paralysis?

Sleep paralysis is a temporary inability to move or speak that happens when you're waking up or, less commonly, falling asleep.

Although you're awake, your body is briefly paralysed, after which you can move and speak as normal. The paralysis can last from a few seconds to several minutes.

Sleep paralysis doesn't cause you any harm, but being unable to move can be very frightening.

Some people have sleep paralysis once or twice in their life, while others experience it a few times a month or more regularly.

Sleep paralysis can affect people of all ages, but it's more common in teenagers and young adults. Men and women are equally affected.

What causes sleep paralysis?

It's normal for your muscles to be paralysed at certain times when you're asleep. Sleep paralysis occurs when the mechanism that causes your muscles to relax during sleep temporarily persists after you've woken up.

Sleep paralysis can sometimes be a symptom of narcolepsy. This is a relatively rare sleep disorder, which causes severe disruption to the sleep-wake cycle. An inability to stay awake for more than three or four hours is usually the main symptom.

Other things that increase your risk of getting sleep paralysis include:

sleep deprivation

irregular sleeping patterns

age – it's more common in teenagers and young adults

(http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Sleep-paralysis/Pages/Introduction.aspx )




Sara Avramovska (SA) and Monisha Roy (MR)

Both Sara and Monisha originally found out about Sleep Paralysis through the video '8 Terrifying TRUE Sleep Paralysis Stories' which they then showed me and as a group we decided it would be an interesting and unique topic to cover in our short film.  The film covers different people's experiences with sleep paralysis and recounting some of their worst nights with it, this really helped us to gain more of an insight into it and to see just how realistic and vivid the hallucinations can feel.