Planning for Preliminary Task 2

Atychiphobia (The Fear of Failure)

The concept of our film was to have a girl being put into the spotlight but being encompassed by fear. A fear of failure that will eventually relate to her ultimate downfall as she is captured by her own fear of not succeeding. The title of our film was chosen by my team mate, Brooke. She researched different phobias to find one that would best fit into the idea of our film.

For this project, I wrote up the concept of the film and the conventions that we were aiming to include. 

Conventions:

Character: Main character will be a nervous girl, constantly displaying a miserable attitude, dancer/or singer, dressed in dark clothing - but not black navy? self doubt and conflict within her to know if she is good enough or not

Villain that lurks in the shadows - Face will be hardly seen, kept hidden til final shots

Close up shots: Can create anxiety and confrontation. Show detail. Example: Sweat on the girls face, body movement

Eerie and suspenseful atmosphere brought by both non diegetic and diegetic sound. Diegetic sound will be most important because it will let the audience hear what the actors hear - examples: heavy breathing of villain behind the scenes and dancer, music that goes with dance - Non-diegetic sound - crash - at the end of sequence before title flashes across the screen to show that something significant to the film has begun

Mirror - Girl stares into the mirror and it reflects how she feels inside and who she really is

Cliffhanger - Person in the mirror is girl herself who later becomes important to the film's plot

Non diegetic music - Light, eerie sound that creates a ballet like sound, string instruments, slow paced

I came up with the plot/storyline of our film and both Brooke and I refined the ideas to create what we believed would be a thrilling film. 

Sasha Peters is an aspiring dancer but she seems to be consumed with fear. While onstage, she is an emacculate dancer who has the ability to mask all her fear with dance. Sasha is auditioning for a place at a prestigious dance school overseas. But her fear of failure becomes her worst enemy.

The opening will begin with a sequence of different scenes that will later be important in the film - The sanctuary (stage and audience)  backstage, bathroom, pathway - high angles, low angles, panning

Main Character - Sasha 1 - walking toward the sanctuary where her sanctuary will be - long shot, no camera movement

She’ll be on the phone, close up when she says “But what if I fail?”

Cuts to black screen where the title will be presented

When the title fades, we cut to a mid shot of Sasha 1 behind a curtain

Close ups on certain features of her - sweaty hands, face again

Voice heard in background “Sasha Peters? Sasha?”

Camera tracks her feet as she walks on stage

Camera Pans from in front of stage watching as she walks to the centre

Spotlights are placed directly on her and the judges are submersed in darkness

Camera shows Sasha 1’s point of view as she stands on stage looking out to the empty stadium - heavy breathing heard (diegetic)

P.O.V of Sasha 2 backstage as S1 introduces herself

camera pans around curtain and we see S2 backstage

Low angle shot of S1 dancing - Lights and music cuts off and everything goes black

Lights in bathroom flicker on/off - effects edited over the top

Shot 1 - Side on

Shot 2 - Over the shoulder into the mirror as she looks up and sees her own face then fades to black

Bathroom scene mirror girl with jumper looks up and sees herself

cuts off --- credits

Originally, that is how we imagined the sequence to go but changes happened during the planning process and some of this got changed.

My team mate, Brooke van de Water, drew the storyboard and we both took part in piecing it together. 

I wrote the script while Brooke was in charge of the shot list.

Script can be viewed here.

For costumes, both Brooke and I came up with ideas. My part was dressing Sasha 2.

Sasha 2 is the alter ego of Sasha Peters. Her hair is going to be messy and informal in comparison to the tidy and formal style ballerina bun Sasha 1 will wear. The representation of scruffy hair, will show how disorientated and out of order Sasha 2 is. Her hair will usually cover her face which again relates to her hiding from her true self. 

Sasha 2 is a complete contrast to Sasha 1 and we see more of her toward the end. Her costume is a representation of the true self that lurks in the depths of a character. She clothes herself in darkness, shielding herself from any truth that may come her way. 

To match her scruffy hair, Sasha 2 will have a face smeared with black make up. This will represent disorder and distress. When a woman has significantly smudged make up, one would automatically assume something is wrong. And with Sasha 2, that is definitely the case.

The main item of clothing worn by Sasha is a dark green zip up sweatshirt. The dark green is significant as it represents a seething jealousy that lurks within the character who wears it. The darker the green is a representation of the darkness and distress that the character will face as a result of jealousy. The sweatshirt will have a hood as this adds to the idea of secrecy and hiding behind a mask. 

Commonly, people who lurk behind the shadows wear black to blend into the background. the black jeans will follow this convention and allow our actress (Sasha 2) to blend into the darkness and shadows behind the stage which represents her hiding her true self from her. 

Black converse shoes will be worn to represent the sneaky nature of Sasha 2 and her ability to change any given situation to allow her to get her way. The shoes are quiet with rubber soul. Rubber soles and souls will both bounce back despite what's going on in life. Sasha 2 is going to have fear consume her and her way of 'bouncing back' is to kidnap her own self. 

For filming, both Brooke and I shot different scenes and were both useful in directing the talent. Having multiple camera's made it easier for the both of us to shoot the same scene from different angles.