AS FINAL PRODUCTION

BABY AS Production from Alexia Docker on Vimeo.

EVALUATION ACTIVITY 7- Looking back at your preliminary task (the continuity editing task), what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full product?

Looking back at your preliminary task (the continuity editing task), what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full product?

From doing our preliminary task, I felt I learnt many techniques and acquired many skills required to create an opening of a thriller; I believe our greatest achievements within the task was the way in which we edited our production, I felt the filter looked professional, the film as a whole was rather flowing and the soundtrack was perfect for in-keeping with the theme of a thriller. However, if I were to compare our thriller to an industry standard thriller we would require a much more advanced set of skills, to achieve their standard of filming. Looking back to my preliminary task, I can now see a massive improvement in my filming and editing skills, and knowledge regarding the use of technologies.I believe I am much more confident in editing and filming, I am able to use a wider variety of shots as evident in the opening of our thriller. Getting to grips with pinnacle studios has enabled me to improve our thriller, as at first when editing the preliminary task I felt less confident, and also less knowledgeable in terms of the software needed to enhance the production.

An important aspect of filming we learned from mistakes we made in our preliminary task was continuity.Continuity is an imperative component in any film, and the fact that we had continuity errors in the preliminary task made it look unprofessional, something in which we were keen to avoid in the thriller opening. In our preliminary task we made the mistake of filming the same character wearing different clothes when she wasn’t supposed to be. The images below show the unintentional change of outfit.


Rosie wearing an outfit

Rosie wearing a different outfit

Mistakes such as this don’t frequently occur in professional films. To ensure that this didn’t happen in our AS production we completed all of our filming in one day, and we also made notes of the clothes each character was wearing, this was to eliminate any risks of doing this. This came into organisation, something we lacked in the preliminary task, but in which we were very attentive to in the thriller, planning the production made it easier to be more efficient. Planning for me was something I learnt is imperative; it is an essential part of any successful production.

Secondly, the match on action shots we had in our preliminary task looked satisfactory, however we wanted to perfect this in our AS production. It is important when editing a match on action that both clips are cut to the correct length. This meant editing the clips fame by frame, to ensure the final match on action looked flowing and professional, this was another thing I learnt the importance of; attention to detail, as detail is what makes the production look effective, for example the blue filter used; a minute change to the thriller that I personally believe succeeded the most in giving our thriller an overall mysterious and threatening feel.  In our final production our match on action is of the mother entering the house with the pram. This match on action changes from external to internal, we thought this would be the perfect transition of locations from outside, to inside.

Match on Action - Preliminary

Match on Action - Preliminary

Match on Action - AS Production

Match on Action - AS Production

The most noticeable difference between our preliminary and our AS production is the music. In our preliminary we used none, however in our AS production we used a piece which helped create the mood and give our production more meaning, and also it created a more eerie and threatening effect. It made the equilibrium of the mother pushing the pram seem happier and heart felt, whereas it also made the disruption of the baby being kidnapped seem more piercing, shocking and scary. Music is always used in professionally constructed films to create mood, one example of this is in face off. A soft, light and orchestral soundtrack is heard at the beginning where John is riding a carousel with his son the music aids the reflection of  his unconditional, deep love for his son, and the happiness he brings him. After the attempted assassination of John consequently kills his son the music quickly changes into a different piece which creates a more depressing mood, in hope the audience understand his grief and loss for his son. We tried to almost mirror this sequence of events by having a family of two and then the disruption of the 'lost' child.


The 180 degree rule was something we were told was necessity in our preliminary task, and therefore had to learn how to use it properly. This rule is vital in terms of creating meaning and avoiding confusion whether it's a professional film, or a student/amateur enthusiast production.

As shown by the picture above, the 180 degree rule is used when ‘shot reverse shot’ is being filmed. The rule’s purpose is to ensure the characters involved in the ‘shot reverse shot’ appear in the correct position, and don’t disorientate the audience. This is a rule that mustn't be broken. We used shot reverse shot in our preliminary task when Hannah and Rosie had a conversation, wherein one character is shown looking at another character, and then the other character is shown looking "back" at the first character. Since the characters are shown facing in opposite directions, the viewer assumes that they are looking at each other, thus ensuring our film looks professional and flowing. I personally found filming a shot reverse shot sequence was rather easy and something I enjoyed doing in both tasks, however I felt a considerable amount more confident when repeating the sequence in my thriller.

EVALUATION ACTIVITY 6- What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Evaluation of equipment

Evaluation 6 from AlexiaDocker

EVALUATION ACTIVITY 5- How did you attract/address your audience?

How did you attract your audience?

In order to attract an audience to our thriller, we took inspiration from a range of different thrillers.  We did this in order to gain an understanding of what types of themes and techniques are used throughout good thrillers. We found that many use the idea of beginning with equilibrium before a disruption such as a crime occurs.  For example, in the film ‘Face Off’ equilibrium is created when the father is shown with his young son on a carousel, and disruption happen when the boy is shot.  This is similar to our production in a way as both involve a young child.  We decide to use this idea in our own film as by creating a sense of happiness at the beginning, this makes the baby’s disappearance seem more significant and prominent.

In ‘Flightplan’, a claustrophobic, Hitchcockian thriller, a bereaved woman and her daughter are flying home from Berlin to America. At 30,000 feet the child vanishes and nobody admits she was ever on that plane.  Our film will attract a similar audience to this as they will both involve a woman and a child.  Due to this, the main audience for our production is females as the sudden disappearance of a young child is an upsetting event and so will pull on their heartstrings as they can emotionally connect with it.

The build up to these events involve slow and calm music which gradually increases in tempo and volume.  Our production also involves the concept of binary oppositions through the titles where the colours act as representations of good and evil.  We felt this to be effective as it is common thriller convention.

We would create synergy to promote our film by cross promoting it with other products such as music and other things that allow the audience to become more interactive with the production and feel involved.  A website would include the trailer for our production in order to promote the film.  We may also include some sort of game or activity where viewers can become more interactive and feel more involved with the production.  This would also help to sell the film as it would encourage the younger viewers to go and watch it.  We would also include links to download music from the film.  While the film helps to sell the music, the music helps to sell the film for example by promoting it through music videos.  Many thrillers and other genres of film use synergy in these ways like ‘Taken 2’ for example.  When you enter the webpage the trailer immediately begins to play in order to advertise and promote.

As part of this evaluation we asked some people to view our production and provide us with some feedback.  We asked just females, a family member and people from our college, to watch and review out production as this is our main target audience.

'It is evident from the outset that this is going to be a tense thriller.  The soundtrack adds a sense of foreboding and adds to the feeling of uneasiness created by the quick succession of poignant shots i.e. a lone young mother and her innocent baby walking happily through an affluent residential setting as if to indicate a safe environment which we soon begin to question the scene where a threatening looking youth bumps into her.  The locking of the door and lingering looks following a sudden unknown noise bring about a feeling of fear of the unknown but indicates, along with the continuing haunting soundtrack, that something terrible is about to happen.  The lighting effects as the mother carefully carries her child upstairs adds an eerie atmospheric quality and builds tension as you find yourself wishing she hadn't left her baby alone.  Overall I thoroughly understood the story line and found it to be an excellent thriller from beginning to end.' - Linda Morgan

'While watching the production, I felt intrigued.  I liked that there were lots of different camera shots as this made me feel unsure and as if something bad was approaching.  I could tell straight away that it was going to be a thriller.  I thought the use of titles at the beginning made the film look very professional and the music that played in the background too.  I found the part when the hooded character walked toward the window after the woman left with her baby particularly chilling as it made me question what was going to happen next.’ - Dayna Rafferty

‘In my spare time I watch a lot of thrillers and I thoroughly enjoying watching this film.  It was obvious straight away to me that it was a thriller due to the music and the dark colours.  I though the best part was at the ending when the woman discovered the vandalised teddy in place of her baby.  The loud sharp music that happened at this point was very good as it made me want to continue watching.’ - Emily Smith

EVALUATION ACTIVITY 4- Who would be the audience for your media product?

EVALUATION ACTIVITY 3- What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

Production companies 

Production companies help to facilitate the making of, and distributing films and/or television programs. Most often, the production company for films and television provides the money, and thus sets the budget, and may also make decisions on what director, and actors can be hired. Budget often makes other decisions possible or impossible. A low budget film may not be able to be filmed in a remote location, for example.
The company may also come attached with certain actors, directors, or film editors and photographers. Often this is especially the case when it belongs to a major studio, like Touchstone Pictures, which belongs to Disney. Directors who have contracts with Touchstone are more likely to be offered jobs produced by Touchstone.

Role of the distributor 

A distributor is generally an organisation who handles the theatrical release of a film in a particular country as well as the marketing and circulation of films for home viewing (DVD, Video-On-Demand, Download, Television etc). Often feature films have different distributors representing them in different territories and different distributors handling the home-viewing circulation.
For a low budget film like ours the funding would most likely come from a government grant from the British Film institute. The BFI invest £26m of Lottery funds per year to support film development, production and distribution activity in the UK and the budget is set to rise to £30m by 2017. Aiming to champion a breadth of bold and distinctive film making across the UK, to nurture new talent and to back the development, production and distribution of films that will enrich UK film culture.

To fund out film the BFI would provide us with the funding for the following:

• Feature film production, including international co-production and completion funding
• Feature film development, principally script development
• Talent development (including funding for short films) via the BFI NET.WORK
• Feature documentaries
• Production company slate development, via the Vision Awards
• Digital and cross-media activity
• Distribution of feature films in the UK
• International sales of UK feature films and other film export activities

The BFI would most likely involve Film4, I believe this is the perfect choice as Film4 are often eager to work with British led talent or with British content additionally they have a target audience similar to ours (16-30, which would enable them to give us a clear insight on what we need to do in order to attract our said audience. Looking at low budget films by Film4 e.g. trainspotting, this is England both of which turned out to be very successful films and TIE resulting in a TV series

New line cinema logo

For our professional production company we decided to use new line cinema firstly for aesthetic reasons, we found the dark colours helped to reinforce the thriller genre, the almost shadow affect again alludes to the theme of mystery and helps connote the unknown. Secondly New Line Cinema are an established, professional company renown for their successful thrillers such as the cell, seven, fracture, snakes on a plane and many more.

White productions

We came up with the name 'White Productions' as for us it was simplistic and had a professional look about it in order to not distract from the actual theme, also it looks a lot less amateur than if we were to attempt, perhaps make a logo with our own drawings. The logo was done in black and white, this is suitable for our production as the binary opposites connotes good and evil which is of course suited to a thriller, the fact the eye is a woman's represents a femme fatale character although typically villainous, if not morally ambiguous, and always associated with a sense of mystification and unease; themes we deemed particularly important in our thriller. The visual medium here bared significance to the plot and connoting the good and evil important to our film and the black and white also reinforced the binary opposites.

The titles

The titles we decided to use are mostly overlay titles in a white serif font. They appear one by one over the production in the bottom corners of the screen. We chose to use overlay titles as they are simple and don't take too much time out of the film. We felt that when researching into different thrillers, the titles used in 'The Sixth Sense' were quite tedious to watch as they were slow, long and just simple full screen motion titles with nothing particularly interesting or intriguing taking place. We didn't want this to be the case without production.The titles are overlay until the very last one which reads 'BABY' as a full screen motion title. The word is white on a black background as the colours act as a binary opposition for good and evil.  This representation would become clearer if we were to continue to make the whole film.

The opening credits in our thriller mention each person involved in our production, each person in our group had several roles so our names were mentioned more than once. The opening credits are shown at the very beginning and list the most important members of the production. They are now usually shown as text superimposed on a blank screen or static pictures, or sometimes on top of action in the show. There may or may not be accompanying music. Using overlay titles we introduced cinematography first, followed by music then the editors, the producers lastly, the Director and actors were shown this is because they are the most important/significant to the film therefore by putting them last as you would in a professional thriller they stay in the audiences mind as they were shown last therefore stay fresh in the mind.

EVALUATION ACTIVITY 2- How does your media product represent particular social groups?

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our production focuses particularly on 2 main social groups, in broad terms, there is, as in any thriller a victim and a villain, however if we focus more selectively on how social groups are represented it is clear to see Rosie represents parents/adults and more importantly mothers as a social group. When thinking of the role of a mother, typically the first things that come to mind are maternal instincts, a warm hearted nature, a longing to protect and care for their children. So we wanted this to be evident in our representation of mothers. There are many ways we attempted to outline Rosie as a mother, through dialogue, nonverbal codes, dress code and props. Firstly Rosie’s costume must reflect that of a mother’s so we decided keeping her in a sensible sophisticated coat would not only highlight her as a mother, but by not using anything too bright or colourful we didn’t distract from the plot. Having Rosie as the almost victim (as well as the baby) fits the stereotype of a female, vulnerable and young victim, also fits with the gender stereotype of females. Her dialogue also came into significance, although given few lines Rosie ensured she spoke them clearly and in a mature fashion.  Furthermore the nonverbal codes became a key part of conveying a mother’s typical warm hearted nature, in some scenes this is conveyed through Rosie’s holding of the baby, she almost clutches on to her which implies a maternal love and caring for her on screen daughter. Props also helped us to convey mothers as a social group as typically mothers would use a pram to transport their child from different locations, the pram connotes images of child and mother. Looking at the thriller 'Panic Room' for inspiration, the mothers non verbal codes suggester she was incredibly protective of her child, we used this almost clutching onto style with our production to also connote the idea that Rosie would shield her child from any harm.

Alexia who we casted as the villain, took on a rather stereotypical role of a thuggish character, this being evident in her dress code, we used the film 'ils' as a stimulus here as we believed the villains at the end acted as fitting characters to draw inspiration from for our production. To convey a stereotype we had to observe again the non verbal codes and dress codes of the thugs in 'ils'. When thinking of thugs as a social group you typically think of scary, dangerous, threatening and shadowy figures. So bearing this in mind we had to make Alexia appear all of these things, we made her seem as threatening as possible through a lack of dialogue as this creates an air of mystery and darkness about her. Finally to reinforce the stereotype we used 'thuggish' clothing, the use of a hoodie to mask her face made her seem dangerous and threatening and the fact we couldn't see her eyes like is the thriller 'dead again' being unable to see a persons eyes makes them seem as if they are hiding something and creates a sense of mystery and danger, making them appear very sinister and dominant. The black clothing also connotes evil and danger all alludes to the idea of a cray and threatening character. 

EVALUATION ACTIVITY 1- In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Directors Commentary 

Directors Commentary from Rosie Chatterjea on Vimeo.

Filming and editing

To ensure we had enough hours to film we used our frees in order to make sure we could finish the filming in one day and have a head start with editing which we believed will help enhance our thriller through means of dissolve edits, fades to black, filters and different sound affects and soundtracks. The first scene we filmed was the rivers, and Rosie walking with the baby. The shot list helped keep us organised and stick to the task in hand. We at first had difficulties as I originally messed up some of the camera work also struggling with lever on the tripod, at first the shots were rather rigid when panning as i had not fully unlocked to lever it didn't allow for smooth panning or tilts, which made our film look rather unprofessional and amateur, however quickly got to grasps with it. I feel that shooting the match on actions went particularly well and I believe this showed when we got into editing as they turned out just how we hoped they would.

I enjoyed the process however I found the editing slightly more challenging.  We started off by organising all of the separate parts of film by arranging them into the order necessary on Pinnacle Studios. We did this fairly quickly and then moved on to adding various edits such as dissolves and fade to black. We also added a sort of blue filter to the film to create a more unsettling and mysterious mood for our production.  This benefited our thriller as all filming was done during the daytime due to this being the only time all of our members were free.We originally wanted it to be shot in the evening when it was getting dark however this was just not possible, due to the fact we all live very far away from each other and transport to one an-others late at night was simply not possible, this acted at as a hindrance as a daytime setting doesn't particularly connote danger as nighttime would. However the filter makes the whole production seem darker and more gloomy at the same time as creating an eerie effect due to the hints of blue.

When creating the titles, we had difficulty in deciding on an appropriate style of font for the production.  In the end we chose a simple white serif font to be displayed as overlay titles. When we chose our music, we put it into Pinnacle Studios and then had to change the emphasis of the sound in certain areas of the film, for example when Rosie discovers the baby is missing there is a sharp high pitched non diegetic sound, which shocks the viewer and accompanies the serious event that has just taken place .We decided it would be most effective to do this when the teddy was dropped along with other parts, but especially at the very end to accompany the realisation of the mother when she sees her child has been taken.

Music

Trying to find the perfect music seemed a very time consuming, and in some cases costly task, we were given a number of websites to look at in order to find some copyright free music, however we found that in many instances when finding a track we thought suited our production we often had to pay a lot of money for it. Originally we wanted a children's nursery rhyme in order to tie in with the title of our production however trying to find one that wasn't heavily edited to the point it barely resembled the original rhyme was very difficult. So we decided to take elements of an eerie nursery rhyme and adopt them, the eerie chiming notes we believed would be suitable as it creates a haunting affect, the music we found in the end was perfect for our production and we were able to edit parts, for example making it louder at crucial moments. The music was by Kevin Macleod and begins with high notes that create a rather haunting atmosphere, gradually building to a crescendo to a range of thudding sounds which creates a fast pace and intense atmosphere, this is perfectly fitting for not only the thriller theme but our opening in which alike the music, starts of eerily and slowly and builds to a disruption and is very powerful and hard hitting.We finally decided on using
http://www.audionetwork.com/ after thoroughly looking at other websites such as Royalty Free music

Naming our production

As a group we decided 'Baby' was very much a suitable for our film, for a number of reasons, firstly we felt a long winded title would detract from the film, and using just one word hints at the story however does not give anything away. The simplicity of the title also creates an air of mystery. Finally we thought it would be suitable as the film is orientated around Grace the baby and her kidnapping.

Time Management and Organisation

For communication we mainly used texting to organise ourselves, this was useful and efficient as it was quick and easy and the use of smart phones enabled us to send pictures and easily express our ideas.

We also had a group chat in which we all gave our input this allowed us to communicate easily and often we found that via texting, we were able to tweak ideas for example the original hoodie we was going to use was a light grey, until Alexia found a black hoodie she thought would be more fitting for our thriller as black is often a more intimidating colour.

Overall I personally found texting an ideal method of communication as it was fast, efficient and without it we wouldn't have been able to track our work and see the amount of work we had left to do, it was crucial that we remained organised as if we didn't our final production would reflect our lack of time management and planning, so by keeping everyone up to date via texts we could ensure this didn't happen. Overall I found texting useful to delegate roles, set up meetings, share ideas and generally keep track of how efficient and organised we were being. 

Planning around the weather

The biggest issue when planning was ensuring we filmed on a day when the weather wouldn't act as a hindrance. We needed a perfect balance of clouds and little sun in order to create a chilling setting. We hoped for a dull and overcast day with no rain or sun. As sun would make the film see more upbeat which is not suitable for our thriller and rain would act as a barrier to filming outside and be next to impossible to film anything outdoors. Another obstacle we faced with the weather was wind, which did in fact ultimately act as a problem as when watching our production back the noise of the wind made dialogue difficult to hear, and as we didn't have an external wind sock we had to utilise the microphone at school in order to make Rosie's dialogue clear and loud.

Production company logo

When deciding what our production company logo should like we wanted to keep in mind the theme of thrillers, this meant nothing too bright or colourful as it would distract from the serious tone of our film, bearing this in mind we decided to go with a monochrome logo as it ties in with the theme of binary oppositions, black and white connotes both evil and good which is an underlying theme in our thriller. Also the harsh black stands out against the white making it more eye catching. We decided to use an eerie looking eye as part of our logo as it creates a haunting effect again suitable for the production. The fact it is one eye it appears to be looking at you always thus foreshadowing the evil within the film. We came up with the the name 'White Productions' as for us it was simplistic and had a professional look about it in order to not distract from the actual theme, also it looks a lot less amateur than if we were to attempt, perhaps make a logo with our own drawings. The logo fades in with a subtle non diegetic sound of eerie wind in the background which creates a sense of mystery almost as if it creeps up on you. The font we used here is sans serif in capitals with a faint shadow used behind it to connote a sense of danger and the idea that you don't know what is lurking behind you in a thriller.We made the production logo in Pinnacle Studios by creating an overlay title.  We placed our image of the eye in the centre and added 'WHITE PRODUCTIONS' just underneath.  We then went on to edit the effects of it by adding a fade in and and fade out motion.

For our professional production company we decided to use new line cinema firstly for aesthetic reasons, we found the dark colours helped to reinforce the thriller genre, the almost shadow affect again alludes to the theme of mystery and helps connote the unknown. Secondly New Line Cinema are an established, professional company renown for their successful thrillers such as the cell, seven, fracture, snakes on a plane and many more.

Props

Props we require for filming are:

• Baby grow
• Baby monitor
• Moses basket
• Pram
• Hoodie
• Teddy
• Duct tape

moses basket 

baby monitor

teddy

pram

duct tape

Costume

For costume we definitely felt it was important to incorporate the theme of binary opposites, bearing this in mind we went with black and white, which of course connotes good and evil. We felt Alexia should dress in black in order to maintain an air of mystery, and anything too colourful may distract from the actual plot, and the viewers may not take the character seriously, black connotes darkness and evil which is fitting for the villain. For Rosie, we thought it important that she looked as adult as possible, so we thought using a blue mackintosh would help make her look as motherly as possible. For Grace keeping in mind the theme of binary oppositions we dressed her all in white, which of course connotes innocence and purity this makes the audience feel more empathy when she is kidnapped as she seemed so angelic and undeserving of the crime.

Alexia's costume

Rosie's costume

Grace's costume

Actors

Casting was something I personally found very difficult, as the characters within our play were middle aged casting instantly became an issue; as finding suitable actors that fit the role would be extremely time consuming and perhaps costly. However given the limited time we had to make our thriller we could not make the fact we couldn't find exact matches for the role an issue. When casting the villain we had to overcome the problem of having a male character with no male actors so we decided that Alexia tying her hair back and wearing dark manly clothes would suffice, the thriller convention also worked in our favour here as we wanted Alexia to look mysterious and threatening so we decided not to show her face this created an air of mystery and aided the theme of darkness. As evident, Alexia has very girly features so it only seemed fitting to hide her face.

To make and 'equilibrium' in which is very common at the start of any thriller, we decided to cast a mother and daughter, this seemed to prove less problematic for us as Rosie (who had taken acting lessons prior to this,thus giving her more experience acting) volunteered to play the mother. Rosie although rather small proved to be suitable for the role, and the fact that she was sourced from inside the group meant she knew the idea of the production fully and knew exactly how to play the role, the fact she was so familiar with the production and how we planned to produce it meant we could work more efficiently to complete the task to a professional level.

As the title of our production is 'Baby' it is evident our thriller is based around a baby, this was the least problematic part of casting as Alexia's niece had just recently been born, working with Grace was surprisingly quick and easy, she rarely cried (and when she did it seemed only to be at the times we wanted her to!) Allowing us to get on with filming very efficiently   

Location

Deciphering our location proved to be rather easy task as we already had a location in mind that was easily accessible and it's surrounding settings fitted well with our original plan of how we wanted the location to look. In our plans we specifically wanted some form of river as it can have a duel affect: to set an equilibrium of a peaceful setting but also creates an air of mystery. Again it seemed Alexia's street and house were the perfect setting for this as not only did she have a river close by, but there were plenty of surrounding paths that we could utilise when Rosie was walking with the baby.

When considering potential locations we had to take into account the fact we were filming with a baby and some of the shots would be Rosie walking on the road etc. So this immediately eliminated my house as a location as I live on a busy main road and this would act as a potential danger to our actors. Another positive of this location is that it was a rather desolate area with little people passing by, this allowed us to take a variety of long shots and experiment with angles

Alexia's house was very spacious and perfect for filming as we were able to do the long shots necessary both inside and out the house. Another factor that led us to choosing Alexia's house is that it contained all the props we needed, e.g. a crib for Grace. The colours surrounding Grace's crib also worked with her character, the pale white colour of the crib and warm creams on the wall, the colour white connotes innocence which acted as a juxtaposition with Alexia's dark character and black clothing.

Storyboard

We use story boards for a number of reason, firstly  they help in establishing framing, they provide blocking and focus information, they help in planning actor movements and action and also they plan camera movement. 

We found we used the story board as a personal checklist, by using a storyboard for our movie we not only have created a form of sequence, but we had made a checklist of every shot you need. Using storyboards also helped us revise our material Because by knowing your material and what you need to make your story work, we were able to quickly and wisely make the necessary changes when unforeseen circumstances force changes.

Storyboard from Rosie Chatterjea on Vimeo.

Script

EXT. WALK – EVENING

SARAH walks up a deserted and slightly eerie country path towards her home with her baby, GRACE.  She notices a MYSTERIOUS MAN approaching.

SARAH

Oh sorry.

Her voice sounds timid.

The man walks very slowly and remains silent as she passed him.  She seems scared by the encounter and when she arrives at her doorway she looks around as if to check that no one is there.

INT. KITCHEN – EVENING

Sarah enters the kitchen and closes the door behind her.  She turns around to face the window and gasps in horror as she realises the oven has been left on.

INT. BEDROOM – NIGHT

Sarah takes her baby to the bedroom and puts her to sleep.  She kisses her goodnight as she leaves.

Sarah leaves the baby to sleep and continues into her living room. She sits on the sofa and watches television

MAN

(through baby monitor)

Ssshhh.

Sarah hears the noise from the baby monitor and jumps up in shock to rush to Grace, only to find that she is no longer there.

Shot list

Shot List places an essential, professional-quality filmmaking tool in the hands of anyone putting together a scripted movie or video shoot, at a reasonable price. It allows us to plan shooting schedules, never miss a vital scene, view and store shot details and keep everyone informed

1.    Establishing long shot walking with the pram

2.    Medium close up of hooded figure

3.    Point of View shot of him looking at woman and pram

4.    Long shot of her behind

5.    Long shot of them bumping into each other

6.    Close up of toy falling to the floor

7.    Extreme close up of toys eyes

8.    Ellipses to a long shot of her unlocking the door

9.    Close up on keys

10. Cut away to bush medium shot

11. Point of view from bush on her

12. Match on action shot going through the door

13. Close up on face looking scared/shocked

14. Medium shot of oven

15. Extreme close up as she turns the oven off

16. When she walks away camera pans to the window – see man

17. Ellipses

18. Camera tracks her walking up the stairs – low angle

19. Medium close up of her rocking baby

20. Pans to her putting baby in bed

21. Close up of baby sleeping

22. Extreme close up of the baby monitor as she turns it on – dissolve – music

23. Ellipses to her watching TV 

24. Pans from TV to Rosie

25. ‘shh’ on the baby monitor – zoom in

26. Camera tracks her as she runs in room

27. Close up on mosses basket – baby is gone  - teddy is there insteadis there

Synopsis

Crime thriller - On the way home from a walk with her baby, a young woman has a strange encounter with a mysterious person, as she walks past him, she has an odd feeling about him. She thinks little of it, but senses that something isn’t right. She carries on walking home, trying to push aside her uncertain and unsettling feelings, jumping slightly at innocent things. She puts the baby to bed, again pushing aside her uncertainties, and goes to watch TV. After hearing a hushing noise coming from the baby monitor she jumps out of bed to check on the baby, to find that it has gone.