It is 12:23 am Friday morning, also known as the due date of our film.

Cianne and myself are editing, it's going really good, honestly if we weren't so tired I think we would be jumping around from excitement.

I have just spent the last 4 1/2 hours editing ONE SCENE!!!! It was complex. It was a party scene within our film, the reason why it took me so long was because of how complicated it was. We have heaps of footage to use if we want, the scene was filmed over two days with actors standing in different places, different songs playing (editors worst nightmare) but I managed to complete it!!! Cianne was over at our friend, Josh's house filming the last bit of voice over we need, so multitasking as a team is working in our favor. Yet now it is 12:30 and we want sleep!

I'm taking a break from editing and letting Cianne polish up the killing scene.

We still need to perfect the sound and flow of our film, otherwise we are doing really well! It really helps when you have editing software at home.

Anyway back to work!

-Danielle

7:11pm

Both Cianne and myself are working hard to furnish the rough edges of our film.

After showing a very rough draft of the film to our teacher and some classmates they gave us great feedback:

In short:

• Make the story line clear
• What motivation does Rueben have to kill Brooke?
• Cut scenes shorter the dialogue runs on for too long
• Fix lighting in scenes where it is unbalanced

To name but a few.

So we decided to sit down this whole week, every day in class 11-12th June and work out the holes in the storyline, change the script and cut heaps.

On Saturday 14th June I spent 10 hours at Cianne's. We made personal notes on what we could do better, rescheduled filming with actors and then worked on the dream scene and the script when Cianne had work. I cut chunks of dialogue out of each scene and rewrote the dream sequence. This was because the dream made Rueben look too guilty. So I created an entirely new scene which portrayed him in a light of innocence.
Yet on Tuesday Cianne had a great idea of changing the point of view of our film and instead of the audience not knowing who was guilty, they know the whole time, yet through a quicker pace and voice overs by Rueben revealing secrets we will have time to show him going insane from his deed.
This links back to classic film noir where the characters who do wrong face justice.

It is a bit more work rewriting parts of the script, the story boarding and the point of view but it will make it more clear. Instead we are twisting the characters around. The hard boiled detective who in classic noir is played by the Femme Fetel, this time he will be the one who is creating a deception. Whilst the femme fetel who in classic noir seeks the help of the detective in order to play him, is approached instead and offered help and is a victim in the plot. Also unlike Noir, the audience knows who is going to do it, but it is seeing how it will be carried out and the character development which will enhance the films intrigue to the audience.

Right now Cianne and I have just finished the new scipt. Our actors are free on the days we are filming, Cianne is story boarding some shots in the scenes that are relatively new to us that will be after Brooke is killed.

Now we are in the phases of finishing the film and then getting into the bulk of filming.
What is great is that now we can edit at home since Cianne now has the editing soft-wear at home!!!!

              Insight into Jonathan and Rueben

It is unknown in the film how much Jonathan and Rueben worked together and I’m sure Cianne and I think differently about this aspect too.
But my view is that they are quite close, Rueben came up with this plan and Jonathan agreed to help, getting a kick out of it as well. Rueben made the letter which Brooke receives on the party night and watches her react, then investigates what she is thinking and to see if he can help. Basically he set up his own way to find a reason for Brooke to need him.

Jonathan is his friend but only assists him. I think Jonathan’s character is also intriguing, when I wrote him I imagined him to be more of an opposite to Rueben which Calvin played him perfectly. Although we didn’t have enough time to add more dialogue otherwise the difference in character would have definitely shone through in the last scene.

 As I wrote Jonathan I imagined him to embody the persona of a sarcastic, lively guy with a twisted mind, the kind that doesn't care about social status but also knows how to have a laugh, in his own way. I didn't imagine him to be brooding like Rueben but to be more obvious with his feelings, when he's pointing the gun at Brooke I imagined him smirking. (I honestly don't know why I like this character, I think it must be because he's so interesting, there must be a story to why he is like this and some deep humanity inside.)

But honestly Calvin did such a great job! We were joking around on set and he was already making up cameos and pretending to talk like Batman with Josh.....sometimes I wish we could make a comedic version of it, I mean we could but it would mainly be from bloopers. Jonathan is the psychopath friend who makes the balance of friendship equal to Rueben's intense, serious exterior.

Rueben, again is my other favorite character. Cianne and I both wanted a hard-boiled detective character type but Josh made the character come to life, even though on the side he was making jokes and being a goof, he still brought a serious, yet mysteriousness to the character that we were hoping for. 

As I imagined Rueben, I thought of a teen troubled who had turned to the 'dark side.' But as a cunning person still uses friendships and humor to appear more human than he is. When talking to Brooke he seems serious, a bit tough-loving and brutally honest and blunt, but we aimed for his character to not seem psycho till the end.

Best part was when Josh said the line at the end (looking at Brooke's body) "I almost  liked her" with a sense of sarcasm.

It's great when your friends are great actors! Props guys :) 

-Danielle  

 

                  

                     Hard Boiled Character

 

Rueben Carter
Aged: 18
Dark hair with light blue/green eyes
NZ/European, strong build
Wears clothes that reflect his harsh, serious view of the world.
Keeps secrets, intelligent, strong and doesn’t like to waste time. 

Rueben is a mysterious character from his quiet, pensive
expression yet strong outbursts of action, emotion and
knowledge. He hides his inner intentions and only shows
the world what he really is thinking when he wants it to be known. However in the film the audience will be able to hear a voice over of his character in certain scenes so the viewer knows more about the character relationship and himself.
He is a rebellious teenage boy towards conformity within society and is content with avoiding the climb of the high school hierarchy ladder. Instead he thrives upon his time to think and his hobbies of machinery work and repair, mysteries, reading books, watching films made before the 2000s and talking to likeminded people, but he only finds a few.

His appearance is usually either:
Layered formal attire, wearing a dark coat, loose, bootleg jeans and boots.
Scruffy/tired look reflecting his work or hard work from studying with dark jeans, work boots, black or grey shirt and messy hair. Usually he looks tired from a night of reading mysteries, staying up to figure out something, watching documentaries or from lack of sleep from nightmares.

He grew up with a loving mother but also an abusive father who left both their lives when Rueben was eight and he is an only child. As a teenager in his darkest days he would remember who his father figure had been and his distorted view of the male character grew into viewing men as powerful. At the age of eighteen he has transformed into a hard character, knowing no mercy to anyone who inflicts pain upon him and to those he thinks deserve it, but he does care as his mother taught him to help those in need. He has witnessed how high school tears people a part and confuses individuals and he found the clique idea to be stupid so he did not become involved. Yet he still interacts with others, he finds the way people react and interact interesting, this enables him to understand people around him more and why they do the things they do....inside he has been trying to figure out why his father was so abusive all along.

Within the film Rueben sees Brooke freaking out over the letter she has received and he instantly finds her situation intriguing. He begins asking questions but due to her distress and lack of control Brooke snaps at him. Instantly Rueben receives the vibe he is unwelcome to her and he retaliates, showing she doesn’t have power over him by not remaining quiet and as nice. Instead they end up in a conversation with anger and decide they are too different to get along.

When Brooke finds him and asks him for help, the fact she has mustered up the courage to ask him, shown a different side to her character and because her situation is interesting Rueben says yes, but only if he is treated with respect and receives money for his services.

Throughout the film Rueben chases leads while Brooke’s danger grows, the pressure is on for them both to figure out who is tormenting her and then to catch the person with evidence. 

Trippy Character Twist

 

Rueben is not all that he seems, he actually is a psychopath who has a mysterious darker side to him that the audience doesn’t see till the end with his accomplice Jonathan, who shares his same psychotic trait.

Rueben and Jonathan have a reason to kill Brooke, the reasons can be up to the audience however Cianne and I thought it could be of their distaste to her abuse of power with her high status. Their hate for social stereotypes is taken out upon her. During the characterization of this character (because he is my favorite, because he is so twisted and interesting) I imagined him as a psychopath inspired from Scream, but along the way I dreamed of him finding his humanity and realizing that Brooke is deeper, hurt and more human than he originally realized. Throughout the film it’s her humanity and their growing bond that helps draw him out of his dark thoughts, turning him onto Jonathan to stop his murderous plan at the end of the film. Brooke was always meant to die but it would make the audience believe he was good the whole time-but the sub plot wouldn’t be known to the audience so what was the point.

If only we could have more time to extend this film and create a really deep character!

However Rueben’s final characterisation will be that he has always secretly wanted to punish Brooke for all the lies and pain she has caused everyone from her snarky persona. He offers her help in order for her to be closer to him so he could guide her to the tunnel where Jonathan is waiting. 

Written By Danielle