Animatic.

Our animatic is fairly simple, we did not want to draw the story board in too much detail, as we felt we may add more as we progress...

Inspiring video

Whilst searching for apropriate music we came across this clip which not only contained relevant music, but the acting at the very beginning was simular to what we are hoping to achieve... The musical piece is also German!!

Story Boards

We managed to create our story boards this lesson!

Further Planning

Our task this lesson was to decide on the filming locations, choice of actors and appropriate sounds we need to incorpriate into our opening sequence.

Locations

• Cellar scenes

We have decided to shoot these scenes in Alice's garage, therefore we can create low-key lighting and get the bitch black effect we are aiming for. It is a large areaand the brick walls could help to create the feel of a 'chamber'. Also there is power supply, so we can succesfully show the news report on a television!

• Memory one

The flash back of the shadowing over the little girl could be shot in any setting, as long as it is kept within theme! We are planning on shooting this in Alice's garden, in the hope that we are able to produce the correct lighting in order to create the shadowing effect.

• Memory two

we have decided to add an extra memory into the opening sequence, and we are planning to use Alex's living room to film it. During this scene the same little girl will be sat on the floor with her back to the camera. A man (Joseph Fritzl) will approach her and stroke her hair. (Again we can only see up to his waist) The girl will reach for her blanket again.

We thought using Alex's living room was a good idea as it will show a home enviroment. (and the actions throughout this flash back will create a sense of a disturbed home enviroment)

• Memory three

Again we have changed/added a new flash back. Showing a teenage Elizabeth. The location for this scene is not essential, however we plan to use a bench in my back garden.

• Memory four

To show that it is a sleepover, a girl's bedroom would be appropriate. We plan to use Alex's bedroom for this scene.

The Cast

• Frizl Alice's dad has agreed to play the part of Fritzl for us! He has past acting experience, and seeing as most of our filming will take place within Alice's home (and we will only see him from waist down, so resemblence is not necessary)this would be very convinient.

• young Elizabeth Fritzl begun abusing Elizabeth from the age of eleven, so preferably our young Elizabeth needs to be of around the same age. Convineintly Alex has a family/friend called Amber who is ten years old and is willing to star in our opening scene.

• teenage/adult Elizabeth As Alice is taking drama and theatre studies she has agreed to take on the part of teenage/adult Elizabeth!

• Extras We need some other teenage girls to be in the sleepover scene. We have decided that Myself, Alex and another friend could play these parts. We plan to set up the camera and record ourselves. If not, friends or family could be willing to lend a hand.

Sound

We will need to find/make our own of the following sounds:

• Metal doors banging

• Footsteps getting louder

• baby cries - perhaps echoing to show the 'memory' effect

• girls lauging - again the echo effect.

We also want to consider any music which could be relavant to our opening sequence!

Organising The Sequence

We now need to decide what order our scenes will be arranged.
We have begun to start putting our ideas together, and organise the sequence so we can get on with story boarding. We have decided it is essential to have a 'cellar scene' somewhere throughout the opening sequnce, but we were unsure where to to include this.

Between the three of us we decided that this was the most effective order for the sequence:


• Firstly there will be a black screen, with titles, however we will also hear sounds of metal doors 'clanking' and footsteps getting louder (giving the effect of someone getting closer and closer). This signifies that danger is coming (fritzl is on his way) Pottentially creating suspence.

• Next the scene of Elizabeths fades in, and we see a figure in a low lit room. The only source of light would be coming from the television (showing the news report).

• The noises will get louder (Fritzl will get closer) creating suspence. The first zoom into Elizabeth's eye will take place going on to show the first flash back.

• the first flash back/ memory will show a shadow appearing over a little girl holding her comfort blanket. We then see a shot of her father touching her shoulder as she clings onto her blanket. (we only see the male character from feet to waste)
We then zoom out to show Elizabeth panicking and quickly zoom back in.

• the second flash back/ memory will show a scene of teenage girls at a sleepover. Elizabeth will be distant from the other girls (who would most likely be talking about boys and sex) Again she would be cuddling he comfort blanket.
Another zoom out will show Elizabeth panicking further before zooming into her third memory.

• the third flash back/ memory would show a quick shot of a baby bump.

As we zoom out once again the camera will pan down from Elizabeth's eye to one of her hands where she is holding a scrap of material (which we are lead to believe is the peice of familiar blanket she ripped off when her baby was snatched from her by her father)
As the footsteps approach her Elizabeth cuddles the blanket as she did when she was younger.
A males arm reaches infront of the television (the only source of light) and switches it off, creating complete darkness.
The screen is Black again, just like the beginning of the sequence.


Now we have a clear idea of the order we will put our scenes we can begin to story board!

Latest ideas on our Opening Sequence

During our lessons this week we have adapted much clearer ideas, we dcided in order to chose our scenes we needed to do some more brainstorming.

The Cellar Scene
We would like to include a scene showing Elizabeth in low-key lighting. Alice produced an image on photoshop which shows the postion of Elizabeth we are considering.



We plan to show Elizabeth watching a news report on the event (after her eldest daughter was taken into hospital). We would be concentrating on the television with Elizabeths silhouette in frame.

We plan to also include some flashbacks throughout the opening sequence, showing Elizabeth at a young age leading up tp the event. This is some we havecome up with so far:

Young girl with a toy, signifying the innocence of a child before the horrific events which would take place further on in the film.

A teenage sleepover where Elizabeth is very iscolated from the group of girls, talking about boys and sex etc. During the documentary we watched one of Elizabeth's close school friends explained simular occurances.

A pregnant woman, who would have to be young-looking so it relates to the true event.


Developed ideas

Time lapse
We thought we could use the time lapse to present how long Elizabeth was trapped for, perhaps focusing on the sky changing (day/night sun/rain)

The architect drawings
As Fritzl illegally further extended his extension (to create the chamber) he would have needed to plan - make drawings etc. We could show this by panning over the drawings.

opening a safe door
This would be an example of the conditions that Elizabeth was living in.

A man luring the girl into the cellar
According to our research Josef tricked Elizabeth into entering the cellar by asking her to help him lift a heavy object downstairs. This could make an effective start to our film?



Now that we have come up with various ideas, we need to decide on the order, camera angles ect. before going on to create our storyboard.

Josef Fritzl Research

Now we have decided on the event, we have been doing a lot of research in order to capture the happenings to their fullest effect.
All three of us watched documentaries and read reports of the case so we could have full knowledge on the events which took place, both before, during and after Elizabeth was captured.









This documentary carries on in several parts, i found this very interesting and it gave us a lot of crucial information for our opening sequence. We were able to listen  to neighbours views on the event, see the Fritzl's household and various images of the chamber. We also whitnessed the layout of the EIGHT rooms you needed to travel through in order to reach the chamber where Elizabeth and her children were kept. This would be useful for us if we dicided to carry out the Architech drawings idea.




We found this timeline on Wikipedia and found that it best describes the series of events throughout the traumatizing experience for Elizabeth and her children.

1977	Fritzl begins sexually abusing his 11-year-old daughter, Elisabeth.
1981 to 1982	Fritzl begins to turn the hidden cellar into a prison cell.
August 29, 1984	Fritzl lures Elisabeth, now 18 years old, into the basement and imprisons her.
November 1986	Elisabeth has a miscarriage in the 10th week of pregnancy.
1989	The first child, Kerstin, is born, and lives in the cellar until 2008.
1990	Stefan is born. He, too, stays in the cellar until 2008.
1992	Lisa is born. In May 1993, when she is nine months old, she is discovered outside the family home in a cardboard box, allegedly left there by Elisabeth, along with a note asking for the child to be looked after.
February 1994	The fourth child, Monika, is born.
1994	Fritzl enlarges the prison for Elisabeth and her children from 35 m² (380 sq ft) to 55 m² (600 sq ft).
December 1994	Ten-month-old Monika is found in a stroller outside the entrance of the house. Shortly afterwards, a phone call is made to Rosemarie, apparently, from Elisabeth. The caller asks Rosemarie to take care of the child. However, it is assumed that Fritzl was able to use a recording of Elisabeth's voice to make the call. Rosemarie reported the incident to the police, expressing her astonishment that Elisabeth knew their new and unlisted phone number.
May 1996	Elisabeth gives birth to twin boys. One dies after three days; Fritzl removes his body from the cellar and cremates it. The surviving twin, Alexander, is taken upstairs when he is 15 months old. He is "discovered" in circumstances similar to those of his two sisters.
December 2002	Felix is born. According to a statement by Fritzl, he kept Felix in the cellar, together with Elisabeth and her two eldest children, because his wife was not able to look after another child.
April 19, 2008	Fritzl arranges for the critically ill 19-year-old Kerstin to be taken to a local hospital.
April 26, 2008	During the evening, Fritzl releases Elisabeth from the cellar along with her sons Stefan and Felix, bringing them upstairs, informing his wife that Elisabeth had decided to come home after a 24-year absence. Later that evening, after an anonymous tipoff during a visit to the hospital, Fritzl and Elisabeth are taken into police custody where she reveals her decades-long imprisonment during questioning.
March 14, 2009	After a 4 day trial in the town of St. Pölten, Fritzl pleads guilty to the charges of the murder by negligence of his infant son/grandson, Michael, as well as the enslavement,incest, rape, coercion and false imprisonment of his daughter, Elisabeth, and is sentenced to life imprisonment.

Now we need to focus on choosing the right themes throughout the opening!