Contextual Visuals

Before we started with location shooting and mock filming, I went ahead and looked up film noir movie scenes to get a rough basic idea of use of lighting, angles and shadows.

I was thinking we could use this approach to film the scene where the reporter is murdered.

Shadows created on a face using blinds create a sense of drama.

Lots and lots of silhouette play.

And natural light casting on actor's face showing rough facial lines. I realized this method has been used in many films to show the essence of a character.

Narrative sequence

How we interpreted the scenes in our heads into paper.

[Gallery/?] An exchange is carried out. No alarm goes off, the 2 walk out unnoticed. 1 piece dropped and is left there.

[Office] *monday morning* Reporter arrives to work. Immediately, loud voice is heard "(Jones?)! WHERE'S MY STORY! IT'S BEEN 3 MONTHS!" Frustrated reporter distracts by flipping through paper. She comes across article 'Mystery: stolen artifact' and reads into it. Gets up & leaves office.

[Gallery/?] Reporter arrives to do new story. Curator shows up & is seen very unwilling - claims he knows nothing- to help her answer questions. An object is spotted in the corner. Reporter quickly thanks and dismisses curator to slowly go pick it up.

[Classroom L-table] At home reporter examines the piece left behind & does web research. Learns about codes but comes across a blog which veers off into topic of cults. Discovers articles about rumoured cult stealing codes written by anonymous who seems very insightful about this topic. Arranges a meeting with blogger.

[Multimedia room] Cult surveils the clips of that night as there was a loophole in their progress. Finds out a piece was accidentally left behind then sees a woman picking it up. Notices movements of reporter & decides to do something with her.

[Rooftop] Late evening, reporter makes her way to location. She reaches rooftop sees blogger sitting there. Walks up to her, they both get acquainted. Reporter shows the piece she found and asks questions, blogger begins telling. The sky gets dark and reporter has her final question when blogger stops abruptly and calls it a night. "Another time." "Wait- " "I'm sure you have some place to go now."

[Lift] Reporter leaves premises. Walks into lift which slowly goes down and stops at (?) floor. 2 woman walk in reporter makes way for them. When lift reaches LG reporter steps out only to be tackled by these 2.

[Classroom] Cloth is taken off reporter's head. 3 suddenly appear somewhere else. Conversation is made between 2 sides, 2 woman are revealed cult member. Explanation given, requests reporter to join. "So what do I need to do?"

[Discussion room] Uncoding begins. Reporter is given orders, at the same time continues her story undercover. Days pass and no progress on cult's background, reporter starts getting frustrated.

[Rooftop] Reporter & blogger back on rooftop "I need to know more than this! Why??" Blogger reveals cult's manifesto, they're ultimate goal all along. Reporter's realization, "Wai- ...then what now? What am I in this?" Blogger tells reporter to escape. They run together.

[Stairs][Uni square][Underground space][Carpark] Run run run. Blogger leaves halfway & doesn't come back. When reporter reaches car she starts to think straight and relax. A trigger and gunshot is heard. "Start mapping it out."

*scenes of everyday life*

[Pangkor beach] Cult members meet leader in a secluded cove. "It is done?" "Yes, it's right here." "Good job. Finally we- " blogger interrupts *trigger heard, scene closes*

OR

[Discussion room] Cult members prepare the ultimate information for leader *muted convo* and finally leader "Good job, people. Now we start-" interrupted by blogger.

*trigger heard, scene goes blank*

Visual Interpretation/Idea Variation

For our shots we experimented on different angles and their possibilities.

The use of light to bring out the environment.

Uni square as one of the locations for reporter's escape.

in this shot we wanted to capture the curve of the window panels

A scene where she is struggling to find her keys to her car.

Testing out lighting. With the lights on.

& lights off. In this shot, we see natural light coming from the window sill & how the light from this iPad lights her face, which creates a typical noir feel.

A scene where the cult members realise the missing piece through surveillance. In this shot, I really like the lighting pattern created in the walls.

Running away using the stairs. Shot form the bottom of this flight & the railing.

My favourite shot from our location hunt. This will be the "tunnel" that the reporter eventually gets shot.

Project Planning

We brought all the scenes together and organized them onto a sequence/storyboard.

Ideation Crit

Ideation Visuals

So the first week we were given the title of our assignment, we jumped on it real quickly and immediately came up with a story..

Our original idea:

 But then we changed it a little by adding more depth to the chief and rookie, also adding in a 'reporter'.

In the end, our finalised plot were none of these as they're too complicated to be filmed in just a short amount of time.

Contextual Definitions

In order to figure what exactly we want our cult to be about, we had a discussion..

Lisa first came up with the idea of a group of code breakers. Just obsessed with the act of cracking the unknown.

But that wasn't enough.

In our next discussion we sourced out interesting mysteries that were never solved & made that the "Why?" in this cult's love of code breaking.

We finally came up with a solid manifesto:

Codes, signs, pictography have been around for hundreds of years, which also started evolution of language.

Civilization comes along and emerging geniuses throughout time (such as Da Vinci), those who understood codes, and created some themselves - how his works always have a meaning behind them in the form of a puzzle or a code - and how he was always more intellectual than everyone else.

Because of this, they gain more and more followers as these commoners believe that these geniuses have access to other more divine knowledge out there.

Possibilities of extra-terrestrial life, immortality, time travel, everything that was ever questionable.

Throughout time, leaders of this cult change which also change the mood of the cult but they never change they're ultimate goal.

To seek.

They live among us. They govern pop culture.

Design References

The illuminati

Reading on other cults have helped us get an idea of how we want to individualize our own.

http://list25.com/25-greatest-unsolved-mysteries-ever/

In order to have a little realism in our cult's manifesto we did a little research about true unsolved mysteries of our time.

Surprisingly, MANY of them were artifacts that consisted of a bunch of codes and unknown language that can't seem to be deciphered.

Just outside the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, you will behold a statue that has coded encryptions on its surface. This very captivating sculpture was created by Jim Sanborn to show that everything can be resolved and decoded with the use of patterns and clues. Of the four inscription sections that were included, only the first three have been cracked. But the fourth? Not even the brilliant minds in the CIA were able to get to the bottom of it.

In Staffordshire, England, there is a sculpture that has invited the wits and intellect of many intellectuals in an attempt to decode an inscription reading DOUOSVAVVM. Although the Shepherd’s Monument was constructed back in the 18th century, the letters found therein were never solved, even 250 years after it was completed.

The next reference we did was on blade runner in order to get an idea of how we want to film our story.

What I noticed in this film was how the lighting was used in order to create shadows and give it it's film noir feel even though it was in colour.

Other than that, the use of subliminal messaging is very clever.

Jamie showed us a video on the basics of film noir lighting that I'm sure will be used during production.

Dialogue/Narrative

At last!! Our finalized plot!

The cult steals a code,

the reporter finds out.

*during investigation, she comes across a very insightful blog written by an anonymous blogger. She goes to find blogger.

Her research continues.

Cult notices reporter's intelligence useful for their code-breaking, requests reporter to join them.

She does, thinking she may be a spy inside this society.

(The blogger, who is a great fan of the cult,

is a psycho. - The blogger is obsessed with wanting to join the cult,

but the cult has always rejected her.)

Reporter knows nothing about this and *continues making visits to blogger to extract more background about cult as so far, cult has only given her orders to carry out their work - to solve the stolen code.

With intensified feelings of jealousy and wanting to help the cult achieve their goal, blogger pushes reporter deeper into the cult whereby she gets used.

Then, when there was no use for the reporter to be in the cult anymore *as the code from stolen item has been solved & new information has been acquired,

the reporter realises what is going on, and tries to leave.

Cult could not risk anyone smart telling the world what they were doing,

so they killed the reporter.

*New information is immediately tested on breaking the ultimate code and is successful, cult carries on with learning the new knowledge to be presented to their leader.

They mapped out everything and meet at a secret location.

*On the eve of transferring what has been discovered, blogger appears.

either we hear a trigger pulled, or a dialogue

Scene ends, narrator speaks.

"We are all unconscious

and being manipulated by cults around us

its just an example just to bring a kind of depth

and implement it to our reality"

This ^ needs a lil' tweaking, sentence phrasing-wise but yes main ideea of thesis is there..

who kills who? is the cult too sick of the blogger and she end up witht he same fate as reporter? or was the blogger out to get the cult all along?


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