Decisions made

After creating our test storyboard and having a tutorial about how it worked out, we decided on some major decisions:

The actress
My initial idea was to find an actress to star in our film, who would look petite and innocent with blonde hair. This would have fit with the theme of her being oppressed by society before she turns rebellious, and also the blonde hair would stand out against the black background. However we decided based on the opinion of our supervisor Lewis, that I would be able to pull of the role because I did quite well in the test shots. My black hair also fit with the dark tone of the film, and we could make this stand out using back lighting. This would also save time and possibly money (in terms of food and travel) if we don't have to find another actress; it may be easier to direct the film as well if I already know what i'm doing with my vision in mind.


Costume
Our original idea was to have the white dress to contrast against the black, which is something we have agreed worked out really well in the test shots. In the test we used a long sleeved frilly dress, which is not something I planned for the actual footage (I wanted something much plainer) but the test dress actually looked really good and so we have decided to keep it. Now that I am going to play the character in the film, I believe the long sleeves were a good idea to cover my tattoos, so that they don't distract from the imagery of the film. The lace and frills look quite Victorian in style, contributing the Gothic tone of the film, and the chain belt around the waist adds to the theme of restraint.


Photographs
Our first natural thought when making film is to use video footage, which is what we planned to do. However after looking at our photographic storyboard in the tutorial, we realised that the use of photographs actually told the story quite well alone, and at quite an effective flowing pace. We have therefore decided to seriously consider just shooting stills and making the film from them, not only because of the narrative works but because it's artistic and unusual way of presenting this narrative makes it quite eerie for the audience, again further adding to the tone.



Simplicity
Talking through ideas in the tutorial, it was also apparent that with the use of photographs, and also due to lack of time perhaps, we couldn't necessarily create the gory melodramatic piece we wanted at the start. One of the reasons for this is it would possibly look like we were putting random things into our film for the sake of it, such as the gruesome hooks in the skin, the elements such as fire and water etc. when the simple idea of the girl struggling to reach her goal only by the rope restraint works well on its own. Therefore, this is what we should concentrate on instead, and keep the film as simple as possible as to keep the audience engaged without 'taking them out of the film'.