Synopsis Planning

What we will need:

• Gold Chains, Sunglasses, Bandana, Snapback.
• Green Screen, Lighting.
• Room to interview in.
• Microphone.
• Recording Studio.
• Sink, Tap and Mirror.
• Brink Wall.
• Pathway, Trees, Greenery.

Characters:

• Keith Abraham Lovesworth (Nathan)

In this I will be playing a religious, eccentric character who cannot sing but has made it big in the music industry with his singing partner C.DOT (Connor). He is a calming influence on Connor and the two are completely different personality wise but when they come together and sing, something just feels right.

• Callum C.DOT Flewers (Connor) 

In this Connor plays an offensive, serious person who finds it hard to control is anger. He is the one that has the offensive lyrics which offends Keith's church but Keith overlooks this as he sees good in C.DOT.

• Costume: 

For myself, the group felt as if he needed to always look formal, with various white or black shirts and formal jackets as we felt this would represent me as a religious figure, in one shot i dressed in all black with a white dog collar and a gold chain with with the symbol of Jesus to represent me as a 'Vicar' or 'Priest' which hopefully some people will find comical. Connor decided to dress in lots of gold chains with various hoodies, bandana's and snapbacks to represent him being from the streets of London which people will also hopefully find comical because it illustrates that we are two completely different people from different walks of life.

• Location:

Our film opening will be located in various different locations such as recording studios, walkways, brick walls, interview rooms and an almost bathroom looking area.

• Audience: 

We have pitched our audience to be between the ages of 15 and 30 however not excluding any ages over the age of 30. We did not think anyone younger should be able to view this because there will be traces of drug abuse and offensive language also our group envisaged our fans being older than 14 years or younger as they would be too young to be around when we was big. The film certificate is 15. 

Shot List

When filming we wanted to include as many different shots as we could. Here is a list of the shots we have chosen to film and hopefully include in our opening sequence:

1. Close up of Connor
2. Close up of Nathan
3. Panning shot (right to left) of Connor and Nathan in recording studio
4. Long shot of Connor standing
5. Mid shot of Connor sitting
6. Medium shot of Connor at the mirror
7. Close up of Connor looking in the mirror
8. Close up of hands by the tap
9. Medium shot of Connor washing his face
10. Close up of chain on tap
11. Close up of chain in sink
12. Medium shot of Connor and Nathan (at church)
13. Extreme long shot of Nathan walking towards the camera
14. Panning upwards of Nathan standing
15. Panning downwards/ birds eye view of Nathan lying on the grass
16. Close up of stepping in a puddle
17. Close up of Nathan's face
18. Long shot of Nathan walking towards camera
19. Close up/ panning left of Connor and Nathan

We will be adding more shots and we may not include all of the shots listen above in our film opening.

Final Film Pitch

Planning Stages

               
                                                (I was the photographer) 


When in the planning stages, myself, Connor and Melanie was all trying to decide on which title would look the most professional as we were trying them out on the opening sequence. We then collectively as a group decided on one that did not have any bright, vibrant colour as we all thought it would be able to go with any colour if we needed to add a background, also some of the other designs made our group look like an 80's tribute band due to all the bright colours. So we went with the black and white one as it looks the most professional, is simplistic and looks visually stimulating.  You'll be able to see what logo we went with on my blog.

Audience Research.

Below is my colleagues presentation on audience research. She has discussed the target audience and also looked at other similar films and their kind of target audiences they wanted to appeal to.

 

Final Logo Choice



In the end, my group decided to go with this logo Connor created. We chose this because we felt the other logo gave off a very 80's inspired look with the colours that was used on them and one thing we are not, are 80's tribute artist. This logo represents us as a band, sleek, modern and pure. The white represents the pureness and the black background makes the writing stand out more; whereas the other colours on the background of the other logos do not make the writing the focal point whereas this does that.

The Disciples Logo.

When planning, it was clear that the characters need a band name. Myself Connor and Mel all wanted to decide on a name that sounded humorous and that contrasted the type of music that we put out. As Connor's lyrics are quite offensive. The final name we decided on was 'The Desciples' which i think works best as the name portrays holiness and purity; something the band is not. We also needed a logo for the band, which Connor created. Below are alternative logo's that Connor created.

 

 

 

 

Mood Board



In this particular lesson I was assigned a task to make a mood board consisting of all the sorts of things we would either like to show in our opening scene or something just to give us inspiration to work from it. A lot of the images are from other documentary films such as One Direction's This Is Us and Michael Jacksons' This Is It.

 

Final Movie Pitch
 
As a group we all collectively chose to go with my idea. The below is both mine and Connors film ideas we pitched to our group.

Connor's -

I would name my movie Freedom to Fail and i believe the genre would work best as a TEEN DRAMA. This would work well as we would have the correct resources actor wise to produce it. The movie would be ABOUT a struggling youth battling the grimy realities of a city. He is introduced in various scenes of him walking through the city, looking lost emotionally. It shall be SET IN London, but is not limited to the London settings, meaning we can film in locations similar to this area. The THEMES of the movie is to display the dramas and struggles that modern day inner-city youths are forced to encounter, for example drugs alcohol and violence. The films MESSAGE,  is that everyone goes through struggle, often not winning. I feel the TARGET AUDIENCE would pay to see it as it would effectively emulate and amplify their problems and they would be able to relate to it. I would put an age rating of 15 on this sort of film as it would contain too much explicit content to be rated any lower, thus meaning the target audience would be middle of the line teens to people in their middle twenties. The OPENING SEQUENCE will relate to the rest of the film by addressing the setting and some of the films key characters. It'll also capture the genre well by using a specific arrangement of Mise en Scene. This will include locations that often signify youths bad behaviour and costumes specific to the age range E.G. hoody's and caps. I feel good camera work and constant changing of angles will create a great opening. Although the character will only be partaking in minor events, if filmed correctly, the film should be engaging to the audience. The STYLE and MOOD are similar, both should be grimy and dark, this paints the image to the target audience that no one around this area is well off, and it is an overall struggle. The titles will be integrated in many ways, many shall be embedded in the picture and various graphical techniques shall be used to create a visually artistic opening sequence. I feel that DIALOGUE will be kept to a minimal in order to achieve my idea, this is due to silences connotations of loneliness and fear. CONTINUITY PRINCIPLES will be followed to create a fluid, medium length scene opening, I will eliminate fast scene changing as it would make the pace seem fast when actually it wouldn't be. SOUND will be primarily used in the form of music, I feel the music choice will be vital for my opening. I feel that this movie would be good as it WOULD NOT CONFORM to how movies often end: with a light at the end of the tunnel. The main character would not overcome his problem.

 

Nathan's -

As a whole I am happy that we chose to go with my idea as I feel this would work best in the sense of that it would be easy to film and if we did it right then it would be the best in our class,

 

Individual Film Pitch

The following is the film pitch I presented to my group, Mel and Connor. This includes what our film should be about, what I envisaged the opening scene to be and what I hope to see as the final product.

I would name the title of the film, the name of the group, which at the staged I did not come up with as I did not wanted the rest of my group input as I believe no great idea is created by one person; however I thought the name of the group would work best for my chosen genre, a MOCKUMENTRY. This would work best because it would follow the lives of a failed duo trying to make a comeback with this new film and doing research ALL movies about singers or performers included the title of them or the band, followed with a sub-title. For instance - 'One Direction - This Is Us'. This movie would be about two struggling performers who had great success with their two previous albums and had string of big hits; however they was dropped from their record label because a big story exposing one of them lost them their fame. So now, with their new album coming out, a tour, a movie and putting their past behind them, hopefully they'll succeed and reclaim their throne of pop power once again. Do they get their? It shall be set in various places, as I did not want to limit myself to vast opportunities of places we could film. For instance, one shot could be of them in the recording studio and another could be them walking around their local supermarket. The themes of this movie displays the struggles of a fallen stars and the rise back to the top and its illustrates what they have to encounter on a daily basis, for example delving back into their private lives which heavily centred round dugs and alcohol. The films message is that everyone goes through a struggle no matter what walk of life you come from. I feel my target audience is from the ranges of 15 all the way up to 30 as I feel this would most likely be the bands fan base and I feel they would pay to see this film purely because it would be them breaking the fourth wall and viewing the band as they have never seen them before. I would put an age certificate of 15 on this short film because the film contains traces of drug abuse and a few explicit content to be rated any lower. The opening sequence is going to consist of a variety of different shots and scenes and it will address the setting and the two main characters; it will capture the genre of this piece by using Mise en Scene. This will include locations that you would typically associate a recording artist at (recording studio, album cover shoot, interviews) and costumes specific to the characters (sunglasses as they think they are global success') The style and mood are both going to work well together, quite laugh out loud but believable, as we need the audience to truly believe that these people are actually famous. The titles will be integrated in many ways, many shall be embedded in the picture and various graphical techniques shall be used to create a visually artistic and stimulating opening sequence.

Logo Creation.

In this particular lesson, we was all asked to create a logo, something I am vaguely familiar with to my previous encounter with it in my GCSE course for IT where I also had to create a logo. To begin with I create this on Microsoft Word, something you would not normally associate with creating logos. I used Microsoft's tools to create the reflection shape underneath the writing and image and I also used the font of the letters. I then decided to print screen it and put the image in paint to give it any last finishing touches and as paint would be associated with logos, I thought it would be the sensible thing to do.

 

I drew a lot of inspirations from other productions companies, large and small to give myself some idea of the name and logo of my own one. I decided to call it 'Liberty Productions'. I decided this because I believe all the big, worldwide known production companies all originate from America. so with this in mind, I needed to create something that symbolised freedom and greatness, so that why I chose to do the Statue of Liberty as my main inspiration. I believed that it is easily recognisable and has a memorable name as the connotation of this would be greatness, power and freedom.

 

Upon deciding the name and the reasoning behind it, I wanted to add some type of image as I believe all the recognisable production companies have some sort of image. So I decided to do the actually Statue of Liberty silhouette. This gives an impression of elegance, power and mystery as the colour black is all those things is portrays. I also decided to go with the colour black as it contrasts well with any colour you chose and as I have a white background I believed that it would really make my foreground pop.

 

I like my logo because of it's simplistic style but yet it has enough content to be attractive and appealing. Despite this I feel if I were to have more time I would search for greater quality images, although the program I used didn't aid the quality and I would of only stuck to using one program instead of various different ones as I feel that it slowed me down which then reflected on the final product as it is sleek or sharp in how I envisaged it in my head at the start of this task but overall I am content with the final product and how it turned out. 

Institution (Low Budget VS High Budget)

Low Budget - The Blair Witch Project (Horror/Found Footage/Mystery)
Budget - $60,000
Opening Weekend - $29,207,381 (USA) (1 August 1999)
                                 £750,822 (UK) (24 October 1999)
Gross - $248,639,099 (Worldwide)
Produced By: Haxan Films

Haxan Films is a production company headquartered in Orlando, Florida. They are famous for producing the cult classic independent horror film The Blair Witch Project. The name is taken from the 1922 Swedish/Danish silent movie Haxan (The Witch) The company was founded by five graduates of the University of Central Florida Film Program. Also known as the Haxan Five, the company is run by Eduardo Sanchez, Gregg Hale, Daniel Myrick, Robin Cowie and Michael Monello. The production company also produced the FOX TV series Freaky Links, and the feature films Altered (2006), Seventh Moon (2008), and Lovely Molly (2012), along with the forthcomin Exists.


High Budget - Avatar (Fantasy/Science Fiction/Action/Adventure Film)
Budget - $280,000,000 (Estimated)
Opening Weekend - $269,869,249 (December 25, 2009)
Gross - $2,000,000,000
Produced By - Lightstorm Entertainment, Dune Entertainment, 20th Century Fox and Ingenious Media.

Narrative

Vladimir Propp, Todorov, Levi Strauss and Roland Barthes. These are just some famous names in the historic film industry, not any modern day icons we would say are famous names in the film industry.

We studied all four of thier theories and studies, but we focused more on Barthes statements and views about movies. He suggested that there will be one or more of the 5 codes that describe the meaning of a text. Barthes said that the texts may be 'open' (unravelled in a lot of different ways) or 'closed' (there is only one obvious thread to pull on). The 5 codes are:

• Hermeneutic/Enigma Code - this code refers to mystery within a text, clues are dropped, but no clear answers are given. Enigmas within the narrative makw the audience want to know more. Unanswered engimas tend to frustrate the audience.
• Proairetic/Action Code - this code contains sequential of action in the text. Proairetic elements add suspense to the text.
• Semantic Code- this code refers to parts within the text that suggests or refers to additional meanings. Elements of the semantic code are called 'Semes'. The seme has a connotative function in the text. It has an extra layer of meaning in addition to its literal meaning.
• Symbolic Code - this code is about symblism within the text. It exercises opposites to show contrast and create greater meaing, creating tension, drama and character development.
• Referential Code - this code refers to anything in the text which refers to an external body of knowledge such as scientific, historical and cultural knowledge.

The other studies included:

• Propp's idea on basic characters which always feature in media. The typical characters he found was - 

The Hero - always seeks something.
The Villain - who opposes or actively blocks the hero's quest.
The Dispatcher - who sends the hero on his/her quest.
The Helper - who aids the hero.
The Princess or Damsel - acts as the reward for the hero and the object of the villain's plots.

• Todorovs study of how stories always start at equilibrum. As they continue they develop problems which must be overcome to return to the equilibrum.
• There are five stages the narrative can progress through:

1. A state of equilibrium ( all as it should be).
2. A disruption of that order by an event.
3. A recognition that the disorder has occured.
4. An attempt to repair the damage of the disruption.
5. A return or restoration of a NEW equilibrium.

 

• Levi-Strauss' 'Binary Opposition' - the study of oppositions featuring heavily in movies, for example 'Good VS Evil' or Black VS White.

Mise En Scene

In todays lessons we studied Mise En Scene. This roughly translates into English as 'Whats in the scene'. So therefore as the translations states, we spent the majority of the lesson talking about the various  sections of a scene that impacts how it looks and comes across to the viewer . There are 5 basic categories which can all be changed to make the viewer feel or think differently about the scene. The 5 categories are listed below:  

1. Lighting and Colour. 
2. Setting and Props.
3. Positioning of the Character.
4. Facial Expressions and Body Language.
5. Costumes, Hair and Make-Up. 

All of these features are compressed into making a scene and manipulating the viewer in different ways. When the features are not collaborated correctly, the results can be catastrophic as they make whole new scene in which might not even make any sense. The smallest details can make the biggest differences throughout any scene in films. 

Film Language - Analysing Movie Clip

The Dark Knight Rises
Camera
Mise En scene


High Shot - zip wire across to other buildings.
Tracking shot - running up to the bank doors.
Match on Action - opening the door and running into the bank firing shots as they are running.
Close up shots of the faces of the unknown men as they are behind the masks - hidden identity.

Sound
Unknown men speaking about the 'joker'.
Gunshots in the building.
Not much dialogue - mainly speaking about the joker.
Music nearer the end to create tension.

Editing
Straight cuts as there are clips of different men breaking in from a different entrance.
Clips are short.

Set on a typical day at daytime.

Film Language - Analysing Movie Clip

Up (Montage)
Mise en Scene
Ellies hair continuely changing from brown to white illustrates a large amount of time passing. The characters clothes changes slightly, one being that the colour of it becomes more faded and old looking and even the scene becomes to looked 'tired' in the sense of it becoming like it looks like its been lived in for a number of years. The use of all the different ties is a clever way to show time passing as its constant thing .

Editing
In the opening scene clip, it illustrates that a large amount of time has passed by simply by showing a close up shot of Carl's ties throughout the years, he is Ellies husband and Ellie strighting up his tie, it is a straight cut.

Camera
There are a varied amount of different shots during the opening scene. One of them is a 'long shot' of the two of them walking up a hill and to begin with, Ellie helps Carl but in the end roles reverse and Carl has to help Ellie up hill. It's all very happy scenery. There is a wormseye view of Carl and Ellie looking up at the clouds and then theres is a birdseye view over them looking down at the couple viewing the clouds. Close up shot of a jar filled with money and as time goes on, the jar of money gets broken and filled up again and again. Finally there is a camera flash at the very beginnning of the opening scene which signals that it is a flashback of their lives together.

Sound
Throughtout the whole of the opening scene, there is pathetic fallacy to match what the character is feeling or the mood of the scene. To begin with there was cheery, joyful, upbeat music to convey how happy the characters was together at the start of their lives and then this made us as the audience feel happy. As their story goes on, the music contrast how it was to the beginning of the play, it becomes extremely sad and slow to convey the awful news from the hospital that they recieved, from there on out, the music never really got upbeat again. The music is non-digetic as both characters cannot hear it.

Storyboard

Pivotal - Prelim Task

Prelim - Self Evaluation.

Self-evaluation

Who did you work with and how did you manage the task between you?

I worked with Melanie Woodward and Jack Beeson. Jack took on the role of filming all the shots that was included in our clip. Melanie was the secondary actor, where she played an interviewer and a dead women. We were assigned a genre where i had to pick out a random genre from a hat. Our chosen genre was thriller, which my group was all content with but we all knew it would be a challenge to film and make sure it is not being perceived as too horror; which for that we could not include blood. We all discussed the basic outline of our story and made sure we kept with our theme to the fullest throughout the whole clip, the key was not to be too over the top and in your face and to create a tense atmosphere so we could make it clear to the audience that our theme was thriller. 

How did you plan your sequence? What processes did you use? What theories did you try to take into account?

To initially plan our sequence, we made a storyboard in which we made a variety of different scenes and discussed where we would put the shots that were given to us to make the scene more effective, we also made a script to make sure we all knew what we had to say and at what particular part of the scene to say it at. We had to think about what we would do throughout the prelim task to make sure that our thriller did not come across as horror at all, as we was told previously told before that it was easy to convert into a thriller into a horror. We thought about lighting and the location of where we would do the filming as it had to be relating to our genre all the way through. We also used a Prezzi presentation to document the filming and the storyline to show how we had planned and used a time in the preparation process.

What technology did you use to complete the task, and how did you use it?

We used the school video cameras and tripods to film and complete our task that we was given. To create a tense and shocked atmosphere in the final scene where Mel is lying dead on the floor and i am sitting next to her rocking back and fourth which already creates an uneasy atmosphere but myself and my group wanted to create a even scarier atmosphere that I came up with the idea of using strobe lighting from our phone to create this atmosphere effectively which i think was a success. Finally we edited it on computers and premier to finalise and perfect the last scene.We added in some sound effects and video from YouTube, which enhanced the original footage and made it seem more like a thriller.

What factors did you have to take into account when planning, shooting and editing?

We needed to make a tense and dramatic atmosphere which was very challenging thing to do because a lot of our shots consisted it being outdoors and as we was limited with time, we had to film during the day and most days it was bright and sunny and not overcast which we hoped it would of been. We had to find the perfect places to film too as we had to be in the right setting to convey our genre. When we was shooting, we had to find good lighting while filming the interior scenes and where about it was and where would be best to film, we had to shoot many scene more than once for multiple reasons like something did not look right or we started to laugh; but once we took the roles more seriously, we got it done with ease and it was also easier to film. When editing, i found it extremely difficult as when i had previously used premier, the scenes was already ready, whereas this time i had to find the correct scenes we wanted to use in the final product and also i did not have to use any effects before whereas this time i had to because without the effects, then we would not of been able to create the genre we was aiming for.

How successful was your sequence? Please identify what worked well, and with hindsight, what would you improve/do differently? What did others say about your production?

Overall i think the final product worked well. I was content with the end result and most of the feedback we received from our peers was positive when presented our work to the class. If we had more time, i would have liked to film in a different location and i would of preferred for all of our group including myself to commit to filming in the evenings when it was dark, as that was the main aim of our group, for it to be dark. Also i would of made the script much better and full in content because we had written a basic script and the rest was improvised, which now looking back was a bad idea as it took a lot of time to decide what we should say as i did not know which therefore wasted a lot of time and then resulted in us losing out on crucial scenes. I also found that it was hard to truly understand the plot of our sequence was, as our dialogue was limited and people that viewed it, did not understand what it was about. We assumed blindly that everybody would understand but it resulted in being in confusion. I think our group worked well together and we could easily select roles in the task. I was pleased with the shots we achieved to get however although we did not capture all of the shots required, i was happy with the ones we did film.

What have you learnt from completing this task? Looking ahead, how will this learning be significant when completing the rest of your foundation coursework, do you think?

I learnt a lot from doing this task as it really showed me how difficult it is to film the perfect shot and how many details and aspects need to be thought about and included in the sequence. It has definitely helped me feel much more confident and comfortable with using the premier software which will be useful for future references when being tasked with using this software again. It also made me realise that i need to use my time more wisely when filming, editing and when we was in the preparation stage. Instead of messing around and not keeping on task, i need to be on top of everything and make sure i take all of it more seriously, and also to jump right in with planning as we did not do much planning. Although in saying all of this i really enjoyed making the video and was happy with the outcome.