Planning for my Film Opening

The planning process of a film can be very strenuous because there are so many things that you have to look up and think about.

These include:

• Characters
• Cast
• Costumes and props
• Location
• Visuals
• Sound
• Script

So as you can see, there are a lot of things you need to do to plan for your film, and you have to plan them very carefully to make sure that everything is correct.


Characters and Cast:

I have made character profiles and presented these in previous posts, however, in my actual film opening, I will only need the main protagonist of my piece to be filmed, meaning I only needed to cast one character, which was Gemma.

Casting Gemma was quite simple, as I just needed a teenage girl who could act out the part of everyday life.
  

• Name: Hannah Bowden
• Part: Gemma Crow
• Age played: 15
• Gender: Female
• Height: 5'4
• Physical appearance: Long blonde hair, light green eyes, glasses, quite pale and slim, which is good for the part of a cancer patient as it gives a realistic sense to the piece.
• Clothing: Dressed mainly in black, black jeans and black top, with a choice of whatever shirt to go over the top, shirt must be unbuttoned so it acts as a jacket. These clothes are needed as it needs to look casual because it is based in her bedroom, but also the black makes her look paler.
• Makeup: White foundation and powder to make her look pale, but otherwise no makeup is needed and hair is just loose.
• Reason chosen: The reason I have chosen Hannah to play the part of Gemma is because she has the features that I was picturing Gemma of having: long blonde hair, glasses, short, quiet.

Costumes and Props:

The clothes I wanted Gemma to be wearing, are as I've said above. I wanted her to wear:

• Black jeans
• Black vest
• Choice of shirt to go over to make it look like casual wear (left to Hannah to decide)

The reasoning for this was to make her character look casual, because the filming was to be shot in 'her bedroom' so I didn't want her attire to look un-natural, but I wanted her to wear black so that it made her look pale and ill.

The props I wanted to use were also naturalistic to what a teenage girl would have in her bedroom, although because my opening is quite dramatic, I didn't need to use many props to make it effective, therefore the only props I used were:

• Laptop
• Book

The reasoning for wanting to use these was to show that although she was a girl who had got a terminal illness, she still acted and did what 'normal' teenagers do, which is to sit on their laptops on social networking and reading every now and then.
I planned to use the laptop in shot 5 and the book in shot 6.


Location: 

When planning location for a film, you need to think of the best place to effectively assist the story you're trying to tell, and for my story, it was quite easy to choose where I wanted my filming to be based.

I wanted to base my filming in the characters bedroom, where they most feel comfortable, and to do this I used my own bedroom, meaning that I did not have to plan or ask for permission to use it. 

The message I wanted to get across to my audience, as a director, is that the main character is in her own comfort zone, which is what she needs to be in as she has been told devastating news that has the power to destroy her life. 


Visuals and Sound:

Above, you can see the initial storyboard for my work filming, which includes the planned visuals and sounds for my piece.

In each part, you will find a picture of my planned footage and also what music/dialogue/sound is effective in supporting the conventions of my genre, which is a tragedy drama.

I do include music within my opening, which is non-diegetic as it is added after filming, but it will be very quiet and mellow in the background, as it is only featured to give the filming a sense of a sad atmosphere, not to take over the film and be the main focus.

I have also recorded dialogue, which features as non-diegetic sound, as you don't see the character speaking the words at any point, separately to place over the top of the footage, which will enable the audience to almost feel the characters feelings as they follow them on this journey.

I don't feature any diegetic sound within my opening footage, as I feel it would destroy the atmosphere I am trying to create.


Script:

This is my completed planning for my opening two minutes, however I might adjust them when I get feedback from my focus group.

Shooting Schedule:

Momento Title Sequence

Here is my 'Momento' timeline of the opening credits and their timings. This is helpful for my research as it helps me to understand how long I need each credit to be and which ones are essential to put in.

Homework

We were given the task for homework, of looking up what the words foley and ident. We were asked to consider how they could be useful to our own film opening and blog the definitions, explaining why they're useful.

Foley effects are sound effects added to the film after the shooting stops. These include sounds like footsteps, clothes rustling, paper folding, doors opening and slamming, punches hitting, glass breaking, etc. The reason for this is because when trying to film a scene, you need to be able to control the loudness of the desired sound, to make sure it doesn't ruin the effectiveness of the scene. 
Therefore, by recording the sound effects and noises after, you get a clearer sound of them when they're recorded separately and it also prevents any dialogue being overpowered by unintended noise.


An ident is a short video/visual image that television channels use to identify themselves. The reason for these is to make the audience aware of what channel they are watching and also makes it distinguishable. 


These are both useful to my film opening because they make the overall filming more professional and effective, making it look like a proper film opening, not amateur.

Pitching - Part 1

I missed yesterday's lesson due to being at our AS Media Trip to the BFI in London, where we listened to tips on what to and what not to do when producing our film openings and also different film makers views. It was a very interesting and informative trip, but due to going, I was unable to record my pitch when most people did, so instead I performed it today to my friends Milly, Lauren and Ben.

So far, I have only been able to record myself presenting the pitch to them, but will provide them with feedback sheets tomorrow as part of my focus group feedback and will also produce a voice recording on my pitch and upload it on a separate part to my blog post.

However, for now, I hope you enjoy my pitch and idea for my opening.

 

Pitch

In last weeks lessons, we were given the task of writing our pitch, ready to present it to the class.

I had already started my pitch over half term, meaning I finished it in plenty of time for my deadline, enabling me to be able to create a feedback sheet and continue planning for my filming of the opening two minutes of my piece.

I have attached my pitch and feedback sheet below:

 

 

 

Now that I have completed this, I will begin to script my opening two minutes and plan my location.