Location Scouting

We came across some issues when trying to find a location we wanted to film in. We didn't have a set idea of where we wanted to set our film, this meant that we took some time deciding upon a location  during our lessons and free time, we wanted to have a location that we felt would best suit our character and the situation they are in. We each came up with different ideas of where we could set our film.
After taking all our possibilities into consideration we decided that we want to film in a bedroom, this made it easier for us as we did not need to ask for permission, which could have taken a long time to get or we could not have been aloud. We didn't have a certain time frame in which to film our piece, meaning we can take more time and care when filming as we would not be under any pressure to get it done. It is the perfect setting as we wanted to show our character as being in a confined space, alone and angry and a bedroom seemed the most idle location.

Next we need to decide who's bedroom we were going to film in, we each took photos of our rooms. The first room we looked at was Georgia's but we found that it was too big and was quite childlike as she shared with her younger sister. We then looked at Molly's room but we felt that her room was also to big and was too plain. We looked at my room last and in the end we choose to film in my room as fit our original description, it is darker as my walls are a dark blue but my room is also quite busy, as I have many shelves full of books and DVDs and it was a lot smaller. My blue walls help to illustrate our characters emotions as blue connotes sadness. We thought that this represented our character the best.

Once we had chosen who's room to film in we need to decide what we wanted in the room. We used the news article to help us, it told us that our character would be back home from university, so would be in her old bedroom, so we wanted the room to be like a stereotypical teenagers room; messy, dark and work over the floor.

Audience Profile 2

Audience Profile
Age: 17 - 24
Gender: Female
Registrars General's Social Scale: A/B
Selby's Psychographic Cluster: Drifters: People who are not sure what they want’

VALS Classification: Experiencers

Description
Our audience would be made up of young adults, more female than male between the ages of 17 and 24. A typical member of our target audience would be a young adult or teenager and would most likely to be living with their parents still. They may suffer from low self-esteem or feel insecure, as this is quite common with girls within this particular age range and these feelings can be caused by a number of different things. This means they would be able to relate to our film more than other groups of people would. People from our target audience typically would be thrill seeking, looking for something to create excitement or scare them and like strong female characters.

The Machinist

The Machinist has a slow opening, following the stereotypical features of a psychological thriller film. However it differs from many films as it starts to create enigma as soon as the screen fades from a black screen to the opening shot. A blurred image of a man is shown to the audience, looking into the room through a window. This establishing shot creates enigma as the audience cannot clearly see what is happening inside the room and don't know who the characters inside are. As the screen fades from black to the establish shot music can be heard in the background. The music creates a tense atmosphere as it is off-key orchestral music, violins and pianos can be heard. Music is used to help the audience feel a certain way, this type of music is used to make the audience feel scared and suspicious. The lighting in the room is low key, the low lightning creates enigma as the audience want to continue watching so they can find out what is happening.

As the opening continues the same shot slowly focuses and it is revealed to the audience that there is a man rolling up a body in a carpet. This creates suspicion as the audience do not know why the man is doing this, or what significance this has to the film. The lighting is still low key, accentuating the shadows in the room. The music intensity increases, telling the audience that something bad has happened and is most likely to do with the man in the room and also increasing the tension. The shot is a high angle shot making the man in the room appear smaller, this could be representing the man as trying to hide what has happened.
The credits appear over this scene in white writing, contrasting with the almost black shot.
The opening shot has not changed, this makes the audience feel as though they are spying on the man in the room, this brings them into the film, making them want to keep watching.

As the opening scene continues, the audience watch as the man in the room walks over to the window. The shot focuses and clearly shows the mans face in the window, revealing the character. The low key lighting makes it harder for the audience to see the mans face, however it is clear that he has a cut on his cheek that is bleeding, suggesting he has recently been in a fight. He is wearing old and baggy clothing, implying that he may be poor and skinny. As the mans face becomes clearer, the music in the background softens so that it is not off key and is more orchestral, relieving some of the tension that had previously been created, but still makes the audience want to continue watching.

This film conforms to some of the stereotypes of its genre, it has a slow opening however it could be argued that it is not a slow as films such as 'The Number 23' and 'Memento' which do not reveal much in the opening. This film reveals reveal the main character and creates enigma as the audience have witnessed him rolling up something (most likely a body).

Audience Research

During my research I went onto the BFI website and looked at their Statistical Yearbook, I looked at their documents on 'Genre and Classification' and 'Audiences'. Using the BFI gave me access to a lot more information and facts than the school could provide me with, so I was able to obtain a wide range of information for my audience research. This has helped me and my group to choose our target audience.

Quote from the BFI:

‘The Statistical Yearbook presents in one place all the available statistics on UK film and the UK film industry.’

The BFI show what films are most popular to certain age groups, such as comedy being popular with 15 to 24 year olds, however '18' classification films such as 'The Wolf of Wall Street' are also very well received by this age group.

Thrillers such as 'Gone Girl' and 'Sin City: A Dame to Kill For' are received well by young adults, this information has influenced our decision as a group to make our target audience age range between 17 and 24.

Writing Our Screenplay - Draft Script

Having a script is vital to making a film as it provides dialogue along with stage directions. This a draft we have written so that we can develop it and help us to develop our storyboard and film treatment.

screenplay

noun

1. the script of a film, including acting instructions and scene directions.

                        MINUETS, HOURS, DAYS 

By

Georgia Todd 

Molly Windsor

Anna Dunford

ESTABLISHING LONG SHOT OF DOOR, HIGH ANGLE LOOKING DOWN FROM STAIRS. - DIFFERENT SHOTS CUT TOGETHER 

SCILENCE 

LETTER COME THROUGH THE POST BOX.CHARATER (MUM) COLLECTS. 

FIRST SHOT REWINDED-GOING BACKWARDS UP THE STAIRS. 

MUSIC STARTS QUIETLY. 

Credits appear 

Shot of lights out of focus- slow motion, low angle point of view from bed. 

Character sitting on the bed, with a laptop reading an article. Reading parts of the news article. 

CHARACTER-callie 

(UPSETTIINGLY)

Tommy, a 19 year old student, fell to his death as he tried to coax his friend back inside to a party being held in a dormitory at a university.

After his 16 year old friend threatened to jump from a ledge outside the window. 

KNOCKING AT DOOR 

MUM

Honey are you alright?

SPINING OF ROOM- SPED UP 

CLOCK SPED UP

CHARACTER SITTING ON THE FLOOR, DIFFERENT ANGLES/SHOTS (SPINNING EFFECT)

CALLIE

(Non-diegetic dialogue-voice over)

Man dies preventing suicide. 

Fell to his death. 

He was trying to help. 

CLOSE UP OF DIARY ENRTY JANURARY 3^RD.-callies point of view

CALLIE

(VOICE OVER)

I’m sorry 

It’s all my fault 

(Repeated)

OVER THE SHOULDER SHOT, Callie picks news article off the wall.

CLOSE UP OF NEWS ARTICLE IN HANDS 

CALENDER-SHOTS OF DAYS GOING BY. 

KNOWCKING 

MUM

A letter came for you today 

I’ll leave it here 

CALLIE PICKS UP LETTER AND RUNS OUT OF HER ROOM AND DOWN THE STAIRS. 

DROPPING THE LETTER AS SHE RUNS OUT THE HOUSE. 

SHOTS OF HER LEAVING, AND RUNNING UP THE DRIVE. 

How Research Will Inform Planning

From the research I have done, I have learnt about many things that will help me and develop my understanding of how to create a film opening.
For my research I made timelines of film openings, in class we went through and picked out and learnt the conventions of film openings. I learnt that in a film opening, character, setting and time period should be introduced and enigma needs to be created.
I did more research independently and looked at a few different films that are from the psychological thriller genre, these films were; The Number 23, 1 Hour Photo and Memento. By doing extra research on film openings that are in the genre of our film opening, I was able to understand more about the conventions of a film opening from this genre.
I watched each of the film openings and noticed that there were reoccurring features, such as there was a slow pace to them, in Memento the opening consists of one long main shot which has then been played backwards, this creates tension and enigma which are vital to a film of this genre.

Main Task

Our main task is to create a 2 minute film opening, the video must be original and produced by the candidate.
The audio must also be original and audio effects such as music must be from copy right free source, such as mobeygratis.com.

We were given a choice of news articles to either base or link to the article of our choice into our film opening.

Mise-en-scene | Costume Research

Setting

For our setting we wanted to film in a house but mainly a bedroom. To decide on our location we each took pictures of our room, this showed us which room we thought best suited the description we had and portrayed the emotion we wanted. We decided to use my bedroom as it was small and dark, this was the most like our description as we originally wanted a room that was small, dark, clostraphobic and needed to look like a teenage bedroom with child qualities.

Lighting
When we were shooting in the bedroom we wanted it to be dark and murky to portray the sadness that our character felt. But the darkness also helped to show how it was a teenagers bedroom as it is stereotypical for teenagers to have dark rooms.

Costume/Make Up
Along with the room and lighting we also wanted our costume to be dark. Our actor wore all black which represents the depression that we were trying to communicate. We had our actor tie up there hair to show that our character was distressed, but it also kept her hair out of her face allowing the audience to see her face and emotion. We used minimal make up as we did not need it to show anything.

'Uses and Gratifications' Model

In our media lessons we have looked at the 'Uses and Gratifications' model. It was first introduced by Elihu Katz. He said that audiences use media texts for gratification. Katz also said that there are four types of 'Uses and Gratifications’ that audiences get from media texts.

The four types of 'Uses and Gratifications':

• Personal identity: We can get a sense of ourselves and our peer group from media representations.  This is probably particularly important for adolescents.

• Information: The media are full of information which we are at liberty to use.

• Entertainment: We often consume media texts for entertainment.

• Social interaction: The news, films or last night’s television programmes are common topics of discussion; we use the media to feed this social interaction.  The media may also ‘keep us company’: radio, in particular addresses its audience on a personal basis.  We may feel we know characters in, say, soap operas, better than we do our own friends and thus engage in parasocial (interpersonal relationships in which one party knows a great deal about the other, but the other does not) interaction when ‘interacting’ with them.

Shot List

Actor Research

We wanted to find an actor who suited our initial description of our main character. For this we need someone small, preferably female and someone who was around 17 so that the audience could see that our character was a young adult helping us to show that she was coming home from university. By having the actor around the age of 17 it also makes them more relatable to our target audience which is females aged 17 to 24. The actor didn't necessarily need to have previous acting experience. as our opening does not require that much acting, this is because our opening is quite slow so that it fits within the genre of psychological thrillers.

Prop List

Ideas for a film opening

Earlier in the year our teacher had set us a task to create short opening to films on post it notes which were then put into a jar, this was to help us to start getting some ideas of our own for our main task.
When we were set our main task we were told that we would have to base or link our opening to a news article that was either provided for us or that we had found on our own.
We had a lot to chose from but we as a group had narrowed it down to two news articles but we found it hard to decide which we preferred. So to help us decide we made a short film treatment for both and a mind map to show to what we could do with each of the articles.

Things To Consider When Making A Film Opening

There are different features that need to go into a film opening:
- Enigma
- Character
- Setting
- Time Period
- McGuffin

Enigma
A person or thing that is mysterious, puzzling or difficult to understand
A riddle or paradox

A film opening should create enigma, a conventional film will create enigma.

Character
Main characters tend to be introduced in the opening of films.

Setting & Time Period

Setting and time period are shown in the opening of a film, through visuals and sound. They're are a important feature of a film to consider and they help the audience understand the story.

McGuffin
It is a plot device in the form of some goal, desired object, or other motivator that the protagonist pursues, often with little or no narrative explanation. 

The specific nature of a MacGuffin is typically unimportant to the overall plot.

Memento

The 2 minutes opening to Memento consist of one main long shot which lasts 1:30 min and nine 

shorter clips.

As the shot progressing it is evident that it has been reversed. The long take used creates enigma and and suspension as the audience can only watch and wait as nothing is revealed.

The titles and other credits are played over the top of the long shot, this could because there is not much happening in the shot so the credits are not interrupting anything particularly important.

The long shot is of a photo developing but it is reversed, this creates enigma as the audience don't understand why the shot has been reversed or what the picture is showing or why it has been taken

At the end of the long shot a character is introduced, but the audience are not told his name and don't know anything about him apart from he was the person who took the photo. This also creates enigma as the audience want to know who he is and why he has taken the photo.

The music used is orchestral/strings which convey a menacing low note undertone whilst the photo un-developes. This helps to illustrate the genre of the film, because the music creates a sinister atmosphere which is associated with thrillers.

The music quietens as the long take changes to the next shot. This could be to show that the character that is now shown is significant to the rest of the film.

News Article

We had to use a news article to to influence our film and my group choose to use this article to become the background and basis of our film.

British man dies preventing suicide in Honolulu

A British man has died trying to prevent a suicidal friend jumping from the 14th floor of a building in Honolulu.

Thomas Bennett, a 24-year-old landscape gardener, fell to his death as he tried to coax his friend back inside to a party being held in a dormitory at the University of Hawaii on August 16.
After the 19-year-old friend threatened to jump from a ledge outside the window, Mr Bennett went to help.

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/uk/article4556983.ece

Audience Profile

Our film is aimed at females between the ages of 17 to 24, we decided on this age range. We did research into how to choose a target audience, during our research we went onto the BFI Statistical Yearbook and looked at the 'Audiences' page, we found that in 2014 the age group that made up the largest proportion of the cinema audience was people aged 15 to 24, at 32.5% in 2013 and 30.8% in 2014. Whilst researching on the BFI Statistical Yearbook I also found out that, comedies and action films appealed most to 15-24 year olds, with '22 Jump Street', 'The Inbetweeners 2' and 'Godzilla' which attracting the highest significant above-average audiences. Also, the 'The wolf of Wall Street' which is an '18' had a high appeal, with 45% of its audience coming from this age group.

From this information we knew we wanted our target audience to be young adults so choose 17 to 24 and people from that age range will be the most likely to go to the cinema. The genre of the film will be a psychological thriller.  The top performing thriller of 2014 was 'Gone Girl' which took 5.6% of the box office total that year and had 71 releases. Comedy was the highest earning genre of 2014, taking 18% of the box office from 19% of releases and was the highest earning genre of 2014. 

We aimed our film at young females because we have a female lead. From the research I have done from the BFI website, it shows that films with strong female leads, such as 'The Hunger Games' series younger women are more interested in watching the films. They are still received well by both male and females, but having the main character female, attracts more women to see the film.

Our target audience is between the ages of 17 and 24. We choose this age range as are film will be more relatable for younger people, as it discusses topics which are more relevant with younger age groups. However we did not want to aim it at young teenagers because some topics discussed may be sensitive, so we we thought from 17 to 24 would be a more appropriate age range.

Creating a Storyboard

When creating our storyboard we came up with many different ruff drafts until we final stuck with one we liked.

Purpose of a Storyboard

Storyboard definition:

noun
A sequence of drawings, typically with some directions and dialogue, representing the shots planned for a film or television production.

The storyboard is a very important stage in pre-production as it is the guide that helps the production team stick to what they need to film. But it also helps to plan out the logistics of the production stage, such as timing how long it will take to film certain scenes or working out what shots we would be able to do or ones that will illustrate our film opening how we want it to.

We had an original storyboard which we have made to use before starting to film our opening, this was our draft where we were experimenting and trying to work out how we were going to make our idea come to life.

This draft of the story board helped us to understand what was needed in a storyboard to make it effective. 
Looking back our draft, is to vague and we should have taken longer to plan it out. But we learnt from these mistakes and our final storyboard is more detailed and more effective.





















After drawing up our draft we made our real copy, which we will use during our filming, but we have the draft that we can refer to or test old ideas from.
The draft helped when making our real copy as we had an understanding of how our film opening was going to come together and how we should order all our shots.

Focus Group

Our target audience is females from the age of 17 to 24. For our focus group was made up of 6 people between the ages of 15 and 17.

What film did you last watch? Scott Pilgrim vs The World, Legend of the Guardians, Jumpers, GBF, Lord of the Rings

What’s your favourite genre? Sci-Fi, Comedy, Action/Thriller, Comedy, Comedy, Fantasy

What’s your least favourite film? Rango,  Frozen, Horror films, Nightmare on Elm Street, Smurfs, Prometheus

When did you last watch a thriller, psychological thriller film? Few months ago, 3 months, A week ago, Last year, Never, 6 days ago

How do you spend your free time? Reading, Watching Now TV, Watching movies, Youtube, Youtube, Watching films/tv

From this focus group research I have found that many people between the ages of 15 to 17 spend their free time either watching TV, films or things on YouTube. This tells me that having younger target audience is more people are likely to watch our film as 15 to 25 year olds are the biggest age group to go to the cinema.

Forrest Gump

Another film opening we studied was Forrest Gump. We studied this film so that we could understand how enigma is created in an opening, and how important it is to the film, and to learn what a McGuffin is. In this film the McGuffin is the feather that the camera follows during the opening.

The opening starts with a shot of dark/grey sky and follows a feather as it descends. The credits appear over the falling feather and there is quite music, which gradually gets louder. The camera pans down to show the city still following the feather and the credits continue to show over the feather. As the feather falls further the camera pans down more to show a street and cars, the music continues throughout and sounds of cars driving can be heard. The camera keeps following the feather until it stops on someones shoe, the audience don't know who this character is. The music quietens as the camera pans up to show a man picking up the feather and the man putting the feather away in a book in his suitcase. There is more focus on the mans hands and book when he puts the feather in the book. After the camera pans back up to show the mans face, the music stops and a bus stops next to the man on the bench.

There is a 1981 advert on the side of the bus, showing the audience the time period that the film is set in and the cars that are parked on the side of the road or driving past are old fashioned, reinforcing the time period.

Inglorious Basterds

We studied the opening 3 minutes of Inglorious Basterds in one of our lessons.
We have been looking at the opening 2/3 minutes of various films, to help our understanding of how a film opening is created and what is included in it.

The first seconds of the opening shows the production company logos, for example the Universal and the Weinstein logo during this there is no music, but it fades in after when a black screen appears.

The credits appear on the black screen in yellow writing, the main leads in the film are shown first then the people guest starring after in white writing. The colour and font change shows the difference between the actors who play the main characters and then other secondary characters. During the credits the music builds, this creates some tension as it will cause the audience to become suspicious.
The music slowly fades out after the credits have finished.

There is a long shot of a field/hill with a barn in the middle, this create enigma as the audience don't know when or where they are at first. After the first shot, there is a second long shot of a man cutting wood, which then cuts to a lady hanging washing, this is the first time any characters are introduced. A rumbling sound can be heard along with wood being cut, but there is no music. The shot changes to a low angle of the man who is cutting the wood and a woman saying "Papa", the next scene shows a car driving down a lane and dramatic music starts, this creates enigma because the music is used to help create tension. There is close up of the mans face and then a wide shot of a woman running into the distance to collect water, the classical music continues during this. The last shot shows the woman returning and a close up of the man who looks sad, the audience can understand that he looks sad as he puts his head in his hands.

This creates enigma as the audience don't know why the man looks upset or why the woman suddenly ran off to get water when they see a car driving down the lane. And the music used creates tension and suspicion.

Shot, Reverse Shot

Shot, reverse shot is used to show a conversation between two characters. There are two shots used to create it, the first is a shot of the first character then that shot is reversed to show the character they are speaking to.

Our group didn't fully understand the requirements and how to create a shot, reverse shot when we first started, so ended up doing a few shots until we fully understood and did it right.

The best way to create 'shot, reverse shot' is to film the whole scene you are doing from one angle, so from one of the people's perspective or over their shoulder and do the exact same but so that the camera is filming the other person. You need to film a master shot, which is the whole scene again but filming both characters interacting with each other in the conversation instead of the focus being on one of them. By filming all three of these shots there is a wider range of choice for editing. It is also easier to edit as you can pick and choose when and where you want to cut to a different point of view.

This shot helps to show the audience the conversation that is happening between two characters.
Shot, reverse shot was used in pulp fiction in and scene between a man and a woman talking, we had to recreate this scene.
By recreating the scene we learned how to create this particular shot and the best way to film it to give you options when editing.

Skyfall - Film Opening Deconstruction

In class we analysed the opening of the film 'Skyfall', directed by Shawn Mendes.

The film clip ‘Skyfall - Opening Scene: Train Fight’ by Sam Mendes, represents gender in a stereotypical way to some degree and it is a fast paced action film.

At the start of the clip, the audience is shown the train with a man on top. Continuous drumming replaces dialogue, which resembles the sound of a heartbeat and creates tension within the scene. The drums foreshadow that this is an important scene as the audience await the forthcoming action with anticipation . The sense of tension is also heightened by the director’s addition of the sound of the train along with the drums. The camera reveals two men fighting on top of the train; a long shot has been used so the audience can see where the men are. The scenery is colourful, suggesting they are in the countryside and it is light, this could make the audience feel hope for the characters that one will win the fight. Both men are wearing suits to symbolise their power and authority and music is also used to raise the suspense when there is a crescendo as the action intensifies. The audience is shown that one of the men has already been injured but continues to fight on, the blood is made the focal point of the shot. This creates a sense that he is ‘manly’ and is not affected by an injury. The scene is male dominated and depicts the idea that men are stereotypically stronger than women, as the two men fist fight whilst the woman helping has to use a gun to make any impact.

The director uses a panning shot from the car to the train to create a split focus, however the two men on top of the train are the main focus. A set of close up shots are used to show a choking device and a metal chain. These both are a focal point and this displays them as being very important and key objects in the scene. The scene changes from light to dark as the two men go through a tunnel on the train, the darkness connotes danger and mystery. The audience doesn’t know what the men are fighting over and don’t know who is going to win, the high angle shot of them fighting also creates mystery as there is no way of identifying who is winning the fight.

The clip then introduces the audience to a new character by panning up from a speaker to her face. This depicts power and that this women has more power and authority over the two men on the train. Her power juxtaposes the power the men have on the train, the women has more power than the men as she calls the ‘shots’, she is able to influence everyone around her, suggesting she is the leader.She also has an element of mystery to her at the start as the audience is only shown a short clip of her. The director has used a number of different shots to establish the power and mystery, such as a low angle shot which automatically tells the audience she is of higher status. The girl is also introduced, but she is made to seem weaker as she has a gun to help her fight, it also implies that she has very little power. The gun suggests that she could not beat an opponent in a fist fight so needs something else, which connates that she is weaker. The girl is being given commands from the other lady and she must follow them.

A high brow shot is used when the two men are fighting. It looks down on one of the men, this portrays the man in the grey suit as having more power and is winning the fight. The scene pace changes at this point as it becomes faster, the pace quickens as the lady is making her decision on what to do. The director does this by changing from shot to shot so the audience see glimpses of the lady in the office and the two men on the train. This change of pace creates tension for the audience. The location can add to the tension, as the men are fighting and the music is climaxing the audience can see another tunnel, this implies that someone is reaching the end, one will win and one will lose.

The scene changes again once the decision is made and one of the men is shot. The music stops completely and there is a small echo of the gunshot. When the music stops it connotes the loss of life and sadness, and the echo symbolises the ending of someone and they leave their last mark. The blood on the man’s shoulder - at the beginning of the clip - could have been foreshadowing him being shot at the end of the clip. As the man falls the the camera is looking down at him. This makes the audience feel a loss of hope and portrays the man as losing all the power he once had.

In conclusion, the clip ‘Skyfall - Opening Scene: Train Fight’ represents gender in a stereotypical way as men have more power, but also show that women can have higher authority.

Media Skills

I have gained a range of new technical media skills, during our preliminary task.

Camera
The preliminary task was a great chance to just experiment with all the equipment and have a go with everything. During filming, I had a chance to try filming at different angles and we used a panning shot. During filming I learnt how to blur and focus, in one of our shots we started with our character in focus, but as they walk away they become blurred.


I learnt how to create depth within a frame, in one of our shots we positioned certain objects in specific places to show at least 3 different layers. We used a fan to create another layer in this frame.

Another media skill I developed was how the whole process of filming editing works, how you need to have a storyboard, shot list, location and cast. These are all very important components which help start the filming process. 

Editing
It was a new experience using Final Cut Pro, and there were a lot of things to do and understand before jumping into editing. I learnt that there is an order in which you edit. First you need to convert your footage using MPEG streamclip, and there are certain settings to get the best quality of video. Then you start to edit, there are many tools such as razor blade, which is used to cut bits of footage. 

Editing became quite easy as we used it more, I became more familiar with the tools. The process of editing became more effective, because I had better knowledge and more experience I could work faster, for example sequencing was easier.
However, sequencing could have been made easier if we had a bigger range of shots.

I mainly helped with sound editing, we had to find some music that we felt would fit with the film, then download it and import it into Final Cut Pro. We could then adjust the volume of the music and cut it into where we wanted it. 
When the music was added we found that we had to adjust the volume of some of our clips.

The Bourne Identity

In class we analysed The Bourne Identity.

The film starts with the production company logo and the sound of thunder, rain and wind are heard over the top, they start quietly and increase in volume slowly. Soft orchestral music starts to play and increases in volume and the production company logo changes to a black screen, which then cuts to a storm, a lightning silhouette can be seen. The scene changes to a wide shot of men on a ship playing cards, the audience can hear them speaking but enigma is created because they are speaking in a foreign language. The violins from the music play throughout these scenes and help to create suspicion and tension. There is another shot showing the ocean and storm, the music depth increases, which quickly cuts back to the card game, the focus of the shot is on the card game and the man speaking to the rest of the crew. The scene once again changes to show the ocean, there is lightning and a silhouette is shown in the water again, but looking up at the person in the sea. The next shot shows a man stumbling along the ship up to the bow, with storm noises continuing around him, the music picks up pace, creating tension. As the camera angle changes the shot of the man changes to a silhouette of him walking and the boat, this can create an element of mystery. There is a close up of the man, showing his reaction when he sees the man floating in the sea, during this scene the music picks up pace to signify that something is about to happen. A shot shows the man in the sea from underneath him, the it cuts to a black screen and the title of the film. After the title, the next scene a high shot looking down on the men in the ship pulling the man out of the sea, the music is faster and sounds of the men struggling are heard over the music. There are fast jump cuts showing the crew and the man, suggesting something bad has happened. The last shot in the 2 minute of the opening is the crew trying to look after the man from the sea.

Preliminary Task Anaylsis

During pre-production and production we chose the camera angle, framing, music and other components to portray the film the way wanted to.

At the start of our film we used a long shot, looking down a corridor. This shot made the corridor feel longer. The camera was in the centre of the corridor and the character Baz walked down the middle, this made the character the focal point in the shot. We also blurred the background to make Baz the focal point in the shot. 
During editing we used jump cuts to create the feeling of time passing.

We use upbeat music at the beginning and ending of our short film, we used it to create a happy feeling. Without music the film became a bit dark and it was just silence, so the music makes it more light hearted which is what we wanted.

Baz was wearing a coat during our first few shots of him, as the script told us that he had come in from outside, and we wanted to portray it as being colder, like someone had just come in from outside.

Our piece is set in the modern day, we showed this using the location, clothing and other features. The school corridor and the desk, illustrate a modern day school as it looks new and clean.

However, we were tasked with including a typewriter in our film, we had thought about changing the time era, but we found it too difficult with the amount of time we had, so stuck with what we could do. This meant that the typewriter juxtaposes the new and modern feel we were trying to capture. 

Our next shot was a high angle shot looking down at Baz and then a close up of his hand. We sped up the footage to make it look as though Baz was in a rush, as the script portrayed him as being in a rush.
So far in our short film we hadn't show Baz's face, this is because we want to create some mystery towards who he was. We didn't know much about the character except that he was in a rush, so by not showing his face alludes to the mystery about him.

We did two different shots of a clock, one close up and the other a close up panning down shot. We included both in our final piece, however we sped up the first close up shot to again illustrate time passing, then the second shot was slower meaning the audience would be able to actually see what time it was.

A panning shot was used to reveal the receptionist, Anna, this shot represents the way the receptionist looks up at the person standing infant of her. It is from a high angle so the shot shows the audience how Baz is looking down at Anna. The receptionist wore a shirt, as it is formal and is what people wear in a working environment. The costumes needed to fit with the environment the film was set in, it is also stereotypical for women to wear blouses in the work place.

We decided on using a high angle shot, looking down on the receptionist, Anna and a low angle shot looking up at the character Baz. We wanted to create a stereotypical image of how receptionist are looked down on, or how they work under other people. The high angle, portrays this as the audience looks down at her and it makes her seem inferior.
The low angle shot has the opposite affect, as it alludes the idea that Baz has more power and authority over Anna.

There were things we did right and others that we did wrong. For the main task, I will avoid leaving doing the storyboard and shot list as I now understand how vital they are for filming. I will also try to avoid over complicating things such as casting and finding a location, as we put to much pressure on ourselves and didn't think about how much time we had, so we ended up wasting so of our time.
Things I would try to do again in the main task would be how in our group we brainstormed a lot and were bouncing ideas off of one another. I believe that we were quite creative for our first task and that was because we combined all of ideas together.