possible settings and locations

We have been looking at not only the shots that need to be used but also the setting and location to add to the mise-en-scene of our opening. We had considered using shots from the woods, countryside, local town, cities, graveyards, farms and our houses.

We decided that since we have not shot any of our final work that we would take pictures using my digital camera and decide between us which location fits best with our parts of our filming.



Local town of Burnley:
Using the idea of filming within the centre is one of the easier options because it is accessable to us at all times. However with the centre being quite crowded its not that suitable to shoot as people can and will often walk infront of your shots.



The woods:
The woods again is an easy option as it is assessable to us easily and won't have the problem of being over crowded or populated. However in dense woods the lighting may not work to our advantage and carrying equipment through the woods carrys the risk of breaking it.

Our Own Houses:
Permission from parents and family members of course, using our own houses doesn't limit is with risks of breaking equipment or having people walking in on shots, however it does limit the amount we can do as their is only so much that can happen within a house for an opening without giving the whole story away.

The countryside and farms:

The countryside is less assessable as we would need transport up there on more than one occasion to film more than once, and to film on farms we would need permission from the owners land, all these factors we will be thinking about when we decide on our final location for shooting.



Graveyards:

Graveyards work very well for the horror genre films however it will be hard to work around graves without being disrespectful and trying not to make it look too cheesy.




Cities:
Nearby cities are blackburn, preston and manchester, all of which are not as assessable to us apart from on weekends which restricts how much we can film. If we decided to film in a city the filming would have to be done in one or two days which doesnt give us much flexibility.

This week...

This week we had our first chance at taking the cameras out around sixth form, giving us plenty of space to run around and practice shots. During which we were given a hand out sheet showing us each shot that would be expected to appear within our first few practice openings.


We did establishing shots, tracking shots and mid shots of people talking. We added credits to which included mine and charlottes names as the director and included Michaels name as we used him as an extra for our practice. He will also be appearing in our short film.

We cut out most of the shots taken as they didnt fit in any way with the rest of the production and found it difficult to make the material fit. In conclusion to this I decided that it would be easier to shoot each scene we do 3 times and take bits of each take out and see which fits better allowing us more variety in the shots we have.

Changing the idea....

We built on one idea of a superhero film, however we found that it would be too difficult to portray each character enough in the space of two minutes. We watched a series of different films and jotted down ideas for genres that we thought would work along side the budjet and the use of the cameras we have. Genres such as comedy and fantasy prove difficult to distinguish against other genres in the first few opening minutes and as our film opening needs to have a strong sense of genre we decided to go with an orinigal idea of a horror or thriller film as it is easier to show what is happening and draw the audience in...

Editing Ideas

Shots:

Opening credits- dark background with white ‘type-writer’ writing to introduce actors, director, producer and Frock and Frolics Productions inc, Design Picture Studios.

First shot- Close up of mobile that will have a phone call incoming on it with “Head quarters” as the caller ID. Over voice of the instructions to the superheroes about a crime happening, this will include the police also.
“Good morning. This morning at 7 hundred hours 30, Detector Louise Whittaker informed me that there was a break in at the royal armoury centre in London. The body of Doctor Colin Phillips was discovered at the scene and there is evidence that the culprit has also taken several things of high value. Find the culprit and return the missing items. You have 24 hours until this case is dead. Don’t let me down.”
Police and heroes shot- Low angle shots on the police investigators to show they are in power and that they control the investigation, high angle shots on the heroes to show that they are not as dominant as the police because they do not have as much information as the police. The shots will flick back and forth to show the information being delivered from the police to the heroes. (This gives the audience an idea of what is happening)

Final shots- Point of view shot through camera to show stills of the crime scene, the opening scene will end on the stills. Four crucial pictures at the end to finish the piece.

First Thoughts.

Our first thoughts on this project were to do a crime film; However, as we are only going to make the first 2 minutes of a new film being released we realised we wouldn’t be able to show much (as this would give away one of the main scenes of the film). Also we found from watching previous students work that a crime film can turn out looking cheep or unrealistic. Another problem we found with this idea was that we couldn’t use any objects like a knife or gun etc. We also couldn’t show any scenes that people my find taboo. With this in mind it would be hard to create a crime scene for our beginning, (as the beginning has to hook the watcher).

Another idea we thought about doing would be a comedy. This at first seamed like a good plan as we wouldn’t need a large budget or fancy scenery we could set it were we pleased. However, when it came to planning it properly we realised that our humour might not be the same as others. From watching comedy films with fellow students, family and friends; we began to see that peoples humour is different and it would be hard to write something that everyone would find comical.


In the end we decided upon our third idea, a super hero film. We decided that with the right shots, editing and actors we could make our film beginning look realistic. We also realised that if we created the right lighting, sound and camera angles we wouldn’t need a large budget, but could make it appear as though we had one. Another positive part of this idea was that as its only the first two minutes we wouldn’t have to show many effects so even though the idea would sound complicated, for us it isn’t.