Research on films for inspiration

After showcasing our film to our class we got some feeback that we should focus more on developing Dan's character to make him come across more mysterious. Therefore we bought in a variety of different films with the same genre to gain inspiration. We mainly selected gangster type films such as Bullet Boy, American Gangster. These all mainly began the same as ours with a voice over introducing the main character and giving the auidence an idea of what the films about. While watching them we all made notes on the type of voice that was portrayed on the voice over, and how we could include this in our opening to make Dan's character more convincing.

Summary

This has been the first day where we all looked back at our work as a group. We are amazed at what we have accomplished in such a short period of time.
Words can't describe how proud we all are of our film.


We've all agreed that its been the most stressful time of our lives, as the deadlines were hard to keep too because editing was so time consuming. Daniel and Luke literally stayed up all night to get it finished. 


Now its over there's an immense weight off all our shoulders. 
We would like to take it up next year, as its also been really fun.


Thanks and goodbye,
Group Y

Working on our Idea

Diary of our Group

Wednesday 5th January 


Our first meeting we discussed each of our ideas. We explained how we would do create each opening sequence of our idea. We then went home and created each of our own short storyboards to decide the following lesson which idea to expand on.


Thursday 6th January 


The next lesson we watched different opening sequences of other films and students that had made opening sequences before to get an idea of what ours would have to be like.


Friday 7th January


We decided to expand on the idea of a young girl in a boot, however we changed the setting  to an industrial estate as it become more convent as Dan lived nearby where we got permission and we also was doing our filming at his house.

Wednesday 12th January 

After deciding on what our story board was going to be based on we decided to talk about the acting that would be needed and who would play each character we chose Dan to be the male character and Georgia to be  the young girl in the boot, we also decided to have Alice as the 'girlfriend' of the male character who would not be shown just speak in one part  to give the audience the idea that the girlfriend was unaware what the male character was doing.

Thursday 13th January

This lesson was a teaching lesson of the different ways of using the camera in a quick demonstration.
1. PANNING SHOT
2. TRACKING SHOT
3. WHIP PAN
4. REVERSE TRACK
5. CRASH ZOOM
6. CRANE/BIRDS EYE VIEW/AERIAL
7. WORM'S EYE VIEW
8. LOW ANGLE of any of the above


Friday 13th January


This lesson we had to practice using a camera and different ways of  using camera actions which we had previously learned about.  We spent 2 hours on learning the different features and then filmed a shot of Alice and Dan arguing which we was then going to edit calling our primarily sequence to practise editing.

Wednesday 19th January

On this day we watched as a class different opening sequences e.g. The mummy, Legally blonde, Children of men and Seven.

Thursday 20th January

On this lesson we analyzed 'Children of men ' to help us see what features go into an opening sequence to intrigue the audience using mes en scene

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qp1cXTJSVf0&tracker=False

Props List

Male Character 
Long black coat
Ordinary work clothes- Trousers, Shirt
Hair- Neat


Female Character 
Ordinary clothing 
Black tired eyes
Messy hair
Gag in mouth
Hands tied back

Treatment Form

Concept 

The concept of our opening sequence is an ordinary man who lives an ordinary life has another side to him which nobody knows of. He secretly is abducting a young girl in his boot, which we are unable he is going to do with.

Characterization


There are two main characters within our opening sequence. The male character we have used we have made to be perceived as ordinary, by his costume being a normal black coat and office work clothing. He has strong face expressions as he keeps a straight face, looks quite serious and have a mystery to him. The character of the young girl is introduced in the boot of the males car she is tied up with bruises and cuts just about visible, wearing a tracksuit which shows she has been taken on an ordinary day


Theme 
  Normality and the beginning of the opening which then ventures into a horror from the dramatic contrast you could say its classed as a psychological horror.

Tone

The tone of this opening sequence begins as peaceful, normal, and happy which is in contrast to what is happening and his personality

Story 

The story-line of the film begins with a man starting his daily routine before going to work. He begins to shave by then cutting himself which introduces the idea of blood. He then puts his clothes on and walks down the stairs, he puts his long black coat on and shouts goodbye to his girlfriend, which is answered to 'ring me after work' proving the girlfriend is unaware of what the male character is doing. He leaves the house and drives off. The music is turned of which is bright happy music which is contrast to the person he is to how people perceive him. The male character then arrives at the industrial estate where he gets out of his car and opens the boot. The camera is then turned to the new character of the young girl struggling in the boot trying to get out with her hands and legs tied up. The male character then slams the boot down ending the opening scene.

Preliminary Sequence

Admittedly.. we did joke around with this a bit, but we had fun while we were doing it, which motivated us to edit it as best as possible, and get some good shots in.