Rosy and I have devised a shot list so that we know how to film each shot of our short film opening. This will benefit us when filming making us totally ready and instructing us how to capture each shot.
Shot list
Film I-dent
Establishing shot of stage
Establishing shot of stage and girl walks into the shot
Close up shot of girls feet, camera pans upwards and around her to reach the back of her head. You don’t see her face.
Close up of the side of girls face
Extra close up of the girls forehead- drop of sweat runs
Reaction shot of the three bitchy girls
Extra closeup of the girls mouth then camera pans out.
Establishing shot of microphone dropping to the floor in slow-motion
Close up of girls feet next to microphone
Establishing shot of stage with the back of the audiences head in sight, the girl is in panic and rushes out of shot
Wide shot of girls back as she is outside. the camera pans up from her back to the back of her head as she lifts the headphones to her ears.
Wide shot of tree as she walks into the shot
Establishing shot of girl sitting at the foot of the tree
Close up of girls face as a tear runs down her cheek
Rosy and I have started making our idents for our films and we have been experimenting on the programme and came up with 3 good film idents, however we were told the problem with them was that they didn’t need the sound on them, so I have decided to research idents with the sound on.
Watching this video it is clear that sounds plays a dramatic part in the idents, therefore I think mine and Rosy’s ident creations are not too shabby. Of course there is some room for improvement, however for a first try and getting to grips with the programme I feel we did a good job and worked well to achieve 3 standard idents. I think we should possibly tone down the sound on ours because it seems slightly more full on than the famous ones like Universal and Pixar for example.
Today, I decided to put our script on a script software which would give us the best way to write it in proper script format.
Here it is on the programme:
Before I had done this I had just written it up on a word document which I set out in script format as I had looked up how to make it like a screen written script.
Here it is on a word document:
We have also come up with the name for our film which we have decided to be “Daisy Chain”
We have amended our scipt even more and changed it because we realized we didn’t need the 2 rappers at the beginning. This is a good idea because it means we can focus more on the main character, also its not too complicated and we can show more skill in the camera work and editing that we produce in the end.
Rosy and I sat down and decided to begin writing our script after we’d finished discussing what we were going to include in the two minutes of film opening. Here is what we agreed on including:
The film opens with 2 rappers dressed all gangster and trying to be really ‘sickk’ at rapping and performing.
They finish and theres one clap from a member of the audience and a microphone squeal as the slump off stage making rock signs with their hands and saying ‘brap brap brap!’
Next on the satge is the girl who is the main character, she walks slowly and is very shy and nervous. A drop of sweat falls from the side of her face.
She starts to sing but cracks under the pressure and had a breakdown.
There are some nasty girls in the audience who sniger and wisper spiteful comments.
It all becomes too much for the girl and she flees off stage, dropping the microphone and running to the door to get out as fast as possible.
She runs outside and yanks out her head phones and slowly lifts them to her ears letting the audience hear her track she listening to. This song will be soft and calming.
She finds a tree and curls up underneath it, listening to the sweet sound of the music taking her somewhere away from the embarrassment.
A single tear runs down her face as she closes her eyes.
We still need to come up with an idea for a name for our film, we have had lots of ideas but we havent settled on one yet because we want it to be clever and preferably a pun, to go with the chick flick comedy vibe.
For our task we must include our own ident, to think of a good one, its sensible we look at others that have been done and are famous and well known and look for the similarities in them.
Looking at the idents such as ’20th Century Fox’, ‘Walt Disney’, ‘Universal’, ‘Lionsgate’, ‘DreamWorks’, ‘Columbia’ and ‘Paramount’, you notice something in common with all of them. There is a sky setting or space background, usually resembling the colours of purples, black and blue. The settings are usually outside natural beauty places such as mountains or clouds from a sunset with hints of pink with the darker colours.
Here are the examples I just mentioned:
Next I decided to look at the motion on these idents, some of them have the letters fade in, some have the letters move around the central object like Universal and Paramount. Overall there is fairly little movement from the word, the main focus in the colours or the pictures which is the central object. Like Walt Disney has the castle which is really delicate and fairytale like.
Overall our ident should have some kind of back ground which includes and central object like a mountain or a moon etc like Paramount and DreamWorks.
I decided that I need to do a bit of research on Film Openings to inspire me with our project. I looked at several film openings, the first was Dinner For Schmucks:
What I love about this is how its so different. The whole idea of it is so clever because as the film begins you see the hands opening the case and all the little clothes inside when you ask the question ‘what are they for?’ ‘Where is this going?’. Also the amount of care shown that the person puts in when picking up clothes with his tweezers makes it so clear that this is a serious passion. Its almost mermerising to watch as the mice get dipped in paint and dressed up. The camera uses a fading technique making each shot fade to the next. This is very clever as it moulds the opening all together and links it. The music also emphasises happiness like the person creating all this puts all their effort into it and they clearly have a passion for making things like this.
Overall this quirky film opening is so brilliant in the way that it firstly looks like it has nothing to do with the plot of the whole film, this opening creates questioning in the audiences mind, making them want to watch it to see where this wierd and wonderful hobby is going.
The next film I decided to look at was Tropic Thunder
This has an interesting opening and begins with adverts and movie trailers with each actor/celebrity character that is going to be in Tropic Thunder. Watch this so you understand what I mean:
It then goes on from there and if you watch this film for the first time its quite confusing because you just think theyre adverts that are before the film but theyre not, they play a vital role in the film. The next scene opens with helicopters, guns and men that look to be in military uniform. Theres guns and eplosions so you automatically assume its a war scene, however this illusion is distroyed when at 5.53 one of the charcters turns his head and the camera shots the director and camera crew sitting staring at the two actors. The camera includes a slow motion part where one man is being shot and the bullets are rippeling his body so he moves side to side as he slowly falls to the floor. The whole idea of this film is that it looks at actors and directors and the relationships between them, and the hammed up filming which is put into the movies the diva, selfish directors are making.
The next film I looked at was Easy A
This film automatically sets the scene from the beginning. There are american flags, shoes hanging from a tree and you straight away notice its set in a school. There is a voice over throughout the film which is of the main character and tells you that she is the focus of the film. The camera uses zooms and dolly tracks to film the different groups of people in the school. Also the actors names are shown as 3D words sitting on the floor at different angles, perhaps emphasizing the laziness of teenagers and how their stuff is always lying around across the floor.
Today in class we were discussing the do’s and don’ts that we should go by when making our film and they are fairly important and we must make sure we stick to them otherwise were going to encounter problems.
After deciding the plot of our film we need to think about a number of important things, theses include:
Location- how many locations will we have and what will they be?
Actors- we need to choose actors who will be reliable and not mess around. We also need people who will be available because if we dont have actors then we simply cannot film on that day, we cannot afford to waste time.
We need the actors to learn their scripts off by heart, they must be ready to do it in front of the camera.
We need to make a story board to display our shots and fames, this will be time consuming but very helpful when filming.
We need to pick the costumes and makeup of our characters, this is very important as we have the ideas in our head of how we want our characters portrayed so we need to display it.
Our plan of action:
We need to decide exactly what we want this 2 minutes of filming to involve, Rosy and I will discuss the possibilities that we could include in this project, communitcation with my partner is the most important thing when working with someone else so we need to agree on a final decision of what to include.
From this we can then write our script.
We will then choose the locations that we intend to use, choose our actors and give the scripts to the actors to rehearse.
We have also decided to make character profiles of each person in this 2 minute clip. This will help with the undertanding of each persona and you can get the gist of what they are like and how they are as a person.
We will then make a shot list to decide the order of filming.
Our Task:To create the titles and opening of a new fiction film, to last a maximum of two minutes. We have to make up a fictional plot and firstly think of the whole film before we make the opening. The film must be interesting and we had to pick a genre so that we have some kind of theme to mold our ideas around.
We had to pick a partner to do this project with and me and Rosy decided to work together because we live fairly close and are both about the same grade students so we both want to achieve high in this project.
Our Film
Our film is going to be a chick flick and we have been inspired by films such as MeanGirls and PitchPerfect.
Our film opens with a Talent Contest set in a high school. As the film opens you see the first act, they are two rappers who are awful but class to watch and good entertainment. The next person inline is a Girl. She shakily gets on stage and begins to nervously sing her song choice.
She has major stage freight and cracks, she breaks down from the nerves and the faces of the popular manipulative girls in the crowd where they mock her and lagh so she flees off the stage. One particular lad in the crowd notices her. He is high up on the social ladder and all the popular girls adore him and are forever trying to snatch him up but they never succeed.
The girl runs away to the outdoors and sits up against a tree sobbing and curls up against it. She gets out her headphones and puts on some music. In this part we would make the music louder until it reaches her ears then it goes on full blast like the audience is hearing what she hearing. She relaxes and feels fine after this. The girl suffers from a stutter problem and it affects her confidence and her social life so she hasn’t ever spoken to any of the boys because she gave up to save herself from getting embarrassed.
The lad in the crowd decides to go after the girl and pushes past everyone in the crowd to get out and find her. He manages to find her near the tree and they get talking and discover they both share the interest of music. They spend more and more time together and it eventually leads to them getting together. This obviously leads to the popular girls getting jealous and they think of a cruel plan to split them up. He helps her overcome her stutter problem and become more confident.
The girl and lad decide to make music together and notice there’s an advertisement for a record company offering to copyright their music if they send it to them. They decide to do this however one of the jealous girls gets her hands on the disk and sabotages it by changing the music on it and getting a key and scratching the disc so it doesn’t work.
The couple obviously notice they haven’t had a reply from the record company and begin to argue blaming the other one for not getting the deal. It all gets too much and they split up.
Time passes and they both carry on living their own lives without each other but still are crazy about the other one. They both end up going to the same party but the girl seeing the boy with one of the jealous nasty girls and leaves when she sees them together and the jealous girl tries to kiss the boy. The girl leaves without a second glance and doesn’t see the boy turn away from the kiss because he still loves her.
The funny friend of the girl decides to cheer her up by taking her to a speed dating class, co-incidently the boys desperate lad mate decides to drag him along with him and they end up meeting there. The girl and boy get together again, and the funny friend and desperate lad also get together.
The camera them fades into the future from now showing the marriage of the boy and girl and the dream house they previously discussed.
Pitching our Film:
We stood infront of the class and portrayed our film ideas to the class, here is the video:
Initial thoughts about the opening of our film:
We definately want to make it intraguing to the audience so we are going to make our characters likeable, for example our girl main character will be a different style to the nasty girl characters, those girls will all dress alike and copy eachother. The boy will be handsome and kind natured.
We want to add humour to our opening so the first act f the talent competition will be two rappers who are gangster wannabe’s, they will be played by Rosy and I and we will make it entertaining to watch.
We will have to make our own music for this project which I think will prove difficult but be fulfilling in our production as we will have done it ALL ourselves.
We need to decide on actors that we think will fulfil the roles of the characters and portray their personalities how we imagined. We need people reliable to film during their own time on weekends out of school and people who will stick to the task and not mess around.
Jessica Morris's AS Blog 