Music

We chose to use Lily Allen's cover of 'Naive' in our film opening as we thought it would suit the mood of the main character Brooke, as the song itsnt particuarly happy, which suggests she isnt very happy with being in the situation she is in. Also the singer is a girl so it suits, as all the main charcaters in our production are girls, so they can relate to each other. The song however is quite light hearted, which suits the genre of film we are producing. The song was easy to get hold of as Paige is in a band so she had already sang the cover of Naive with her band playing the backing track, we dont think there are any issues with copy right as Paige has sung this is in public before and her version of the song is slightly different to the original.

Prop list

The props we have used in our film opening are:

• Lipgloss
• Mascara
• Blusher brush
• Mobile phone (Blackberry)
• Handbags

We made sure we only used props we needed to, to make sure that we set the scene properly and help give the audience a good idea of what the film is about.

Rough Cut Feedback

Feedback Millie, Gabby, and Paige

Strong aspects

·      You have a range of creative ideas for what you want to do with your film opening by using split screen and still images.

·      The music is appropriate

·      There is nice use of images and graphics

·      The effect of the page turn works well, possibly consider using an effect of having the photos dropping one on top of the other?

Things to improve

Editing

·      The timing of the shots needs to be tightened up.

·      Cut down on the shots – with the girls walking and talking

·      The titles need to be completed and need to be tighter.

·       You also need to have a production company at the start with the directors.

·      You could add a ‘ripple effect’ when the main subject is daydreaming

·      You need to go back to an establishing shot of the subject in the mirror once you have the close up of the lips otherwise this disorientates the viewer

·      You could ‘hold the frame’ on the last shot of the girls together and then have is continue in motion.

Filming

·      You need to consider re-shooting the hair brushing scene and using the voiceover.

Sound

·      The audio levels are not clear where they are talking

·      You cant here the voice over – you need to adjust these levels

·      The music needs to be cut at beginning where the titles are.

·      Use quick shots of the photo sequence, using flashes of white and sound effects of a photo camera.

·      Consider having music and slow motion when the boy arrives and different sound effects to accentuate – look at Romeo & Juliet by Sam Mendes.

Showing our first cut!

On the 9th of December we had to show our 1st cut of our film opening, we had to mark our own and comment on what we think we did well and what we had to improve on. We also had to give feedback to the other group in our class on their production on their camera angles, sound, mise en scene and some other things.

The main feedback we got for what to improve on was:

• editing a bit tighter as our opening was just over 2 minutes
• put in a production company at the beginning
• put in credits e.g. director, etc
• put in some special effects, one thing we was thinking of doing was using slow motion on one of our shots of the boy in our opening

We have got to get this all done before our deadline on the 16th!

Filming

On the 25th of November, in our media lesson, we decided to do some more filming, we filmed in Ware by the Bury Fields, we filmed shots 11, 14, 15, 16 and 17. Which were shots which were towards the end of our opening, where me and Paige approach Gabby and tell her about her date. We didn't manage to finish them all but planned to on the 30th of November.

On the 29th of November, we filmed the part of the opening when Gabby was imagining telling her two friends that she is a lesbian, but then realises that it would be a bad idea and the whole thing rewinds. We filmed this in my room, as we thought it is quite a girly bedroom which suits the type of characters we are trying to create.

On the 30th of November, again in our media lesson, we were planning to do some more filming to finish off our shots in the Bury Fields, however it had been snowing and if we carried on filming in the same place trying to make it look as if our opening flowed, it wouldnt make sense! As we would have some shots where it was sunny and some where it was snowing! So we then decided to film by a place near Chauncy School, in the snow, we filmed all the shots over again, and made sure we filmed the ones with Will Turner so we wouldnt have the same problem again!

Starting to film

On the 23rd of November, we began our filming. We decided to do shots 4,7,8 and 9, which were all of the main character, Brooke. We filmed it at Gabby Janes house, in her bedroom as we thought this would be the best place as she has a large bedroom and it is a good setting for this part of our film. She also has a dressing table which we thought would be good for shot 4, as we was planning to film the main character getting ready and talking in the mirror. Shot 4 was quite difficult to film as we was filming Gabby in the mirror, I had to make sure I postitioned it correctly to make sure you couldn't see the camera in the mirror. The other three shots were also quite hard as we had to make sure the camera was held straight and that it was an extreme close up of the features.





Shot 4



Shot 7



Shot 8



Shot 9





Characters and roles

We have decided to call our main character Brooke, she is going to be played by Gabby Janes:

We got inspiration from the film 'Mean Girls' to decide what our character is going to wear and to get an idea of what she could look like. In our film, we have decided to have a popular group of girls, we again got the inspiration for this idea from 'Mean Girls', like in the picture below.

Along with Gabby, me and Paige are going to be in our production as the group of popular girls:

Paige:

Me:



We have also decided to have a boy in our production, who Brookes friends try to set her up with - unknowing that she isnt interested in boys! The boy is played by Will Turner. We decided to do this as the audience are left wanting to know what she is going to do when she is stuck in this situation and how she is going to get out of it.

Will Turner:

We decided only to include one other actor out of our production group as we thought it would be a lot easier than having to arrange times and meeting up with people that aren't in our group. Will was easy to work with as he goes to the same school and we could easily contact him.

We are going to take turns filming, and make sure we all get a fair turn so we can all develop our camera skills evenly.

Production schedule

Prodcution schedule

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Our animatic of our storyboard

Summary of our film idea

I am in a group with Paige Weir and Gabby Janes and we have decided to a do a chick flick film aimed at teenage girls. We have chosen to do a chick film genre film as this is the genre we enjoy watching and have the most knowledge on. However, to make our film opening grab people's attention we are going to put a twist on the common, well-known previous chick flick films. We are still going to have a group of 'popular girls', like in Mean Girls, but one of them is going to be a lesbian who has a crush on one of the other girls in her group. No-one knows this and wouldn't expect it either. The audience is going to see her put in situations, for example, being set up with a boy, and see how she deals with it. We have made her the main focus of the film as she tells her story mainly through her thoughts. We are going to try to leave the two minute opening on a cliff-hanger so the audience are wondering what she is going to do about her situation.

Some of the film titles we thought of were:

• The Trouble With Girls
• Girls, Girls, Girls
• The Lesbian

Production processes

Pre-production:

• Storyboard
• Script
• Idea
• Shot list
• Pitch
• Synopsis
• Production schedule
• Location

Production:

• Crew
• Shooting
• Lighting
• Camera
• Tape logging
• Location
• Sound
• Capturing

Post-production:

• Editing
• Special effects
• Mastering
• Music
• Titles
• Sound
• Capturing

Analysis of a professional film opening

Legally blonde!

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Summary of key points from the programme "Watching : beginnings"

In class we watched a BBC documentary called "Watching : beginnings", presented by Thomas Sutcliffe, to get notes on film openings. These are quotes from successful directors about their thoughts on film openings:

Ken Loach - "the most precious moment of the whole film"

Danny Boyle - "an obligation to announce as much ambition as possible"

JJ Beneix - "make them wait - don't give them instant gratification"

Peter Bogdanovich - "get the audience on your wave length"

David Fincher's 'Se7en' opening - 'hits you over the head' as the title sequence is prefiguring the events in the film therefore the titles become part of the story.

Assessment notes

Millie, Page, Robert, Ryan

Good clean cuts
Well framed
Good use of timing between the different shots
You didn’t cross the line

Preliminary exercise! Oct 2010

This is the preliminary exercise I completed with Paige Weir, Ryan Bartlett and Rob Kenny. I think we worked very well together and completed the task to the best of our ability. During the task we assigned each other roles which were needed, I was one of the people who were filmed, then we all pitched in with the editing at the end. Overall I think we did well and achieved to a high standard.

In terms of camerawork we made sure all the shots were steady and in focus, each shot was correctly framed using rule of thirds and the camera height and postition was correct on each shot. We also ensured that the eyeline match was correct so it was clear who the person was talking to, that each subject was clearly visible and we obeyed the 180 degree rule as to not confuse the audience. However, when editing we found a jump cut and had to cut a shot of me from earlier footage without any speech to make it flow, to improve this next time, if we had more time, we would simply film another shot of me talking to replace it.

When editing we made sure the pace of our exercise was good, the transitions were invisible, and that we had successfully used shot reverse shot in the conversation between me and Ryan. I think our whole exercise flowed well. We also used match on action when Ryan was walking towards the door at the end, we put in a shot of me in the middle to make the two different views of action at the same moment in the movement continue uninterrupted.

In our exercise I think overall the sound could be improved a bit as we talked quite quietly and at some points it is hard to hear us, however the dialogue was appropriate.

We decided to shoot in an office as Ryan was getting fired in our story line, I think this worked well as it looked formal and gave the right impression of what was happening. The lighting was also good as it was high-key and looked natural, we thought this would be best as we were trying to create an every-day scenario and make it look as natural as possible.