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.