Storyboard for Final Piece

Before we could begin filming, we created a storyboard to outline our plot line and the shots used. Having a guideline of what we are to shoot will enable us to work faster and efficiently , rather then having to decide the shots whilst filming.

Breakdown of shots:

1) establishing shot of area

2) establishing shot of house

3) establishing shot of garage

4) downwards tilt of inside garage

5) full shot of garage, Elliott opens the door and steps inside

6) title: close up of light switch showing 'Ted Russell as Elliott' 

7) tracking shot from behind Elliott following him further into the room

8) behind shot of Elliott sitting down

9) close up of biting some tape off

10) behind shot of Elliott putting tape on the table and picking up some paper 

11) title: close up of sticking paper up then a pan across to 'Created and Directed by Rachel Harrison' title

12) low angle shot of reaching for a packet of Space Raiders and opening them

13) close up of looking eating crisps and looking around, focuses on something

14) title: eyeline match to polaroids reading 'Produced and Edited by Katie Killeen'

15) extreme close up of Elliott's eyes squinting to look closer

16) title: track of Elliott's finger following a string from the polaroids to 'Casting by Catherine Rochford'

17) full shot of entire garage showing Elliot stand and reach for shelf

18) money shot of Elliot taking book off shelf

19) title: mid shot of bringing the book down, paint pot on shelf reads 'Location Manager: Anna Killeen'

20) title: high angle, over-the-shoulder shot of opening to book to page saying 'Craft Services: Tim Harrison'

21) reach to pen pot and takes pen

22) writes something on Post-It note stuck on map

23) Elliott sits down and a selective focus is used to highlight laptop in the background

24) title: close up of laptop with 'Cinematography By Katie Killeen and Rachel Harrison' written in coding

25) phone next to laptop lights up from receiving a text

26) shot of phone showing text messages from a friend

27) low angle, reaction shot to these messages

28) SRS: back to phone showing a video which had been received 

29) full shot of room, Elliott moves across room in to grab a backpack 

30) picks phone up from table

31) shot of Elliott's feet running out the door and crushing a crisp as he leaves

Survey

After being approved to go ahead with our pitch, we started to consider the type of audience this could be aimed at. As it is likely to be a very light-hearted comedy, we thought it likely to have a younger audience. To confirm this, we asked 8-14 year olds their favourite genre of film.

Survey Results
Comedy- 6
Sci-fi- 4
Rom-com- 4
Animated- 3
Musicals- 2
Horror- 1

From this, we realised that younger audiences tend to enjoy comedy and sci-fi films, very fitting to our film. From this, we have decided to steer our film in the direction of a younger audience.

Location Planning

For our final piece, we are planning to shoot the majority of scenes in my garage. We feel it would suit the concept of the plot, as it is private and somewhat isolated, suggesting that the character is an outsider. Also, it has a large back wall, on which we could place the map, polaroids etc. Another reason for setting the story in a garage, is that it adds to the realism. The character is only in his teens, so would still be living in the family home, and the garage will still feature general items such as paint pots, ladders, and various other objects that would tend to be stored in a garage. These items will be incorporated into our mise en scene.
Below are photos of the inside of my garage, and the main wall that will be used.

However, although we are using my garage to film in, we are thinking of using a different house to feature in the establishing shots.

In school, there is a small office called the Network Managers Office, and we feel it had the types of objects we would use to create the mise-en-scene. If possible, we would borrow some of this unused equipment to decorate our set with.

 

Film Opening Pitch

In class, myself and Rachel had to pitch our idea for our film opening to our class and teacher. The aim of this was to get input and feedback from others, and see if they are able to spot any implications that we may have missed. In the pitch we discuss the idea of the film, and the opening two minutes in more detail.

The plot of the film revolves around a teenage boy who has dedicated his life to sightings of UFO, and looks at possible clues in great detail. For our opening, we have decided we are going to create a titles sequence, where we have physical objects showing the names and jobs of the cast and crew. This will be set in my garage, and all the titles will be placed on objects in the garage, such as on a paint pot, or light switch. Although it is in a garage, we will design the set to look like our character has taken it over and made it his own, with a map on the wall and polaroid photos and post it notes to the different sightings. The titles will be integrated into the plot line of the story, and the action will continue behind, and carry on once the tiles have finished. Towards the end of the opening 2 minutes, the titles will come to an end and the man action of the story will begin. A text message will be received from the main character's friend, and you see the character leave the garage with his backpack and some equipment. If we were making this into a full length film, the story would continue with the friends meeting up and trying to discover an extra-terrestrial.

Below is the video of our pitch which has been uploaded to the school YouTube channel.

Art of the Title

To be able to gain inspiration for my coursework, I have been looking at various title sequences featured on the website artofthetitle.com. The website has videos of, and discusses, countless amounts of film and television series openings from different genres, creators, and studios. Below are the title sequences that I think would be similar to the type of opening I would create for my film opening. 


Gentlemen Broncos

In this 2009 Jared Hess film, the opening title sequence shows a series of books with the names and jobs of various cast and crew members. The majority of the books used are sci-fi related, with covers of space/ supernatural images. This links well with our idea as we are planning to make a film based on UFOs. This is not too different to the idea we are planning to go with, as we want there to be physical, filmed titles, rather than ones that have been laid on top. However, this idea is not completely what we wanted to use as all the titles are on the same item, whereas we wanted to have them all on separate items. 

Napoleon Dynamite

Napoleon Dynamite (2004) is another film by Jared Hess, and is quite similar to the titles of Gentlemen Broncos. Like Hess' other film, this title sequence is constructed of physical titles, that are filmed and edited. The titles shown here are more like what we would use for ours, as the cast and crew are placed on various objects found in a school, where ours would be placed on household objects. However, this title sequence does not seem to continue into the story, and we have planned for ours to be integrated into the plot, with the story continuing after the titles have finished.

Community

From this title sequence, I really like how the titles are hand written. Similar to the others, all the titles are placed on a tangible object, rather than types like the majority of films. Although not what we planned to do, I am also a fan of the titles being on just one object, but on differnt parts- this makes it very diiferent to the others.

Almost Famous

Although not entirely how we planned to make our title sequence, I really like the idea of some titles being hand written. The title sequence for Almost Famous is almost completely written, except for some a few towards the end. I would like to use this idea and have at least one hand written title within the sequences, but may have it already written out, rather than seeing it be written out.

Dead Man on Campus

This final title sequence is from 1998 film Dead Man on Campus, which first features a production company animation. MTV Productions is first shown by an astronaut flying across the screen, clearly in space- fitting very well with our theme of space. Another reason why this title sequence fits with what we are envisioning is because they are designed to look like physical titles. Although they're typed, making them very different to the titles in the style of Napoleon Dynamite, they have been created to look like an exam paper which the camera moves around. I particularly like the style of the 3rd title showcased in the sequence, where the title is integrated to the other text, but put in bold to enable it to stand out.

I think the title sequence most similar to what we have in mind is Napoleon Dynamite. We would be able to replicate the variety of different objects involved, and could use a variety of different shot types to capture them. However, there are aspects of other title sequences that we could incorporate such as the hand written names of Almost Famous, and the science fiction objects of Gentlemen Broncos. 

Updated Film Opening Idea

After my last blog post, we thought of a different idea for our film opening which is completely unrelated to our last one. As we only make the opening 2 minutes of the film, we wanted a lot of the focus to be on introducing the main character, and showing the set to the audience, as both of these help to set the tone of the film. The character shown is a clumsy, geeky teenage boy who has dedicated his life to the discovery of aliens. The beginning of the film is set in the garage of the family home, which has been turned into a shrine to his discoveries with posters and books covering the walls. Both the character and the set are going to be quirky and lovable, giving a fun, friendly feel to the rest of the film.

The Set
The garage would be filled with UFO related objects such as posters, newspaper clippings etc. One of the feature points of the set is going to be the large OS map placed in the middle of the wall. The map will be set up to look like an investigation board with strings leading to photographs and other pieces of 'evidence' for various UFO sightings in the area. Below are some examples I have found:

The Character
For this idea, we would prefer for our lead character to be male as we feel the role would be best suited to a teenage boy. He would be made out to be a typical nerdy/ geeky character but also clumsy and lovable.

The Opening
We decided we would like to make a title sequence rather than 
going straight into the main action of the film, and have been inspired by Jared Hess' 'Napoleon Dynamite'. The way in which the titles are displayed in this sequence appeal to us both as it is a creative and different way of presenting them. As the character is quite unique, we thought this style of title sequence could relate well to the character.
 

Film Opening Idea

Over the last couple of weeks, myself and Rachel have been coming up with various pitches and ideas that we would like to use for our coursework.

We have decided on a film opening that features a teenage girl packing her bag at the break of dawn and leaving home. We are thinking of making it look like it was a very well planned escape, where she has supplies hidden around the house, for example hidden behind canvases and in hollowed out books.

The sequence of her collecting her items and leaving the house will take up the majority of the 2 minutes, with the last 20-30 seconds focusing on the journey after she leaves. she will be seen to walk through various different areas, to signify that she has travelled a far distance from home. As the audience saw her walk through the different areas, the natural light would need to get consistently brighter to show that she is still walking, and we could also add the time of day over the scene to further show this.