Song Permission

Yesterday I emailed an artist about permission to use his cover of Coldplay's song, The Scientist, this was his response:

Original Shot List

This is our original shot list, we later decided to make changes to it which you can now see in our final piece, however this is where our ideas first started:


Shot Number 1 (Approx time- 10 seconds)
Establishing shot (ELS)
Description;
Father figure sitting on a bench in the distance (Across the lake). Sky at the top of the shot and clear view of the environment to set the scene.
Analysis;
Obviously, every first shot should set the scene and introduce at least one of the main characters to the audience. The choice of environment is very important as it is symbolic in our films direction as the final scene will end up with the father and daughter re-united on that same bench across a calm lake. The fathers facial expression will be out of sight to cause enigma and confusion to what this mans motives and emotions are.

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Shot Number 2 (Approx time- 20-30 seconds (To be confirmed)
Long shot (LS)
Description;
Shot behind male figure with full body and bench showing and a lot of sky in view. This shot will feature a time-lapse that lasts what the viewer presumes is about 2 hours long with the natural flow of people and dogs passing by the man, however, the shot will only last about 30minutes, and we will use lots of extras and costume changes to try and get as many 'passers by' as we can. The male figure will be stationary the whole time, and by using a special editing technique, we can take a shot of him lasting 2 minutes and combine it with the 30 minute shot to add to the effect. The shot will be sped up to show people passing by the man at great speed. The sky will also be changing from vibrant blue to an orangy hazy sunset.
Analysis;
Very influencial scene as it is symbolising that time is passing by the man very quickly, could either portray the idea of his life nearly being up and everything is at an advanced rate, or showing that he does not care about anything anymore.
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Shot Number 3 (Approx time- 5-8 seconds)
Close up
Description;
First insight on the male figures face and also shows his emotions. Balled up red eyes and deep sigh resulting in him looking from the sky down into his lap.
Analysis;
Shows the characters emotions which is obviously sadness. Creates enigma as viewer does not know why he is sad or why he is not moving from this bench. Maybe has a emotional connection with this location? Left to viewers imagination.

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Shot Number 4 (Approx time- 5-8 seconds)
Extreme close up (ECU)
Description;
Extreme close up of man's eyes. Red tear filled eyes which consequently leads to a singly tear running down the males face.
Analysis;
Eyes are the key to emotion so we are using this as a very strong shot as it will show his true feelings. The use of the tear also continues onto the next scene which creates continuity.

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Shot Number 5 (Approx time- 15-20 seconds)
Close up
Description;
Shot of picture of young girl crinkled at sides and worn. Single tear will run onto the photo which follows on from the previous scene. When tear hits the photo a slight shaking will begin in the males hand.
Analysis;
Worn photo symbolises he has had this photo for a long time and may be treasured as a favourite as it has obviously been handled numerous times. Gives you a small insight into the males personality, maybe OCD? Again, enigma is created. Hand shaking also gives the impression of fear as people shake when they are scared. Scared of loss? Scared of death? Unknown.

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Shot Number 6 (Approx time- 40-60 seconds dependant on many variables)
Medium long shot- Close up
Description;
Dark room shrouded by shadows and darkness. Back lighting showing the outline of a figure in the corner. As music intensifies the zoom gets increasingly closer to the figure until, (keeping with the horror/thriller codes and conventions), a bang occurs while a girls face appears with makeup down her face. This contrasts with the previous picture of her smiling with high key lighting showing her innocence. Wide eyes open and crooked forced smile directly into the camera. Key lighting from the left illuminating approximately three quarters of her face.
Analysis;
Very much symbolic and subliminal leaving the equations to the audience. Make up running down her face, why has she been crying? What are her motives in this scenario? Wide eyes opened and false smile, maybe drug abuse? Many questions left unanswered and left to the imagination. This idea of leaving many end loose and unanswered, is relevant to our previous audience research which told us that a successful horror movie should leave many aspects of the film to their imaginations. Also creates a sort of crime feel as the audience are already trying to piece things together like a detective and work out the twisting plot.

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Risk Assesment

Injury
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Incase of injury, we will all have mobile phones so that we can call family or emergency services if neccesary. None of our planned shots involve stunts etc. however if someone slips/falls then we will be prepared. The locations we plan to shoot our scenes are no more than 2minutes away from residential areas so if for any reason our phones are not working, we can quickly get assistance from people living nearby.


Severe weather
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Due to the cost of equipment and continuity of our scene we will have to postpone filming if we get any rain or snow during the day. Very light rain can be dealt with as we will carry several umbrellas with us to shield the camera from any water damage. Before we book a date to hire the camera, we will check weather forecasts to try and avoid any weather which will stop us from filming.
  

Camera Damage
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We will be purchasing basic insurance cover incase, for example, we drop the camera, as due to the cost of the equipment, we would not be able to afford to replace it (the camera costs approximately £2500). Better safe than sorry!


Illness
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As our intro involves hardly any dialogue, it shouldn't matter if our actors have a cold for example, aslong as they remain in the same physical state we need them to be. We have several backup actors who will be able to fill in incase the actor is incapable of attending filming, we also have recording equipment ready for post-production incase the young girl is incapable of singing on the day of filming.

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Dialogue

To add to the effect of the first scene of our movie intro, we will not be using any speech. We feel that the emotion within the scene will come across more effectively if only music and quiet sound effects are used. In the following scene, we plan to have a short piece of dialogue while a young girl is singing a nursery rhymne in the corner of a dark room.

We will include a few pieces of diagetic sound during the intro so that it doesn't look like a music video. And adds more depth to clips.

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Camera Hire

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As a team we are very passionate about films, and we are all very keen to get started making our own intro. This is a piece of work that we want to be proud of, however we feel that the quality of the cameras our school can provide are not of sufficient quality to make a professional looking piece.

We intend to hire out a camera for approximately 3 days and this will cost us around £60, including a £150 deposit. As we only have the professional camera available for 3 days, we must make sure that our production is planned down to every detail so that we can go to the locations, shoot as few takes as possible and then move on to the next location.

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Potential Actors

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We have been told by Scott that hiring actors from an agency would significantly boost our overall mark. Due to insufficient amount of time, we tried getting one of our fellow younger students from drama to hopefully participate in our production in hope it will aid their portfolio.

Continuing from this we went to see Mrs Micilock who is head of drama at this specific time. She said she will look further into this matter and get back to us.

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Costumes and Props

 

In the first scene, the father figure / brother is sitting on a bench while a time lapse takes place while the sky changes from blue to a hazy sunset. His clothes will be dark and plain as he shows little emotion, and black also represents danger. His clothes may be scruffy as he has let himself go due to the loss of his daughter / sister. Droopy eyes show lack of sleep aswell.

The girl in the corner will be wearing clothes that are either 'normal' to show that she is an average girl who the audience can relate to, or black as it symbolically shows danger to the audience.

 The main majority of the opening scene will be at cuckoos hollow on a chosen bench looking out of the lake. We will be using a photograph of the girl and the public bench as our props. One of the scenes features the main character 'drowning his sorrows' so we will also be using a beer bottle which along with his stumbling shows to the audience that he is drinking/drunk.

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Target Audience

Our target audience is teenagers to adults, as our film will be considered a Thriller/Horror. We intend to include scenes which may be seen as unsuitable to children and deemed disturbing, so our film will be made to meet 15 rated guidelines. By limiting ourselves to a PG or 12 rated movie, it might mean eliminating many of the ideas we originally thought of.

After reading about film rating guidelines, we came to the conclusion that the bbfc (british board of film classifciation) would most likely classify our film as a 15. If our scenes were too mature for a 15 certificate then we would work to change our film to meet the required standards, as otherwise we could lose part of our target audience.

To rate our film ourselves, we looked at the ratings guideline which can be found here:
http://www.bbfc.co.uk/classification/guidelines/

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Pre-Production progress

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So far, we have decided on the first minute of our main production, and we are optimistic about the shots we are proposing to film. We have a number of different shots in mind, and have decided on the storyline for our film.

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Main Production Planning

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Today we are beginning to seriously start the planning of our main production.

Notes  will be added soon.

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