Red october (Working title)

Below is the basic storyboard we came up with for our 2 minute opening. It begins with a suit up scene ( The character "suiting up" to go outside) before the character exits the tent and walks past a camp of refugees/soldiers before stopping at the top of hill and looking down on two bodies which is then followed by a camera pan up in to the sky

This is only our basic storyboard and more ideas have been added as time has gone by. We decided to add in some scenic shots of the forest which is then seperated by credits allowing the suit up scene to run smoothly and to also help establish the area the film will be set in. We may also decide to change and fiddle about with some shots as we film so this storyboard is not 100%

Film Opening - Title Sequence

We came up with the idea of combining the initial shots in our film of the general putting on his military uniform with the screens with the titles. By breaking up these shots with titles, we created a smoother looking transitions between the shots. We also added a unique touch to the title screens to keep things interesting and hold the veiwers attention, as in our opinion we believed that the title sequemces shouldn't be kept on the sidelines, but actually be an interesting part of our production. This was done using a typewriter effect of the text onto the background, accompanied by pictures of famous scenes and people from our era and location. The typewriter effect exagerrated the historic theme of the film opening and allowed us to keep our serious tone.

 Here is an example of one of the opening title slides. The typewriter effect will be animated in Flash CS4 and will be coupled with panning shots of the countryside whilst a slow, sad song will play over the top of them. We feel that this will keep in touch with the serious aesthetic of our movie which means that these credits will not jar the audience and look out of place with our film's historic feel. 

Film opening - Sound

In order to add atmosphere and realism to the film we considered adding enhanced sounds.

- Leather boot straps being tied.
- Sounds of crying
- Sound of the wind
- The sound of gunshots in the distance or shells falling. (this was the sound effect we ended up using)


We also ended up using two pieces of copyright free music we found on youtube. These were :

• Les Feuilles Mortes - Yves Montand. This song had a very calm, slow and sad atmosphere so we decided to use it on the credits and panning shots used in our opening at the start.
• Farwell to Slavianka - The Red army choir. This song has a more serious military theme to it and was used at the end of our opening for dramatic effect

Film Opening - Production company name and logo

We chose the name Red Star Productions. It sums up the genre of film opening we are producing, and is an exciting name that could become associated with producing both historic films, or those based on action and war, to produce titles similar to those found in our research:

• Hunt for Red October
• Saving Private Ryan
• Che

 We brainstormed for ideas for a logo. On paper, we made sketches of potential candidates, deciding we needed a logo that was bold, bright and represented the film we were producing. Eventually we combined two of our ideas coming up with the following logo.
Here is the logo produced to represent what our film company is about: It is simple yet very bold and straight to the point. The Red colour and hammer and sickle symbol were chosen as they provide a bold and recogniseable image when the logo appears in the opening titles of our film opening.

The logo was created using Adobe photoshop CS4 for the shapes, and Adobe flash CS4 for the filters and shading (flash was used as the filters can be changed in an animation, for example where the logo fades in the titles)

Preliminary exercise!

For our preliminary exercise we were tasked to film and edit a short continuity film. This short film had to include various types of shots including match on action, shot-reverse shot and we had to employ the 180 degree rule throughout the entire short film. This task is meant to show that we can keep a good continuity throughout this short film using various shots and editing techniques.

Pre production
The pre production element of our preliminary exercise consisted mainly of storyboarding and focusing on what shots we would use for our storyboard. Initially we drafted ideas for what our story could be and eventually settled on a comedy style story of a boy that gets a text from his girlfriend/love interest only to find out that that she isn't a she at all. the punch line was going to be saved until the very end, for a greater comedy effect.
 
Changes to the script
However as I was ill during the filming process the storyboard and script had to be changed for the purpose of having some film before our time was up. The script was changed to a more simpler tale of a boy getting a text from his girlfriend and he thinks she's going to break up with him. He goes to meet her and finds out that he's been making a big deal out of nothing, as she doesn't want to dump him. Along with storyboarding, writing the script was also a major part of pre production. Due to the fact that the film is only 2 minutes long the script is quite small but it gave us something to follow during filming and along with the representation of shots on the storyboard it helped us have a clear view of what we were going to shoot.

Final script

Alex walks to locker, opens it, then receiving a text message, he takes the phone out of his pocket, read the message and puts it back into his pocket. He then walks through a door and down a corridor to meet Alice.

Arrives at door, looks through then opens it and walks into the room, where Alice is waiting.

Alex: …you wanted to talk?

Alice: Well…It’s just that

Alex: Well…

Alice: Shall we see 'Back to the Future' or 'Buried' tonight?

Alex: I don’t care… 'Back to the Future'?

Alice: 'Buried' it is!

Production

Problems we faced

During filming we encountered various problems we had to overcome.

• During our time filming we had trouble finding suitable rooms as most were taken or would be taken the next time we needed to film
• As I was ill after the first week of filming the script and storyboard had to be changed, causing some harsh time restraints.
• Not breaking the 180 degree rule
• We'd never used the film equipment before so we had to take time to get to grips with all the equipment

Overcoming adversity

To stop to problem of relying on one room for the task that may or may not be available during filming the film was shot in multiple places across the school that were free and edited to flow together coherently. This insured that the film had all the shots that were necessary and also helped save time as we didn't have to wait for areas to be free.

The film was not shot in chronological order which helped save a lot of time as if an area was not free to film in, another shot or scene could be filmed in another place. The storyboard and script helped keep the filming very organised and stopped any time delays that come from lack of organisation. There was never more than two takes for an individual scene which as the camera work was good enough to allow this which also helped save a lot of time. This also helped speed up the post production process as there was no need to shift through lots of takes to find the best one

All shots were planned through thoroughly to make sure the rule was not broken an there was a stable sense of continuity.

The group helped each other understand what each individual piece of equipment did to make sure that if someone was ill or absent during or before filming this wouldn't stop the filming or slow down the process.

I'd say in conclusion that even though we faced some big problems (main character not being here during filming) the organisation we had helped stop this stopping the task altogether and helped the film come together as well as it did

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Analasyis of an opening scene

Lock stock screen caps

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Media consumption: Wednesday-Thursday

We were tasked to find out how large a part of our everyday lives media plays a part in. to do this we made a diary of all the media we consumed in a two day period.

Wednesday:

• 7:30 Wake up
• 8:00 Watch TV before bus
• 3:40 Go on the internet, listen to music
• 4:30 Play games, listen to music
• 7:00 Watch TV whilst eating dinner
• 7:24 Sit and watch tv
• 9:56 Watch a movie

Thursday:

• 7:30 Wake up
• 9:25 Watch a movie in English
• 3:40 Watch tv, listen to music
• 6:00 Play games, listen to music
• 7:48 Watch tv at dinner, listen to music
• 10:49 Watch a movie
• 12:50 Read a book