It starts...

So I'm starting from here. We're just about to make a preliminary film which will be nothing more interesting than a conversation, lasting about 20 seconds. It seems a bit pointless but I can see where it's coming from, that we have to be able to make a film before we try to do the real thing. The idea is that we can get used to using a camera to make a film and that just means we have to practice, really. We're struggling to find the time when we can all get involved because we have different free periods and live far apart, and we want to try and get it done when there are less people around. So it looks like we'll have to use the lesson-time, which isn't so bad except it's limiting us and could be a little problematic. Still, we don't really have much choice so we'll have to go with what we've got. It doesn't look like it'll cause too many problems.


We've done quite a lot of research, studied a few films, and we're beginning to get the idea of what we're going to do. We've just scripted and storyboarded our preliminary piece. It is going to be very simple with three characters - two are discussing something that seems to be illegal and the third overhears them. We will be filming the start in the dark, which has atmospherical advantages, but it means we have to time it just right so that the amount of daylight is enough that the audience can see the action, but not so much that it defeats the objective of the action of turning on the light half-way through.

The first character we see is nervous, sitting alone in an interview room - we will be using the school to film, although the piece isn't necessarily set in a school (it is part of the mystery that the audience doesn't know exactly where it is set). She glances at her watch and gets up to leave, bumping into the second, who is much more threatening - she is the one who arranged this meeting. She seems to think that the first is backing out, and acts particularly threateningly to keep her in. They sit down together - a little more threatening is added in for good measure - and the light switches on, apparently by itself. They get up and look down the corridor, which is empty. Turning back, the second tells the first, "If you tell anyone about this, I'll kill you." Then, sensing something, they both turn slowly - and see a man standing there, watching them accusingly.

Which should be fun to shoot, just as soon as we can act it out without laughing. We can get a teacher to play the part of the third character, and we can shoot that bit first so that he doesn't have to stay long. He's only in that one shot and nobody else is, and the lighting can be all artificial so the daylight doesn't cause any continuity issues.

So, with any luck, it should go okay. We've had to make amendments already to fit the criteria - we were going to film it in a corridor in the school (where there happens to be a convenient staircase located across from a classroom, which would have been handy because the actor playing the malicious character is shorter than the more innocent one, and we wanted to do POV angles while making the "evil" seem larger and more threatening physically), until we realised the characters had to sit down.That wasn't what we'd hoped for, but it wasn't too hard to develop the script to suit the new criteria, so no harm done, as it were.

Introduction

This, apparently, is my research blog for my AS Media coursework. In the next few months, my group will be working to create an opening sequence to a film. We have recently been looking at the openings to different films, considering how they are created in reference to these specific areas:

1. Mise-en-scene

2. Camera Angles, Shots and Movement

3. Sound

4. Editing

The main films we have studied are Dirty Harry, The Usual Suspects and Seven.

We will be incorporating our understanding of the main four areas into the making of our coursework film.

And that about covers my introduction, so that'll be all for now. Ta-ta!