Hollywood, baby!

Planning and researching your A2 film

Early planning and practice filming

• Create a Pages doc with a short summary of what each film genre involves:

• Adventure films often involve action and new climates. Unlike pure, low-budget action films they often use their action scenes to display and explore exotic locations in an energetic way...

• Examples include...

Practice filmingChoose a theme

• Happiness• Sadness• Isolation• Fear• Popularity• Control•Another of your choice (check with me)

TaskPlan and storyboard a one-minute film about your chosen theme. You have all of next Monday period 5 and 6 to film and download your film.

Today• Each group member writes a short paragraph justifying how your 1 minute film fits in with theories of Barthes, Levi-Strauss, Propp, Todorov• Storyboard

Plan of action for next 2 lessonsConsider a range of ideas for your 5 minute film• Mind-map on PPT slides if you’re uncertain about ideas• Write a potential synopsis for your film (see example overleaf)

Research into current films of a similar genre• Use YouTube and DVDs to research films similar in theme or style to your own. See my Butterfly Effect example

First Idea: Horror/ Thriller film about a couple who have only just started going out, they get on really well untill she starts 'tutoring' another guy who isn't as popular as her boyfriend but she seems to get on really well with the guy she is 'tutoring'. The couple start arguing alot and the relationship starts to break down when the girl decides she doesn't want to be in the relationship anymore.The girl starts to hand around with the guy she is 'tutoring' and his friends alot more, as she does this her ex becomes very possessive of the girl and seeks revenge.

The girl starts to think that she is being watched and followed and starts to get scared. Her ex- boyfriend knows how much she cares and values her best friend and her parents so he thinks that a good way to get revenge on her would be to kill her best friend, then her parents and then the girl.

My initial ideas for my A2 student film

The ex- boyfriend murders her parents and then weeks later her best friend, obviously the girl gets very suspicious as the people closest to her have been murdered and her ex- boyfriend isn't turning up to school.The girl has to move into her aunts and uncles house as she doesn't want to live alone, one night she is alone upstairs in her room, talking to the guy she was 'tutoring' on the phone, without noticing she was being watched, her aunt and uncle were downstairs watching TV. Her ex- boyfriend lets himself into her bedroom window but she doesn't notice as she has back to the window while being on the phone. Her ex- boyfriend grabs her as he is holding a knife in his hand, she screams and tries to get away from him but he has a tight grip of the girl. Her aunt and uncle hear her scream and try to get into her room but the ex- boyfriend has put a set of draws in front of the door so they struggle to get in, They phone for help and the police manage to get into her room and pull the guy off her as she is pleading him to leave her alone.The ex- boyfriend gets sent to a clinic to help him with his mental disorder and the girl slowly moves on with her life, taking each day at a time.

Example research for The Butterfly Effect

Sans serif font at the beginning of the film: this connotes horror (literal meaning). you would find this font in most horror films. The two main characters are shown in the first shot, this is a two shot.At the beginning of the trailer there is also a shot with the production company's logo for example in 'The Butterfly Effect' a shot of the 'Timeline Pictures' is shown.There is a black and white shot of the two main characters to show that the particular shot is in the past. Throughout the entire trailer there is a voice over, this is a male, mature American voice; they use this to have some power and authority.

Most of the angles in this trailer are mid angle shots and med/close up shots to show character identification. There are blackouts from the males point of view who is also the central protagonist; he says to the girl, the other protagonist ' do you remember those flash backs?' this then goes into a quick/fast montage of shots (attracting a younger audience) with a lot of focus on a churchyard. The shot takes are very fast with fast paced editing. There are also a lot of special effects in the trailer/film which will also be to attract a younger audience. The music also helps to attract a younger audience as well as fitting in well with the characters and the genre. Near the end of the trailer there is a shot of the girl, messed up by drugs which is a complete contrast to the girl at the beginning of the trailer (binary opposition) In the trailer there is a clear indication that time has passed with all the black and white shots, like the guy is looking back at what his life used to be like.

Continuing Research into other texts

ALL of your research needs to be on ALL of your blogs! You should be using YouTube and your DVD collections to list examples of existing texts related to your chosen film genre:

• Names of text, director, stars, production studio, certification (imdb.com will be your new best friend for this...)• jpeg images from the film / DVD cover (google images)• Hyperlinks to clips from YouTube• Synopsis / plot summary• Genre / Style – cinematography, music, mise-en-scene• What you intend to ‘take’ from your reading of this film

Audience ResearchYou need to establish your likely audience and now complete some preliminary research:• Think about the viewers’ ages, gender and social demographic (see NRS social grades on a search engine)

Now design a questionnaire aimed at this demographic to inform your future planning.

Questionnaire ResultsAge: Our media product is targeting an age group of 15-21 years old. We are targeting our teaser trailer to this age group because the characters in our teaser trailer are all of a similar age (15-21- Youth culture) which will make it easier for an audience of that age to relate to therefore make the audience feel empathy for the characters as well as possibly encouraging the audience to or not to watch the teaser trailer and later the film.While deciding which BBFC rating we should give our teaser trailer we compared it to 'Prom Night'( Rated a 15 )which is very similar to ours in the sense that moderate language, moderate sex references, issues relating to drugs and alcohol and sustained threat were all included.

Planning for filmingThe necessary props, costumes for all characters and filming locations need to be uploaded onto a new blog post. Get together on this and ensure you all have the same details.

Model Props and Locations ListBeginningPhonesSchool booksGlassesPenspaperRed ear phonesRed lip stick 

MiddleSchool booksPhonesNotesknifeBloodCorpse

End...

Locations

Beginning6th Form Common Room (empty – after 3pm)Jamie Smith’s House

Middle

Production ScheduleFriday 6th November

Shooting of Killings (Day 1): Thursday 12th and Friday 13th NovemberShooting (Day 2): Monday 16th November

Shooting (Day 3): Monday 23rd November (final shooting day)

Possible sketch approaches

Technical codes • Long shot• Side angle• Panning from left to right as character chases thief out of his house

Mise-en-scene• Debris and possessions strewn over floor• Thief trips over lamp in hallway

Sound• Parallel sound as shouting matches action. Slamming door.• Non-diegetic music from ........................ as chase begins