Mood Board

I will discuss the thought behind our mood board in detail which was completed back in September.

We collected images to create a collage, and wrote text that was relevant to what our fim will consist of. in terms of text, we displayed specific words to summarise important features within our film such as the genre, "romance" and "tragedy" and the "heartbreak" that it would entail. with this in mind we chose images that coinside with the text in order to symbolise these vital aspects of our film.

For example, images of coffins and other things relating to a funeral give the suggestion of death which represents the "tragedy" within our genre.

A close up image of a woman crying highlights the grief/emotion that our female lead would have to portray due to this death, linking to the "heartbreak". also, the woman crying conveys a sad emotion - not happy, emphasising the serious nature of our film and showing that our intentions are not to create humour/comedy.

This seriousness is also portrayed as we made all the images on the mood board black and white.

Images of a bride and groom represent marriage, and the wedding scene we will be incorperating into our opening - marriage is symbolic for the love and happiness our leading female and male once shared together, fitting with the romantic side to our genre but also emphasising the extent of the "heartbreak" caused after the "tragedy" occurs.

Researching Genre - Titanic

I have been doing some research into some films based on a similar genre to ours - romance. Firstly, i have chosen to focus on the opening to Titanic as it's genre is even more relevant, being a romantic tragedy. Also, feedback from our questionnaires revealed that this was often stated as a favourite romance film, and is also one of the most recognisably famous romance films of all time.

Therefore, with it's immense popularity i thought it would be an appropriate choice to analyse and see which aspects of it we can draw from in order to achieve more appeal from our target audience within the 2 minutes we were allocated for our opening.

Corresponding with our idea, titanic has a reflective opening to initiate the story. It begins with an investigation in the far depths of the pacisific ocean, in search for the Titanic.
A contrast is shown between the past and present. in the present the ship appears unsightly -mouldy, dirty and ruined. then, a reflection on the past brings the audience back to when the ship was it it's prime - immaculately clean, luxurious and grand.

We this linked this to ours, as a contrast is shown between the present when the female is distraught, crying, and alone and the past when she is happy and smiling at her wedding, surrounded by family and friends. this contrast provokes thought as our audience will wonder what may have have happened to cause such a dramatic change of circumstance.

Preliminary Task - Youtube Video

We had to come up with a senario to act out during the filming and as we wanted to have a little more fun with it, gave it more of a storyline - coming up with the idea of having a thumb-war; thus making it a little more interesting to watch. as the interaction between actors within the film is not what we were being assessed on, we focused mainly on carrying out the continuity shot effectively and successfully.
i feel we carried out this shot well, making sure Remarni had opened the door the same distance on both shots either side of the door during her entrance to the room. also, as she was walking, we had to edit it so that the door could only be heard shutting once; making the action appear consistant.

To edit our film we used a programme called iMovie on a macbook laptop. personally, i had never used this before and so had to adjust and familiarise myself with it, this was fairly easy to cope with and i was soon able to help organise shots, cut shots and add effects, transitions, and credits to the film.
Only a couple of fades we needed in order to cover up the slight discontinuity of shots.

The 180 degree rule shot, and reverse shot were used to flick between Remarni and Jodie, sitting at the desk, looking at eachother.

Overall, i am pleased with the result of our preliminary task :)

Introduction To The Preliminary Task

We carried out the preliminary task several weeks ago, but had trouble uploading it onto youtube due to technical difficulties caused by some of the effects we had used. But, now it's successfully uploaded i can begin to discuss the process we went through and the things we had to consider in terms of shots.
I will upload the actual video into my next post and discuss personal decisions etc, but for now this is the basic outline of the task..

We were given the instruction to incorperate a continuity shot requiring us to film a person - Remarni - walking through a door, with shots from both sides of the door in a way that makes it look coherent. we also had to include some diologue between this person, and someone else - Jodie - giving it more of a storyline/purpose.

The continuity shot, an editing process which is used to combine a sequence of shots where the transitions between them give the appearance that the action is running coherently. for the definition of continuity editing in more detail please refer to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuity_editing

Other shots that were included in our preliminary task;
1. The reverse shot
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shot_reverse_shot

2. The 180 degree rule shot
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/180_degree_rule

Overall Update So Far - Story Board And Locations

We have drawn up a story board, to give us a fairly detailed idea about the sequence of shots in our opening and give us a structure to work from when we actually begin filming. however we still need to work out time-span for each shot, to make it even more specific, so we know exactly what shot we are doing, and how long we expect it to last within the time frame. I will take a picture of the completed piece to upload as soon as possible.

Also, for research, we created questionnaires and distributed them to possible audience members to get their opinion and give us an insight of how we can achieve a preferred viewing and get an understanding of their expectations of a romance film.
We have recieved some feedback but have more to hand out in order to get a vast range of information to compare and analyse.

TARGETS
1. We need to do a health and safety checks for our locations.
2. Establish a film schedule.
3. In prepiration for filming - discuss props such as a wedding dress, picture frame containing wedding photograph, and other objects we may require.

ALSO, we have just been talking about a possible destination for the "incident" scene which differs from our origional idea of using a derelict building alongside a road in our local area. a group member, Jodie, suggested an area which is located within the school grounds but is not really in use anymore, meaning that filming would be possible without interruption from students or us causing too much of a disruption to anyone else within the school.
an advantage about using this site is that during the "incident" scene we require the male lead, and extras to run from the building doors, creating a chaotic atmosphere. the school location, unlike the other, isnt near any roads, this means that when running around, there is not the danger of on-coming traffic.
i think this location would be more convinient, and easier to gain permission from, however we will look into both the locations first, then make a decision on which is more appropriate for use.

Possible Location - Wedding Scene

These are photographs taken of our ideal destination for our wedding scenes, in the arch way outside a church. this is our most desired location as churches are very symbolic for weddings and so would be a more realistic setting. however, we have not yet had permission to use this site, so nothing is official. so incase we cannot get authorisation, we searched for alternatives and came up with two other back-up locations where this scene could take place; i plan to upload pictures of these locations to my blog :)

Music

We are currently undecided on the music we wish to use within our opening which will create the most tension. two possible pieces of music we intend to use are, Robert Pattison - Let Me Sign, and Paloma Faith - My Legs Are Week. both of these would fit the mood we are trying to create, but will make a definate choice once we have filmed so we can see which one is best suited. however, this is dependant on copy right restrictions so will have to do some further research on this.

i have provided you with the two possible sound tracks we will consider using.