Pre-lim Task

Planning Preliminary Task

Planning 

Before we filmed the Prelim video we did a recce of possible locations for the filming, we thought as it is a story of two boys falling out, why not film it in a school environment? So we went around taking pictures of possible shots and where to film stuff.

Planning of Shots...

Our beginning shot of the storyboard was of someone walking down a corridor so we got a picture of what we thought the shot would look like.

Another shot we know we needed to get was of our character making his way to meeting his friend so this was a chance to get different angles, so we checked what it would look like to get a high angle of walking up the stairs and decided we would use that.

Then we would use some low angle shots to show the travel up the stairs, we also thought this would show the tension with just the sound of the steps going up the stairs.

The character would then walk to the room.

The character would go to open the door...

Then a close up of opening the door...

And a match on action of that happening, we were making sure to get/look at what we needed to be trying to do to hit the criteria of the Prelim.

Reaction of the second character and then they would meet within this shot as well.

The over the shoulder shot reverse shot conversation.

Then we looked at an ending and we thought as the character fall out one of them would walk out, and to show this lonelyness that the character would now have we walked him across an empty space.

Story Board

Storyboard Preliminary Task

This our story board of our Prelim task idea. It is a RomCom / Drama about two boys are best friends who fall out of friendship over a girl, pretty cliche I know but we needed a simple story-line to run with easily and that everyone can get so we can then get the shots we need for our points.

Prelim

What is a Prelim Task?
This is our first self made up task, with some guidelines that I will list below. The Prelim task is a continuity task involving the filming and editing of a character opening a door, crossing a room and sitting down in a chair opposite another character, with whom she/he then exchanges a couple of lines of dialogue.

Shots to include :

Match on Action

shot/reverse shot

180 degree rule

an establishing shot

at least two close ups of the characters

a tracking shot

high angle shot

My Group

Juno

Juno

BFI Trip

BFI

We went to the BFI Studio in London and had a presentation even with someone called Rob Miller that talked about the Film Industry and the different aspects of it. 

First of all he compared and evaluated both Independent and mainstream films. I learnt that the purpose of producing and independent film is for the viewer to ask questions and also challenges them, compare this to mainstream where they are just for the viewer’s entertainment. An example of an independent film is Frank which is a low budget film only costing £1 million, has less established actors, black comedy which is a difficult humour and is an unusual genre that may put audiences off watching it. Compare this to the New mainstream blockbuster Star Wars: The Force Awakens that has a high budget of $200 million, made by one of the 'big six' (Disney), amazing use of CGI and SFX, well-known actors that allows a good market campaign and is also an event movie. 

Elaborating on the 'big six', when we think of past films that were huge sales films like Captain America, Harry Potters and Frozen they were all produced and promoted by one of these. This shows the difference in the marketing in which the big films are more heavily advertised because they have the money to advertise it everywhere compared to independent film where they are a lot less advertised.

There is currently a lot of money in Television because of Netflix and Amazon as examples.

When creating a film the producers have to take into consideration what they are interested in as well as the target audience they are trying to reach. Furthermore, it was explained that in the film industry to make the film recognisable you need a distributor and they do the following:

-Pay for advertisement
-Negotiates release date
-Chooses which film to distribute
-Decides on number of prints/ copies

The main aspects of film marketing; television, cinema, trailers press, outdoor, online. Trailers are by far the most expensive way of advertisement but the most effective in some ways with consumers wanting to see moving pictures and clips of the film, so it gives the audience a preview of what to expect.

Following this we the discussed the effectiveness of the Spectre trailer:

-Action: explosions
-Familiarity with franchise and star marketing
-Enigma created leads people want their questions to be answered
-Romance: classic James Bond scene
-Good vs Evil: classic theme

With all this into consideration they are expecting it to be the biggest sales film of the year but have tough competition with the very popular new Star Wars film coming out in December.

Exhibition/ Exchange:

-DVD/ Blue ray sales are decreasing
-Most popular consumption of films it watching it at home
-Online film consumption like Netflix and Love film that are again available at home
-Streaming of films increasing

Institution

He is my film logo.

Pete Fraser

Pete Fraser Talk

During our Pete Fraser talk we looked at how to make a successful film opening. He gave us top tips on what works well and what doesn't work so well. We got showed some examples and talked through the levels of which they would achieve. We were introduced to the use of ‘Foley’, which is the recreation of sound and how it is used in films. The tips he gave us included, how to plan, brainstorm ideas, editing and how to shoot.
Pete spoke to us about top tops for film openings and how we can achieve good grades within our own film openings. He went through a power point including things such as what a good film opening includes and how to plan a good film opening. He also told us ways of making sure our film opening does not look like a trailer or short film.
Pete then showed us a few examples of students film openings and we rated them from level 1-4 based on the camerawork, editing and sound. He told us how the film openings which achieved level 1 or 2 could have improved their film openings and how we could use those possible improvements in our film openings. Pete taught us that it is very important to consider every possible factor when making a film opening.

The final part of the talk from Pete Fraser was him giving us 'Top Tips' on what to do and what to avoid when creating our final film opening piece. Whilst he was telling us that the small things add up to get you better marks he went through these nine steps for success:

1-Take Stock-So we need to think about what the task set is and how it will be assessed, what equipment we will need and what our time frame is.

2-Blog-We should continue to blog and keep evidence of everything we do, even if it is just explaining what you did that day in class.

3-Work on Skills-So that when we get to our final piece we are prepared, beforehand you should practice working with the camera, editing software and creating the sound through foley.

4-Investigate-We should look at film openings from the genre that we have decided upon for research and look at successful student examples to get an idea of what quality ours should be. Also we should be aware of the titles and think about how our film can be original.

5-Brainstorm-To get all our ideas together in a group we should brainstorm and present short pitches, react to feedback given to you and remember to be realistic in your expectation.

6-Planning-Plan what props, costumes ect. that you might need and think about what risks might be involved in your filming. Also experiment with your shots and lighting so you can get the best one and we need to think about logistics.

7-The Shoot-Make sure to have everyone and everything in the right place at the right time, rehearsed and prepared to be directed by others and keep a record of the filming while you go.

8-Editing-Continue to take screen grabs for evidence on the computer of your editing, listen to feedback from others and make sure you clean up the sound, lighting and use more than just a song in the background.

9-Evaluation-Follow guiding questions and look in depth at your final piece.