Friday 22 October 2010

Costumes

The costumes for our characters are very important as it can help to portray their personalities, especially as we have no dialogue within our film. So the characters clothing, their actions and the way they are conveyed by the choice of camera shots and editing is the only way for our demograph to find out about our characters. Also, as we are having shots of Lucas and Grace together in different locations, they don’t necessarily need to be wearing the same clothes, so continuity with costumes will not be an issue here. However, we want to have a contrast in clothing between the successful Lucas and the family orientated Lucas, hence creating verisimilitude.

·        Successful Lucas – Suit to connote business man and professionalism and a strict/stern lifestyle which reflects why he gets quite stressed.
·        Family orientated Lucas – Casual clothes to reflect his laid back life.
·        Grace – Casual clothing to represent a care free life.
·        A “Will You Marry Me” T-Shirt – One of the scenes in the family orientated life shows Lucas proposing to Grace, however we didn’t want him to get down on one knee as we thought that was very cliché, therefore instead we have decided upon a unique idea whereby Lucas will undo his coat to show a t-shirt which reads: “Will You Marry Me”. Again, this way of proposing reflects how Lucas is quite a fun character, which will contrast how he is portrayed in the successful life.



Lucas - casual clothing - family orientated life

Grace - casual clothing


Permissions for Filming

We are filming our train station scene at Bournemouth Train Station and we needed to get permission from the Duty Manager. We thought that we may not be able to film at the train station, due to it being a public place and especially as safety is a main issue, however we are allowed to film there as long as we do so on off peak hours.

Wednesday 20 October 2010

Shooting Script

We have created a shooting script which also details the shots we are anticipating to capture and the specific dialogue and non-diegetic music which will occur within our short film. As you can see it states that there is no dialogue as we believe the footage alone will convey the plot of our film and by accompanying this with relevant non-diegetic music will help to build apprehension and suspense, hence keep our demograph interested. In our shooting script we have indicated quite vaguely “shots of Lucas and Grace at the beach”, this is because in our film we are planning to show a montage of different angled shots of our characters together on the beach, yet we did not specify all of them on the shooting script, as we will decide that upon filming. However, we are planning to get a wide range of footage with multiple shots from a variety of angles, hence will help to make the editing process easier, as we will have a greater choice of shots to choose from.

Scene
Shots
Shot description
Audio and dialogue
1
Sweeping panning shot through the crowded train station and establishing shot to show Lucas walking onto the train platform.
Diegetic sound of crowd and non-diegetic music.
2
Point of view shot from Lucas’ perspective as he moves through the crowd.
Diegetic sound of crowd and non-diegetic music.
3
Shot of Lucas’s feet running through the crowd, in fear he will miss the train.
Diegetic sound of crowd and non-diegetic music.
4
Mid shot of Grace walking along on train platform. Grace’s face in focus, whilst everything else is out of focus, signifying her importance.
Diegetic sound of crowd and non-diegetic music.
6
Over the shoulder shot of Lucas looking out into the crowd.
Diegetic sound of crowd and non-diegetic music.
7
Slow motion shot of the clock hand’s moving, emphasising its importance.
Diegetic sound of crowd and non-diegetic music.
8
Long shot of an empty train track, with the train approaching in the distance.
Diegetic sound of crowd and non-diegetic music.
9
Long shot of Lucas rushing through the crowd as the train pulls up.
Diegetic sound of crowd and non-diegetic music.
10
Close up of the train pulling up.
Diegetic sound of crowd and non-diegetic music.
11
Grace rushes forward and slips as her papers and bags go flying – match on action and slow motion. 
Diegetic sound of crowd and non-diegetic music.
12
Close up of Lucas’ reaction to Grace falling.
Diegetic sound of crowd and non-diegetic music.
12
Point of view pan between train and Grace on the floor, indicating how Lucas has a decision to make.
Diegetic sound of crowd and non-diegetic music.
10
Shot of Lucas on train platform, cuts to 2 ghost shots, one where he walks towards Grace and the other where he walks towards the train – representing the 2 different paths.  
Diegetic sound of crowd and non-diegetic music.
11
Close up of shaky hand, representing a job interview.
Non-diegetic music.
12
Establishing shot of Grace and Lucas at a romantic meal.
Non-diegetic music.
13
Mid-shot of Lucas on the phone in his office.
Non-diegetic music.
14
Establishing shot of Grace and Lucas on the beach together.
Non-diegetic music.
15
Shot of Lucas stressed out at work – unhappy.
Non-diegetic music.
16
Shot of Lucas proposing to Grace – happy.
Non-diegetic music.
17
Shot of Lucas in his mansion all on his own.
Non-diegetic music.
18
Shot of Lucas and Grace buying their first house together.
Non-diegetic music.
19
Split screen to show Lucas opening a letter in both lives.
Non-diegetic music.
20
Long shot of Lucas opening letter in his mansion all alone with no one to celebrate with. Long shot of Lucas opening letter with his wife. – Split Screen – contrasting the two lives.
Non-diegetic music.
21
Rewind time, back to Lucas standing on the train platform.
Non-diegetic music.
22
Close up of Lucas’ foot as he walks off - audience are left to wonder what path he has taken.
Non-diegetic music.

Storyboard/Animatic

Before we start filming we need to plan out the shots we intend to take, therefore making us more organised and efficient when we start filming. So, we have created a storyboard where we have drawn pictures of what footage we need to capture, indicating what will be shown on screen and underneath we have detailed the type of shots which are needed. We have decided to choose a variety of shots that connote different meanings and make it interesting for our demograph.

We have taken photos of each shot on our storyboard and I used Adobe Photoshop to crop and resize the photos before importing them into Adobe Premier Pro where I put together the images to create our Animatic. I also downloaded a piece of free music from the website http://www.jamendo.com/ to accompany our storyboard images and inserted transitional effects between them to make it more interesting. The non-diegetic music we chose conveys a sense of mystery which reflects a bit of the genre of our film, as the audience are left wondering which life Lucas will choose at the end of our film. We intend to follow our storyboard when we do our filming, however we understand that when we are filming we may come up with some new ideas of shots we like and may capture them to incorporate into our film.




Cropping Pictures using Adobe Photoshop

Searching for music on Jamendo website
Uploading pictures and music onto Adobe Premiere Pro to create our Animatic

Friday 1 October 2010

Characters

Our short film, only consists of 2 characters – Lucas and Grace. Lucas is being played by Jack Reynolds and Grace is being played by Aimee Richardson.  

Regarding characteristics of our protagonists, Lucas will have a different personality in the 2 different lives, as in the successful life he will portray feelings of being quite stressed and strained, whereas in the family orientated life he will be portrayed as being a much happier person. Grace will be conveyed as a happy person as well, indicating how she is the factor that makes Lucas’ life great and makes him happy too.


Our actors Jack Reynolds and Aimee Richardson playing Lucas and Grace

Locations

Our main location is a train station as this is where Lucas experiences these flash forwards of the two different lives that he could live. Our other locations include a mansion where the successful Lucas would live and a normal house where the family orientated Lucas would live. We are going to have shots of Lucas and Grace together in different locations for example: the beach, a park, and the forest, connoting how they are getting on well together and how he is happy even though he didn’t get the job promotion. This will contrast with the wealthy Lucas, as he will be seen at work all the time and by himself alone.


Locations:
·       Train Station
·       Mansion
·       Normal house
·       Restaurant
·       Beach
·       Park
·       Forest
·       Office


Bournemouth Train Station
Bournemouth Train Station
Location of Bournemouth Train Station
 

Bournemouth Beach



Bournemouth Beach
 
Bournemouth Beach Location

Wealthy Life House

Wealthy Life Location


Lucas' first housing location

Grace and Lucas' housing location

Script

We have written our script for our short film. We have not included any dialogue within our film, because we don’t think it is necessary, as we feel just having our video footage, accompanied by relevant non-diegetic music would be more effective and engage the audience more. In our script, the writing in italics represents the shots that we are going to have which reflect the successful life Lucas will live if he chooses to get on the train, whereas the normal font replicates the life that revolves around family.

We have decided that we may add a voiceover to our film when we come to edit it, if we feel that it does not make sense for the audience.

Therefore, now that our script has been written, we are now planning our storyboard and our shooting script so we are prepared for when we come to shoot our film.