Location Location Location

In order for us to find an appropriate location for our film we had to try and think of places we knew where we could pay as little as possible but get an effective setting for our movie. Idealisticly we didn't want to pay any money for our location but we still wanted it to look good so we tried to think of someone we knew that would let us use their little girl's bedroom (as this is where our story begins). The first place we thought of was to go to one of our bedrooms, as all three members in my group were girls but when we looked at each of the rooms they didn't have the stereotypical 'princess' feel that we really wanted in our movie. With this in mind we decided that the best place we should shoot would be to travel up to Georgia's dads house and use her little sisters bedroom becuase along with the fact that it was the most suitable for our movie and would look like a little girls bedroom beause it was one, it would also be the place she would feel most comfortable and therefor give the most natural acting during the filming. (Top right corner - Georgia's dads house front on, Below it - little girls room)

Then when we had this we had to decide on an appropriate outside area we could use as our card flying around bit. After much deliberation we tried out two different areas; a grassy field and the middle of town where there were lots of people. The first shots we tried out on the field didn't look very effective, mainly due to the fact that it didn't look as though he was special in any way, it just looked like the card had accidently landed on him instead of having to pass other people to get to him. This was not the effects we were trying to aim for so we tried it in town and this was a lot more successful! It gave the impression that both the card and the character were special and that the card had magical/mythical powers to it.

Main Task Shotlist

The shots that we will use throughout our opening will be:

• Establishing shot of a house to set the scene and show our first location.

• Close up of fairy tale book 

• Mid shot of little girl picking up book (do not see face yet for enigma)

• Panning shot taken with the camera on the floor following the girls footsteps to her bed

• Mid shot from the end of the bed showing the little girl and her father reading the book

• Also a mid high angle shot of them reading a story to show their facial expressions better

• Panning shot from bed to card on the floor

• McGuffin of playing card floating in the wind 

• Some sort of establishing shot in order to show the new location

• Mid shot (not showing face) of card hitting character

• Point of view from character looking at card

Whilst we were in the process of thinking about the different shots we wanted to use in our movie, we also decided to try out some of the different focusing techniques we could try out on the new camera. We adjusted the focus so we got sharp and soft shots from different distances and came to the conclusion that this would be a good effect to use in our piece. We decided that this could be a device we could utilise when we have the card on the floor in the little girls room, just before the transition forward in time, so it starts as an enigma but we then focus on
the card. Beside are some of the practice shots we got in order to test out how the focus works...

What to Wear...

When we looked at our costume we wanted to try and make it as stereotypical as possible so the audience could identify with the characters quickly and easily. With this in mind we thought we should make sure to put the little girl in very girly, pink clothes to show she was the typical 'princess' figure that she was meant to be representing. We also decided that she should be in pj's in order to give a 'real' impression of what bedtime for a little girl would be like and that she should also have pink socks on, just due to the fact she was meant to be your typical little girl. We then had to arrange what her dad should wear in order for him to stereotypically represent what a father should look like. We decided that plain and comfortable was how we wanted to make him look, asking him to dress in a t shirt and jeans to show that he was relaxed and in a normal environment where he was comfortable.

Then for the second half of our clip, we needed to have a 'hero' figure. We used the idea that this was just going to be a stereotypical teenage boy, normally walking down the street. After trying this out on camera and looking at further research into it, we decided that this wasn't how we wanted our main character to be represented and that these clothes didn't get across the idea that he was going to be the hero at the end of the film. With this in mind, we changed the outfit so he was in a shirt and tie with smart chinos on which instantly changed the meaning of the character and him look more like the 'hero' we wanted in our piece.

Props Galore

The main prop we use throughout our opening is an ace of spades playing card which is incorporated into our film by the technique of being our McGuffin. Our original idea was to, instead of using a playing card, to use a death tarot card to get across from the start that this was going to be a dark movie. However when we looked at what we could realistically achieve, we realised that it was going to be hard to get a tarot card as we had no idea where to get one from and also some members of my group where concerned about the superstitions that are behind a death card. So I decided to research if there were any other cards we could use in order to subtly imply the idea that death was coming and found that the ace of spades was the perfect card. According to websites such as wikipedia this card is the 'death card' in the pack and so we decided that this would be a more suitable object to use.

We then had to look at how we were going to get the card to 'fly' around the screen in the typical McGuffin style. We decided that the most effective and cheapest way we could do this was to use a bit of fishing wire, as it is so thin that the camera was not able to pick it up. We first tried this by attaching it to the card with sellotape and lying it on the floor so we could drag it around the grass. After looking back over the shots we had taken of this we decided that it wasn't very good because you could still see the wire in the grass so we had to have a rethink. This resulted in us changing from not going along the floor but so we held the card in the air to create the feeling of flying, like in Forrest Gump. This worked a lot better and is the idea that we finally used in our opening.

Another prop that was quite vital to the making of our film was the fairytale book that we used at the beginning of our film. The story being read was going to reflect what was happening later in the film so we needed to get an appropriate book to show this. The book we decided on was one that had actually belonged to Georgia's stepmum so it looked appropriately old (as the book in the movie was meant to come from her Grandma) and fitted the criteria by being an authentic-looking fairytale.

These were our 3 main props but of course we did use others; including a teddy bear to make the idea that it was a little girls room more real and by making the 'hero' in our story wear a suit it got this idea that he was different across to the audience.

Treatment and Vladimir Propp's theory

Here is our treatment which we all talked about together but I ultimately had creative control over. It took me some time to try and decide what we wanted to actually happen at the end of our film but after careful deliberation I decided on the story described in the picture (quite a confusing story but I hope you enjoy!)

Pitch

This is the video for our pitch where we talk about the opening and how we are planning to do the rest of our film, show our storyboard and talk you through our screenplay!

storyboards