Letters of Acceptance

A letter of acceptance is a written communication between a home/location owner and actors with the production company of the film. It normally confirms details of the rights to film on selected locations and also the acknowledgement by the actors of what the film entails and how it will be distributed.

Storyboard (modified)

These are the newly modified storyboards as changes to the screenplay were made.

Prop Research

For our film opening many props are needed to give each scene a sense of validity. Props can vary in size. From something huge and expensive like a car to something as small as an item of food. Without props the film would not flow as well as it  potentially could. For this task we need to write our props list as we write our screenplay to make sure we do not miss anything as some of the props (bracelets) we need to buy and we only have a short period of time in which to buy all of the necessary props. It is very important to get the right props as it could make the shot or scene look jarring if they were incorrect. For example, if a wealthy person drove a cheap/damaged car.

Prop list:
1. Two phones.
2. Three matching bracelets.
3. One laptop.
4. Male shirt.

Mcguffin: In fiction, a mcguffin is a plot device in the form of some goal, desired object, or other motivator that the protagonist pursues, often with little or no narrative explanation. The specific nature of a mcguffin is typically unimportant to the overall plot. For example, like the feather in Forest Gump. In our film opening the bracelets represent the mcguffin.

Location Research

Researching locations for the film opening task is a relatively important element of pre-production as the right location makes it possible to achieve the look and feel you want your film to obtain. We only need two very contrasting rooms in our film opening. One will be used for Daniel's university room (give off the impression he is far away). This room needs to be modern, minimalistic and look like a typical working room with a desk and chair (right picture). The second room will be used as Phoebe's 'girly' room (give off the impression she is naive. This room needs to have lots going on in terms of posters and character to make it look like a typical girls room (left picture). We have decided to film at my house because I had both of these rooms. My bedroom will be used to portray Phoebe's room because it was slightly messy and also had lots of posters on the wall, which gave it a sense of character. I also said that we could use my Stepdad's study as Daniel's university room as it is minimalistic and has a desk that we can place the laptop on that he will use within the film opening.

My house is also a good location because there are lots of places in which we can take establishing shots. For example, the gate that leads to my front door and the big stair case that Phoebe will walk up as we introduce her as a character.

We have to take into account that we will need to carry all of the equipment so by making the location my house, which is very local to everyone, means that people will not need to drag equipment round for miles. Another factor we need to take into account will be our travel budget. We do not want to spend loads of money on travelling. By having a local location kept transport costs at a minimum.

Costume Research

Due to the fact that one of our main characters (Daniel) is a university student, we want to dress him in clothes that a stereotypical student would wear so that the age of our character is clear to the audience. Our other main character (Phoebe) is only a year or so younger than Daniel she also needs to be dressed in stereotypical clothes. Costume not only helps the audience find our what age the characters are but also the time in which the film is set, e.g. modern day or periodic.

We have decided to dress Phoebe in a big grey sweater to reinforce the stereotype that young people of this generation are often depressed/sluggish. She knows her boyfriend is acting strange towards her and so naturally she will feel down. The fact that much of her upper-torso will be concealed also emphasizes she may be insecure or worried about the stability of their relationship or perhaps herself. She will also be wearing jeans (a stereotypical item of clothing young people wear).

We have decided to dress Daniel similarly. He will be wearing a black V-neck T-shirt. This is not only stereotypical but again shows that he may be depressed or concerned as perhaps his guilty conscious is catching up with him.

Alexandra's costume will be harder to find as we need an over sized shirt. The reason she is wearing this is because we need the audience to know that Daniel is cheating on his girlfriend with this mystery woman. By Alexandra wearing (one of Daniel's shirts) it shows that he has not been faithful and has another woman in his life.

All three characters wear the same bracelet:

- Daniel (black)

- Phoebe (pink)

- Alexandra (blue)

The matching bracelets show the link between the characters and also we want to make it look like Daniel has given them to each of the girls and to really influence how untrustworthy his character actually is. The bracelets will have the infinity symbol on them, which means limitless or endless. The use of these particular bracelets shows the intensity of the damaged relationship because it is clear that the love between the characters is not endless.

Actor Research

This is one of the hardest decisions to make during the research process as it is vital we choose the right actors to fit the character roles. If the actor does not fit the criteria, it could give the film opening a jarring feel to it. Our film opening is based on a newspaper article so we have complete freedom as to what we want our actors to look like as there is no 'character' to go by. We know that our close friend Phoebe has an interest in drama and achieved an A* grade at GCSE. She is an obvious choice for the lead female role. The leading male role takes the most amount of thinking and decision making because it is the most important role. We have started thinking about male actor options and have decided a friend of ours would fit the bill as we know he has an interest in drama and has also been in school productions at his secondary school. For the second female role (the woman Daniel is cheating with) does not need to be thought about very carefully because we know you will not see her face (enigma element) and she only had a very short line. This means that this role will be the last role to be cast and we just need to ask one of our other female friends who will be free at the time. We will organise all the actor roles and filming times before we break up for February half-term so that when we come back to school everything will be sorted for the day of filming and we will not need to worry about it during the break.

Shot List

Shot list: A full log of all the shots you want to include in your film. Essentially it is a checklist filled with details that will give your film a sense of direction and efficiency.

1. Establishing shot of house.
2. Close-up shot of Phoebe opening the gate to house.
3. Medium-wide-shot of Phoebe opening the door and taking off her bag and coat.
4. Birds-eye-view long-shot of Phoebe walking up the stairs.
5. Panning shot of Phoebe walking and sitting down in her bedroom.
6. Over the shoulder shot of the phone ringing.
7. Close-up shot of Dan answering the phone.
8. Medium close-up of the entire phone call conversation.
9. Panning shot upwards as Alex enters the room.

Storyboard

Storyboard: A sequence of drawings, typically with some directions and dialogue, representing the shots planned for a film or television production.

What is the purpose of a storyboard? To organise the images to be displayed in a sequence for a motion picture, animation, or interactive media sequence. Storyboards make it easier for the editor to know what order the clips should be shown in.

Screenplay

Fade In:

There is an establishing shot of the outside of a house. The camera acts like a person and walks into the house. Once inside, the camera walks upstairs and comes to a stop inside a girl’s room. There is a panning shot of the room. The girl is sitting on her bed, a phone vibration is heard, camera zooms into the phone. Diegetic noise.

Phoebe

Good morning baby, how are you?

Daniel

Morning. I’m good. I miss you.

Phoebe

I miss you too. How long is it until you’re back home?

Daniel

UH, four weeks if I can get home.

Phoebe

(More serious tone – emotionally desperate)

Please don’t cancel again, I haven’t seen you in like two months.

Phoebe is seen sitting on her bed surrounded by books whilst Dan can be seen at his desk on his laptop typing.

Daniel

(Reassuring tone)

I won’t cancel on you again. I promise.

Phoebe

Go-

Daniel

Look babe I have to go I have stuff to do. I’ll talk to you later.

Phoebe

(Sad tone, emotionally drained)

Okay. I love you.

Daniel

(Dismissive tone)

Yeah, yeah love you too.

A girl is seen to be entering. Her face is not shown. She comes to a stop and rests her hands on his shoulders. The camera s positioned on Dan’s desk and can see them front on. The camera pans up to reveal his face. He has a guilty expression. 

Mystery Girl (Alexandra)

Was that her?

Fade Out:

The End

Film Treatment

Synopsis: The story revolves around the long distance relationship between Phoebe and her boyfriend. The idea is based upon an article on how long distance relationships are destined to fail, mostly because the boyfriend/girlfriend that is away usually cheats on their partner back home. http://www.mirror.co.uk/lifestyle/sex-relationships/relationships/dear-coleen-cheated-long-distance-girlfriend-6008900 Throughout the film opening, it is revealed that the boy is cheating on Phoebe all whilst pretending that their relationship couldn't be more perfect. The film is based upon Phoebe's discovery of her boyfriend's double life and her journey throughout the process of moving forward.

File Title: "Distance"

Production Company's Name: "Fair Oaks Productions"

Roles:
- Director (Katy Wealleans)
- Assistant Director (Bonnie Bidgood)
- Production Manager (Grace Weston-Davies)
- Camera Man (Alice Greengrass)

Characters:
- Girlfriend (Phoebe Una Train)
- Boyfriend (Daniel Henshaw)
- Other Girl (Alexandra North)

Costumes: Generic outfits for both girlfriend and boyfriend. For the girl of whom Daniel is cheating with, she needs to wear an oversized shirt.

Setting: The setting we have chosen is the simplicity of two contrasting rooms. We have chosen this as an appropriate location because it is able to show the stark contrast and distance between the couple.

Props:
- Two phones
- Three matching bracelets
- Laptop
- Male shirt

Sound:
- Diegetic sound = dialog and various sounds such as the laptop keyboard taps.
- Non-diegetic sound = Soundtrack to move the narrative along and make the film flow a lot better.

http://www.bensound.com/royalty-free-music/3 (Tomorrow song)

Lighting: Natural lighting will be key throughout the piece, however, a desk lamp will be used in the boyfriend's scene.

How Research Will Inform Planning

Our research will inform planning in numerous ways. Our primary research (focus group and audience profile information) that we conducted, helped us to decide what our target audience was going to be (15-25). Our primary research also helped us identify whether or not our target audience enjoyed the genre (romance) that we wanted to base our film opening around. When it came to our secondary research (real media artefact, typography and BFI information on Box Office trends) it showed that the genre 'Romance' was not particularly popular, but we concluded this was due to the lack of releases last year (2014). We decided to continue with our chosen genre, even with it's low ranking on Box Office figures, because some of our focus group members like romantic films. We also had confidence in our own ideas.

The research into real media artefacts and typography has helped us inform our planning by noting down key connotations of films situated in the 'Romance' genre, which we can then use in our own film opening. These key conventions of romance will give our film a more professional and well thought out feel to it. It is also easy for the audience to guess what genre the film opening falls into as the key conventions shown in the short two minutes of film will be familiar to them.

The research into Typography has helped us identify and establish what type of typography is commonly used in romance films, thus helping us chose an effective font for our film opening. We noticed that most romantic films use bold fonts with block colours and capital letters, therefore we installed this in our own film opening to make it easier for the audience to figure out which genre this film opening falls into. 'Love Actually' uses block colours and bold fonts to express the genre of the film and this secondary research (analysis of real media artefact) helped us to express the genre of our film opening.

How does music impact film?

Music is a powerful guide to what is happening in the scene. Music within film can set the mood of a particular scene and can introduce important elements of the plot. It also gives the film itself a character and can also inform the audience of the time period in which the film is set. Music is also used within film to make scenes more interesting, rather than just having dialect, diegetic sounds or sound effects. It has also been proven that music has a profound effect on the viewers' emotions and therefore Music Supervisors need to chose songs or produce soundtracks that will provoke the right emotion from the audience in correspondence to what is going on in the scene. For example, if a well liked character dies you would chose a thoughtful/sad song that makes the audience cry or feel upset. Therefore, a successful film should not lack music.

In our film opening we needed thoughtful music but not a song that is particularly sad as that is not the purpose of our film opening. We also did not want the song to be overly 'romantic'. Even though our genre is 'romance' there is also a twist and an element of drama, so a romantic song would not suit the film opening we created. We used a website called 'Bensound' (suggested by one of our classmates).

http://www.bensound.com/royalty-free-music

As we explored the various pages of songs we came across a song called 'Tomorrow'. After playing this song and playing our film opening together we realised this song fitted our film opening perfectly and so we downloaded it and transferred it into Final Cut Pro. We also investigated what rights we had to this piece of music and according to the website as long as we give Bensound credit for the song we can use it free of charge.

Planning: Ideas

Before we were set the task of creating a film opening, our teacher gave us time to collaborate in groups and discuss ideas as to what type of film openings we could shoot. We placed all the ideas that were writen on paper in an 'ideas jar' and people from the media department were able to take note of these ideas and develop them furthur.

Some of the ideas put forward by my group:

1. Someone being arrested for an unknown crime (enigma).

2. Child comes home from school to find out that dad has commit sucicide.

3. Cyber bullying.

4. Park, lonely teenager, walking with lots of baggage.

5. Deserted town with empty swing set.  

6. Camera panning through a hospital, focus on one patient in a bed.

7. Eating disorder.