Things to do before shooting

You should now be well underway in the planning stage of your coursework. The vast majority of you appear to have done some solid research into genre openings (both your own and the class teacher's); most people appear to have written their treatments; every group appears to have two storyboards (one for the whole movie and one for the opening two minutes) and you are now ready to move onto the next stages of planning.

Script

You should now draft a script for that opening section. If you need help on the layout for your script, you should look at, and follow, the format from this website

Remember, it is just a script for the opening two minutes. We don't have time to write a full script. It's not Hollywood, baby!

Shot List

After you have a script, you should have a Shot List. You can find it here in the resources folder on the school network:

R:\SUBJECTS\English\AS media\OCR AS Media\FoundationPortfolio Coursework

You need to list all the different shots you will use in the two minute section. List them in the order in which they will come in the film (they may not be shot in that order!). You need to fill in the duration of each shot; the cast who will be in the shot (sometimes there may not be any cast); the camera angle used for the shot; and also any movements of the camera that happen in that shot. The notes are any additional information that you think proves relevant.

If you need a copy, please save it into your H drive or onto a memory stick.

Shooting schedule

This is a plan for when you will shoot things. You can see an example here

Remember, you may not shoot your opening sequence in chronological order, as you may not have the necessary costumes for the first part, or you may not be able to shoot at the specific setting, or you may not have certain actors early in your shoot. You need to decide what will make sense to shoot first and why.

If you have a look at Principal photography on The Lord of the Rings movies you can see that in the shooting schedule, "The first scene filmed was the Wooded Road sequence where the Hobbits hide underneath the tree from a Ringwraith."

Again, you can find a template for the shooting schedule in:

R:\SUBJECTS\English\AS media\OCR AS Media\FoundationPortfolio Coursework

Yet more planning

You will also need to do some planning on:

Costume design/inventory
Camera maps
Set design/location list

You may want to use the internet to find some appropriate formats for the above. I think you've been given enough pointers!

Get planning folks.

Gull Rider - example treatment

This is just an example of the first part of a treatment. You will need to ensure that your full treatment tells the whole story.

A group of children are transported to another world. They are caught up in a struggle for the control of the kingdom and along the way they pick up some very special skills.

In a dusty attic of their new home, two young children are rummaging through the boxes from the move when they come across a magic bracelet. After deciphering the clue written on the bracelet, a door opens in the air, they walk through and transport to the magical kingdom of Haperion.

We see a King sitting on a throne, surrounded by advisers and courtiers. Each of whom are intent on putting their view across about the war. Some are urging a truce with the enemy, others are urging all out war to crush the rebellion. The King sits head in hand as if waiting for some sort of divine inspiration.

This scene is cut with another scene where we jump to a scene in the rebel castle where the King's brother (the true heir to the throne) is planning a full scale assault on his kingdom. The people here are more belligerent and demanding the Prince regain his birthright.

We cut back to the two children who have been left up on a cliff overlooking a torrid sea. The magic door has closed and the children are about to set off when people riding on gulls appear in the sky. They swoop down and surround the children, who are quite obviously afraid. The gull-riders are from the King's army and have been sent to secure the borders against incursions from the rebels.

After pressing the terrified children for information, they decide to take them back to the King. The King, puzzled by their nature and clothing, sees them as the key to the war aginst the rebels. He is convinced that the boys can summon a portal, using the bracelet, to dump the rebels into. Failing that, he wants the boys to bring weapons from their world to wipe out the rebels.

The King decides the boys must prove their mettle. They are dispatched (after a prolonged debate) to the rebel fortress to re-capture the King's sceptre, which is locked in a deep dark dungeon.

We cut to the boys who have been introduced to their gulls for the journey. They are packing and strapping equipment to a saddle on each gull. They are discussing the quest when one gull turns around and starts talking. The two boys jump as they did not realise until now that the gulls were capable of speech. The gull laughs at the boy's and dismisses their chances on the message. They finish packing and one of the boys keeps bickering with the gull...

Film Treatments

Film Treatments turn ideas into a synopsis of the action. They are usually about 5-15pages long and are, essentially, a summary of the story told in present tense prose.

The first part of writing a treatment (in my opinion) is to try to make sure you have a clear three part structure for your film (Set-up, conflict, resolution). This will give you a clear through line for your story to follow and should help you frame each part in further detail. You don't always have to have a three part structure but let's walk before we can run eh?

Then I would storyboard the main beats/scenes/episodes of the movie that are crucial to understanding the movie's action as a whole. It is not necessary to use camera angles in the panel's at this stage. Leave that for your two minute piece!

Your treatment should:

take the reader through the story of the film. It must bring across the characters and events as they will appear in the film.

not give more information than the audience of the film will have.
go through each sequence, but does not have to contain every scene.

come to about 10 pages for a 90 minute feature film (double spaced, 12 pt arial font)

Be separated into acts and sequences (with titles) if it helps.

A treatment sells the film to both creative and financial minds, therefore it must:

grip the reader in the first line of the first page.

make the reader want to turn to the next page at the end of every page.

move the action forward and not linger on descriptions



You should have a look at the following websites.

This one explains the nature of a treatment:

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Movie_Making_Manual/Treatments

This one gives an example Treatment. Look at the style:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/4089756/Film-Treatment


I think you should aim for about a five page treatment. It ain't Hollywood baby!

List of Ashfield Media Bloggers

Here's who's set up a Media coursework blog so far:

GBB/TAB's class

fraser-welsh.blogspot.com
thomasgambleasmedia.blogspot.com
buttscrather.blogspot.com (Nathan Staples)
liamthomsonasmedia.blogspot.com
lauraestropasmedia.blogspot.com
sarahchambersasmedia.blogspot.com
dcasmedia.blogspot.com (Daniel Carnell)
cawfeedawgs.blogspot.com (Matt Housley)
helloelizabethrogers.blogspot.com
daukintismediawork.blogspot.com
kendallleaperasmedia.blogspot.com
steviewilliamsmedia.blogspot.com
tomfoxasmedia.blogspot.com
nicksfunkycoursework.blogspot.com (Nick Parish)
oneshotscott-idontlikeblogs.blogspot.com (Scott Haywood)
samhynd-samsmediacoursework.blogspot.com

GBB/HDN's class
hayleylovex.blogpost.com (Hayley Bignall)
emilyscoursework.blogspot.com (Emily Bacon)
evakincw.blogspot.com (Eve Deakin)
coopmas.blogspot.com (Charlotte Cooper)
carissaleightonsmediacoursework.blogspot.com
musicalkaratekid.blogspot.com (Robert Davis)
wonderwomansmediablog.blogspot.com (Charlotte Pell)
jessmediacoursework.blogspot.com (Jess Brunt)

Some further information about Research, planning and evaluation

Your documentation should be broken down into three stages:

Research: what have you have found out conventions/codes/techniques/genres and how will that help inform your planning.


Planning: Document and explain what you have done in preparing your piece. Camera maps, shooting schedules, storyboards etc. should be included in here. It may even be an idea to take a digital photo of some of them so you can upload them for the examiner.

As well as these types of things I think you should include snip-its from the two minute section at various stages of the editing process. That way you can make clear what you need to improve in the scene and how you are planning on achieving that improvement.

Evaluation: You will need to also detail your final thoughts on the project on the blog as well.


Breakdown of the marks

60/100 – How good is the final piece
20/100 – planning and research
20/100 - electronic evaluation

All work can be presented as a group but the class teacher marks individual contributions.

Example of Production documentation - day one

You might want to check out the student blogs on: http://reniermedia.wordpress.com/ocr-as-media-harlow-college-blogs-for-foundation-portfolio/

The individual blogs might give you some ideas on what kind of things you should include. I can't stand over how good they are though!

Below you can find an example of a the opening production post on a student blog.

Today we were given the brief for this project. This was to make our own music video for an existing song, or one which we have produced ourselves. We were all given laptops and DVD’s with previous students work on. There were a few varied videos - some good, some not so good. It was great to learn the limits of the available equipment. At this point we also had decide who we were going to work with. An old partnership was reformed with Mike Lamb and Alex Ritch working together again.

He ended up with a C grade overall.

Woman In Black - Thriller suspense analysis and research

Here's some example research that is illuminating my planning. Don't know what's happened to the size of the letters below!

The film opening begins directly with the titles. The media language immediately tells the audience they are watching a thriller. The titles are very simplistic with a black background and simple block font, in a an off-white colour. The letters appear to have little chunks missing out of them. Also, at some points more noticeable than others, there is a visible black shadow/cloud effect moving across the words on screen. The imperfect font connotes imperfection; something wrong, as does the off-white colour. The black background together with the shadows connote fear. This will be immediately recognisable to the audience as iconography associated with the thriller genre.

I think that there are some characteristic elements that would be useful in the start of another movie. The iconographic use of cloud could be a useful background to some of the action in the start of our film. It should be relatively easy to shoot on a overcast and gloomy day to ramp up the threat level from the very start.

Posting videos

Is easy. All you have to do is click on the film reel logo when you are posting. What I would do is write a bit of commentary to go with the video (you know so you're evaluating as you go along!) and, hopefully, over the course of your project, you will be able to see the changes that have happened; you will have been able to show the examiner where your piece has progressed; and also you will have been constantly documenting your progress in two ways (text and film).

I've uploaded a video. This is for demonstration purposes only. It's not my coursework. I don't have any to do.

First post - Figuring things out

Whizzy Wow!

This is an example of a first post on a blog. As you go along, you will have to log in regularly and write up your coursework research, planning, production and evaluations.

Despite the fact that you are working in groups (usually!) you will need to set up your own blog on Blogpost and write up things individually.

You must (once you have logged in and started your blog) tell your teacher your blog web address. We will pass that onto OCR straight away so they can see your blog's progress. Everytime you log in and write something, the time and date is logged so we (and they!) will be able to track who is writing what and when. This should help us identify any copying as well so BEWARE (SOMEONE IS ALWAYS WATCHING!!!!!!)!

You should be able to comment on each other's blogs as well but ONLY CONSTRUCTIVE SENSIBLE FEEDBACK is allowed. Any thing less than MATURE will be treated as grounds for discipline and you may be marked down or even barred from completing your coursework. The idea is to comment on each other's work, say what you liked, what you think needs changing or anything else you have noticed or spotted.

As well as this, we would encourage you to upload clips of video so you can comment on the visual side of the production.

So long, and keep blogging.