Research and Planning: Titles/Credits research.

During research for title's and opening credits for our film opening, we watched a variety of film openings; yet they were not much help because they were too over the top than what we wanted. We wanted to portray a more simplistic mood with titles that fade in and out with a basic but striking font. We came across the 'Man Of Steel' opening credits. The credits are very simplistic and flow well, so for our own film opening, we used these credits as inspiration to pursue what we wanted to achieve through our titles and credits. We also analysed the order in which the production company name appeared and when the actors' name's appeared so we could get an idea of how to structure our own credits/titles. The 'Man Of Steel' credits also had a variety of different shots in which they displayed different credits on which is similar to my groups idea. However, in the 'Man Of Steel' credits, the title of the film appears at the end of the opening sequence, but we cannot do that as we are only making the opening of a film and if we did put the title at the end of our opening it would look similar to a trailer which is not what we are intending to show.

Here you can see that the visuals are changing each time someone's name comes up in the credits.

Here is the 'Man Of Steel' opening:

Research and Planning: Music

We did some research in to different film soundtracks and what kind of soundtrack would best suit our film opening. We decided that we wanted a slow paced piece of music without any vocals in it. As we were researching, we came across a piece of soundtrack called 'On Thin Ice' from 'The Dark Knight Rises' official movie soundtrack. It fitted in perfectly with our opening. However, we were not able to get permission to use this in our film opening. We had to find an alternative piece of soundtrack. Our teachers informed us on a website (Moby Gratis) which had a variety of different music and which we were allowed to use for free; the link for the website is http://www.mobygratis.com/ . Although the music was free, we still had to wait 24 hours to get our license to download the track, therefore we ensured that we did this before the first cut deadline. Here is a link to the piece of music we decided to use which is called 'Live Forever' which is full of enigma :

http://www.mobygratis.com/catalog?title=live+forever&field_album_tid=All&field_instrument_tid=All&field_tempo_tid=All&field_type_tid=All&field_mood_tid=All&field_genre_tid=All&=Search

Here is a link to 'On Thin Ice':

Research and Planning: Location

Here are some photographs of the location of our film opening. We chose this location because it is isolated and has a mysterious feel to it due to there being nobody else around. It adds to the mood of loneliness and feeling lost which links to the character Crystal and how she constanly feels this way emotionally and physically in the opening and throughout the rest of the film.

 

 

 

Research and Planning: Model example of script/screenplay

http://www.imsdb.com/scripts/Twilight.html

In order to get an idea of how to write a screenplay we did some research in to film scripts. We used the Twilight script to guide us on what type of things are required for our screenplay.

Research and planning: Screenplay

BLACK SCREEN (non-diegetic music)

STRAIGHT CUT (non-diegetic music)

EXT. Jubilee River - DAY

Sunlight is reflecting on the river, silhouette of trees, sun in the sky

Tree tops with sky

Vanishing point of bridge 

White  sunlight glowing through the leaves with river in the background 

CRYSTAL 

Hand lying on grass with sun glistening on bracelet 

Flashback/vision of bracelet being handed to Crystal (black and white format)
 
Eyes flickering with confusionFlashback/vision of her sister on the bridge 

Gradually getting up from the ground unstably near the river and bridge

Feet stumble on wet grass 

Hand in hair, looking around dazed with disorientation 

Walking towards the broken fence and climbing over, puzzled of her previous actions 

CRYSTAL POV

Walking away, looking around, quick glance at bridge 

Walks on to bridge and walks away.

Research and Planning: Test shots.

As a group, we went to the location of where our film opening is going to be set. We used the schools iPad and my iPhone to practice shooting different types of shots that we may use for our actual film opening. It helped us a lot to visualize what we want. Doing practice shots, has given us an insight for preparing for the actual filming day. Now we can plan exactly what we need to do without wasting time or shots.

Research and planning: New film synopsis

A girl wakes up at an unknown location confused.

A 16 year old girl suffers from amnesia after being involved in a tragic accident. Her parents died in the car crash, due to the impact of the accident it resulted in her to suffer from amnesia. The girl is always confused and unsure of what she is doing. She now lives with her aunt who works long night shifts as she is a nurse. She is drawn to this bridge location frequently as she keeps seeing visions of her sister who committed suicide at the bridge. The girl does not have much knowledge of her sister due to her condition but learns more about him everyday through her aunt and the visions she has. Her sister gave her a bracelet which she does not know the full meaning of, but she feels complete and significant with it.  Her aunt is concerned about her, therefore she recommends her to see a therapist to help her out with her memory. As time goes on, her memory starts to improve however, when she goes back to school she wanders off  with frustration and ends up hurting herself. As a result of hurting herself, she wakes up in hospital confused, not remembering the previous events that occurred. At the hospital she is put through some brain tests but the doctors are unable to diagnose her with anything but give her some medication anyway and advises her to continue on with her therapy sessions. The more time goes by, her memory deteriorates even more, she feels empty as there is nothing in her life to live for and she feels like she is dying inside. Due to the pain of seeing the frequent visions of her sister, it drives her to commit suicide at the bridge like her sister did.