Full Shot List...

The shot list was written up with filming schedule in mind. We later had to split the shot list into two shots on separate days due to time constraints. All shots where location was critical were filmed on location at Paddington Station, whilst close up shots were filmed a day or two later.

• Shot 26 - Over the shoulder shot across platform to Isaac 
• Shot 9 - Soft focus crowds, Isaac amongst them 
• EXTERNAL SHOTS -Shot 1 - Paddington exterior establishing shots 
• Shot 2 - Long shot of stairs 
• Shot 3 - Long shot of crowds with focus line 
• Shot 4 - Ari in crowds, bumped by passer by 
• Shot 5 - Mid-shot of feet, Ari picks up papers 
• Shot 7 - Cut shot of Ari refilling bag, lower body 
• Shot 10 - Bridge, set up shot of platform, Ari in frame 
• Shot 11 - Mid-shot, Ari walking near platform edge 
• Shot 12 - Long shot, passing trains 
• Shot 13 - Low body shot, Ari should sit 
• Shot 15 - Pulling out papers still on bench 
• Shot 19 - Close up, Ari fiddles with hands 
• Shot 20 - Drops the map to the floor 
• Shot 6 - (could be filmed in conjunction with 5-8) 
• Shot 8 - Ari close up, head raises 
• Shot 14 - Over head shot of face 
• Shot 17 - Extreme close up of eye 
• Shot 18 - Extreme close up of mouth 
• Shot 16 - Map close up, Ari traces route 
• Shot 21 - Map lies on floor, long shot with focus on map 
• Shot 22 - Reaches to pick up map close up 
• Shot 23 - The drop shot 
• Shot 24 - Close up, extreme, water mixes with red ink 
• Shot 25 - Following water trail

After we had everything we needed on each day of filming, we allowed our selves to improvise around our ideas and to modify any we already had. We maintained throughout all our filming that it was better to have too many shots than not enough.

Finished Storyboard

Drawn by Cary, this is the full storyboard for our two minute opening, shot by shot.

Shots 1 -4

Shots 5 - 8

Shots 9 - 12

Shots 13 - 16

Shots 17 - 20

Shots 21 - 24

Shots 24 - 28

Researching Acting...

Through our many discussions as a group and researching various existing film openings, the other group members chose to cast me in the main role as Ariadne. This was for numerous reasons, one being that they believed I could understand her character motives and that I would be able to portray the character accurately.

One of the best ways that we have heard of that helps actors to portray the character to their best ability is method acting, in which the actor uses various different practises to get into the characters mind.

An example from film... The Iron Lady (2011) 
In preparation for her role as Britain's first woman prime minister Margaret Thatcher, actress Meryl Streep carried a bag similar to that of Thatchers with her before filming. In this bag, she placed items that she believed her character would have carried. By doing this, Streep effectively created a link between herself and the person she was portraying, trying to understand their motives and thought processes whilst also learning more about the person.

Of course, as I could already empathise with some of Ariadne's struggles as a character, I was able to pull from my own experiences and apply them to the way I portrayed her on screen. Costume and prop design worked intrinsically together to improve the verisimilitude of on screen character to on page/script. Although they were not essential to filming, we filled a bag with all the things that we thought she would carry with her to help me get into character: water bottles, some snacks, various different maps of London, the handwritten map and lots of scrap paper, covered in writing that showed her thoughts, escaping onto paper as they cannot escape her lips.

Key to our film is the use of voice over to convey the main characters thoughts as she cannot speak. This meant that body language and facial expression were at the forefront of how to act as Ari. Long looks to show frustration that she works hard to suppress, a sense of hopelessness at some points as well. This should definitely be evident in the close ups that we have of Ariadne fiddling with her hands in  nervous hesitancy or pushing back her hair when it gets to be too much. At times, we also had her tense up in fear, or contrastingly looking around frantically, skittish and wary of her surroundings even though she goes unnoticed by many around her. The constant switching of all these mixed emotions had to be clear to the audience and therefore, the acting could be somewhat exaggerated to a point to back up the voice over affectively.

Location Research

Location scouting  is crucial to the  pre-production of film. Not only are the location department required to match an ideal location to the visual image that the director and various other creative managers share, but it must also account for practical feasibility.
The process of location scouting generally involves a location department  that will communicate with the production department to find the right place for filming particular required scenes.
Location scouting is done through photography, research and visiting the chosen areas to ensure they are ideal for the film. The department then creates a short list of all the possible locations and allows other members of the film crew to decide on the best place place.


A little more about location scouting can be found here...
http://locationmanagers.org/lmga/2011/11/who-we-are-and-what-we-do-a-4-minute-video-about-location-managing/


When we were first exploring the possibilities of what we could do for a two minute opening, the idea which we had in mind already came with it's location of the Underground. Initially, we thought of this location because of it's visual impact on screen and from that we drafted what would eventually become our full narrative. We saw a girl sat in the corner of the station, dishevelled from running or being pursued. From that first idea we looked into shooting on the Underground and applied for the permit that gave us the permission to do so. It has been a long process to get the required permissions but hopefully one that will be worth the effort when it comes to the mise en scene of our film.


In the application for the permit, we summed up why we wanted to use the London Underground as our setting...

"Within this opening, we hope to capture to urban environment of the bustling London city and we believe that the London Underground is perfect for presenting this theme. The tube will appear in an audio-visual way on camera, appearing as our main setting for the opening of our narrative. The passing trains should add a sense of depth and urgency to the filming as well as providing atmospheric lighting. All of this is essential to our opening to present as much meaning as possible through visuals, given the fact that our main character does not speak. Our production group believed Paddington to be a good station to choose as it is a mainstream station, meaning crowds will be abundant and it is also easy to commute to being an central location. Further to this, the circle line platforms offer as a good mix of natural and darkened light, reflecting many aspects of our films plot and main characters struggles. The footage we can acquire from this shoot will depict our characters actions as her main thought process is shown through voice over. Therefore, the shots will match the monologue that is spoken by our character  The setting of the underground also works well with emphasizing how lost this character is compared to the moving world surrounding her. The great thing about filming in a station such as Paddington is the feeling that everyone seems to have a destination, contrasting to our lost protagonist, Ariadne, who is trying to discover hers."

After research, we considered three possible platforms to use on our shoot: Angel, Baker Street and Paddington. From previous experience we all decided that these were the underground stations that evoked the appropriate mood we needed for our footage due to the versatility of the lighting, crowds and layout of the stations. Initially, we thought that Baker Street would be most ideal due to the low lighting that brought to mind a sense of isolation and also had more of a cinematic feel, but after more consideration we were reminded that Ariadne is meant to be presented as a very quiet character, shown through her contrast the the London crowds. We thought that of all three stations Paddington would be the most crowd-filled there is, not to mention well-known, therefore the viewer would identify the location more so than the others. We ruled out Angel because although it had the right atmosphere, it lacked the opposing platforms needed for a crucial set of over the shoulder shots between our main characters. Our final decision was to film on platforms one and two of the London Underground at Paddington, as they retained some of the architectural features of Baker Street with opposing platforms and also should provide us with more crowds and cinematic presence..

Angel:

Baker street: 

London Paddington:

Props Research

Props are often an essential part of a films mise en scene and can sometimes also be part of a characters representation or plot. In the film industry, special care is taken to get props looking as authentic as possible to make the film world easier to get pulled into.

We decided to use a minimal amount of props for two main reasons: firstly, as our character was technically on the run, we thought she would only carry the essentials with her. And secondly, there was only so much we could take to filming due to practicle reasons. We had two main props that we included for a reason, so as to save on the ammount we had to carry and also to focus the audience more on these things.

The bag was not only a key part of costume but also as a stand alone prop. Discussed in my post on acting earlier, with Meryl Streeps portrayal of Margaret Thatcher, the bag was also important to showing who Ariadne was as a character.
The bag was filled with more props - many sheets of paper filled to the brim with writing which echoed her thoughts. It was meant to symbolise her way of getting all the thoughts trapped inside her unspeaking mind and how they escaped. The way in which people can see and understand her state of mind through film. The bag also contained essentials for living, such as a little money,
                                                      some snacks and water.



In our opening two minutes, we use a map blank of names, a rough out line of London, as a McGuffin. This sparked a sense of enigma in our film, raising questions that the audience will hopefully want answered. The map has red dots placed on it, and pencil-marked ticks, plotting out her journey. The red marks symbolising key places that she will visit were also useful in providing focus points for our slow motion drop sequence.


 

Recorded Meeting

Character Developing and Filming Planning

Film Premise

A brief description of our films main story, meant to appeal to an audience and draw them in without spoilers.

Ariadne Russo is different. It’s not the fact that the spoken word seems to elude her. It’s not the fact that she never knew the identity of her parents. Her memories are lost, stolen by ghostly figures she no longer remembers. She is as blank as the map that holds the key to her identity, blank save for a few rough outlines of London dotted with red marks. After the map makes its way into her possession through a series of unusual circumstances in her foster home, the young, lost woman is inclined to follow it to where ever it may lead her, in vain hopes that it might just help her rediscover her voice and her memories. What she doesn't know is that others are following the same path; one- intent upon saving her, the other- destroying her. Ariadne is the unwitting holder of a remarkable gift that allows her to sense where objects have been by mere touch, unlocking their secrets and inanimate stories. Yet her psychometric ability, it seems, has been cut from her just as everything else has, another lost key to whom, or what she may be. With people searching for a girl so lost within her, will she be found by the right person? Or is it too late for her to even regain what is lost and save herself?

Representing Character Through Costume: Isaac...

Isaac is meant to be more of a mystery in our opening, symbolising both Ariadne's lost memories and the danger that could follow her. Before we started coming up with how we would represent him, we spent some time developing his character a little more, so that we could portray him accurately.

Isaac was a lonely child just like Ariadne, and when they met, he took it upon himself to look after her. They were as close as brother and sister before Ari was taken, and for this reason, he searches for her when she disappears. As mentioned in a previous post discussing character development and personality, Isaac is rather more calm than Ari, intellectual rather than adventerous. We wanted his costume to reflect this responibility and intelligence whilst also keeping him myseterious and imposing. For this reason, we included the leather jacket as it adds that element of danger to the way he dresses. Aside from this one aspect, he dresses mostly casual to reflect his laid back personality.

We chose to dress him in similar colours to our main character to establish an immeadiate connection between the two, but we made many of the blue hues that he wears a little darker and in some cases bolder to represent thathe has a better sense of who he is - he is not lost. This is also reflected in the dark jeans and jacket which evoke a shady persona that is meant to create enigma with the audience.

Representing Character Through Costume: Ariadne...

After finalising who we thought our main character was in her personality, we began to develop a way to translate this into her appearance, and in turn, the way in which she is is represented to the audience. Our group designed a mood board (above) to act as a refernce point and visual way of of showing our ideas.

The first part of her appearance we focused on was the colour palette that we best reflect her and her inner feelings. We settled on a theme of blue mixed with natural, earthy colours such as browns and greys. her character is filled with a deep rooted sadness and despair at not being able to recall her memories, and I think that the blue colour (typical connoting sadness) really shows this well. Along with this, to me the colour grey relates to the distance of of her memories, like a cloud or haze over what she can't rememeber. We thought that having bright colours, or even just an array of them would not fit Ari's personality in the slightest.

Most of her clothes are pratical and well used, from her time in the foster home. One thing that is quite special to her is a ring that she bought when she was small, as it reminds her of happy times when she looks at it, even if she can't remember what exactly those times were. She also carries a simple rucksack, carrying extra clothes to use whilst traveling and above all, the sheets of paper that are her whole mind.

As for hair and make-up, she would wear none, believing it to be of no importance. Her hair will be slightly waved, looking tousled as she doesn't have time to style, simply running a brush through it every now and then. For the actress playing her, she will wear minimal make up, mearly to prevent glare from lighting and other technical issues.

Character Development

Recently, we discussed detailed plans of our two main characters natures and how the would appear, and similarly, be represented on screen.

Ariadne...

• She is running from something and her appearance tries to reflect that. She looks slightly dishevelled.
• When she was younger read read a lot, mostly for the escape. Her favourite type were adventure novels because they fitted her personality.
• She is entirely mute and closed off from the world, introverted and protective of herself.
• She's not the kind of person who is that fused with music - words speak to her more.
• An interest in travel fulled her over active imagination as a child, and because of this, as a young adult, she loves to learn about other cultures and dreams of visiting them, an escape from her own dull life.
• Her clothing is functional and classic, nothing too glamorous and fancy and hardly anything that is intentionally in on trend. It's often in her nature to buy from charity shops.
• In many ways, she is a blank canvas in her appearance and particularly in the amount she can articulate. For this reason, it is very easy to make assumptions about her, yet often impossible to know if they are true.
• She adores words and sees them as more than just communication methods. To Ariadne, they are an art form, physical and tangible emotion.

Isaac...

• As the male protagonist, we want Isaac to stand out as an important character in our opening, yet also keep a sense of ambiguity surrounding him.
• He is quite an organised person, which is one of the reasons why he re-draws the map.
• He is pretty in check of his emotions, thinking about things logically without reacting on impulse unless he is really riled. In this sense, he is the complete antithesis of Ari.
• His appearance reflects his casual, collected composure that masks more of the enthusiasm within. He has slightly scruffy hair and wears jeans and converse, with a t-shirt and leather jacket.
• He has a rather laid back attitude when dealing with things, a trait that would often annoy Ariadne.
• A precise and practical person, more academic than creative, once again contrasting to our female protagonist.
• Since Isaac has known his female companion from a young age, he is very protective over her, one of the reasons why he searches for her and tries to offer her help.
• He can be very particular- a little bit of a neat freak.
• He gets easily anxious but he's very good at covering it up, as will be demonstrated in our two minute opening.
• Music also means a lot to him. It is to Isaac what words are to Ari.

Ideas Pitch

Our pitch included a full description of narrative, storyboard, characters and backstory. We wanted to give an in detail overview of everything we plan to achieve through our opening.

Our first run though of this pitch proved to be slightly problematic, with our audience apparently confused by the in depth story explanation. It also lasted for a great amount of time

 and so we resolved to cut it down by the time we presented again. We were also lacking our drafted storyboard at the time of both recordings, which probably also impacted the ability to comprehensively understand our pitch, along with reading from drafts of many of our descriptions.

Storyboarding: First Drafts

Above is the first draft of our storyboard, representing the first few shots of our film opening. We have tried to create as much enigma and intrigue to pull in the audience yet also to show our characters in a meaningful way.
In our first shot, we see the busy crowds of London just outside of Paddington station in a wide shot, to establish the urban setting and to also introduce a contrast of our main characters introverted nature with the hectic immediacy of the city. We then see another long shot of the stairs ways at the station entrance, tracking where our character is, yet never fully focusing on her, so that she dissolves into the crowd. We wanted to try switching between soft and sharp focus here as well.
After this, we see Ariadne traversing the busy, people filled area, head down and silent. The voice over should begin somewhere around here, although this will be subject to change as during editing we should be able to see where best to fit it in. The fourth shot is the first close up we see of the female protagonist Ariadne. Having the extreme close up finally establishes her as the main character, yet also keeps her relatively elusive as not her whole face can be seen. We also have some shots focusing upon the writing that is spilled from her bag as she gets knocked over.
We will continue to build upon this over the coming weeks and use it as a reference point when filming, along with our shot list to help creating an accurate representation of our story. The shot list will also contain a full description of each shot in order to finaliuse evcerything we need to film on the day.

The DSLR and Shooting on Location

The DSLR Kit...
Recently, we have gained the possibility to use a full HD DSLR camera complete with 3 lenses, a microphone and a lighting system. This will greatly widen our creative possibilities when it comes to filming our two minute opening and the quality will be far better than we could have ever hoped to achieve with the other video camera's. We hope to test out some of the DSLR's capabilities before we go out on our filming days so that we can get familiar with the equipment and base the designs of our shot list on what we learn.
The camera is a Canon EOS 550D and I checked up the instruction manual to brush up on a few key commands and features the camera will offer us.

Interchangeable  prime lenses means that we will not be able to zoom whilst capturing footage, but means we will get a far greater quality in the resolution and shoot style. Each of the three lenses lends itself to a particular frame. The 35 mm lens allows us to get nice wide angled shots that can have a large depth of field and is therefore useful when taking long shots. The 50 mm lens is most accurate to what the human eye sees, which makes it the perfect candidate for point of view shots, along with camera angles such as mid shots and over the shoulder views. The last lens  the 75 mm provides the best view and set up for close up shots, giving us high detail and good focus.
Another thing we'll have to get used to is the manual focus ability that the camera has. This allows us to specifically altering the focus point within the frame, adjusting the soft and sharp areas of the shot. One thing that this makes me particularly happy about is that we can now experiment with these various focus points to produce whimsical or dramatic effects, focuses on the particular aspects that need to be brought to the audiences attention - a particular useful feature when it comes to our main task opening  This focus slide can also be achieved whilst filming to quickly slide between soft and sharp focuses on objects.
And example of this [The Sorcerers Apprentice (2009)] The cameras focus slides from the female characters reflection to her physical self, drawing attention to the fact that she's noticed someone:

Filming...
Along with this, we also managed to finalise some plans for getting to film in a London Underground station. The application will hopefully be filled out and sent of at the end of the week and we should have a response from Transport for London by next week. If all goes well, we should be filming on 30th March, allowing us time for any last minute planning before we begin editing on 5th April. To meet the requirements for the application, it is required that we send the screen play and narrative synopsis of our film, a risk assessment sheet and information on insurance and local police and hospitals.