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.

Main Task: First draft of script and narrative planning

After brainstorming some rough ideas for the narrative, our first task was to check how viable our plan for filming on location actually was. As a group, we contacted Transport for London to enquire about a student filming permit to work on the station platforms. At that time, we resigned ourselves to not being able to do any filming there, as the permit would cost £50 plus we needed expensive insurance. However, after discussing this matter with another teacher, we have found a way in which it may be possible.

On developing a script, I took what we had invented for our narrative thus far and built upon it, identifying character back stories and a main plot line for the film in its entirety. This became our film treatment. I then implemented some of the ideas we had come up with as a group for camera shots and dialogue, and made an unpolished first draft of the script. Of course, it will hopefully be changed once the rest of the group can input their own ideas and we can improve upon it vastly.

Some images of that script can be seen after the break... ->

 

Love Actually: On the voice over and representing genre

Love Actually is said to be one of the most successful British rom com films to date, with an impressive ensemble of big name actors and actresses filling its scenes. Aside from this obvious reason for its popularity, it is also very successful in its easy merging of elements from both genres; romance and comedy. In the opening 2 minutes of the film, we see elements from both the genres directly juxtaposed against each other, effectively establishing genre in the first few minutes.

The first thing we see on screen is a muted montage of shots from an airport arrivals area. Some of these are slowed down somewhat, which adds far more impact to the reuniting of these nameless people. It reflects the idea that time stands still in a moment you want to capture. A voice over then begins, over lapping with these images and interweaving them. This voice over instantly draws the audience into the film and allows them to connect with a character they haven't even seen yet through just a voice. It adds a sense of vulnerability to the character as we can hear his thoughts. The voice matches well with the mise en scene of the scene as it is calm, soothing and informative. Also, many people would recognise the well known actor that speaks the lines, thus leading to the cliché idea of attractive male leads in rom coms. There is, along with this, faint music playing underneath the voice which lends an endearing quality to the scene, one of warmth and comfort. It easily reflects the feeling of love and happiness.

On the subject of titles, the main title of the film appears as part of the dialogue. The phrase "Love actually is all around" appears word by word, timed exactly to the voice over. As pointed out by a member of our class, the colouring of the words has been used interestingly. The centre word "is" has been highlighted in red, perhaps a subtle reference to the classic "I <3 ?" design.

It is after this that the audience is first introduced to the comedy aspect of the film. Another of the main characters, a male failing rock icon, is shown to be recording a new version of a classic, cheesy love ballad. This could again, be referencing the idea that this film plans to put a new twist on the rom com genre. This section is also purely comedy, compared to the scene prior to it, which was purely based on what love is and means.

Love Actually Opening minute

A Series of Unfortunate Events: On Breaking Convention and contrasting openings...

Whilst in the middle of our productions of film opening, I watched this children's film based on Daniel Handlers (aka Lemony Snicket) strange book series and thought that it's opening went directly against many of the things we have learnt about creating a good film opening. I think this adds to the overall quirkiness of the film from 2004 and has also made me think a lot about just what makes a good opening and whether certain norms are actually necessary, despite that fact that it is not from our genre.

The film begins with very happy, chirpy music, leading into an animation. Not only does this initially cast doubt among the audience, but when the title of the film first appears as The Littlest Elf, and not what the films title actually is, it begins to make people question either why the film makers are showing them this (if it's significant) or if they are actually watching the correct film! I think this cleverly sets up the unsettled feel that runs throughout most of the film without being too obvious.

Lemony Snicket's A series of Unfortunate Events Opening (0:00 - 0:50) Please ignore Analysis!

Main Task Narrative Ideas

• Character - Girl, around age 18, looking slightly scruffy and messed up. She has no idea who she is except for the fact that she can not speak and communicates through writing. Name idea: Ariadne Russo? Accent however, evident in her voice over (or thoughts), giving the audience a clue as to where she's from. She may not realise her accent? As she has never spoken.
• There has been an off screen inciting incident - pressure ball theory leading to her breaking. No parents, has suffered some kind emotional trauma that made her forget and stop speaking. See's a person that stirs her memories whilst she is following the blank map, and she feels as if something will happen to him? They may have been involved in another incident that caused her trauma, and in some respects, amnesia and caused him to disappear.
• He knows who she is, he is the only vague memory she has and she doesn't truly know him. She has the map but doesn't know where it came from (but it really came from him). A single number on the map stirs this feeble memory, a number that relates to how many days she knew him. Perhaps he wrote them down? A house number or maybe coordinates for a place?
• Setting outside a train station (changed due to restraints on filming), still retains the idea crowds and urban setting that contrasts to her personality, yet is also a little gritty. She is waiting, debating whether or not to board the train to her next destination
• Guys names: Liam? Isaac?
• The last line spoken of the film would be said by the main protagonist (Ariadne?) who has not uttered a single word throughout the entire film. She says the boys name.

Inglorious: On creating enigma and credits

Inglorius Bastards, a film directed by Quentin Tarantino, begins as many older films conventionally did - with the credits. Even just this staement here and that fact that they are set to older music imeadiately establishes the idea that the film will not be set modern day, establishing setting and even the tone of the film in the first minute. The visuals play a key aspect here, working well with the soundtrack as it develops.

 

The screen is entirely black and white for the credited opening, white font on a black background. The font itself is reflective of the mood of the film, with the names of the principle actors being written in it first in a clear, serif style. When the main title of the film is introduced in a different, scripted font, the music bulids to a small crescenedo, drawing the audiences attention to it. It then returns to the normal font, continuing on with the credit roll on the quieter moments of the music. The actors are listed of in an order of importance and also of fame, with only a new star being singles out by another musical crescendo. Throughout all this, the audience is constantly left wondering when the main narrative will begin, creating a sense of enigma.

 

But what is enigma? A dictionary definition: A person or thing that is mysterious, puzzling, or difficult to understand or a riddle or paradox. In filmic terms, enigma is the way in which you keep your audience hooked. There is enough mystery in the scene or indeed film to keep them questioning and wanting to know the answers. This film succesfully does by using the plain opening credits simply as a way of increasing anticipation. The audience gradually grows to want the credits to be gone and the narative to start. It also poses the question of how the setting and actors introduced will fit into the story and if the credits have reflected the film well enough. When the film does eventually reach the screen, the audience is presented with mainly long shots of typical everyday actions of the characters they are seeing - the hanging of washing, the choopping of wood. Instantly, the setting and time framing a fully established, and the sound of the constantly chopping wood builds some kind of suspense, mimicking the sound of a heartbeart.

 



 

 

The opening scene of Inglorius Bastards (2009)