Production Pitch

This is the production pitch me and my group created and presented to the class.

Production Pitch Media

It contains the information needed to pitch our idea to the class without giving too much away.

Minutes of the meeting

In today's minutes of the meeting we discussed the name for our piece. The first thing we did was brainstorm some ideas. We came up with some names such as Dream Snatcher, Night Thief and Nightmare. None of them seemed to fit the sequence so we ruled them out. After a while we decided to search some words in Latin and we settled on the name Somnium which is Latin for 'dream'. We decided not to focus on the title until we were sure of what we were doing because it wasn't as important as getting the basic ideas finished. This worked in our advantage because it gave us something to put the name to.

Brief and pre-production stage

In the most recent lessons we have been talking about pre-production. We were given our brief on our project so that we can begin planning what we want to do.

The Brief was to make an opening sequence, including titles and soundtrack, for a fictional film. 

We were told we should research different opening sequences to get an idea for what we might do and to see the conventions for each genre.

If you have seen my previous posts you will know that I have linked a great website called  Art of The Title which is perfect for looking at opening sequences and analysing them. For our first production meeting, Me, Joel and Zoe looked at some title sequences and analysed them. The opening
Sequence we analysed was from a film called Coraline which is directed by Henry Selick and is based on the novel by Neil Gaiman. 

Minutes of the meeting

In our Production meeting Me, Zoe and Joel sat down together to discuss our first steps since the production pitch.
The first thing we did was watch some opening sequences that were of a similar genre to our opening sequence in order to learn the norms for this type of opening sequence.
 We used the site Art of the Title to look at opening sequences and we looked at one in particular called The Conjuring. Please watch The Conjuring video and then come back to my blog to read about what I did.

The opening sequence for The conjuring is very eerie and is and is themed on the supernatural which is similar to ours. We made a timeline of the titles to see what titles appear and when so that we could get a rough idea of what titles we should include and when.

Opening sequences

In an opening sequence it should give us an idea of:

• Genre
• Atmosphere
• Narrative (enigma)
• Setting
• Character

I watched three opening sequences to get a feel for the different conventions for each genre
The first one was Cape Fear and I focused on character. We get a sense of who might be a main character at 1:55 when a man's reflection is shown on rippling bloody water. The bloody water suggests that he is the bad guy or that he gets killed off. Towards the end of the sequence there is a short monologue by a woman she looks twenties early thirties in age. The short monologue suggests that it is her story being told.

The second opening sequence I looked at was Hell Boy 2: The Golden Army and we focused on genre.
I think that the genre is action adventure, this is because the music sounds like war music, there were giant pieces of swinging metal and fire which gave it an element danger.

The last opening sequence I looked at was Forest Gump and we focused on narrative. The music was whimsical but had an element of sadness to it. Throughout the sequence we follow a feather drifting in the wind as though searching for something and this foreshadows a long journey of searching. We meet the main character when the feather lands at his feet and he appears to care for it. The camera stops at his feet and slowly travels up his body to his face. The first thing we see is him wearing a muddy and worn pair of trainers which says that those shoes are important to him. He opens his case to put the feather in and we see the children's book Curious George this might suggest that the story has a happy ending but also that the main character is childlike.

I watched these sequences at: http://www.artofthetitle.com

Preliminary task

For our Preliminary task we had to find a location, storyboard our shots and then film it.
We decided to try storyboarding a different way by taking pictures with a camera phone instead. For our location we chose the sixth form conservatory because there was a door and chairs and we could use it when we needed to.
We then went to our location and took pictures for the storyboard and they are below the video of our preliminary task.

 We encountered a problem during filming and when we were editing we realised that we needed to re-do a shot. This was quite a problem because Zoe, the female in the storyboard, was not there for us to re-do it and Joel, the male in the storyboard, was wearing different clothing to when we filmed it and realised this would be a big continuity error. We realised we would have to re-do the whole thing with just the two us which proved difficult in the shots we were both in. We managed to finish the task within the deadline even though we were set back through determination.

How to make a video

At the beginning of the lesson we were told we need to keep a record of our group meetings we need to keep a form of diary that includes:

• date
• attendance (who was there)
• focus of the meeting
• duration of the meeting
• action points or accomplished tasks

We watched a DVD about how to make a video. It gave a brief explanation of the major roles and what they do.
brief concept:

• purpose
• intent
• target audience
• limitations (budget and time frame)

Pre production includes:

• scripting
• scene breakdown
• storyboard
• shot list casting
• locations
• equipment
• catering
• transport
• informing people

Shot list/shooting schedule:

• where
• time needed
• different camera angles
• when 
• how long

Production:
Use time well and consider safety issues.

• shooting the project
• time management crucial
• quality control (image, sound, performance)
• potential conflict between producer's limitations (time, budget)
• directors creativity
• requires cool heads to cope with pressure and ability to compromise

Post production:

• all elements are combined in editing
• off-line (rough cut)
• on-line (final edit)
• sound mix
• sound mix of final edit