Character Costumes

We want our character to suit a look of a teenage boy that loves music, has a relaxed attitude towards life, and wears casual clothes to reflect that. We want to show this in his clothing.
I've drawn a picture of the image I have in my head of what Niall should look like. The clothing is casual, and looks like someone who acts that way, but is ready for anything. His attire looks like it would be an easy way to stay warm, but at the same time comfortable, and easy to travel in.
There's another image below, which is an example of the kind of shirt/hoodie I'm looking for.

Further Location Research

I went out to certain areas around Norwich and took photographs of locations we had previously discussed and were enthusiastic about using in the film, as well as some other possible locations.

Picture 1 was the shot I was most keen on finding. This is where the opening two minutes finishes and ends and had to right. It's a plain bench, no graffiti, no litter, no rubbish bins. It's quite obviously in a park, and the natural background of the trees, the grass and the bushes give a tranquil and calming feel which fits in perfectly  with the song  we have chosen and the ethos of the opening itself.

Picture 2 & 3 are similar shots of paths and walkways within Chapelfield Gardens and for me just confirmed that Chapelfield Gardens is the right choice of location for what will make up most of our opening.

Chapelfield Gardens was a location we already knew well, and didn't need to think about too much. The real location research was to find locations within Norwich that would work well for the shots where our character (Niall Fletcher) has left home and is walking towards the park through various locations in the centre of Norwich. Most of the possible locations I found were alleyways or quiet streets, but Picture 4 is a location that particularly caught my eye as I believe it has the makings for what could be a strong sequence to fit into the opening. The bridge has the potential to be shot from below, showing Niall walking across the bridge but filming the shot from below. The tunnel below the bridge has a lot of interesting looking graffiti in it and if I was to film on a sunny day like when I took the photograph, I think a shot of Niall walking from the dark tunnel into the light outside could look really impressive.

Picture 1:   Bench - Chapelfield Gardens

Picture 2:   Scenery shot - Chapelfield Gardens

Picture 3:   Scenery shot - Chapelfield Gardens

Picture 4:   Bridge off an estate near the forum in Norwich

Release Forms

I will use the following release forms when conducting my short film productionand research.
Location Release Form
I hereby give consent for the following property........... to be used in the filming of Strange World...........by Tom Dallas During the period of (dates)...........Signed...........Print...........

Image Release From
I hereby give consent for my image to be sued as an on screen performer in the filming of Strange World...........by Tom Dallas...........During the period of (dates)...........Signed...........Print......


It is very unlikely that i'll need these release forms because we are filming the video in a public park which is available for anyone to use without permision. The forms would be needed if i wished to film on a location that was privatley owned.

Mood Board

Production Company

We have decided to name our production company Optimus Productions. This is because 'optimus' is the latin word for 'the best'. And we want our project and production company to be THE BEST! We have created the logo and background for our production company which will we show at the very beginning of our film...

Music

For our opening 2 minutes we needed to find a song performed by an unsigned group/artist that fit the mood and stroyline. We were looking for a slow, acoustic and a rather soppy song as it fit the mood of the opening 2 minutes. A while back we found an unsigned group on youtube called Obadiah Parker who we really liked! One of his songs particularly appealed to us and we realised that it was perfect for our film. Although Obadiah Parker is an unsigned group, we decided to send the lead singer Matt Weddle an email asking for his permission to use the song just incase he wasn't happy about it. A couple weeks later Matt replied saying he was more than happy for us to use the song for our project.

Pitch!

We had to pitch our idea for our film and 2 minute opening to our media teacher and two other senior members of staff. The following week we recieved positive and negative feedback from how our pitch went:

Positives

- Fantastic location ideas
- Certainly fits the target audience
- Good overall idea
- Appeals to couples - lucrative market
- Good ude of powerpoint
- Clearlypassionate about idea
- Potentially a great opening 2 minutes

Negatives

- Don't run away with your passion for the project, make sure you listen to people's advice
- Make sure you have a mix of ages...Parent actor needs to be convincing. Parents are huge facotrs in young people's lifes and shape development.

Our media teacher also announced the 'top 3 pitches' and the 'top 3 ideas'... And our pitch and idea happened to be in the top 3 for both which was was ver encouraging! This gave us further confidence in our idea and we believe we can make a great fil opening.

Locations

The first part of our opening is set in the house of Niall. So we are going to use one of our houses that we live in. The house is in tacolneston where we live so we'll have no problem getting to the location as we already live there!

The other part of our opening is set in a park. So we identified two different parks in the city that we thought would be suitable for the film. The two parks we came up with were Eaton Park and Chapelfield Gardens. We need to make a final decision on which of the two parks we wish to use as our location of the setting.

Actors

We were looking for a male aged between 16-18 to play our main character named Niall Fletcher. We imagined Niall as a good looking and rather stylish guy so that was what we were looking for when finding an actor to play the role.

In the end we decided to use Jack Gould as our actor as he fit the look we were going for. He's also featured in a small film before so he has acting experience and has been in front of a camera before. He also got an A grade in this drama GCSE suggesting that his acting skills are more than good enough. He is also a good friend so we know he is going to be reliable and he is very easy to contact when arranging dates.

Genre

Genre is a creative strategy used by film producers to ensure audience identification with a film. Genres are constantly renegotiated between industry and audience. Genre functions like a language in the sense that it has a set of rules and a vocabulary with which to organise meaning.



Initially we found it hard to categorise our film into a genre, as it has elements of different genres. It has clear elements of romance, with adventure as well as our character Niall Fletcher struggles to stand on his own two feet. The relationships he has with other characters like his girlfriend, his father, and the other characters he meets during the film and goings on between them would put the film in the category of a drama. Combining these areas of the film we have come to the conclusion that our film is a romantic adventure.

Initial Idea

Inspirational Films: 

Pursuit of happiness - shots of Will Smith walking through streets like we will have have our character doing.

Forest Gump - sitting on a bench similar to what we aim to do in our opening sequence.

Our Idea - Our initial idea is to have an opening shot of a 17 year old teenage boy holding and playing a guitar. This is a close up shot of the guitar where the audience can just see the his fingers strumming. The camera zooms into the hole of the guitar and the screen goes black. Then we jump to the show the guy's journey from his house to the the park. The opening sequence finishes by the screen going dark and then the shot coming back out of the guitar and zooming out shot by shot showing him sitting on a bench, in the middle of a park during the day.

Preliminary Task

We needed to do a preliminary task in order to show the 180 degree rule and eye line matching!

ACTION PLAN!

What has been done so far:

We have made a final and confident decision on what we are going to do for our film. And we have a location sorted (either chaplefield gardens or eaton park). We have found the actor that we want to use (Jack Gould - our fried who is very good at drama and has featured in a small film before!). We have also decided the music/song in which we are going to use during the opening. We found a unsigned artist on youtube that we liked and his song. We sent him an email and he replied saying he was happy for us to use it. We have also created a mood board and we have done the story boarding. we have done the initial audience research which has helped us decide what we are going to do for our film.

What needs to be done:

When we go to our locations to film we need to make a short video saying why we want to use the location and how it fits our idea and storyline. Ideally we'd like to get a focus group and film them giving us feedback on our idea and giving us any advice based on their preferences when watching films. we also need to write out the script in proper. Then all is left is to film and edit!

Schedule:

1st March - Write out final script.