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.

Analysing other opening sequences

Halloween- VERY simple opening with the black background and the pumpkin being the only shot. However, the music is very effective and that's what makes the opening sequence good. The music, pumkpin and black background give us an extremely spooky and creepy feeling which fits the genre and storyline.

This showed me that the opening sequence doesn't always have to be very complex! This is anextremely simple opening sequence yet it is still very effective. It gives you a scary and creepy feeling before any characters or setting is even introduced.

Synopsis - Strange World

Niall Fletcher, a 17 year old boy, has just been dumped by his long term girlfriend who he was in love with and literally obsessed with. To add to his troubles, Niall ad his father are always having arguments about why his mother left the family.

The story starts off with Niall and his father having a huge argument which results in him collecting his few belongings including his guitar and leaves home. He goes to the local park where he usually busks to think about what he should do with himself and his future.

He leaves to go and see his friend to seek advice about what he should do next, and his friend says he can stay at his for a few months until he has enough money to move out and start a life of his own. Niall needs to get money, and fast. He begins with braking into his house and taking anything of value from his room to sell, including his xbox, his TV, his stereo, his laptop, and any expensive designer clothes. He considers stealing from his father, but thinks better of it and leaves with what he's got.