Pre-Production - Team Meeting 2

During our second team meeting we decided on one of the two ideas we came up with last week, we felt that the idea of the Isolated person was both the most interesting, fun and practical to execute. 

Developing our initial idea of the isolated character

•  Easter eggs can feature throughout the film to keep the audience focused on the main objective and to encourage them to be active rather than passive – a phone card with a help line on it?

 Location ideas: 

• The bench in front of the big tree in front of Tyler Court, can be used to shoot a place where the subject can go to reflect/a lonely scene there are also remembrance trees there could look like they are there to morn or remember a loved one (ties into the story could be a factor that contributes to his or her depression) 

• We decided to use the busy scene and play with the rate of the shot to show isolation, this combined with the narration will make it look like the subject is in deep thought.

• A development on the blinking feature - The subject may suffer from anxiety causing them to blink really hard, this can be used as a transition between shots rather than a power 

• Birds eye view shot to make the subject appear small

• The main character could be someone who the audience wouldn’t expect to suffer from social anxiety or even to feel lonely.

• The film could start backwards, so we see the resolution at the beginning and discover how we came to that point throughout the rest of the film.

• Sounds that could be featured to emphasise the idea of loneliness – loud traffic, multiple conversations happening at once

We also assigned roles to the members of the group
·      Jazmin – Producer
·       Richmond – Director
·       Talya – Camera operator
·       Jamie – Research
·       Abigail – Sound engineer

Pre-Production - Team Meeting 1

Our first team meeting was on the 25th January, where we came together with some of the research we had done and our own individual ideas. Here we decided that we wanted to stretch ourselves and come up with a concept that challenged the conventions of a typical great day.
we came up with a few ways that we could make the given theme interesting or just elements of shows or films we've seen that we would like to adopt or develop such as

•        A play on the element of time - starting the production from the end and unravelling the story from there to show how the subject got to where he or she is. I liked the idea of this non linear set up, its very postmodern however it has to be executed in a way that makes it clear for the audience to follow easily.

• To further illustrate the concept of changing time we came out with a few ways that we could clearly show this - a shot of a clock where it can either stay still or fast forward.

• Minimal characters (1-3) - Any more than that gets complicated

•  Mostly narrations with some diegetic and non-diegetic sound as if its the subjects thoughts being heard this makes it a bit more personal  - depending on the story line we decide on

• Starts with the subject getting up and getting ready - because we didn't want to use too many characters we felt that we would have to develop the story of the main subjects by showing some of the traits/routine so the audience can make inferences about the character.

Idea 1:

•  A story of two people who go on a date that keeps going wrong, the next day the same thing is repeated until they get it right

•  Could be in bed once the date has ended and have flashbacks of it.

• Only one of them are aware of the day repeating so its that persons responsibility to ensure that the date flows 

Idea 2:

•  The person hasn’t got many friends and therefore feels isolated by everyone until someone pays them some attention = their greatest day

• The subject could be standing still in a busy place; we can speed this up in post-production and reinforce the idea of isolation/the characters extreme introvert personality.

• The subject can be transported to different locations once they blink. They start to appreciate their talent as it can help them to get out of situations that make them anxious.

Pre-Production: Case Studies

A date has been set for out first team meeting so I did a bit of research into some short films of different genres to see if I could come up with some ideas of my own and to see what kind think could be achievable based on the requirements of the brief.

CASE STUDIES 

Identity
based on a young girl 'finding the truth' based on the themes presented by Plato's allegory. I loved the storyline; it inspired me to present the concept of the greatest day not necessarily being universal (the greatest day for one person but not another). she discovers the truth but others do not because they do not want to.

The Elevator

A man in an elevator is dissatisfied with the other people using it as he fears the weight of the users may cause it to drop/stop working. He gets onto the next elevator to find himself in a worse situation.

I liked this one because it showed an effective way of presenting comedy. We were interested in doing a comedy but didn’t really know how to go about it, whether there was enough time to be funny and exactly what kind of humor to include. And I felt that this was a great example there was no dialogue however the action codes, diegetic sound and the background music really brought the production to life.

What's Virgin Mean?

A mother puts herself in an awkward situation when she misinterprets the innocence of her daughter’s inquisitive mind. Again this one plays with comedy and the innocence of a young girl. The concept was very simple yet very effective I felt like this was the kind of humor that most people within the target audience would I identify with it wasn’t too over powering and I lied the way that it ended, I made me want to know what the mothers answer would be to the next question.

Plastic

An illustration of the pressure of conforming to societies idea of beauty. I liked this one because it had a bit more of a serious message behind it. I also liked that it wasn’t too busy there were only two characters and 3 locations this made it easy to follow what was going on. I also really liked the resolution – that she was able to accept herself for who she really was.

"Alone"

The apocalyptic theme of this short film made it feel a bit generic at first however, the ending had an unexpected twist to it. I loved this short film! It was kind of a play on the concept from ‘I am Legend’ the ending was really amazing, this power of the cliffhanger was illustrated so well here. The combination of the visuals and the sound effects really helped to grab the attention of the audience and builds suspense. I really like the ending because it was left to the imagination of the audience therefore forcing the viewer to be active rather than passive.

Thoughts

I really loved the simplicity of this film, and just how effectively the message was conveyed. I also liked the narration through text on the screen I thought the Typeface and the movement of the text illustrated notion of thought really well.

http://virginmediashorts.com/film/5313/ithoughts#.VNfgoVOsXby

Exposure

This short film was a bit creepy but I liked the concept of it again it could be seen as positive for one person however not for another. I also liked the seriousness behind it and the message it delivered. Again there were only two characters in this production, I feel like this ensured that the story was clear and concise.

http://virginmediashorts.com/film/5364/exposure#.VMU4ynCsXby 

Francis-Sinclair, Jazmin

Module:

EL342 Moving Image

The University of Kent  

Group 2
Team Members:

• Abigail Adeoti
• Jamie Clarke
• Richmond Nkinki
• Talya Garnett