Shot types we will use

As we have now structured which scenes in our trailer we are going to produce, we have come up with certain framing and shot lengths that we will use in particular scenes in order to create the right emotions and effectiveness. Close-up shot: To be used when DC Summers is handed the document by Toby. To be used when DC Summers is talking to Billy. To be used when DC Summers and DC Curtis are talking in the car. Medium Shot: To be used when DC Summers talks to Toby and treats his injuries. To be used when Toby is given a gun by the Drug Lord. To be used when DC Summers and DC Curtis kick down the door. To be used when DC Summers attempts to catch Toby. Low Angle Shot: To be used when DC Summers is chasing Tomas. Two Shot: To be used when DC Summers is chasing Tomas. To be used when DC Summers and DC Curtis are walking towards the camera. To be used when DC Summers is talking to Toby and treating his injuries. To be used when Billy shoots Toby. To be used when Toby meets the Drug Lord. To be used when DC Summers and DC Curtis kick down the door. To be used when DC Summers attempts to catch Toby. To be used when the car explodes. We are going to use a lot of two-shots throughout to show the relationships between characters. For a lot of these, it is either DC Summers and DC Curtis or DC Summers and Billy. This shows the main essence of the story and that these characters relationships are important for the audience to follow. these shots will also be used with Billy and Toby and Billy and The drug lord to show that they are all part of a criminal organisation. (Toby being an under cover ex-convict) The other shots were decided by how we felt we wanted the scenes to come across, for example a close-up of the exchange between Toby and DC Summers showing the importance of the letter throughout the supposed film.

character profiles

instead of a structured script, i decided that it would be better to take inspiration from other directors and create detailed character profiles of each main character in the film so that the actors could get an idea of how i wanted their characters to act. without a script the only thing the characters had to rely on was their character profile aswell as being able to ask me any furthur questions on their characters. these are their character profiles;

Scripting

Instead of using a script for our film trailer I decided to base my direction around Mike Leigh's early work and let the actors find their own style and create their own character as i thought this process may bring the characters a more rounded style. we did this by constructing a scene in wich all of the characters would enter and leave at some point. the actor would have to follow the story as it developed through the scene and could create a feeling for their character. in order that the scene did not dry out and stop running due to lack of ideas i used my character as a starting point and moved into the scene if the other characters were ever stuck. I also created character profiles for each character to help them get an idea of how their character would act and why.

Running order

One of my main jobs as director was to organise who was going to be where and when both on and off set. to do this i created a running order. Filming Day 1 (21/1/11) Cast needed:- Harry, Robin, James, Tomas, Myself Scenes:- 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 14 9:00 Harry, Robin and I meet at the ivy leaf club car park and film scenes 3 and 5 11:00 James meets us at ivy leaf car park to film scenes 1 and 14 13:00 Robin, Harry and I move to to film scene 2 14:00 Tomas meets us at the layby at the edge of whittlesey to film scene 6 Filming Day 2 (//) Cast needed:- Harry, Robin, Jack, Myself Scenes:- 7, 9, 11, 12, 15, 16, 20, 22 9:00 Harry, Robin and i meet up at the ivy leaf car park to film scene 7, 12 and 16 13:00 Jack meets us at the churchyard to film scenes 20 and 22 15:00 Harry, Robin and I film scenes 11 and 15 at school in confrence room (booked out earlier in the week from 14:00 to 17:00) it was at this point that, after editing, we decided we already had too many scenes and our trailer's running time was over 7 minutes long theirfor we decided not to film any more scenes but to work with what we had got already.

Questionnaire

this is a copy of our audience research questinaire wich we will use to determin how to layout our final trailer after edditing. we used a website called surveymonkey to create our survey. i have included a hyperlink to the survey in case the pictures are un clear. http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/8JTVBND

Scene List

as the director I decided that after we had created a basic idea i should create a list of scenes in the order that they would be on screen after edditing. We sat down and discussed what kind of scenes we thought might bwe in a typical buddy-cop action film. The list of scenes is as follows:

Locations

Today we went out of school and looked in and around whittlesey for locations to film our trailer. this proved difficult as their were not that many places in whittlesey that had not either been built of re-built after the 1980's or had some form of moddern day object in them such as a plastic bin or a safety sign. we found some locations we thought may have been useful and took pictures to reffer back to later when setting the scenes and to give our group a more visual idea of the style and atmosphere we wanted for our film trailer. this picture is of the street which we will film our chase scene down.we will use the interior of robins car as a police car. this is another shot of the inside of robin's car. this is to show how some difficulties that may arise when filming might be the shape and ergonomics within the car as they are not inkeeping with the films tone.

this is a row of garrages that we may use for one of our scenes as it is very plain and the style is quite inkeeping with the tone of our piece appart from the plastic drainpipes.

this is a shot of the fenced off land around the train tracks in whittlesey this is a good location as the wherehouses around it are quite inkeeping with the overall tone and theme of our film.

this picture is of a wooden gate leading out into one of the alleys that we may use to film due to the darkness and simplicity of the wall structures wich will help with our chosen style. the door opens onto private property so when filming down the public alley we will need to ensure nothing is dammaged.

this is a photo of the same alley from a different angle. in this shot it is easy to see that the alley is a good place for us to film as it is long and so we can film in two different places and it will seem like two differewnt alley ways. also the surroundings are quite simplistic and basic. the scrached paintwork on the side of the right building also ties in well with our themes of an older and more grimey time and place.

this is a shot of the garrages allong one side of a quiet cul-de-sac. this will help us with filming as along with the fact that the colours and shapes of the buildings tie in with our themes the quietness of the area means we are un-likely to be disturbed whilst filming.

this is another shot of the same alley as in two pictures above. this shot easily shows how, although it is the same alley, it seems like two different places. also the curve of the alley will hide Any un-wanted traffic that may contrast with our style or set era.

this is a shot of the entrance of another alley. this also shows a picture of the back half of a car that we may use as it ties in well with the time period of our film.

this is a shot of the other end of the same alley as above. the elements in this shot all tie in well with our film as being set in the 80's ( the wood telephone pole and the square metal bin) and the setting of england with the common street name 'old crown lane'

this is a shot of the same alley as the two shots above but this one shows the dissimilarity between the two walls. although red brick is more steriotypical of a 1980's britan scene the mud wall is also acceptable as the overhanging branches create the look of a thached cottage. comonly found in 1970's and 80's films such as Withnal and I and The Assam Garden.

Genre change

When finding posters and trailers for deconstructing we noticed that a lot of our film ideas had already been taken. we also found that a few other groups were doing the horror genre and we wanted our piece to stand out. We came together and decided to re-think our plan and came up with a new idea following a different genre. We decided to do an action film based around the police and set it in the 1980's. this idea has been used a lot in TV in things such as starsky and hutch or life on mars, but has only been re-created in film with a handful of films such as the 2004 starsky and hutch film as usually films are based around one main protagonist who is facing unbeatable odds from the out-set. we decided that doing this would help our piece to be more origional.

questionnaire results

these are the results of our audience research questionairre. we have collected the results and sumarised them in a table.

questionnaire

we used this questionairre to ask the general public about their film prefferences as part of our audience research.

Research - Influences on our work

after discussing our change in genre we decided to research into what films and tv dramas would be the biggest influences to our work. we looked for three main features;

1. production: we looked at many dramas and found that they were based in America or even further afield. this was not a problem but we felt we should look at more English dramas and films to see the changes in style and technique.


2. reception: most of the things we watched were created in the mid 80's but some were not. we needed to see how well received they were by the audience and critics because we did not want to create a film which would then be a flop and not make it as a film. most of the criticism was good for the modern day films and TV dramas. this was good as it meant we would be able to run with this idea


3. style: in order to create a more realistic piece we had to base our work around others without copying them. for this we had to pick what films or dramas would most influence our piece. after a lot of research we decided that our two biggest influences would be the 2004 Starsky and Hutch film and the 2007 TV drama Life on Mars.

Reasearch - Mike Leigh

I had already researched a little into mike Leigh but, as we were going to be using his ideas on directing and characters, i thought it would be better to have more focused research on him. for this i decided to use Wikipedia, IMDb and google to find out as much about his directing style as i could. I also suggested to the rest of my group that they do more research into his methods so they would have a clear understanding of his methods and what i was going to ask of them. I then watched some of his films in which he uses the actors improvisation instead of a script, such as life is sweet.

Whilst researching Mike Leigh i discovered; Most of his work in theatre and film is done without any initial script. He and the actors improvise their characters and the scenes under his overall control. This is what i intend to do with our piece as i think it will give the characters a more realistic look.

He became an Associate Member of RADA (Royal Academy of Dramatic Art) as have many famous actors and directors such as Sir Derek Jacobi and Sir Anthony Hopkins. He Graduated from RADA and moved on to the Camberwell School of Art and the Central School of Art and Design. He began as a theatre director and playwright in the mid 1960s. in the 70's and 80's he began to work on film and developed his "kitchen sink realism" style.

He was made a Fellow of the British Film Institute in recognition of his outstanding contribution to film and television culture. He was awarded an OBE (Officer of the Order of the British Empire) in the 1993 Queen's Honours List for his services to the film industry. This shows that he is a well known director and has been awarded for his films.

Using a well known, praised directors style to create my own will help as i will be able to see if it works and if not then i will use a different method. this will become clear after our first session of filming, however i think that this will work as having looked closely at his films and seen interviews in which he tells the audience of his style, I now have a better understanding of his work.

Research - Directors

After discussing different roles in our film and different roles out of our film such as camera man, sound man, editor, etc. It was decided that Robin was going to do most of the camera work, harry would be in charge of costume, jack would be in charge of locations and I was going to be the Director. I decided to do some research into directors and direction in order that i would know what to do and have a better understanding of what it was that i would be doing. the first director i chose to look at was Guillermo Del Toro. i had already watched some of his works but i was interested in knowing his methods and whether or not he used a certain type of signature shot like some directors do. Guillermo del Toro Gómez was born in 1964 in Mexico. he has worked to create brilliant films in both modern film and Mexican cinema. he was the director for such films as hell boy and pans labyrinth. he has always been into insects, clockwork and monsters and he uses these features in many of his films. although he does not have a signature camera shot, both darkness and clockwork are themes in a lot of his films and this could be seen as a signature of his films. the next director i looked at was mike Leigh. He was born in 1943 in England. directed such films as Life is sweet and Topsy Turvey. most of his films are set in England an have a very realistic approach in terms of set and characters with elaborate individuals amongst the normal people. he is also very well known for using improvisation to create characters and story lines in his plays instead of using a strict script. he sets up ideas of what he thinks might happen, gives the actors a starting point and then lets them determine their own 'fate' Intimate moments are explored that will not even be referred to in the final film to build insight and understanding of history, character and inner motivation. this gives the actors performances a more realistic and simplistic edge. this improvised planning approach is his signature and i will think about doing a similar concept with our group although i will probably have to modify this technique slightly due to time and the fact that we are not creating a whole film but just extracting parts of an imaginary film into a collective collage of clips. the third and final director i looked at was Neil Armfield. he was born in 1955 in Australia. I particularly focused on his film Candy (2006) which is set in Australia but like mike Leigh's work takes on a fairly simplistic approach and does not contain many special effects. Armfield uses a house style for Candy by his use of unusual angles for the scenes in which the main characters use drugs to show how the drugs are effecting the minds and eye-sight of the characters. he is also well known for using a dutch angle in scenes in which one or more characters perspective is twisted. i also looked at the work of Matthew graham, tony Jordan and Ashley Pharaoh. the creators of life on mars and ashes to ashes, two TV dramas which were based in the same time period as our piece and focused on the same idea as our project did. i watched some you tube clips of ashes to ashes and i was able to acquire a copy of the life on mars box set so i was able to watch closely and pick out key elements of the programme which aided in the appearance of the time difference and setting. i was able to depict three main points;

1. the characters were able to act more expressively due to the fact that their were less political correctness laws at that time. although this will be hard to add in to our piece we may be able to do this solely through our physicality.


2. the setting was all inkeeping with the time period. after reading articles on this matter it turns out that they made a grievous continuity error when filming as a car is seen in one of the chase scenes which was not manufactured until two years after the date the series is set. we shall not make the same mistake in our film although given our limited budget this may prove difficult.


3. the clothing of all of the characters is inkeeping with the time period. we will have to discuss this and research more when we discuss costume at a later date. as we are on a very limited budget costume may be a key factor in re-determining the time period of our project.