Props, Location and Fashion Planning

Contacting the cast:

So that our plans to film would go off without a hitch, we had to contact and organise details with the person who would be acting in our opening sequence. I first contacted her via email, and then we exchanged text messages organising it. Luckily, she was fine with everything and we are now able to proceed with filming.

Draft and Final Script

This is a collection of our original drafts we made when planning and writing our script in a form of a  poem:

This is our Final Script:

Storyboard and Shot list

Storyboard:

Shot List:

Character Profile

So that we have a solid understanding and background story for our protagonist, we created a character profile detailing important information regrading her personality, looks and background:

Initial Script Ideas

When discussing how we wanted to make our opening sequence slightly different, engaging and effective in putting our message across we came up with the idea of having a voice over for our script. This voice over would be a spoken word, modern poem expressing the protagonists' views and exploring the journey she'd made. We found lots of inspiriation all over the internet, and these are two examples of websites showcasing some really good examples of the impact these type of poems can have:

http://bluestockingsmag.com/2013/11/17/feminist-frequencies-a-spoken-word-playlist/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/04/slam-poems-feminist_n_6792536.html

Audience Profile

Knowing who your audience are is vital in producing a film, therefore we created a rate card, using 'Lino', in which we state our intended target audience, both primary and secondary:

Final Idea and Concept

To put down our various ideas and try and finalise details for our opening sequence/film we created a brief mindmap of our ideas so we also have something to refer back to:

To help try and visualise the look and theme we're going for within our opening sequence/film, we created a moodboard out of various images and words:

When first coming up with ideas, we came together and wrote down any words or phrases relevant to the script and our film:

Preliminary

To gain some experience and practice using a video camera and editing techniques, I created this quick preliminary video containing nine frames which fits to a certain brief I was given. Below is my product:




This is my original storyboard I used to briefly plan the contents of my preliminary video, I mainly stuck to it apart from changing and adapting a few things due to the location I had to film in.

Learning Comment:

Through creating this preliminary video, I now feel more confident in using a video camera and in certain terminology pertaining to filming concepts and angles. By doing this, it also gave me some experience in the process, from storyboarding, to filming, to editing and this will really help me when it comes to creating my own opening sequence. This has also taught me the importance of the quality settings when editing a video. My preliminary video is really bad quality and so I will have to keep in mind and learn how to get it clearer and more resolution so as to make my opening as professional as possible.

Representation in Films

Using the presentation software 'Popplet', I analysed two coming of age film opening sequences and wrote about how their social group (teenagers) was represented, from their costume and make-up to the camera angles used and the sound. Below are my results:

 

Learning Comment:

Through doing this task I have discovered how common codes and conventions have been used to represent 'Coming of age' films' social group-Teenagers-in their opening sequences. I have found that it varies significantly, as there are many sub-genres within the films themselves; for example one might be a comedy whereas the other is more of a drama. However there are some linking factors between them. Firstly, most of the films represent teenagers in the predictable and stereotypical way as over emotional, shallow and only focused on themselves and school life. I want to try and challenge this within my own opening sequence as I believe it's getting boring and expected by the primary audience; teenagers. Another common convention is using fairly modern and popular music as this is one of the things most apparent in the opening sequence and can really set the tone for the whole thing. It often represents teenagers as being upbeat and only listening to pop or rap music. However I think the use of more indie or alternative music would be just as engaging and representative of teenagers. Furthermore, the camera angles and editing used are often fairly unusual and interesting, effective in representing teenagers as unique, and the use of techniques like panning and tracking are often used to make the social group seem interesting but also restless and on the move. The way a film chooses to represent their social group is done in a large variety of different ways and almost everything can indicate and connote something about them. I will take what I learnt from this research and keep in mind my social group when creating my own opening sequence so that it will appeal to the social group themselves and others.

Narrative Structure

Below is the analysis of different narrative theories, techniques and elements found within a coming of age film opening sequence:

Learning Comment:

 Through doing this task I have learnt more in depth about different narrative theories, techniques and elements. I have seen how they are used within an opening sequence in an effective way which also reveals parts of the narrative subtly without giving too much away. In addition to this, they cause it to be engaging and keep the audiences' attention and curiosity. Different theories I indentified and spoke about, albeit there are probably many more, were Todorovs Narrative theory, Propps character theory, Levi-Straus' Binary opposites, Barthes codes, Campbell and Voglers archetypes/mythic structure and 12 stages of the hero's journey, Lacans' mirror stage theory, Neale genre theory and I also mentioned narrative techniques such as enigma, retardation, ellipsis and twist. I will try and include many of these elements into my own opening sequence to make it as effective and the narrative as appealing as possible.