Filming the opening titles

We are going to start filming our opening titles this term, however with a few complications and interuptions it might take slightly longer to accomplish but we should still manage to hit the deadlines.

Point 25 - Risk Assessment

 

Here is the risk assessment for when we film the opening titles of our film.

Point 27 - Props & Costumes

These are all the props and costumes we will be using for the opening titles:

PEN & PAPER

 RUGBY BALL

 COSTUME FOR THE SECRETARY

 UMBERELLAS

 COSTUME FOR THE YOUNG SCHOOL CHILDREN
AND THE YOUNG GIRL AND YOUNG GORDON

COSTUME FOR GORDON TWIGINAM

BRIEFCASE FOR GORDON TWIGINAM

Point 26 - Casting shots

Gordon Twiginam (Samuel Reid)

We've chosen this person as he takes A-Level Theatre Studies and so can act well and will be able to play the dorky character of Gordon Twiginam.

The Primary School Kids (Year 9 boys & girls)

We've chosen a group of year 9 boys and girls as these are the closest age to young primary school children.

Younger Gordon (Will Brockway)

This boy takes GCSE Drama and has a very bubbly personality and so loves to act and will be able to play this part well.

The Young Girl  (Iona Simpson)

This girl has the characteristics of being very friendly so any boy would have a 'crush' on her and she is very innocent also.

The Secretary (Louisa Robertson)

This girl is very organised and polite and so would be ideal to play the role of a secretary.

Point 24 - Locations

Aberlour Playing Fields

The reason for choosing this location is because it's a big playing field with lots of room for the children to play around in and really act as if they are in their school playground playing.

The road from Chapel to G-House

This road is perfect for the character of Gordon to walk down because it's a long road and so we can use this to our advantage to have a long clip of him walking down trying to impress everyone while they look down at him and laugh.  It is also the actual road leading to G-House and it can mimick the idea of a busy road in New York city.

Outside G-House (Zebra Crossing)

With the zebra crossing right outside G-House building we thought this was an ideal place for Gordon to fall flat on his face as a zebra crossing can represent a busy street and people will be walking by when he falls as this is the location everybody uses when walking across a busy road.

Inside G-House (Reception area, CB Staircase and Mrs Hawksley's Office)

G-House has the perfect staircase that we need in order to represent an office and the office in G-House looks rather like an office that a secretary would use in our film before you walk into the 'main' office (Mr Barton's).

Point 23 - Shot List and Shooting Script

This is our shot list and shooting script for our opening titles of the film.

Shots	Shooting description	Sound	Titles
Establishing shot	Abelour playground with year 9 students	Narration
Rewinds
Establishing shot	Abelour playground with year 9 students	Narration
Zoom in	Of Gordon on the bench  (Aberlour)	Narration
Close up (in slow motion)	Of the girl flicking her hair  (Aberlour)	Narration	Titles coming out of her hair when she flicks it
Close up	Back to Gordon (Aberlour)	Narration
Mid shot	Gordon is hit by rugby ball (Aberlour)	Narration	Title on the rugby ball
Tracking shot	Of Gordon walking and close up shots of people walking past him and their reactions (G-house) - Close up of Gordon’s face - Close up of people walking by him	Motown/ Funky Music	Title on Gordon’s shoulder which he brushes off when walking
Jumps cuts	Of Gordon walking to his office (G-House)	Motown/ Funky Music
Mid shot (in slow motion)	Gordon Falling (zebra crossing at G-House)	Music Cuts	Titles on the zebra crossing & on the bits of paper flying out of his briefcase
Extreme close up	Of Gordon’s face	No Music
Mid shot	Of Gordon brushing himself off and walking to G-house	Motown/ Funky Music
Tracking shot	Of Gordon walking to his office (G-House)	Motown/ Funky Music
Pan long shot	Of Gordon walking up the stairs to his office (Colour Bearer staircase)	Office Music	Titles on the stairs
Dutch titlt	Gordon going up the stairs (Colour Bearer staircase)	Office Music	Titles on the stairs
Establishing shot	Of the office (G-House Mrs Hawksley’s Office)	Office Music
Close up	Secretary at her desk	Office Music
Shot reverse shot	Of the Secretary and Gordon	Music cuts after Gordon finds out about the reunion
Extreme close up shot	Passing letter	Dialogue	Title of the film on the letter (pauses and dissolves off the letter)`
Close up	Of Gordon	Dialogue
Close up	Of the Secretary	Dialogue
Close up	Of Gordon	Dialogue
Black hole		Dialogue

Point 22 - Animatic Storyboard

Point 21 - The Sound

The sound for our opening title was going to be a mixture of soundtrack and voice-over narration. It starts with narration in the playground scenes and then cuts to a motownish/funky track when you see the male actor much older and when he's walking down the road. It then cuts out straight away when he falls over onto the zebra crossing and then when walking into his office calm music is playing to set the location of an office job and then it fades once he recieves the invitation from his secretary and dialogue takes place between the secretary and Gordon Twiginam.

Point 20 - Storyboard

Point 18 - Story Arc

A brief sypnosis of the whole film:

• The film starts with a young man narrating over the top of the opening titles. He is giving the audience background information into his life mainly about how he was bullied in primary school and wasn't very popular. We are given the oppression that he like a girl in this act.

• It then goes into the present day where he is much older and shows him to be successful. Although physically he has changed into a man his appearance is still dorky and his social skills still lacking within the office environment. Whilst at work he receives an invitation to his High School Reunion and his past comes back to haunt him.

• He visits his parents on the weekend to receive advise, they give him encouragement to return to high school. The whole high school reunion adventure takes part through out the weekend.

• He arrives at the hotel and the first group of people he meets is the gang of bullies, who pestered him at school. They haven't matured at all resulting in mocking of the main character as he has been tripped up by one of them.

• The film then goes on to show the whole weekend. The main character determined to impress ends up in a lot of embarrassing situations. The main embarrassment is when he tries to approach his old high school crush. However through all these embarrassing moments and a large disruption within the story line, the main character ends up with his high school crush. Resulting in the group of bullies leaving him alone

Films like the ones below will give you an idea of what we are aiming for:

HOT TUB TIME MACHINE
YOU AGAIN
GROWN UPS
ROMY AND MICHELE’S HIGH SCHOOL REUNION

Point 17 - Key Elements

Here are the key elements that need to be shown in our film opening in order to conform to the expectations of the genre we have chosen, the audience we have chosen and what is expected of a film opening:

• The name of the film has to appear (when the guy is walking)
• The production company's name is mentioned
• The writer, co-producer etc titles appear (when the little kids are playing in the playground)
• A voice-over is used when showing the titles
• The lead actor's name appears when he appears on screen
• It hints the genre of comedy by the actor making mistakes i.e falling over at the beginning with his briefcase
• The narrator is introducing himself and giving background information. Through this he his giving hints about the storyline about what the film is about
• Actor = A guy of a young age, preferably 20-25 years old, so a similar age to our target audience
• When the lead actor receives the invitation to the reunion and it comes to the end of the opening it's clear there is a drama storyline unfolding and the audience are eager to find out what happens next. This is key when creating an opening as it needs to grab the audience straight away.
• Through using young actors and showing a modern era by a man having an office job etc it should interest our target audience of a 'townie' who are a tribe that are very recent and up-to-date with things.

Point 12 - Mood Board

This moodboard shows the type of mood we are aiming towards for the film opening. The words on the board are stereotypical characteristics of the characters and the pictures are the type of characters that will feature in the film such as a secretary, a middle-class man, and a young boy who is nerdy and is an outcast (hence the school photot with a circle around a particular child) and the location of which it is set.

Our remake video

This is our remake task of 'The Breakfast Club'. Having looked at it more closely since editing it we've discovered that we should have taken more time over filming as some of the shots are in poor lighting conditions and are quite dark and when holding the camera our hands seems to shake and the shot isn't quite steady. We used the original voice-over and soundtrack from 'The Breakfast Club' in order for the remake to seem as close to the orginial as possible. So making this video was definitely a learning curve for the group and hopefully our videos from now on will be more accurately shot taking into consideration lighting, stillness etc. 

The Breakfast Club (1985) - Our Inspiration

This opening scene from Breakfast club is what we used to help inspire us for our opening of our Comedy/Drama coursework and also what our remake video is based on. We liked how the opening is just a voice over with a series of montage shots, so we felt the audience were being grasped into the story straight away by the narrator speaking and the main location being set within the first minute.

Our Film Brief

For our main coursework task we've decided to pick a Comedy/Drama as our film brief. As a group we think that this is a genre that we know a lot about, as this type of film appeals to our age group and the three of us have watched many of these films in our free time. Our storyline is as follows, a guy who used to be bullied at primary school and high school and the film starts with him in the present day, age 30, he is now a successful business man or tries to be and the film is about him being invited to a school reunion and meeting all of his past ghosts and bullies.

Our opening scene starts with a shot of little kids playing in the playground, we then rewind the scene and go back to it from the beginning and zoom in on a little boy sitting on a bench which the audience hadn't noticed before. A voice over is used during this with a man saying "Hi my names Gordon Twiginam , my life never seemed easy, I was always the odd one out but no one noticed, my Mum always used to say where's wally? whenever I brought a school photo home each year" The shot zooms in on the boy sitting on the bench and then it cuts to a shot of a young girl and she flicks her hair and starts laughing which will then be edited into slow motion while the voice over says "ahh Heather Clancy, she was the one, the love of my life, the popular girl, one problem I wasn't popular!" Then it cuts back to the boy on the bench and you hear boys shouting from off screen "Oi Twiggy " and then the boy gets hit by a rugby ball, while brushing himself off the voice over then says "But things have changed since then and I'm a whole new man". It cuts to some quirky, motown music and a shot of a guy in a suit walking down with a strut looking around and people are ignoring him and the voice over is saying things such as " I was the one, everyone knew me, you couldn't?" Then he trips up and everything from his briefcase opens and falls out (with a piece of paper naming the title of the film) and he lifts his head of the road and the camera stares straight at him and he says " Ok maybe I still did make some mistakes" he gets up and brushes himself off and walks into his office with a smile and the secretary says "Oh Mr Twiginam you've been invited to a school reunion next week" and then he turns to the camera and says "and this is where my story begins".

For this opening we would need:

Characters:

1 older adult (male)
A group of primary school children
A secretary (female)
A younger male character - primary school age
A younger female chacater - primary school age

Locations:

North Lawn
Drive from chapel to G-House
Zebra crossing for when Mr Twiginam falls
G-house office

Costumes:

Casual clothes from primary school children
Suit and briefcase for the male adult
Black pencil skirt and blouse for secretary

Props:

Briefcase (papers inside)
Bikes
Rubgy ball
Letter for invitation

Music:

Slow orchestral music possibly for the primary school scene
Upbeat, quircky, motown music for the present day

We thought the credits would be shown on the objects, for example the rugby ball after it's been thrown, when everything falls out of the briefcase the pieces of paper could have credits on them etc.

We pitched this idea to Mrs Black and she thought....