Film Planning: Daily Call Sheet No.2

Due to issues with both Slideshare and my laptop, I can not post the call sheets to my blog. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Film Planning: Daily Call Sheet No.1

Due to issues with both Slideshare and my laptop, I can not post the call sheets to my blog. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Film Planning: Scripting

This script is a first draft copy and is almost certain to change.

Aidan :   '2 years ago my life changed, I loved racing, it was my life. I was at Silverstone, it was a big race for me, somewhere I had dreamed of racing at. I felt the car slipping, that was it … I can’t remember a lot after that.

          

 ***

3 months later I woke up in a dingy hospital bed – I spent a lot of time in rehabilitation, and it’s taken a long time to get to where I am today.

I’m not the same person anymore…

I had grown up with racing and supported my dad throughout his career, I had won 2 world championships and I had never planned that at the age of 23 I would have to stop my dreams.

I often come back and just sit here watching, waiting as if something is going to change …'

Film Planning: Health and Safety- Risk Assessment

 (This written task was completed by Amber Runnacles)

 The risk assessment will be laid out in this way:

•  Risk        
• Severity of Risk ( L,M,H )              
• Prevention

 Risk no.1:

• Crossing the road            
•  L              
• Not many cars drive along this road so when crossing try to cross as a group and make sure to look for any traffic.

Risk no.2:

• Car going around track 
• H             
• It will be traveling at high speeds so we need to make sure that we stay out of the way of the track when the car is on it and make sure we are aware of the times it will be on the track.

Risk no.3:

• Cold weather    
• M            
• Because of the time of the year the weather can be very cold – snow is possible so warm and appropriate clothing and footwear is essential e.g. a coat and wellington boots.

Risk no.4:

• Slipping               
• M            
• The weather maybe a cause of this either the rain or snow could be an issue – especially if filming in the grandstands, take extra care and wear appropriate footwear.

Risk no.5:

• Equipment getting broken          
•  M            
• Be careful  when using the equipment especially when carrying it to the track, if the weather is bad then the risk of damaging the equipment e.g. it falling may increase.

Film Planning: Permissions and Location Scouting

(This written task was completed by Amber Runnacles)

Because we are lucky enough for our school to be located at Silverstone circuit filming an action packed motor sport film will be fairly easy. The school and are Media teacher have been talking to the people at the track to sort out a date when we can film and what type of car we will be filming. We knew that we wanted to film a motorsport film so we didn't have to think about many other locations and having it so close means that filming the clips should hopefully fit into are schedules as we are filming in the winter this will work well because of the school hours from 9 ‘til 5. The other place we are filming is within the school so we won't need permission for this, only to let someone know what room we will be needing and for how long.

Film Planning: Legality

(This written task was completed by Gaby Stocker)

For our opening scene we're not going to use any clips or photos that aren't our own, therefore we won't need to worry about copy-writing. However, we may use subtle background music along with our voice over, which we may need to check is copy-write free before we use it.

Film Planning: Casting

For our final idea, we needed a character who represents someone of a relatively young age, yet looked old enough to have competed in a number of motorsport events. We felt no-one in our group could represent this character, so we planned to look outside of our planning group for actors. However, it became clear that it would be a logistical issue to get someone from other lessons to act for us. As I am the only male in the group, I will be playing the role of the main character. For the parts of the fan girls, Gaby, Amy and Amber have decided to play the parts as they already suited the parts. This concludes all parts in our film.

Film Planning: Lighting

(This written task was completed by Gaby Stocker)

   

As we're filming outside we cannot really plan for lighting because it's up for to the weather which we can't predict. As we're filming in December/January it will start getting dark at around 4pm, which could mean that we won't be able to film after that. This means that we need to be quick whilst filming to make sure we get everything done before then. 

For the scene inside where we film the trophies and newspaper articles we are planning on filming it in a small room in our school. This room has two large windows which will let in natural light and there is also lights in there which you can control the brightness off, so if we need more light we can adjust it.

Film Planning: Props

(This written task was completed by Amber Runnacles)

Props will consist of:

• Newspaper - headlined with crash
• Racing hats - Driver and pit/ fan girls
• Trophies - symbolizing the success of the driver
• Flags - checked and yellow flags to use whilst filming
• Wheelchair - showing how the
• Tools and mechanic equipment

The props will help to create the atmosphere and set the scene for the opening for the audience. We are hoping that all the props can be easily sourced if they can’t we may have to re think some parts.

Film Planning: Test Shots

 (This written task was completed by Amy Martin and Gaby Stocker)
This is a test shot that will be in the opening scene to show the newspapers, pictures and trophy's. This is a good set to use, as by the picture we can see that the room can be dark to create the feeling we want to give to the audience. This test shot also shows us that this room could look quite homely but dull at the same time, which is good as this is what we want to do. 


We also took another shot but this time with light. We did this to see the contrast between the dull dark room to a happier light room. This is good as if we want to change our mind and have this section of the opening scene happy, we know we can and don't even have to change the set. 

Amy and Gaby completed the test shots and discussed the positives and negatives about them. 

 

Film Planning: Costume

 (This written task was completed by Amy Martin)

As our story is two sided we need to show the contrast between him being sad and happy. For the flash backs we need happy colours to represent him in his happy race days.

So for the racer we need to:

• Borrow or find a race suit
• Borrow Aviators glasses
• Borrow a race cap

For the three race girls we need: We have decided to have this as the costume for girls as we are unsure on the weather and as we are filming in December/January we are going to assume it’s going to be cold so can’t go full on out in race girl gear.

• Three race tops (Amber has 3 we can use)
• Either tights and skirt or black trousers, which we will be able to get ourselves
• Three race caps, which we already have ourselves
• High heeled black boots
• Leather Jacket

Injured man (casual clothing): We need him to look dull in this part of the opening as this is that sad point in his career so the colour of the clothing needs to be black and greys. Also because he is older we need to show the stereotypical side of him being boring.

• Jeans
• Black long coat
• Grey jumper
• Black or brown shoes
• Messy Hair 

Film Planning: Audience Testing

(This written task was completed by Amber Runnacles)

Do you like Action films?

Not particularly

Would you watch a film, filmed at Silverstone?

Yes

Why?

Because we go to school here and it would be interesting to see it filmed in this location

Who would you watch this sort of film with?

Dad

Our film is going to be about a driver who has been injured in a racing accident, he is looking back at his time as a driver and reminiscing, this will be shown as him sitting in a grandstand in a wheelchair at the beginning, the film is going to show the ups and downs in his career through the years. Do you think this sounds interesting?

I'm not sure , depends on how the flashback scenes are shot, so they don't take up too much time

What would you expect to see in this type of film?

Action

Cars

Explosions

What would make this film even more appealing to you?

would want a story line - not typical of this kind of film

interesting

well thought out

What's your favourite genre of film ?

rom- com

Would you like to see elements of this included?

yes

(End of the interview)

We asked Molly these questions in an interview style, this was mainly because the people who had agreed to be in our focus group were absent, we plan to talk through are ideas with them at a later date to get there opinion.

Film Planning: Storyboard

For the storyboard task we all sat and discussed how we wished the film to be planned and the order in which each shot would be taken. This helps us in our production as we are able to understand what shots need to be taken along with the editing that must go along with it. For our filming day this helps also as we know what we must do on the day, meaning we can start filmimng early without any planning on the day.

Film Planning: Make-up

(This written task was completed by Amber Runnacles)

• There will be one main character in our film opening, this character will be male - so heavy make-up isn't needed.

• There will be shots of the actor as a racing driver when he was slightly younger - we just need to make sure he looks awake and ready to go, we can do this by concealing the under eyes to eliminate any dark circles that may be visible.

• There will then be shots of the actor after his accident, it is important he looks, tired, ill and sad - we can do this by make his eyes darker. Because he will have an injury and be in a wheel chair we could create bruises or scars if the area is going to be visible ( this will be dependent on the weather on the day)

• There will be 3 pit girls/ fans in the scene - these will be dressed up so will need to be heavily made up with lots of make-up, giving them the stereotypical look of their character.

Film Planning: Final Idea

We have decided to use Idea no.1 as our final idea. Our idea is that we’re going to have a middle-aged man sat in the stands of the race track, reminiscing about his time as a driver. The ex-driver will also be disabled, after an accident he had previously in the sport. the voice over will be read by this character, and will be slow paced and emotional, whilst it slowly reveals the plot behind the film (if it were made). We have decided to not reveal his disability to the audience until the last take in the opening, however we do not know how to do this yet. 
The first logistical problem we talked about was actually getting a wheelchair for the injured man to sit in. We need to go and ask school medical to see if they have one there that we could borrow for the day of filming. If we can’t find the wheelchair we will have to find crutches or something else which symbolises how dramatically he was hurt in this crash, unless we are able to find a wheelchair from another source. 
During the opening sequence we are planning on doing a long shot of the man in the garage surrounded by girls, which then fades into a long shot of him sat in his wheelchair in the same garage. This conforms to the stereotype of disabled people that they’re not as popular as abled people, and it also makes the audience feel sorry and sympathise for the older man which is what we want as he’s the protagonist.

We also need to source some props to include in our opening scene which might be difficult. We need trophies and newspapers to show how successful this driver was before his crash, and we’re going to make some fake newspapers with headlines about his success and then about his crash. We also want to include a yellow flag, which highlights that there has been a crash on the track which will just make sure that the audience knows that there was an accident. 

 For costumes we need to source a race-suit for the younger man to wear which will signify that he was in fact a driver and it will be a comparison to the ‘normal’ jeans and t-shirt that we’re going to have the older man in. We want to conform to the stereotype of older men and make him wear dull and boring colours, which will show a comparison to how exciting his life used to be compared to how it is now. 

We also talked about character and casting. As we’ve decided we need an young adult to be in our opening, we need to find and cast one who will be available for filming the whole day we have on the track. This could be a problem because if we ask a teacher they may not be free for the whole day and it will be difficult getting a student out of lessons for an entire day. 

The last thing we need to look at is the sound and lighting in our shots. For most of the shots we don’t want any ambient sound and just want the voice over. This means that we need it to be silent when we film, however we could just edit the sound out. For our inside shots we need to make sure that the lighting is good enough to film. We’re going to take test shots in the room we were planning on using to see if we need to add artificial light to make the quality of the shot better.

Film Planning: Developed Idea No.3

The main plot for our third an final developed idea includes a young character/racer who aspires to be like his father or grandfather, who were successful race drivers. He would have never met either his father or his grandfather as they died in a motorsport acciedent.
In one scene, we would have clips of the father racing, whilst the apiring racer would comment over the videos.

• The logistical issue with this idea is that all clips we make must be orginal, meaning we would have to film racing at Silverstone. Due to the time of year we are filming (January/February), no motorsport events will be taking place and if there were any, racing would be done during the weekend, meaning we couldn't get the equipment from the UTC to film. 

In this film opening, we would also have shots of newspapers and trophies to help us establish the talent that the [grand]father had.

• The issue with this is whether we could find trophies to use as props. Due to our age, it may be difficult to find anyone with enough experience in motorsport to borrow trophies from. Also, we would need to find newspapers which show a title related to motorsport, which is a rarity in media in this current period. 

Film Planning: Developed Idea No. 2

The main plot for our second idea is based again on a character reflecting on past experiences. However, the character is one that currently races and will be flashbacking to their childhood.
The main character will be sat either in the pit garage or will be satin a garage at home whilst surrounded by people.

• As with idea 1, there are areas of Silverstone that we cannot access, meaning it will be very difficult to get permission to film in the garages. This means the idea of filming at home is far more feesable.

As with idea 1, a flashback is used to represent a previous event in the drivers life, however it is from a drivers view reflecting on his childhood. This means the logistical issue of filming racing is eliminated.

• However, finding someone to act the scene including the younger child may be an issue. This is because consent from parents to film must be used, along with extra safeguarding issues which must be addressed. If we use an older actor we will not need to ask parents for consent, however it will render the flashback useless as our idea of reflecting on childhood will not be clearly, if at all represented.

Film Planning: Developed Idea No.1

The main plot behind our first idea is a young gentleman who cannot race any more. This is due to a previous accident which has occurred. During the scene, he will have emotional flashbacks to his racing career whilst he is at Silverstone circuit.

The character will be seated either in the grandstand or in a viewing point of the track. As he will be in a wheelchair, being seated in a disabled area is a more believable concept.

•  The logistical issue with this will be permission to use the disabled grandstands. On weekdays, when we can film, the grandstands are not for public access. Permission to use these will be difficult to get so areas that we can use may be limited.

The flashback we intend on including will show either racing or the main character preparing for a race. For this, editing will be used (cuts and fading in edit) to highlight the beginning of a flashback scene.

• Due to the time of year we wish to film, racing will be relatively infrequent and may not include cars we desire. A more appropriate decision will be to show the character preparing for a race, as long as suitable racing costumes and costumes for other characters are found.

Finally, a scripted voice-over will be used so audience can gain some background on the story.

• At the Silverstone UTC, we lack high quality sound equipment, so it will need to be sourced from outside of school. We have been informed that Gaby has recording equipment for us to use.

Film Planning: Initial Ideas

For our first task in film planning, our group had to create ideas to base our film on. As a group we decided to create 6 different ideas, before expanding our 3 most favourite ideas. Here are our 6 initial ideas:
Idea 1

• Main character in the scene is an older gentleman/ younger man who ,for an unknown reason which will be revealed later in the scene, cannot race.
• This character will be placed in the grandstands.
• The opening scene will mainly consist of the character flashing back to when he was racing.
• During this there will be a voice over by the main character whilst he reflrcts on the past.

Idea 2

• Main character will be someone who is currently racing. He will either be at home or in the garage in this scene.
• There will again be a flashback but this will be to his childhood and how he grew up around cars.
• There will be a voice over during the flashbacks as with Idea 1.

Idea 3

• The main character will be someone of young age, who aspires to be a racer much like his father/grandfather who died whilst racing. The two characters would have never met.
• Shots of trophies and newspapers will reveal how successful the relative was in racing. 
• Introduced to the relative when the younger character watches films of him racing.

Idea 4

• The main character of the scene will be a mechanic, who will be working in the garage on the race day. He aspires to be a driver. 
• Performance is lacking as he dreams of being a driver.
• Voice over included once again.
• The mechanic could possibly be in the grandstands.

Idea 5

• The main characters will include two rivals in racing, possibly team mates (Rosberg vs. Hamilton rivalry) 
• We would follow one particular driver and his version of events.
• The scene will involve press and will be set at the beginning of the race or the preparation, where there is some tension between the rivals.

Idea 6 

• The main character will be a marshall at a race, who could be involved in an accident which occurs on track.
• This could either be a flashback or could trigger flashbacks.
• The marshall could be an ex-racer which could be reasons for the flashback (accident in racing).

Film Planning: Group Introduction

Our project is to create a short film opening to a film, which will be based on the motorsport-action/adventure genre. Our group consists of 4 people, they are:

• Amber Runnacles: Not completed GCSE Media
• Amy Martin: C-grade for Media at GCSE
• Gaby Stocker: B-grade for Media at GCSE
• Me (Aidan Carter): Not completed GCSE Media

I feel that this group will work together very well as we all individually and collectively want to achieve the best possible result in A-level Media. We as a group gel well together meaning we can express our creativity to each other and creat the best possible film opening.

Film Opening Evaluation Of: Carrie

This is my evaluation of the introduction to the film Carrie.

Genre: Horror

Film Director: Kimberly Pierce
 Box Office: $84,790,678 Worldwide (24th November 2013)
Awards: 5 wins and 7 nominations

Preliminary Film Evaluation

Group Skills
I felt that Jordan and I worked well as a pair in this task. We both had specific ideas about what we wanted to include in the film, which we compromised well on. As I starred in the production, I didn't do as much filming as Jordan did in the production of our prelim. However, I did get some filming in when Jordan was infront of the camera. We both had equal input on the editing process of our product and so we both felt we had equalled out the tasks we both had to complete.
Planning
As we had to complete our prelim in a short amount of time, our planning for this task was very minimal. We decided quickly on what room to film in, due to availability and not preference, and we planned our storyline as ideas came to us during the filming process. However, when it came to what skills we needed to show, we planned exactly what we needed to do and where, so we got the filming done that wasn't in the room very quickly.
To improve our planning next time, we will create a storyboard so we know what we are going to film and so we can decide where we need to film in advance.
Filming Skills
As we included a match-on-action shot, a shot-reverse-shot, a pan and an establishing shot, Jordan and I felt we met the ideals of what was needed in the film. However, due to our limited time, we rushed a few shots. For the pan especially, the shot was fast and wasn't smooth. This could be improved if we slowed the speed of the pan and/or could have been rectified if we filmed this pan multiple times. As we used a tripod forthe rest of our filming, we did not struggle with shaky shots, however, we were limited to filming still takes and pans only. In future, we would include trackshots to show a diversity in skills.
Editing Skills
For our prelim, we only inlcuded cuts in between shots where it suited the flow of the film. This was to be expected as we were in the early stages of learning to edit, so we did not know any advanced editing techniques. I am hoping to improve as the year goes by, and I feel that is achievable. 
Sound 
We planned not to add any additonal sound to our film to create tension between the two characters on screen. It was also a more feesable option as we were not sure on how to add additional sound to our film initially. As we did not have any unnecessary background sound, we were able to leave additional sound out of our film.

Overall, I feel that we created a good film considering the stage at which our skills were at the time of filming. To improve, we aim to focud more on planning, so that we can clearly identify what and where we need to film. We completed all that was asked of us, so as a group we are pleased.

Preliminary Film

Below is my Preliminary film, which includes a match-on-action shot and a shot-reverse-shot. Enjoy!