Casting

Casting Samantha Stark
For our film opening we have one main character to introduce and one quick shot of two boys running. The main character should be:
Gender: Female
Age: teenager between 15 and 18 years
Hair colour: no bright outstanding hair dyes
Height: anywhere between 5ft and 5ft 10inches

First profile
Name: Ebony Paice
Gender: Female
Age: 16
Hair colour: Brown
Height: 5'6 ft
Acting experience:
3 years of training at the Oast Drama
Performed in amateur dramatics clubs
A* in drama GCSE

Second profile
Name: Lily Fulton
Gender: Female
Age: 17
Hair colour: Brown
Height: 5'5 ft
Acting experience: A* in drama GCSE
Toured a performance of "Tin Man" to local primary schools as a theatre company

Final decision:
We have decided to cast Ebony as our main character because her appearance had the most resemblance to the character we created and her mannerism also reflected that of Samantha. She was also flexible with our shooting schedule and we strongly admired the acting experience she had, therefore trusting her ability to execute the role well.

Extra 1 profile
Name: Ben Bradley
Gender: Male
Age: 12
Hair colour: Brown
Height: 5 ft
Acting experience: Been involved for 3 years in amateur dramatic societies and is planning to take drama as one of his GCSE options
His role: Plays a young boy in the park that runs past the camera screaming for comic effect.

Extra 2 profile
Name: Ethan Simpson
Gender: Male
Age: 14
Hair colour: Blonde
Height: 5'4 ft
Acting experience: Attended a few drama clubs  and is planning to take drama as one of his GCSE options
His role: Plays a second young boy in the park that runs past the camera.

Extra 3 profile
Name: Brian Bradley
Gender: Male
Age: 51
Hair colour: Black
Height: 5'6 ft
Acting experience: Has been involved with various drama productions over the years and took Drama as on of his O-Levels where he achieved an A.
His role:
Plays an adult man in the park who is chasing the two younger boys. Walks quickly past the screen whilst shouting "Come back here, you little fuckers!" for comic effect and a sense of the rough area where the protagonist lives, adds to the drama genre and harsh theme of drugs.

Scripting the Voiceover

Our first thought for the voice over was to have the main character recite a famous quote and then completely ruin it with her own ideology. We decided on a Shakespeare quote from Romeo and Juliet and this was our first draft:

"These violent delights have violent ends and in their triumph die, like fire and powder, which, as they kiss, consume.
What the fuck does that even mean? I'm not bothered about these old sods who wrote those romantic classics. I just think we should live life in the moment and to the full. Don't you?"

After hearing it being said and putting it in the opening we decided it was not what we wanted and also that it was too long. Instead we took inspiration from the voice over in trainspotting. The short snappy phrases and philosophical meaning was more suitable for us and our film opening. Our final voice over is this:

"Wake up. Get dressed. Go to college. Do work. Go home. Do homework. Graduate. Get a job. Have kids. Die. Fuck that, I'm gonna live my life how I want to."

We all agreed that the final voice-over fit a lot better and helped the audience gain a better understanding of the character's attitude to the normal ways of her life. It also builds up the idea of the theme of rebellion from the offset as this will be put directly at the start of our opening, just before and during the first few frames.

Technology Used and Problems Faced

For the original storyboard:

Over the course of creating our film opening, we have learnt a lot about the technologies we used to construct our product. Originally, we used the Canon DSLR camera and we found that by touching the screen of the camera it focused on specific object. However, we struggled to get the camera to focus on some zoomed in shots and when we filmed fast shots.

For the improved storyboard:

As result of our focusing struggle and unsteadiness with the Canon DSLR camera, we decided to use an iPhone 7 camera. It is of similar quality and we practised a few test shots to see if it was appropriate for are extreme close up and fast movement shots.

Location Recce - Tonbridge Park Toilets

When re-filming our film opening, we decided to use public toilets to add comic effect and more narrative as well as giving a specific, more obvious place for the title of our film to go and be isolated. This made it easier for the name to be identified for what it is as well as showing that it is an opening, and where it ends as this is the last credit shown.
This post shows the recce of the toilets that we did. We wanted it to be a confined and small space to represent how she has been thrown out of her house and has almost no option for her to go, so she is confined in what she can do.

We thought the no-smoking sign on the toilet wall could add to irony of her life, as our protagonist is addicted to drugs and this is the focal point of the opening and rest of the film. However, we did not get round to filming this part of the location unfortunately so had to leave it out of the opening.

The photo above shows the toilet stalls which we had in almost all of the shots inside the public toilets. We took a low angle shot from either end of the toilets when the protagonist walked in and out of them. We also wrote in eye-liner and lipstick onto the metal stall doors small phrases such as "David has a small dick" and "call this no. for a good time" which added comic effect and allows the comedy genre to be seen amongst the drama genre.

Comic Ideas Brainstorm

Props and Makeup

MAKE-UP




This was only needed to be used on our protagonist, Sam, to make her seem as though she had been out the night before and was hungover.







To do this we used a red lip liner to go on the top of the eyelids, as well as on the water line; this gave a sense of tiredness as well as the occurrence of drug use, keeping to the recurring theme of drugs within the film.

We then just applied normal mascara which we smudged when wet to create a sense of it having been worn the night before, as if she had passed out or fallen asleep from being drunk when she got into her plain bed.

PROPS

Our props were mainly seen in the credit sequence within the bedroom, some of which had the names of actors and directors names written on in some way.

We put pieces of clothing on the floor which conforms to our scheme. We also threw makeup to show the carelessness of our main protagonist of her makeup, also stereo typically showing that she is a girl.

The black top in the image was made in 'InGear', Tunbridge Wells, which we all went to and help to design the prop.

This is the first prop that is seen within the opening and shows the name of the actor playing our protagonist. The choice of a guitar outline show her personality deeper and the typical "edgy" teenager.

We found a red book and yellow folder within school and asked permission from staff to use them.

Red and yellow are, once again, conforming to our colour palette and feature within the credit sequence many times, in each clip.

The two in the image on the left read the three supporting actors, Ben Bradley, Brian Bradley and Ethan Simpson.



The next props were set on top of a guitar amp. The props used were; a metal teaspoon, icing sugar made to look like cocaine and the same cigarette lighter from the previous outdoor scene for continuity.

We also created our own student card which had the words 'directed by' on which was followed by each of our names within the credits until the end.

'Lizzie Bradley' is written on the red laptop screen, next to red pants, to show age and the fact she is still in school but also growing up.

The pizza box is to represent her age again, and the laziness of the protagonist due to mainly drugs and her lifestyle. We doodled on it to show her arty, "edgy" and more personal side as it contains guitars and drugs. The box also has 'Lucy Gaston' written on it, showing the embedded credits that run through the opening.




We took a pills bottle and wrote again in handwriting, like a prescription bottle would be, the name of the final member in our group as director, just as the opening ends.

The drink next to it, half drunk, is representative again of stereotypical teenage laziness, as there are many cups around her room, obviously that she has left or not bothered to remove from her room.

Health and Safety Risks

As a precaution, we had to think and evaluate all of the possible hazard during filming in order to prevent them from occuring and harming any one or any equipment. 

Film Title - ROADS

After some discussion on the film title we finally came up with 'ROADS':

• We came up with this title because in the film, the girl takes lots of roads and paths to different places in her life and she has to make decisions. 
• We found that it was very common for a lot of comedies to take on film titles with just one word in it and for dark comedies to use word with room for interpretation from the audience. For example "Trainspotting", although there is not a single train in the film, it is the title and leaves audiences thinking about the reason why.
• When we googled roads to see if it came up with anything behind the name we found that it is a drugs centre in Bristol, so seen as our film is about drugs we were set on having this name because we liked the name and it suited our film. 
• Roads stands for 'Recovery Orientated Alcohol & Drugs Service' and this is what our film is all about so we decided to have a read of the website and find out what it was all about and to see if it would help to make our opening scene more real and authentic. 
• We also thought that when someone searches for our film it will also come up with the website which some people may find helpful as they may not know about it. We want our film to make people more aware of the problems of drugs and the effect it has on everyone and the services that are available to help with drugs. 
• This is what the Roads website looks like:

Location Recce - Bedroom Change

1st February 2017

Under certain circumstances, it turned out that we were unable to use the first bedroom that we planned so had to recce a second choice.

We liked how this bedroom looked as it shows the tom-boyish side of our protagonist from the stereotypical blue. It also has non copyrighted posters on the walls which we thought went well with the messy character.

We planned to move the bed into the centre of the room as this would allow us to use the space around it to fill with the credits and allow for panning shots.

As a group, we realised that we would have to remove certain parts of the room, such as names and photos of the boy whose room it is, as this could distract or confuse the audience towards the personality or identity of our character.

However some aspects could be kept, such as guitars and guitar amps, that build the background and interests of the character. As well as this, the bottle tops on the wall could be taken off and scattered on the floor to add to her messy persona and underage drinking, enhancing the theme of drugs once again as well as the genre of comedy drama.

When taking pictures of the bedroom, I decided to take a picture of the bed from a high angle, as this is what we desired to do during the actual filming of the opening, to allow a sense of what it would look like in the final piece.

Headshots of Actors

27th January 2017

Main Actor - Ebony Paice

Plays protagonist girl and is visible in all three locations.

Extra 1 - Ben Bradley

Plays a young boy in the park that runs past the camera screaming for comic effect.

Extra 2 - Ethan Simpson

Plays a second young boy in the park that runs past the camera.

Extra 3 - Brian Bradley

Plays an adult man in the park who is chasing the two younger boys. Walks quickly past the screen whilst shouting ".........................." for comic effect and a sense of the rough area where the protagonist lives, adds to the drama genre and harsh theme of drugs.

Final Storyboard

Location Recce - Tonbridge Park

3rd January 2017

After storyboarding, we as a group knew we had to start looking and scouting out the locations that we wanted to film the different scenes in and knew we would have to shoot these in various natural lighting in order to fully test each one.

We also thought about props we would use to make the scene look more realistic as well as fitting with the colour palette that we made for the opening and genre of comedy drama.

This would help in the long run as it gave us a clear and set idea of where we would be shooting and how it would look on camera in our final opening.

The first location that can be seen in our opening is one of the teenage girl protagonist who will be sat on the edge of the bench shown.
On the left, is our first choice as the background has neutral colours as well as a slight interjection of the colour palette, however extremely subtly in the corner, we thought it seemed effective.
We had also planned for 2 children to rush past during the zoom in shot of this scene, and realised the path may be useful for this.

We then took some example shots including a member of the group to exemplar how the actor playing our protagonist would look on the day or whilst shooting.

This helped as we could see how the scene may look after shooting as well as allowing us to test the exact position of our actor within the frame and also the rule of thirds that we want.


As well as this, we decided to make a short video explaining the issue of shadow from the sun, including an examplar clip of the bench.

As a group, we found a similar bench, also inside Tonbridge Park. This particular scene included the background of trees which we originally desired, and also made the location more obvious as the gate in the distance is a clear semantic example of a park.

As part of our sound palette, the group decided on having ambient background noise of a park. This will play at the start of the film opening over a blank screen before cutting to the first scene of our protagonist on the park bench. Below, is an example of the type of ambient sound we want in our final piece.

Location Recce - Brick Wall

3rd January 2017

The second location we knew was necessary was a brick wall, preferably old or dirty looking with pavement at the bottom as a pose to it being grassy.

This was for the second scene of our opening where our protagonist would be shown standing as if outside a party of some sort in more dressed up clothing than before, taking a pill to demonstrate the theme of drugs. 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    This was our initial idea as it was actually outside a club, however it did not fit our ideas of how we pictured it to be, as we imagined the wall being a lot more sheltered off therefore a naturally darkly lit shot overall. 

However, the final decided location for this was a wall that was very close to the park where the first shot will be filmed. It was a lot more dirty looking and already had graffiti on it, which is what we had in mind. This is as we wanted to put the name of our company onto the wall during the editing stages and this left negative space for us to do so, as can be seen by using a member of the group to show where we would place our actress.

Location Recce - Bedroom

3rd January 2017

Finally, we recce-ed the bedroom that we wanted in our final opening. Our vision was to have a room with a double bed in the centre to give us space to pan around from one side to the other.

Charlotte suggested her parent's room which seemed to work well with our idea, as well as giving us an extra room, the bathroom, where we decided we could finish the opening in, before cutting to a black screen.

Colour Palette

Initially, we chose a darker colour palette with more grey and blue tones which went with our initial social realism drama genre which we originally decided on. 

After pitching our initial ideas, we adapted our genre to more of a comedy drama after the feedback given. This then lent itself to a brighter colour palette which we decided on as it is more vibrant so can also represent the protagonists young age of 17. 

We also figured this could easily be incorporated through mise-en-scene throughout the opening as one location is planned to be shot within a party scene, so lighting can be used to make the colour palette consistent throughout the opening.

Sound Palette

Firstly, we knew from the offset that we wanted to open with a black screen where only ambient sounds of a park or children's playground could be heard.
This would then be cut straight to the first shot of our protagonist sitting on a park bench, still with this ambient sound playing which we plan to make ourself, finding a suitable area to record audio and recce-ing local parks.

As we decided to finalise the genre of our film opening to comedy drama, we realised that the music playing during the credit sequence would need to be something upbeat, however still showing a sense of a down side or deeper meaning.
After research of this type of song, we found that 'One is the Loneliest Number' by Three Dog Night was the perfect basis for the genre of music we were looking for.

After research, we found that epidemic sound is a copyright free and royalty free website where you can search music by genre, which we did and found the music that we intend to use in our final piece throughout the 2 minutes; https://player.epidemicsound.com/#/search/?search_query=fantastic+plastic

Finalised Idea

Our final idea sticks to our original thoughts of doing a drug related teen film opening where the credits are embellished into the props used such as the drugs, or a piece of writing on a packet etc, inspired by the opening credits for Napoleon Dynamite.

After pitching our idea to the class, it was suggested that we turn our genre into slight comedy as the Napoleon Dynamite influence on the credits offers itself towards this. However after discussing before the next lesson, we all agreed that we still wanted the genre to be drama so went with the idea of a general slightly comedic drama.

Locations - Park, Alleyway, Bedroom

We plan to recce all of these places to find the best area to film. For example, we want the bedroom to be messy as a stereotypical teen may have it, especially one that is involved in the world of drugs. However, we realised that we can't keep the room too dark as the comedic genre will be a lot less obvious, and the credits shown may be limited due to lighting.

Initial ideas for a park would be Tonbridge Park;

• Easy to access - an allowance to film would be necessary 
• Has benches and wide spaces
• Looks like a park
• Would give natural diegetic ambient sound

Music/Sound - soundbridge - black to park - diegetic
                       - ambient sound - park - diegetic
                       - child screams comically - diegetic
                       - credit music starts playing - continue to end - non diegetic

Shots - long shot of protagonist on a park bench
          - zoom into eye
          - pan around bedroom - zooming into packets, drugs, dirty room etc with credits on
       
Colour Palette - light - comedic contrast to drugs

Through the use of young actors - contrast of harsh world of drugs and young children playing
                                                                                                 - child runs past screaming
                                                                                                 - actor sits on bench - no reaction

Important Frames

As a group, we went out during a lesson and took initial test shots of important frames that we had brainstormed and thought about drafting into our final opening. This helped as we could picture what it would actually look like and allow us to decide if we like the idea of it.

Our first shot would just be a plain black screen, with ambient sound of a children's playground overlapping it.

The second image that would be seen on the screen would be straight cut from the black screen previously there. The picture below shows how we would have the protagonist sitting on the side of a park bench, both in the right third of the screen. This would introduce her immediately and show a sense of isolation or a teenage stereotype of sitting away from other people in an obviously busy park.

The third important frame consists of the same as position of the female actor however with some running past. At the time, we could only do this with someone in the group but in the final opening we plan for this to be a young child, to add sudden action and show the comedic side of the genre.

The fourth frame that we considered important is an extreme close up shot of the protagonists eye as we plan to have a moving zoom shot into it after the child has run past, this would be continuous from the first shot up until this moment. We then want to change the location before zooming out again, as can be viewed in the fifth test shot.



The image above is what we plan the next frame to be. After zooming out of the extreme close up of the eye, we would move the camera further away as a mid or long shot, dependent on the space we would have. This would be shot in the location of an alleyway as we imagined it to be outside of a club or a party, which we would make obvious by use of sound and colour with loud diegetic music and a faint array of colours hitting the brick wall, where she would be alone once again in an obviously busy place.

The next image we took is in the same alley as the previous image however during a pan shot. This would also be continuous from the last shot as it would just revolve and move around the protagonist. The pan would then continue around her as we would have the female actor step forward and look around a bit in order for us to do a full 360 shot around her. The camera would then be directed back into her eye once again and the location would also change, whilst still in the extreme close up.

 After the extreme close up of her eye, the camera would zoom out to an aerial shot above the protagonist lying on her bed faintly shaking to show a drug addiction.