Film Treatment

Film treatment

For our coursework we have to film a 2 minute film opening. To do this we have had to plan the whole film to be able to get an idea what the opening will be like. The plot to our film is about a teenage boy, who is lonely, and has to face a nasty group of bullies every day at school. There is a main bully whom is a girl that torments him so much that he cannot take it anymore. The film demonstrates a few deaths and the mystery of who is making these killings. The opening of our film will start with somebody’s eyes closing. It will then involve a chase between two people, a boy and a girl – the boy chasing the girl. This will take place at dusk in a quiet area. None of the shots will reveal the boy’s face as we don’t want the murderer to be revealed. The film will capture the girl falling over and will then show the boy slowly becoming closer and closer.  The shot then fades to black and changes to a shot of someone’s eyes opening, followed by a series of shots of this person getting ready for school. Hopefully this will give the impression of the chase being a dream – even though it wasn’t.  Hopefully the chase will create tenseness for the viewer as the genre is a thriller.

Ideas for filming locations and casting:

·         Marlborough common

·         Must be at dusk (just getting dark) so this is using some pathetic fallacy

·         One of our houses to film the character getting ready for school

·         Max Tonkin is a possible actor for one of our characters

·         I am also a possible actor for one of our characters

·         For the bullies we are planning on asking a group of our friends to act this part out for us

I have asked one person some questions so that I can create a profile for a typical audience member. My profile for a typical audience member:

Name: Lewis Philcox

Age: 17

Occupation: Student at Gloscat

Gender: Male

Dislikes: Reading books

Likes: Cars and Indian food

Interests: music, films, cars, mechanics

Looks up to/idolizes: Gabriele Tarquini

Musical preferences: dance, dubstep, euphoria

Ambitions: Become a mechanic

Media consumer habits: watches tv for a couple of hours in the evening, watches tv more at the weekends. Tends to watch a film or two at the weekend, mostly on DVD but sometimes on the internet. Goes to the cinema now and again with friends. Loves to watch Top Gear on Dave.

 Taking into consideration the typical audiene profile that I have just created, below is a picture of what a typical member of our audience would probably look like.

This is our (mine and Jack's) animatic of the story board I drew. It is just a brief outline of what will happen in our opening. I drew the pictures in pencil and then outlined them in a dark pen. I then captured each picture on a camera, uploaded them onto the Apple Mac's and turned all the pictures into an animatic using iMovie.

Coursework Preliminary

We had to film our preliminary which is 15 marks towards our final grade in our coursework. We had to use a number of shots in this video and we had to show somebody walking through a door and then sitting down and having a conversation with another character. To do this we used a classroom at school and we used two of our friends to be the characters in the preliminary. Whilst editing the film we decided to experiment with music for it. At the time we thought it sounded ok, although we are not so keen on it now! However, it's the shots and filming that count!

Using iMovie

iMovie is an application on Apple Mac computers which allows users to edit their home made videos. In more recent years it has become an application that is also used to edit some successful films.
When we first filmed our preliminary and were told that we had to edit it on iMovie I was very unsure as I had never used an Apple Mac before, never mind iMovie. Thankfully, I had a friend who was experienced with iMovie as he already owned a Mac. It was really helpful of him to talk me through using iMovie in the lesson and he showed me how to cut, crop and add lots of different affects to the film. By the end of the lesson I felt more confident but still a little worried on how I was going to use it by myself. Eventually I started to get used to it and understand it more, therefore I managed to successfully edit some of the preliminary. I managed to add a title at the start and credits at the end. I also managed to add in a few affects between some of the shots so that they blended in together more nicely.
I am still not 100% certain on how to use iMovie but much more than I was to start with. I only know the basics, and there is probably, I'm sure, a lot more depth that the application goes into to create fantastic results. I still have much more to learn, however in time, I am sure I will get there.

Filming 'The Breakfast Club'

A few weeks back we filmed our own take on one of the scenes from the film 'The Breakfast Club'. It was a fun task and the whole class took part in different roles to create the scene. Some of the class acted in the scene, whilst others filmed, directed or edited.
I learnt that it is crucial to involve many different camera shots to succeed in making a good film. If you keep on using the same old angles then the viewing can become boring for the audience. An effective camera shot can sometimes even play with the viewers emotions by adding different affects. For example if you were filming a thriller and you wanted to use the typical shot of filming a character from someone else's perspective i.e from behind a tree looking towards the character, then this gives the feeling of someone watching them which creates tenseness. Although we didn't use shots like this because 'The Breakfast Club' isn't a thriller, we still used a good range of angles so that there was variety.
I also learnt that you have to be very precise when cutting between shots. For example if you were filming someone walking towards a door and pulling a handle down, but you then decided that you wanted to film them walking through the door from the other side then you have to make sure that you get the camera in the correct place and height so that it will flow fluently. This is also the same for editing. You must make sure that when cutting down a shot that it blends in nicely with the next shot otherwise it will not flow and will seem jumpy. This is not the effect you want.
In editing the scene I learnt that there are many different affects you can use on iMovie. It is all down to personal preforations of the editor and what he/she thinks is best. However, editing is a very important part of creating a film and a badly edited film usually means, an unsuccessful one too!