Location Research

Location- Running on the Cracks

As a group we had to chose the most appropriate location for our production to communicate our protagonist (Leo) is running away.

Initially we chose Maidenhead as our location because it was local and easy to shoot for our group but on reflection we considered that Maidenhead would not illustrate the isolation and internal struggles Leo would have in the narrative. Rather it would create an "amateur-ish" feel to the audience, therefore bringing the quality of our film down. We decided to have London as our setting as it is an iconic setting that would easily portray Leo's melancholy frame of mind whilst she was lost in the busy crowd of the streets. In London we chose to shoot on a bridge overlooking a lake, in order to incorporate a tracking shot of Leo walking in search of somewhere to live. As film makers, we wanted to covey a loss of innocence to the audience as Leo enters the real world, and I felt the ambience/atmosphere of London was perfect to depict this. Whilst searching for the exact location, I kept in mind that during editing we would eradicate the warmth of the atmosphere by adding blue filters to enhance the "cold" feel of London, (pathetic fallacy- English students would know) representing the location as almost depressing.

Images of London location, as you can see the original set for our film is too bright that's why we knew we would alter the colours :
 

 

 

Conventionally, films of mystery such as ours include open areas and crowds of people to demonstrate characters isolation so London was appropriate and a location that the audience would expect to see to communicate the genre.

Contrasting to London, I wanted to convey meaning to our audience about Leo's childhood with her parents and siblings. Thus we wanted the setting of our flashback to develop on this theme of warmth and happiness. When discussing appropriate location, a typical home came to mind because it connotes an intimate/personal ambience which was desired. One member in our group was willing to use a family member's house and we knew with decorations that the living room could be made very inviting/warm contrasting to the London location and communicating to the audience the fond memories of her childhood.

Costume Research

Leo:

Dressed in simple black clothing and a grey hoodie. Her hair will be open expressing uncleanliness and her rough situation. Black clothing connoting rebellious run away. Grey is reflective of her emotions which is sadness and emptiness also illustrating the dirty surroundings. For my research I used "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" as inspiration because the look conveys to the audience the rebellious feel we want to portray as well being fashionable for a teenager.

Family:

Dressed in Christmas Clothing (jumpers). Overall the clothing will be colourful signifying the happiness and joy of celebrating Christmas as a family.

Alex:
Casual clothing jeans and a hoodie/coat conforming to stereotypes of teenager attire.

Actors Research- Inspirations

While researching for inspiration for her character, at first it was difficult to find a character that subverts stereotypical representations of a teenage girl since big Hollywood productions that dominate films at the box office often choose to portray young girls as very fashion obsessed "girly" and living the high life. For instance "Wild Child" at the beginning of the film and "Mean Girls". However I reflected about these stereotypical representations and understood that Leo's character would be opposite to them.

I was able to use the character of Poppy as inspiration at the end of "Wild Child" (not the beginning) since she is portrayed as more natural English teenager like Leo, and also she is represented as sad and depressed because of losing her mother. Since Leo desperately wants to find her relatives and is represented as depressed without them I was able to use this film as inspiration.

Another inspiration was "The Perks of Being a Wallflower", the female protagonist is represented as rebellious in her behaviour and her attire was also used as inspiration.

Actors Research- In Terms of Casting

The actors were of course significant for our film and we took many things into consideration whilst choosing the actors. Together we discussed some specifications for the actors.

Leo: (protagonist)
We had to represent a young girl, who almost subverts some stereotypical representations of a typical "girly" teenager, portraying a rough edge to her. We tried to portray an element of rebelliousness and a loss of innocence almost as she enters the real world which was part of the narrative of our production. Thus Leo's appearance was vital to reflect her situation and realism of the character. The actor had to fit the requirement of being 16-19 years old.
Her style would connote a rough teenage edge (see Costumes Research). We were considering a member of our group but we decided on a drama student and our friend Katie Crossland, as our acting abilities would not be as good as hers and that would let the film down and destroy the viewer's belief in the reality our film is seeking to create. To me, Katie was more than for this role, she could effectively convey the characters emotions and relate to Leo.

Alex: His face would not be revealed adding enigma to our film, enticing the audience to watch the rest of the film. To keep the element of mysteriousness and not reveal his face, in our shots we chose and frames we would make sure that his face is never shown by the camera focusing on his body or for instance his hand while he collides with Leo. His style would be simple and casual. Later on, he is represented as the support or hero as the male protagonist. Therefore we conformed to these stereotypes when searching for the Alex. Ollie Parkinson (a friend of one of our group members) played the role of Alex. Ollie was also the appropriate age to be paired with Leo so he was appropriate. Since Alex's role is small and did not require much acting only his presence at the end of the film we did found it easy to select a friend for this role.

In particular the most significant element for the actors research, we wanted our protagonists to appeal to our target audience, (teenagers)  who prefer to watch films with their own age range and a narrative that appeals to them.

Film Treatment

Film Treatment

Film Title: "Running on the Cracks"
Production Name:
Film Duration: 2 minutes


Roles:
Director- Molly Fredrickson
Assistant Director- Kenzie Ellis
Production Manager- Angelina Rashid
Camera Man- Onaisah Abu Haj



Characters:
Leo: Katie Crossland
Sister: Martha Fredrickson
(Gran) parents: Jan and Fred
Alex: Ben


Costumes:
 Leo:

Dressed in simple black clothing and a grey hoodie.

Family:
Dressed in Christmas Clothing (jumpers). Overall the clothing will be colourful signifying the happiness and joy of celebrating Christmas as a family.


Synopsis (Film Idea):

Adapted by an award-winning writer Julia Donaldson's first novel aimed at a teenage audience. Published in 2009. The story revolves around 16-year-old Leo, who runs away from her aunt and uncle's home, where she has been living since the sudden death of her musician parents. Leo is driven away by the disturbing behaviour of her uncle. She escapes to London, where she comes across Alex a young teenage youth who will help solve the mystery of where her grandparents are. The film ends with Leo’s first meeting Alex.

Setting:

We have chosen the location of London streets, as we feel it is the correct setting to portray a teenage runaway with all the chaos of London around Leo, she will appear isolated and alone in a busy environment.

Props:

Backpack/suitcase (to signify to the audience that she had left home, but also revealing her situation of leaving everything behind to start a new life and find her family) 

Diary (creates a personal feel and reveals the thoughts of the character to the audience visually) 

Pen

Beanie

Christmas Jumpers

Christmas Hats (signifies celebrations and happiness of her childhood as well as the presents and decorations) 

Mince pies/food (contributes to the feel of a home) 

Plates

Christmas decorations (Tree etc.)

Phone

Radio

Presents

Sound

We will incorporate some of the natural diegetic sounds from the streets of London on a typical day. To make sure this is fully achieved we will also travel and record sounds.

Other sounds we have to include is in our Flashback; the song "Walking around a Christmas Tree" will be used in the house by the form of a radio.

Lighting

Natural lighting already present in London will be used.

The Flashback in the house will be well lit by Christmas lights, although outside will be dark as the camera focuses on the house.

Shot List- Ma.Task

Writing the Shot List?

Definition: List of shots used to plan or manage the shooting process of the film.

Example of a Shot List...

What is the purpose of the Shot List?
Portrays all the Shots that will be included in our film and is useful on the day of the shooting working in accompaniment with the storyboards. The Shots are in chronological order and details of lighting/depth and focus are included.

What were the challenges?
Sometimes we left out details of depth and focus which we later had to discuss, another challenge was we wanted a variety of shots but weren't sure exactly if we wanted to use them. In our minds we wanted to make full use of our Location London so made sure wide shots for example were included, but we were not sure what exactly would look best there.

Image of our Shot List...

 

 

Looking at the Shots we planned to incorporate we anticipated some problems that might occur during the day of production; Firstly with the wide shot displaying the characters Alex and Leo (7) because we knew there would be lot of people whilst filming so we were concerned with them appearing in the frame...
2) I also thought the tracking shot would be an issue because the camera movement could appear "shaky" not smooth. But to solve this we took a tripod (enabling the camera to stay in place with smooth movement) with us to make sure that the tracking of the character would appear smoother.

Storyboard- Ma. Task

Storyboards

Definition: a sequence of drawings, typically with some directions and dialogue, representing the shots planned for a film or television production.

Examples of Storyboards...

What is the purpose of the Storyboards?
The Storyboards are the second stage of Pre-Production process. It is the visual representation of the Screenplays and depicts all shots planned for the directors and camera operators. The shot types are included and key notifications can be seen on the Storyboards.

Task
We made Storyboards of our film as part of Pre-Production.

What were some of the challenges?
We encountered some challenges in determining the Shot Types to use a variety which was difficult to predict what would work best with our location of London. Also, it was a little difficult to put our visual ideas/interpretations to multimedia format on paper with important details of focus and depth of each and every shot to avoid flat shots. To further this, when the storyboards were first created it was open to interpretation due to the lack of clarity so they were created again making shots of better quality and detail.

Our Storyboards...

Screenplay- Ma.Task

Writing the Screenplay...

Definition: A Screenplay is the script of a film, including acting instructions and scene directions, closely used by the director.

An example of a Screenplay is presented below..

Fantastic Four (2005) movie script

by Mark Frost and Michael France.
Based on the Marvel comic book by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.
Shooting Script.  

FADE IN:

CLOSE ON A MASSIVE STEEL HEAD

Our first thought: DR. DOOM?  But it's not moving.  A
welder's torch sparks into frame in the hands of a sculptor
on scaffolding.  This is art, an epic 20 foot statue going up
of a business mogul (VICTOR VON DOOM) in whose generously
extended hands sit two intertwined columns of DNA.  His face
is chiseled, angular, perfect (too perfect).  Past sparks, we
MOVE down to pick up...

EXT. STREET/VON DOOM INDUSTRIES TOWER - DAY

REED RICHARDS and BEN GRIMM head toward the soaring glass-box
atrium of VDI Headquarters.  Designed to inspire awe, it
does.

  REED
 High open space, exposed structural
 elements.  Obviously aimed at first
 time visitors to create feelings of...
 smallness, inadequacy.

Ben glances at Reed, who looks a little nervous.

  BEN
 Good thing it ain't workin... Reed,
 what are we doing here?  This guy's
 fast-food, strip-mall science --

  REED
 This wasn't our first stop, in case
 you forgot NASA.  And Victor's not
 that bad.  He's just a little...
  (seeing the statue)
 Larger than life.

INT. VON DOOM INDUSTRIES TOWER - DAY

They move past the statue, into the sprawling atrium.

  REED
 He's financed some of the biggest
 breakthroughs of this century.

  BEN
 You'd never know it.

He motions to a high-tech ORB, showing FOOTAGE of VDI's
accomplishments: a safe and clean nuclear facility, the first
private Space Station.

All images have VICTOR front and centre, glad-handling George
Bush, Tony Blair, shady International Leaders.  The last
image is Victor holding the AMERICA'S CUP.

  BEN (CONT'D)
 Jesus.  That too?

They reach three stern RECEPTIONISTS.

  REED
 Reed Richards and Ben Grimm to see --

A receptionist cuts him off, handing them each a pass.

  FEMALE RECEPTIONIST
 Executive elevator, top floor.

  BEN
 What's the price for a smile round here?

They head for the elevator.  Reed carries a small, black box. 
As they enter the elevator, steel doors shut and we CUT TO --

INT. VON DOOM INDUSTRIES TOWER - OFFICE - DAY

A large, dark office.  Ben in the corner.  He yawns,
watches...

BRIGHT HOLOGRAMS: Stars.  Planets.  They hover in the air,
making the room feel like a majestic portal into outer space.

  REED (O.S.)
 My research suggests that exposure to
 a high-energy cosmic storm born on
 solar winds might have triggered the
 evolution of early planetary life.

REED stands among the holograms, speaking to a MYSTERIOUS
FIGURE in shadow behind a desk.  An ominous, PULSATING RED
CLOUD covers the stars.  It washes over a hologram of EARTH.

  REED (CONT'D)
 In six weeks another cloud with the
 same elemental profile will pass
 Earth's orbit.  A study in space could
 advance our knowledge about the
 structure of the human genome, and
 help cure countless diseases, extend
 human life --

The SHADOW clears his throat.  Reed speeds up, emotional.

What is the purpose of the Screenplay?
The purpose of the Screenplay is to inform what happens in the film chronologically; the first part of the filmmaking process. It contains all acting instructions and scene directions. The actors and directors are able to make use of the instructions and the setting, which makes it suited to the production stage of filmmaking. The screenplay essentially serves as the bare ones of the film. The artists later develops the Storyboards which is the visual medium of the Screenplay.

The Task given to us was: 'Create the opening of a new feature length film to include sound and to last no longer than two minutes'.

Our Screenplay...

As depicted there is not much dialogue, this was done on purpose to add enigma to the opening of our film as the audience want to find out more about the characters. Our opening ends with a question "Are you okay?" reinforcing this. The only character interaction is at the ending when Alex questions Leo. Leo is thus portrayed as mysterious and the screen play demonstrates this by the lack of speech from the protagonist.

Directors Research

Directors

Part of our research included looking at some of the best directors to explore what styles they incorporated and whether they stick to the conventional openings of film. Each director had a different style/approach so we wanted to have an idea of what style would suit our genre (Mystery). Some of the directors include Quarantine Tarantino, Steven Spielberg and Tim Burton. To me Tim Burton's style influenced some of our decisions especially in conveying our genre; he manipulates the colour and lighting in particular adding blue and grey colouring which connotes a cold and mysterious feel to the audience. This is evident in the "Corpse Bride". This music further enhances this effect sometimes adding a depressing sombre tone. To create a dramatic effect and heighten tension during  scenes the camera movement is fast (pace) with quick cuts. The audience engage with the characters emotions.