Inital ideas of casting of actors, location and props

I need to start thinking about my finished production now so that I can work out a time schedule to get everything done by. I am quite happy with my film opening because it should be quite easy to shoot - i only need one actor, one set and few props.


ACTOR:
To play Lia, I need someone who can act (obviously) and really get into the character of Lia. Lia is a rather unusual individual and so I need someone who can fulfil the quirky need I have for my character and not be embarrassed about the costume I'm going to make her wear. I am using my friend Tricia to play Lia. She does drama, so can therefore act and get into the character's mindset. She isn't easily embarrassed and because we have a good relationship, it won't be awkward for me to ask her to do something differently or for her to ask questions about the character.


SET:
I need to shoot in a bungalow due to the fact that I will need to have someone outside flashing a light into the room, possibly on top of a small stepladder so that the audience can see that the light is coming from above the house - where you would expect a UFO to be. Luckily, Tricia lives in a bungalow so using her bedroom as Lia's bedroom is very possible. Also, she lives close to me so it would also be convenient. If we needed more space, I have another friend who lives in a slightly bigger bungalow. Problems would be that I will probably have to rearrange the rooms as I vision Lia facing away from the window when writing, not side on to the window, which is what it would be if I left the room as it is set up.


PROPS:
-Newspaper articles (print off internet or find actual news articles on UFOs and outsider beings)
-Desk
-Fountain pen
-Paper
-Powerful torch(es)
-Bed
-Chair
-Quirky pictures or ornaments (to show that she is different)
-Clothes (to scatter around the room)


COSTUME:
At the moment, i vision Lia wearing:
-A khaki green short sleeved jumper
-Black leggings
-Either denim skirt or tutu
-Long stripey socks
-Ankle-high Converse


Her hair is plain, hanging limp around her shoulders. On her face is intricate black patterns around her eyes.


CREW:
-Director
-Producer
-Editor
-Cameraperson
-Actor
-Person(s) to hold torch(es) and make it/them flash outside

Script: First Draft

Today in class, Miss Brogan gave us a document which told us about how to layout and write a script. We then pushed on writing our own scripts for our film openings. My first draft is below. I will probably come back to it and edit it many times before I actually shoot as no doubt i'll get new ideas.

“SOUL BENEATH”

FADE IN:

INT. BEDROOM – NIGHT

A hand writing on off-white paper with a FOUNTAIN PEN.

LIA (V.O)

Mum, we both know I don’t belong here.

View of the bedroom. Lia is hunched over at the desk against the back wall. NEWSPAPER ARTICLES are clearly identifiable on the wall though their contents cannot be read at this distance. It is visible that Lia has mid-length brown hair and is wearing a short sleeved khaki jumper. From behind the camera, BRIGHT LIGHTS are slowly flashing and illuminating the articles on the wall.

LIA (V.O)

Normal girls wear make-up and have girly gossip session. Normal girls watch movies together and go out shopping. Normal girls read magazines and flirt with boys. I’m not like that at all. I’ve always known that.

Side shot of Lia. Her red trousers are now visible. Around her head is a neon headband. Flashing LIGHTS are becoming more frequent.

LIA (V.O)

I know why now. And I’ve finally found where I belong.

Close up of the LETTER. Words ‘I’ve finally found where I belong’ highlighted.

Shot from the desk surface looking up at Lia. Her face is decorated in black patterns. Bright lights flashing behind her.

LIA (V.O)

Don’t come looking for me. I’ll be happy there.

Shot back to letter. Lia writes, ‘All my love,Lia xxx’

Shot of the room. Lia gets up from the desk and walks to the camera.

Side shot of Lia walking to the window. The flashing LIGHTS are brighter and more frequent. She smiles to what she sees on the other side of the window. Lights become brighter and so frequent they envelope the scene.

OPENING TITLES

Ident ideas & development

I have been working on creating different idents for my production company – phénomène industrie and been exploring different techniques on After Effects. This process has given me lots to learn on After Effects and will help me when I come to create my opening credits in my final production.

IDENT 1:

The first ident I created, which I have already posted before. I like the transformation of the smiley face into the accents of the production name and I thought that the random smiley face could signify the mysterious and unknown identity of the outsiders in my film opening.

IDENT 2:

For this ident I stuck with the simplistic black and white colour scheme but added a 3D effect to the word  ‘phénomène’ by creating another text layer and putting it slightly off centre of the previous text. I think this depth shows that my production company, and therefore the films I create are different from the norm and can be interpreted in different ways by the audience.

IDENT 3:

Again, for this ident I stuck with the simplistic black and white colour scheme and added a circle which I thought could perhaps signify the moon or planet beings I want to create sci-fi movies. I am not so keen on this ident as I think that the animation is quite amateur and that isn’t the opinion that I want to convey about the types of films I want to make.

IDENT 4:

For this ident, I tried to see how it turned out if I added some colour. While I think that the changing colours look quite cool, I don’t think that it looks very professional or relevant to the types of films I want to create. I think this ident gives off a ‘feel-good’ vibe which the films I hope to create aren’t really ‘feel-good’ movies.

IDENT 5:

My fifth ident is again black and white and very simplistic. While I want to go for the simplistic look, I think that this ident is a bit too simplistic and looks almost amateurish. The animation isn’t very developed and the text is boring and not engaging as it is all one size and one font.

After deciding that my first ident is the best one, I decided to develop it a bit. I added pupils to the eyes to give it a little more personality and had them fade out as the accents moved down over the E’s. I think these changes make it look a little better.

Also, I have decided that I really like the finishing image of the second ident so I will use that image for posters and other things like that while I will use the full animated ident 1 for the start of my films.

Audience Research

In order to gather an idea of what kinds of films people like, I did some research by interviewing a few people about their film preferences. Because my film will probably appeal to older teenage boys more than any other demographic, I mainly interviewed teenage boys but also interviewed a boy younger than my demographic and a woman older than my demographic to give a more generic picture.

Soul Beneath: A Synopsis

Title: Soul Beneath
Genre(s): Sci-fi, action, thriller

Logline: A teen girl, always thought of as strange, gets her wish to leave her home, but with earth-shattering consequences.

Synopsis: ‘Soul Beneath’ tells the story of Lia, an eighteen year old girl living unhappily with only her Father for comfort. Her father earns enough money for himself and Lia to live comfortably and he often treats her to new clothes, but Lia just isn’t interested. Her interests lie in something far more intergalactic.

The film starts with Lia leaving home, leaving a message for her father about how she is different and cannot stay. The audience is left unsure of how she left due to the bright flashing lights from outside her window enveloping the scene and dissolving into the credits. Throughout the film, there are regular flashbacks from Lia’s life showing the audience how she is different from everyone else and they are made to sympathise with Lia. The audience find out that Lia has left her home to travel the stars on a spaceship with extra-terrestrial beings. She finds comfort with them and through their subtle indoctrination methods, Lia is lead to believe that she is an alien born in a human flesh to observe the human race. She is also given the ability of telekinesis from her new ‘family’ and her ability to feel sadness and empathy are removed from her brain. This indoctrination makes Lia despise her own people and she helps to lead a bloody war against the citizens of Earth. This makes the audience torn about what to think of her. The flashbacks provoke sympathy yet they want to see her as a villain due to her violent actions against her ‘loved ones’. When she sees the bloody corpse of her human father, despite the fact that she has been indoctrinated, she mourns over her father, showing that she is still part human. The film ends with her looking angrily towards the sky and insinuating that she shall take revenge for what the extra-terrestrials did to her.

Introduction in detail: The first shot is a close up shot of a hand writing from the left side of the hand. The camera then cuts to a rear view of a girl sitting hunched over at a desk with a slow zoom towards her. The audience can see newspaper articles pinned to the wall behind her desk though the content of these articles cannot be made out. A voiceover (the audience presumes it is the girl) commences of a girl’s voice reading what sounds like a letter. She is explaining to somebody that she is different, she cannot stay where she is. She is saying how she always knew that she was different somehow and now she finally knows why. As the voiceover is going on, the camera cuts to a shot in front of the girl as she is writing and the audience can see flashing bright lights through the window behind the girl, there are a few cuts between shots to close ups of the girl’s written words on the piece of paper to be a subtle indicator to certain significant points to the later story. Once the voice over has finished, the flashing lights are much more frequent and the camera follows the girl as she walks over to the window. She looks out and smiles, though what she is smiling at is unsure to the audience. Then, the flashing lights get so frequent that the individual flashes merge until the screen is totally white, obscuring the scene, and the titles commence. I’m not quite sure yet how I will do the titles, i.e. will they be in a style that gives away little indications to the story or have them so they give nothing away and the audience are left with a cliff-hanger that (hopefully) wants to make them watch the rest of the film.

Film Audiences

Objectives: to understand the in which audiences are classified and understand different approached to concepts of audience (audience theory).

We can catagorise audiences into groups based on:

-          Age – it sounds obvious, but a film with lots of talking animals and cheesy musical numbers won’t appeal to an older, more mature audience in the same war that a war film won’t attract the attention of a young child.

-          Gender – it is really stereotypical to say this but men tend to like action and thriller films while females like romantic-comedies and feel-good movies. There are, of course, exceptions to the stereotypes such as myself but unfortunately, the industry tend to base their audience profiles on stereotypical ideas.

-          Class – the film industry have two classes of audience based on their economic status, ABC1s and C2DEs. The ABC1s are the more middle to upper class people who have more money to spend on leisure activites. The C2DEs are lower middle to working class people who have less money to spend on leisure activities. Abraham Manslow defined the class system by a hierarchy of needs with people earning less income dubbed less likely to see films or more independent films and people earning more income dubbes more likely to see films and more experimental movies.

-          Stereotypical groups (chavs, emos, goths, indie kids etc.) – depending on your social status, there will be certain types of films that you will not see. For example, goths don’t tend to watch musical films.

-          Educational or leisurely films will be watched by different people – e.g. a documentary may be used more in a classroom than a horror film

-          Culture/beliefs – Culture and beliefs hold a big influence into what people will go to see, for example, a devout Christian probably won’t watch films like Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels due to the large amount of swearing and use of violence.

-          Personality – a person’s film taste is based on their personality usually. Happy, bubbly people may like rom-coms, funny, down to earth people may like thrillers etc.

After learning about how audiences are catagorised, we (in our pairs) had to come up with a couple of audience profiles based on the different stereotypes of people that the film industry uses.

-          Actualisers: successful, wealthy, dynamic people for whom image is important as an expression of their individuality.

-          Fulfilleds: mature people who are well-educated professionals. This group values order, knowledge and responsibilities.

-          Achievers: successful and career-orientated people. They are politically conservative and value the status quo. Image is important to them and they tend to buy established, well known products.

-          Experiencers: young, impulsive and rebellious. They like new products and styles but soon tire of them and search for new novelties. They spend as much as they can afford on clothing, fast food, music and films.

-          Believers: conservative people who believe in traditional institutions, such as the Church, and in the importance of the family and community. Their lifestyle tends to be very routine. Their income is small but sufficient.

-          Strivers: tend to be unsure of themselves and have a low income. They are striving for approval from others, which the fell they could gain by ownership of possessions, most of which they can’t afford.

-          Makers: do-it-yourself enthusiasts and tend to live a conventional family life.

-          Strugglers: on the lowest income and tend to be loyal to their favourite brands.

Audience profile: CATHY: a believer

An idea of Cathy with husband, John

Cathy, 45, is a mother of four and lives with her 49 year old husband, John in a small village away from bigger towns. John runs a small but successful shop in their village selling organic produce to the villagers while Cathy volunteers in her children’s primary school as a classroom assistant. Because her children are young, Cathy has to get up at half past six every morning to make her children’s lunches and pack their bags before sitting down at the table and eating Bran Flakes while reading the EDP to catch up on local events. While not volunteering, Cathy likes to knit and she is currently making new cardigans for her children to wear to school in the cold winter weather. She is Christian but not devout though tries to go to church with the rest of her family at least once a month. Now and then, she will treat herself to a copy of Good Housekeeping magazine to read when she gets some alone time at home.

Audience profile: LAURA: an experiencer

An idea of Laura

Laura, 19, is a first year fashion student at the University of Teesside in Middlesbrough. She is very fashion conscious, sociable and likes nothing more than going out with her friends to nightclubs in the city. Because she likes to maintain the image of the latest fashion, Laura doesn’t save up much money and is rather reliant on her parents. She will go to the cinema a few times a month with her group of girlfriends to watch the latest rom-com or feel-good movie.

Because I have a basic idea of what my final production is going to be like, I made an audience profile for what the audience of my films may be like.

Audience profile: DYLAN

An idea of Dylan

Dylan, 25, is a graduate music student from the University of East Anglia. He now works full time as a shop assistant in a music shop in Anglia Square in Norwich and this job is enough to pay his share of the rent of his flat, food and other necessities and still have a little left over. He lives in a flat in Norwich with his girlfriend Sarah who is training to become a primary school teacher. They met at University and have now been together for four years. Dylan goes to the cinema twice a month, once with his mates and once with Sarah. Him and his mates go to Cinema City more than Odeon as they like to watch more independent films and are not concerned about whether a film is confined to a genre or not. With Sarah, Dylan will usually go to Odeon or Vue as Sarah is a far more mainstream fan though he will sometimes take her to see something less mainstream.

Phénomène industrie

I have created my logo for my Production company and animated it using After Effects. I’m not sure make of my company name being French when I am English but I thought that it would be unusual and different, just like my films would hopefully be. I think the French is also more elegant and I have a dream that one day if I make it big in the film industry, I will direct a French film. I chose to keep the logo a simple black and white that will hopefully reflect the simple style of film that I will make. Below is the first animation for my Production Company. I quite like it but will probably make more in the future before I edit together my final production to see which one is better and best reflects what kinds of films I hope to make.