HALF TERM CHECK LIST

Continue today's post 

Film whatever you can for your film opening

Complete 2 more Art of The Titles analyses

Start your FutureLearn Course FILM DISTRIBUTION: CONNECTING FILMS WITH AUDIENCES

PLANNING: FILM TREATMENT

Brainstorm initial ideas:

INITIAL IDEAS

Our production team brainstormed ideas about the plot, the soundtrack, our favourite films / scenes from films, ideas for locations and characters. (Write freely: I can imagine using our dog / garden / school woods / my mother's office....)

We wrote an OUTLINE TREATMENT

.......your ideas.....

MINDMAP

Write a treatment for your film opening. A treatment will normally contain:

• A TITLE that is dynamic and engaging
• The TOPLINE - an 'elegant sentence' that sums up the action
• The BIG QUESTION - what is the cliffhanger? what is the enigma that will unfold?
• The SYNOPSIS - one or two paragraphs outlining the plot
• CHARACTERS - brief introduction: Adam, 35, a dreamy design engineer.... Lucy, 25, a disenchanted doctor... Mary, 18, an idealistic student...

NEXT 

• After writing the treatment, you create a STORYBOARD  (hand drawn on the sheets that I give you)
• and a SHOTLIST

PLANNING: TOPLINE & BIG QUESTION

 

Watch this presentation by Frank Ash then write your own Topline and Big Question for your film opening. You write up a blog post explaining all this. You include a visual from the Frank Ash presentation, explaining who he is and what you learned from the presentation. Your blog post title is PLANNING:  THE TOP LINE AND BIG QUESTION

For Frank Ash, Creative Consultant who has taught storytelling and creativity techniques to teams across the BBC and beyond, it is important to focus on the audience: what will interest the audience? How will the narrative develop? 

"So, if you’re aiming for your film to reach a large audience online, making sure it has universal appeal will be key"

TOP LINE DEFINITION: Think about your favourite book or film or any ‘good story’ you recently watched online, could you sum up its narrative into ‘one elegant sentence’ to provide its ‘topping’

BIG QUESTION DEFINITION: What was its big story question, and how important was it to your appreciation of the text?"

Having learned from Frank Ash's presentation on FutureLearn, I decided to sign up for FutureLearn's 

Film Distribution: Connecting Films with Audiences

The course promises to cover  how our favourite films make it to our local cinema or television screen, through the film distribution process. The start date is 18 October.

PRELIMINARY EXERCISE: FILMING AN OPENING SEQUENCE

This post models for you what you will writing on your blog this weekend for PREP but obviously don't just copy this 

This week, we made practice film openings using the idea of 'table top' filming. Our brief was to film in one continuous take and to include a tiny live action element within this.

RESEARCH

We viewed three examples of opening sequences filmed in a similar 'table top' style.

Using Art of the Title, we watched Delicatessen (1991, Jean-Pierre Jeunet) and noticed how its inventive camerawork tells a story and sets the theme. Another excellent title sequence was that of To Kill A Mockingbird. 

We also viewed work created by last year's students.

We then use these as inspiration to create an original title sequence in groups by setting up the mise-en-scène using props from our props collection.

PLANNING

Before filming started, we laid out all the props that were elements of our film narrative's mise-en-scène on the table.

We also researched and discussed music tracks for the soundtrack. One option for our title sequence uses the soundtrack Nostalgia by Emily Barker (the Wallander theme tune). Another was ....

FILMING

We then filmed the 'live action' element, uploaded the footage into the editing software and planned our titles, credits, editing, special effects and soundtrack.

PRELIMINARY EXERCISE: FILMING AN OPENING SEQUENCE

Four stages today:

Stage 1: research the genre by watching three examples

Stage 2: film your table top in one take

Stage 3: film your live action sequence

Next steps tomorrow:

Stage 4: capture your footage and put it into a labelled bin