This is England

From "This is England" we wanted to achieve the style used by Shane Meadows. This particular sequence seen above is not the exact start as their is a montage sequence in which it shows clips of England from the 1980's. We choose to look at this particular sequence as it the first instance involving the characters, which ours does. One of the main aspects we want to take from this is the cinematography. The colours of the room and the outside are quite grey. We wanted this to represent the urban in sequence, as one of our main aims is to show the dark grim greys of the urban, in contrast to the bright wide open spaces of the beach. This shows the grim urban as being a place of conflict and sadness for the character, whilst the opposite can be said for the wide spaces of the beach which act as a release for the character.

Another reason we chose to use this sequence to analyse is we have a particular interest in one of the shots. The long shot of the shop when Shaun exits is very similar to the long shot we want to achieve at the beginning of our sequence when you can hear the noise of the character being beaten/attacked.

Dead mans shoes

This is the opening sequence of Dead Mans Shoes directed by Shane Meadows. We chose to look at this opening as it has elements of a flashback in it and we also see the two characters walking in the countryside area, similar to our character walking in the open spaces of the beach.

In the sequence it cuts to and forth between the present time and what seems to be almost a home video of the two characters as children. One way in which the flashback is acheived is through this sepia colour and grainy film we see, this gives the impression of a home video feeling. We also see the screen is smaller than that of the screen which shows them in the present. All of these elements help distinguish between the "flashback" and the present.

In the present we see the two characters walking in the wide open space of the countryside dragging a back. The sequence has a feeling of sadness, this is partly due to the soundtrack and the slow cut rate seen in the sequence. Throughout this sequence we have the slow song playing as they walk through the hills. We also have quite a lot of long shots, these show their lonelyness, in such a wide space. With so many elements similar to our own production this was a vital piece of research.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

One of the reasons we chose to look at this sequence for our opening was the scene at the trainstation. We wanted to acheive the same feeling as lonelyness as seen above. One way in which Eternal Sunshine achieves this is through the use of colours. There are no bright colours in the above sequence it's almost as if all the colour has been washed out and all that is left is greys and blues, both colours which represent are dark, sad mood.

Another part of the sequence of particular interest was the look of the beach, as in our sequence our protagonist visits the beach. On the beach itself we see Jim Carey is on his own apart from the one woman who is part of the films plot. This lonelyness is essential to the mood and feel of the sequence, one which we want to recreate in our opening. Also as said before the colours at the beach is washed out leaving a dark grey sea and sky, which reflect the mood of the sequence.

In the opening sequence we hear a voiceover from Jim Careys character. He talks in a monotonous almost moody manor throughout about how he is lost him memory. This voiceover adds the sad feel of the sequence and coupled with all the other elements mentioned above creates a sad, dark opening to Eternal Sunshine, something we want to acheive in our opening.

Production Treatment for main task

The Opening of a short film : The proposed title of our film is "Runaway". The genre for our piece would be a emotional drama focusing upon the story of a young adult in care of his adopted parents.

Duration : The proposed time for the piece would be around the 2 minute mark.

Audience : The audience we identified our film would most interest and who we would target would young educated students in the age range or 16-24. We chose this audience as we feel they could relate and understand the emotion of the film and appreciate the sometimes dark feel of the piece at times.

Resume : For the opening sequence which we will be shooting it will feature the boy effectively running away from his house and his adopted parents and escaping to the seaside. The opening sequence would start with the viewer being able to hear the protagonist being beaten and some sort of argument occurring. We would then see the protagonist leaving the house wearing his backpack and travelling down the street and catching the train/bus to the beach.

Suggested Elements :

Performance : The main performance in the piece will be of the main travelling to the seaside from the house.

Costumes : The costume of the protagonist would be normal young modern clothes, as it shows the protagonist is no different from any other sterotypical teenager so the audience will be able to relate to the character. The character will be wearing his back pack to show that he is always on the move, almost as if he is just waiting to go.

Props : Aswell as coming under costume we would also class the backback as one of the characters props. We would also class the train and/or the bus in which the character travels on as a prop.

Key Locations : For the first half part of the sequence in the urban area we are going to film in a area that is local to us all so we are going to film this in swinton as it is quite a urban area. As for the second half where the protagonist runs away we are hoping to film in a seaside location however we can easily change and adapt our idea to work in the countryside. Some of the locations we have already scouted as possible locations include "Lytham Beach", "Ainsdale Beach", "Southport" and "Dovestones" all but the latter are seaside resorts with the latter being set in the countryside. For more on locations see seperate post.

Title/ opening credits : We have decided to have two production companies in our credits one being "GTC" and the other being "GeoHar" both of these we made up ourselves. Also in our opening sequence we are going to credit the protaganist the cinematographer and the director. We see this as essential in creating the opening sequence of a film.

Filming Dates : One of the problems we faced was finding a day when the whole group was free for the day when we travel to the beach. We wanted when we travelled to the beach to ideally go on a weekday as this would be better for the film as it would be more quiet. However this was not possible to find a week day when the whole group was free, so we went on a weekend which we arranged in our group, but we chose to go on a day when it wouldn't be particularly good weather as to avoid other people who may be at the beach.

Initial Ideas

For our initial ideas we came up with a number of ideas. One of our first ideas was a story of a depressed lifestyle of a young man and how his life is destroyed after a break up from his current girlfriend. The film would have documented his fall into depression as his life spirals out of control. The opening of the film would show part of the break up between the two. We planned for the film to be quite dark to try and get the emotional feel over of the young mans depression.

One of our other ideas was the story of a adopted. The boy is beaten by his adopted parents. The story would focus upon the aspect of the boy running away from his adopted parents and issues he has in his life. The opening would feature the boy running away from his adopted parents house and to the countryside/seaside. It would be suggested he is getting beaten at the start of the film he then runs away, hence the name "Runaway". We planned to film this in the same style of our original idea i.e. dark grim setting. We planned to show the grimy urban setting of the suburbs and the wide open spaces of the calm seaside/countryside. We chose this second idea as well there was more substance to this second idea. We chose to follow up this idea as we felt there was more interesting things we could for the opening sequence compared to the first idea. Another reason we chose this is we could hopefully show the contrast between the dark grim urban areas to the wide open, calm space for the 2nd half. We felt the juxtaposistion of the two locations would help with showing the characters different emotions.

Preliminary Task - Evaluation

What did you learn about the cameras and editing software during the preliminary task?

Some of the skills we have learned come from the very basics of filming and editing. We learned basic operational skills with the camera, we learned about composition of shots and framing. We understood to achieve continuity, we must follow the 180 degree rule and we learned to put this into practice. We also learned how to operate the tripod and how to use this to create a varied amount of shots.
Through our preliminary task, we learned how to edit using Final Cut Pro 7. We learned basic skills such as importing clips, starting a new project and selecting specific footage for our time line. We learned how to trim footage using the 'mark in' 'mark out' technique and using the blade tool. We also learned to manipulate the image and sound using the effects available.

In the filming and editing of your project, what worked well and what could have been improved?

We had a variety of shots which made the sequence look interesting. However, with the many shots at points, the piece may have looked over edited especially at the beginning of the sequence when the character walks through the door. Although we had a lot of editing, we feel we achieved good continuity. At one point we did not obey the 180 degree rule at the beginning when the character walks into room. We film other one shoulder of the teacher then when the character sits down we then obey the 180 degree other the shoulder. Although it is not majorly noticable, it does break the 180 degree rule we feel however that it does not affect continuity.

Give a detailed, specific example of how you have used a shot reverse shot combination in your film.

We had a conversation between a student and a teacher. The student walks into the room and sits down then the two have a conversation. We had a shot reverse shot combination when the two were talking. We obeyed the 180 degree rule during the shot reverse shot. This helped to the continuity of the piece. We shot these over the shoulder of the character being spoke to, so you can then see the student/teacher speaking. We kept to filming over opposite shoulders of the two to keeep to the 180 degree rule.

Give a detailed, specific example of how you acheived match cuts during the editing process.

One example of when we used match cuts in our preliminary task was when the student opens the
door and walks into the classroom. We have a shot of the character walking upto the room, this is followed by a close up of a hand reaching out for the door. We then have a medium shot from inside the room. When editing we looked for the point between the shots so they matched up. We used the "mark in mark out" technique to take snipets of footage from each take. We then used the blade technique to trim footage then we placed the footage together. All of this was done on Final Cut Pro 7. The match cuts helped with continuity of the piece.

How did you achieve continuity in this task? Or if the transitions weren't entirely smooth, what have you learnt from this?

To achieve continuity in our preliminary task we used standard conventions when filming such as obeying the 180 degree rule and using match cuts. By using these conventions it made the piece feel more realistic so the piece had some continuity. We used match cuts for the character walking through the door and speaking to the teacher, where we had a shot sequence where we had a medium shot of the character walking towards the door followed by a close up on the characters hand as he begins to open the door, we lastly have a shot from inside the room of the character coming through the door. All of these shots run together so this shows the continuity we had in our preliminary task.

Preliminary Task