Locations

For our main task locations was a key aspect of the idea. As he is running away from the urban enviroment we had to try and get both aspects of the urban and the vast open spaces of the beach. We researched our locations before we chose where to go using "Google Earth, Street View". This allowed us to plan our shot lists. We also checked the weather for each of locations before we went so we could maintain continuity in our sequence.

Below are some shots of the locations we used.

Train Station

This is where we filmed where the main character gets the train from. One of the reasons we chose this train station was the variety of shots we could acheive on the stairs also as it is not a very busy station there was less to worry about in terms of members of the public being in shot which could affect the continuity later when editting the piece.

Train to Ainsdale
Part of the opening piece features our main character sat on the train on his journey. For this part we took several short shots of the character from the same position we then used a fade transition and cut the shots together, this signified the characters journey, also it allowed us not to worry about continuity in terms of people moving around on the train.

Shore Road

This was the road between the character getting off the train and going to the beach. Although we didn't see it as neccesry we thought it would be good to have this part in the sequence as it shows the difference between dark grim brick urban and the naturistic open spaced beach, this signifies the characters escape from his troubles.

Sand Dunes at Ainsdale
One of the reasons we chose to film on the sand dunes as we found them interesting to look at. Also due to the different sizes of the dunes and the tunneling pathways it allowed us to create a more varied amount of shots, such as high angle and low angle shots.

The Beach
The whole reason we went to the beach for this was wide open spaces we could show. We chose to go to the beach rather than say the countryside where we could still have the wide open spaces but we felt with going to the beach we would be doing something different and we feel as a location it is visually good.

Shotlist - Main Task

Here is our proposed shotlist

1. Long shot of house from outside
2. Close-up of character walking out of door
3. Long shot of house from outside as character walks away
4. Long shot of character walking into station
5. Cut to medium shot whilst waiting at the station
6. Close-up as character looks at his watch, point of view
7. Long shot of character waiting, train pulls into shot
8. Medium shot of character walking onto the train
9. Medium shot from inside train, character takes his seat
10. Shot sequuence of character on train changing position (4/5 shots)
    
11. Close-up of characters face on the train
    
12. Medium shot of character walking towards the door
13. Shot from across the platform as train pulls away from revealing character on platform
14. Long shot of character walking out the station
15. Medium shot of character walking down the road
16. Low angle shot from the floor looking upto the character walking up a sand dune
17. Long Shot from atop the sand dunes looking at the character walking down upon the beach.
18. Medium tracking shot on the beach as the character walks along the beach
19. Close up on the characters face as he stands on the beach as he turns away
20. Medium Shot as the character walks away from the camera, with a the camera beginning to fade and blur.
    

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.