Image Reproduction Rights

Each of my three actors has signed a release form for the media piece, these are legal documents that protect me the director from any problems.

Release Form 1

release form 2

release form 3

Production Schedule & Production notes

Production Diary

4th April - Edwins house


Today i commenced filming at first location, this being edwins house which is one of my actors and characters.
We filmed a bunch of shots that showed edwin getting up in the morning and getting ready for school. I enlisted he help of a fellow indie film maker - johnny bailey, which was very helpful.
Overall the filming went very well with only a few minor problems such as a dog that wanted to eat the tripod and a mum who wanted to be in the movie. I also learnt that starring edwin was a bad choice because he isn't a very good actor.


Production notes for this shoot


edwin 1


5th April - Outside scene

This was a waste of time. Firstly i was very rushed which is never very good. and to top it off, as soon as i started shooting it tipped it down. causing much distress with the female actor and her "hair". Luckily i was underneath a umbrella with the camera by this point recording everyone running around like headless chickens. I am not planning of using any of these shots as they are bad. 

I put together a bried video to show these shots.





This is the production notes of the outside scene, on same page as some more notes about the first shoot.


Edwin House 2 - Outside Scene


8th April - Anna's House

After some waiting on if i would be shooting on this day or not it was decided that i was. i gained access to annas house for some filming after school on a monday. It went very well as they was no one to cause any problems or hinder my progress with the filming. The shooting was fine though they was two problems, the light was a bit wierd and the battery ran out on one of the cameras.

Anna's House production notes

Anna House 1
Anna House 2

29th April - Lockers

This shot was very fun. I got all the actors together after school one afternoon. the jock character was being a bit of a pain because he wanted to go homee. but we got through all the shots quickly and well. the battery ran out on one of the cameras though near the end of the shoot.

Production notes


Locker 1


Lockers Part 2



5th May - Ilkley

Today i quickly needed to do a few shots just to add into my opening to link the waking up scenes to the in school scenes while adding a few titles. i did them pretty well and pretty quickly and in the time i had i am very happy with the shots. 


Due to time problems and the fact that these shots were last minute i have not got a production log for these shots.

Target audience & Notional BBFC (UPDATED)

Notional BBFC

     The British Board of Film Censors was set up in 1912 by the film industry as an independent body to bring a degree of uniformity to the classification of film nationally.

     Statutory powers on film remain with the local councils, which may overrule any of the Board's decisions, passing films we reject, banning films we have passed, and even waiving cuts, instituting new ones, or altering categories for films exhibited under their own licensing jurisdiction.

The BBFC have its own set of classifications that it used to determine what rating each films gets.
 
Discrimination - drugs - horror - imitable behaviour - language - nudity - sex- theme - violence.
Page 14 - 17
 
  Page 22 - 33 of this document show what a film needs to gain each classification.
 
Bbfc Classifications
 
They are 7 different ratings aimed at different audiences, more can be read in the above document.
 

Above information and document (then uploaded to scribd) taken from http://www.bbfc.co.uk/

 My film
 
       I'd first start off by saying my film will be a 15 due to its adult themes yet lack of nudity.
 
Similar films of the same genre are;

 

Mean Girls - 2004 - Mark Waters - This high school Rom com had a UK rating off a 12A. This is due to its Containing moderate language, sex and drugs references 

 

 

Say anything - 1989 - Cameron crowe - This teen Rom com had a rating of a 15, this is due to its sexual references and its use of the F and S word.

Youth in revolt - 2010 - Miguel Arteta - 

this teen rom com had a rating of a 15 in the cinema,

this is due to ALOT of sexual references and

uses of alot of swear words alot too.

Comparison

Firstly the majority of rom coms are between the 12/15 brackets.
This is usually to do with the adult themes, of sex, drugs, and language. With these three being the main deciders. Mean girls gained a rating of a 12, because of its lack of bad language but it has a very small sexual references and drug use, but in both instances it doesn't involve the main character.
   In Youth in revolt and Say anything, bad language is used though this quite often isn't a huge problem but in YIR swear words are spoken very rapidly by the main character. As well as the main character taking drugs and in many cases making sexual references. So quite often if the main character/characters use language, use drugs or make sexual references then it can have a bigger effect then if its a sub character.

 

My film opening


  Age - As my film is a teen rom com, it is mainly aimed at teenagers, and around the 15-24 age rating, this is due to my film being based on teenagers and the story line is about teenagers problems off relationships, sex, drugs and teenage conflict. Adults won't want to watch this film because of this. My film also contains teen culture music and fashion which won't appeal to the adult audience.




Ethnicity- My film contains a multi - ethnic cast, though my two main characters are both Caucasian. The fact that they are all different ethnics in my cast will draw in a wider audience and not just restrict it to a Caucasian audience.

Gender- The main idea of rom coms is that both males and females will like to watch the movie, the romantic side of the film appeals to females, while the comedy side appeals to male. This doesn't mean though that males might not like the romantic side and visa versa. In my opening they are aspects of both genres therefore it should appeal to both genders. The use of a attractive busty female character also appeals to the males (male gaze theory).

Socio-Economic Grouping - I would say my film is aimed at a C1C2DE audience, this is due to its middle class characters and middle/working class setting. Also the dialogue and plot is very light hearted and simple which appeals to the middle/working class.


Nationality/Region- My film avoids regional stereotypes which helps to restrict to to a particular regional audience, though all my actors have north England accents which will somewhat restrict the audience. Though these accents are not heavy and don't make it tricky for the audience to understand what is being said. unlike Mickybo & Me where it was very tricky to follow the plot due to their heavy Irish accents. They really isn't a market in regional rom com's in Britain, with all the big main ones such as Run Fatboy Run and Bridget Jone's Diary all being set in London.

Sexuality- Due to my film being a rom com, a homosexual audience will be present due to its romantic conventions. Also even though its not seen in the opening, due to my rom com being set in a school and around they will be a heavily stereotyped gay character.Also my protagonists and narrative are centred on a hetero relationship which will appeal more to heterosexual audience.

Psychographic profile - The kind of people who will watch my movie will be the average teenagers who go to school, go out at the weekends and meet their friends and drink a little and try to be in a relationship. Films that follow a similar genre as mine very often make it onto the big screen with a the most recent big example being Youth in revolt which had a 18million doller budget was shown over  1,873 screens in the us and made $6,888,334 in the opening weekend and in the UK it was shown over 280 screens and made £743,932.

Fans of... - Fans of my film will most likely be fans of any teen rom com, as they all follow the same  genre conventions, examples being the previously mentioned Mean Girls, Youth in revolt, Napoleon Dynamite - 2004 which all use a late teen actors and use school as a large part of the story.

Typical Audiences for this genre - Rom coms are a very successful genre in cinema's currently making a lot of money, as quite often when people go to the cinema they don't want to watch a horror or a action but a light hearted rom com, and due to this they make a lot of money in cinemas, a very recent example being Bounty Hunter 2010 which is currently out in the cinema. which in the US was shown in 3,074 screens and made $20,686,423 in the opening weekend and up to the 4th of April has made $48,853,453  in the US alone.
This website shows how effective rom coms can be in the cinema and how much money they can rake in.
Box office mojo. British rom coms are also a interesting point to bring up, Working title are arguably the biggest film company in the UK and they produce the biggest (and half the time the only) rom com's to hit the big screen, the biggest examples would be Notting hill and Love actually 2003.

Final Rating - Using the BBFC classifications i have finally rested on my film being a 15, this is because my film would have scenes involving drug taking, frequent use of strong language, Sexual activity. 

Camera Features

They are some features and functions that the camera can perform if you adjust settings.

Manual Focus - use the fuction to have ultimate control on areas of focus.
Exposure - allows more or less light into the lens without your picture becoming too grainy.
White Balance - An adjustment that can be made to get the right colour balance for a given environment
P (or program) settings - pre set settings such as: Portrait, sports, spotlight, night which may help you achieve your certain look.

After much consideration i decided that they is two functions that would be great to use on my film opening

Manual focus - One of my shots is the two main characters walking towards each other, if i shot it from over the shoulder of one and shifted the focus from character to character it would be a good effect.

Exposure - one of my many problems with my filming is i am filming a early morning scene mid afternoon, i can use exposure to change this and make it look more brighter.

Revised Storyboard and revised Screenplay

After some alterations this is my new storyboard and my new screenplay, the main change between the two is incorporating the geek into the opening shots.

Screenplay

Revised Screenplay

This is my revised story board.

Page 1 Revised
Page 2 Revised
Page 3 Revised 


 


Due to a change in my idea at a later stage i am cutting the outside scene, instead i using a scene next to some lockers, this is the
 story board for that.

Locker Story Board

Soundtrack UPDATED

  For my film opening i need to have a soundtrack, From my research into the codes and conventions of romantic comedies film openings i noticed a few common conventions . Firstly most of the rom coms started with a real song playing, usually a well known love song as well.

    I brainstormed a few ideas of what to do for my soundtrack and i came up with two ideas,

1.  I could use a non copyrighted music website to find a backing track that i could use on my opening, this would be easy to do but it wouldn't involve singing, and to really make my opening fit into the genre i wanted a up beat song with singing.

freeplaymusic Is an example of one of these non copyrighted music websites, You can choose your style and music genre and you can search through database to find the right song, usually these are made by people and added.

This is a track i found that i quite like and if i had to, i would use it. Its called Busy Doing Nothing




2. My second idea and the idea i want to follow is that i will record my own version of a love song, (I 
won't personally as i can't sing or playing any instruments). I know someone who's amazing at singing and my brother is very good on the acoustic guitar. I will record it by recording my brother on the 
guitar using a portable sound recorder and then i will pass it on and record the singer.
They are a few songs that i considered to re record and these are,


Better Together - Jack Johnson 
Brain Bits on my tie - Manchester Orchestra 
Time of your life - Green day  

I then decided on the right song i will re record.

Do you remember - Jack Johnson 




I am getting my old brother james to play the song on the guitar which is embedded below.



Then i am getting my friend catherine whitehead to sing the song. (below)





This is a brief video showing my brother practising to play the song





Using a music editing free piece of software called Audacity.

I placed the two tracks together, did a few tweeks such as increased the volume, cut out bit to make them fit together and changed the pitch. Lastly i exported the song as a mp3 file.

Here are a few screen shots of me working on the track.

This is the final version of the song, if they is any problems i will go back to it and edit it.






During the winter submission of my project i had to edit the track a little bit more to fit into my opening.

Production title Podcast (UPDATED)

This Podcast will be me talking about my production titles, what they are and how i made them.

For the podcast itself i am using the record from web cam function on Imovie and adding annotations with links on, on Youtube. This is my first time using it and because i am creating it this way i won't be able to incorporate any other videos.



I made the podcast by recording myself on IMovie and deleting the footage and uploading the video to Youtube.

"Initial storyboard" and "Narrative and Screenplays"

This is my Initial storyboard, i drew it by hand and added the camera shot aswell as a brief description what's happening in the pictures, mainly due to my poor drawing skills so its hard to understand what each picture is. I scanned them into a computer and uploaded to scribd.

Page 1
Page 2
Page 3

I have also worked on my intial screenplay, i made it using microsoft word, and using the courier font size 12. Its basically the screenplay and narrative (though they isnt any) which occurs in my filming opening.
Screenplay

Casting (UPDATED)

These are all the different people i have considered for the role's of the jock, geek and girl.

This two are the two people i have considered for the part of the leading role of the geek.
  When people think of geeks they think of ugly, glasses, sits at home all day, very clever. My character is meant to be like that but instead he is meant to be quite good looking, and is very outgoing. Both these possible candidates for the part suit what i am looking for. I ended up picking the actor at the bottom for a few reasons.

• I could use his house for filming which was helpful.
• He was free during the time put aside for shooting.
• He fitted what i wanted.

These are the three actors that i considered using for lead female part, This girl is playing the part of the most popular girl in school. so she needs to be good looking, All three of them fit this, so the reasons which caused me to choose the candidate on the right is pretty much the same as the reasons why i selected.

She was available to film, had a bedroom and house that i could film in, and fitted the stereotype.

These are the 3 people i have considered for the role of the jock, i want someone who is quite big, looks strong and generally fits the stereotype for a jock.

All three of these share some of these conventions but mainly the candidate in the middle. He also available on the dates i am filming, and also he has a car which i think i am going to use in my opening.

Also all three of the actors i have selected all have acting experience except the geek, which is a great help when it comes to the shooting. Though i will have to wait till i start shooting to see how well the geek is good at acting.

For my reshoot's i stumbled across a problem, the actor for my jock character has moved away to go to university so i have come up with 2 solutions.

1. I posted a note in my schools newsletter asking for actors for a audition but unfortunatly no one contacted me so in the end i have got a back up actor.

Newsletter

2. In a change of plot line i may not have to use a 3rd character.

UPDATED:

As a last minute change of plan i have filmed the ending with another jock character.

I ended up getting my friend Nick Smith to help me, he doesn't really fit the jock stereotype but as it was a very last minute choice, it was too late to find and hire a character who fits the part.

Props, Mise-en-scene, Costume, Spx

Props

The props used are all used mainly to anchor what the character is doing as well to enhance the particular shot.

     For instance the towel is used to show the characters coming out of the shower.

Some Props were used to show titles, the props themselves are all objects that would link into the shot, such as a tee shirt as pyjamas when the boy is waking up.

        Quite a few of the props are used to show the binary opposition between the two characters. Such as the tidy girl with all her clothes in a wardrobe and a messy geek with all his clothes scattered on the floor. And the healthy girl having a yogurt for breakfast and the geek having cereal.

       Lastly some of the shots are used to anchor the characters and their personalities. such as the make up for the girl and the school textbooks for the geek.

Costume 

The girl has very stereotypical girl clothing, jeggings, Ugg boots,  top and a open shirt. This shows that she is quite spoilt because she has very nice clothing. Also that she is fitting in with the current fashion and culture. The use of make up and jewellery shows she takes pride in her appearance.

The boy outfit is quite random. I wanted him to be geeky while still looking quite fashionable. so he is wearing a checker shirt and a cardigan. this makes him look very geeky. the nice schools and bag signify that he was money to spend on nice clothing and accessory's. And the hairstyle shows that he is trying to fit in with the current culture.

                                                                                 

Mise en scene

The mise en scene in my opening is very simple. The start of the opening is based in a bedroom so they are key objects linking it to a bedroom such as a bed and a bedside table, these are all clearly show in the shots.

  

In the shots in the bathroom, not a lot is shown to make it seem like a background but they is a clear mirror and sink which is enough to link the shot to a bathroom.

   In the kitchen shots as well, not a lot is show the surrounding that link to the kitchen, but the shot of the  fridge and for the boy the shot of a table as well i think is enough.

  The locker scene is meant to be in a school, i don't think you see enough to link this though, you only really see some lockers and a door. This could be anywhere, though i think i have put in enough preferred reading for you believe its at a school.

Spx

In my video i only used 1 example of Spx, and that is when the girl flicks her hair back, i added a effect which made this slow down to signify a dreamlike state that the boy is in.

Here is my final cut (this part of the post was done after my final cut was finished which is why you can see my final cut), if you look at 1.54 to 1.58 you will see the slow motion i put in.