pre- production planning

Pre Production Masterclass

View more presentations from klaudijamedia.

the importance of title sequences

A title sequence is the first thing that your audience see and relate to therefore it can allow them to create their perception of the film before the actucal film starts. the first few minutes of your film can create the mood for your audience , whether it excites them or makes them feel scared , your title sequence must grip and draw your audience into knowing and wanting to watch more of your film. when producing a title sequence , creativity and thought must go into what message you want to portray through their first few minutes of your film. as some title sequences are made to match the action and almost give taster or peek at what may be included in film , some tell the story of the film and some contain almost opposite action to what may take place in the rest of your film , this can be used to confuse audience and suprise them without giving story away
A good title sequence must share many qualities such as being original in a way that it is either daring or challenging also they must tell a story no matter whether they are simple or artistically abstract.
It must also be a visually unique and show core theme of story without revealing to much.
depending on the look of your film , typography may play a big role in your title sequence, some may choose to use words and lettering to tell story of film or typography may just be used on the side as less of focus compared to the illustration.
Title sequences are the moments during watching a film , that allows the audience to create what mood they choose to share whiles watching a film , for example if a title sequence for a action/thriller is boring maybe may contain basic classical music and simple typography this will give the audience the impression that the what follows on from the title sequence may also be boring. the importance of using and displaying creative ideas is vital to creating an effective title sequence , ideas which are memorable and different may play around with audience perceptions of film , and grip them into watching more. no matter how simple title sequence may be , creativity can still be shown .

this is the call sheet of all our details and the cast details , which was then handed out to all cast and crew. the need of a call sheet is for everybody in the crew to be able to make contact with the cast and vice-versa , it helps with preparation.

collage of the world of my film

we created this moodboard/collage of loads of cutouts and different texts that we thought represent and showed how our film should be shown or portrayed , we looked at each character and their persoanlities and their likes and their look , for example at the top we took of cheryl cole who not only represents a pretty young female like our character marie but also because she was cheated on and betrayed whish is seen in alfies character , it also relates to the love affair in our story. we used lots of bold text from magazines and newspapers that quoted words like : heartbreak, secret,love , attraction not only did these words link in with our theme colour of red but where words that explained what the story line was about and contained. we see it as an love affair between marie and johnny that is a kept secret but causes heartbreak towards one of the characters ( alfie) , we wanted the audience to know what our film is going to be about ( love affair, betrayal) through the words we used. we also chose pictures of certain objects (props) that will be in the film that play key role like maries bag and her phone where the message is shown which alfie then sees and get jealous.there where many pictures included of couples , some looking in love and happy together which represented the affair and relationship between johnny and marie , and let audience know they're is a love aspect into the film not just all thriller, but we also showed happy families which portrayed the idea or fantasy marie wanted to have in the future and this said more about her background and kind of character she is (likes to feel secure and wants to be happy).we also showed pictures of couples who may have been arguing or upset to represent marie and alfie's relation which is contrast to relationship marie shares with johnny. to represent alfie's character we included a picture of chris brown ( been recently in media for abuse to girlfriend) and included words of abuse and other words around to show the different aspects we are including in our film to not make it seem like a typical love story.our moodboard was used to show our world of our film , through the characters : creating looks and personalities and interests of each character allows us to see the motivation and reasons for their actions in our story , and when the audience are able to understand the characters they are able to understand and visualise the storyline , i feel our story is more based aroudn the characters , who they are and why they have done this throughout the story. We included a bottle of alcohol to show alfies past with hsi father , the kind of background and home he came from and give an deeper insight into why he is so obessive and over-protective now.The voodoo doll is sometimes seen as a typical prop in a thriller/horror genre and also the image of fire suggests our colour and also our key theme in the story.we also included images of taylor swift looking dressed up in ball gowns and thought that this coudl represent marie's interest in fashion whiles in contrast the picture of lap dancing would show johnny's flirtatious side and womanising side.
we wanted out film to be suspenseful and have a thriller theme , it was able to draw the audience in and keep them guessing , slowly building up to the main plot twist ,almost letting the audience get drawn into the action taking place and we thought of albert hitchock style of film and so thats why we included him .Alfred Hitchcock is probably a big inspiration to the world of our film as his movies focused on the thriller genre. He uses pace to build suspense such as the “Physco” shower scene, and we feel pace could help us create suspense and tension in the audience in our film.

writing short films

over the years short-films have become a new style and a very effective one infact it has made way for new directors such as shane meadows and Lynne Ramsey .
One of the features of short film making in the UK has been the steady rise of story-driven narratives, and the increasing attention placed on the screenplay. At the heart of all the short films in this collection is a character's story, which is first fully realised in a screenplay.
i noted some basic tips to consider when writing or creating a short film, there are six questions you should keep in mind.
Who is the protagonist?
•What is the active question, which is the basis of the action in film?
•Who or what opposes the protagonist?
•From whose point of view is the audience being shown the story?
•What is it about? or, What is the theme?
•What is the style of the film?
estions that should be kept in mind

cinematography

Cinematography is the art of positioning a camera and lighting a scene.Its like using different components like ur camera and lighting to dress up your film. a cinematogrpaher's role is just as important as the director's , because they have the responsbility of being able to portray what their idea of their film is , and allowing the audience to visualise this idea themselves.after watching the masterclass of christopher doyle and cinematrography , i was able to learn that it is about being able to translate ideas into images , that in the space of time you are given to display your film , every scene or every shot must show all the ideas you are trying to portray in your film , it must express the mood and feeling our your film . in the clip he talked about how taking a simple setting ( the rundown wall and house)and looking at that specific place or object and thinking about what message it sent , what feeling it created , how it would work in ur film and it made me think of even though we may be using a simple setting as a science classroom how we were going to use camera angles and movement combined with lighting to create that mood of suspense or thriller it would almost like being in the room with those characters watching them experiencing what they are feeling, when they are panicking or scared. further on in the clip he talks about a certain area which is full of ambient light which almost brings the street to life andn gives it a certain energy, and how colour can suggest a certain emotion , i linked this into our film and our theme colour of red , the colour red is vast and is such a open colour , there are so many emotions and themes you can link to the colour red but we chose to show the more darker side of red , with the betrayal and secret love or lust also with the revenge and murder, and thats why we talked of how we make our film portray darkeness , and love and aspects a psychological thriller would show, but not deep enough to make it come across as horror , we would use darker lighting and black and white effects Krzysztof Kieslowski says of his film making that it is interesting but hard work. In his trio of scenes, “Three Colours” he uses a key element in each to keep the scenes connected. the lighting we would choose to use would show the emotion of our film.Kieslowski also uses close ups frequently in his work to show the action through the characters eyes. The close up shows what they are concentrating on and what within the scene is important to them.We could use this technique in our film to show the main focuses of Alfie’s world which can also show his revenge.The close up excludes everything surrounding in the scene and brings us into the characters world as we see things from their only their perspective.

IF NOT NOW , WHEN

I was looking through a site for short films and came across this one which was trying to send a message through the film. after watching the clip twice , it helped give me inspiration on the techniques used and the effect it left the audience with at the end. I noticed that the film alomost made it obivous what the outcome would be but still left suspense on how it would happen and why , it showed events that built up to the final event. This is similar in our story when certain events build up the tension of what may happen until the event takes place , although ours differs by adding in the flashback to show why the final event took place. The technique that i was impressed mostly by that was used in the film was the use of voiceovers this was used at different timed intervals during the film, the voiceovers did not match what was taking place on the screen at the time but almost told u a part of the story without giving it away . i also noticed how every voiceover that was played was said by different characters who would then appear next in the film , as if the voiceover was used as an introduction to the character and the relationship they shared with the main character. this technique gave me few more ideas on how we were going to add maybe a voiceover or newsreport style into our story which would also tell a part of the story and be introduction into our next part of our story.

gossip girl clip : obession

In this clip which is taken from a american tv series gossip girl it demonstrates similar themes in our film such as love, secrets and betrayal. the characters almost replicate the same background and storyline as in our story.The love triangle begins when Chuck likes Blair but she and Nate are dating. Chuck and Blair begin to have an affair, but Blair is still in love with Nate. Which makes Chuck want to do everything in his power to have her. Just like in our story marie and johnny are having an affair even though marie is going out with alfie , this clip not only shares representation with our colour red ,in terms of love and lust but also with our storyline and characters. alfie is similar to chuck but both have different motives , alfie is obessed because he lacks trust within marie , and wants to almost control her whiles chuck (who's character is taken from the clip) is obessed with blair because he wants something he can not have. This clip was able to give me ideas on how to portray alfie's obession in different ways and also how to represent our characters and the personalities.

research

this clip is taken from the american soap desperate housewives , this scene shows when dave (a character that suffers with psychological problems)murders a male character in a store room and lights a fire to hide the evidence. this clip can relate to our story because of the themes such as murder and fire. this character also shares simialarity with alfie because of the motivation that caused them to light the fire was to get revenge. the fire also links in with our colour red.

films that relate to genre