First scene dialogue

First Scene
The first scene of our film involves a shot of a news reader reporting on the current incidents that are relevant to the rest of our film beginning. The following shows the dialogue and stage directions involved in this scene.

Opens – fades from black to shot of news reader. She sits at a desk, looks up from sheets of paper in front of her on the desk, directly into the camera.
The scene opens halfway through the news readers ‘welcome’ sentence, (Sound fades in synonymously with image)

News reader speaks not frantically, but calmly as she tells the news. Any expression she shows is in her eyes – they suggest disturbance and bewilderment
She wishes to convey to the audience the serious nature of this news piece, she does this with her eyes.

News reader: Good evening and welcome to the six o’clock news.
We have just received reports of an escaped delinquent from Bethlem Royal Hospital. She escaped several hours ago from the ‘secure’ unit, River House.
The institute has requested that we give a severe warning to all of those within a five mile radius of the hospital.
She is identifiable by the limp she carries on her left leg and the regulation white garments she is wearing.
Reports say that she was sectioned after it was found that the treatment she received from her school teacher had left her mentally crippled.

Troubles we have had whilst filming

Location

We decided that our film location should be at school, as we felt that this would fit with our story.
However, certain aspects of school life has prevented us from filming when it would be easiest for us. During lessons, for example, we have been given time to film and to complete the practical aspects of the course, but the school location has made this difficult for us. When we have stayed after school to do some filming, it has meant also that there have been many interruptions. This includes from cleaners and teachers, who obviously must stay at school after hours also.

Lighting

As we need to shoot our film when it is dark, it means that we cannot film during lesson time, as it is too light. One particular incident included the ceiling lights. We needed to turn off the lights in order to create the right atmosphere for our film, but the cleaners would turn these on. This meant that our filming was delayed considerably.

After filming, we would use lessons to edit our film. It was then that we realised that in the shots we had already captured, there were subtle- but noticeable- differences in the lighting. This is because of the different times we shot the film. In a shot for example, the blue sky was noticeably reflected in a window, yet in the next shot, the darkness outside was clearly vi sable.

Sound

As in our film, there is a lack of dialogue, we decided to use an intense non-diegetic piece of music.
To find an appropriate piece, we listened to many different soundtracks from various horror films. We used YouTube for this. Helpfully, several users of YouTube had uploaded their "top ten horror songs".
Some of these songs had a fast tempo, and were often orchestral, we felt these did not suit our story and so we selected a song that has quite a fast tempo, but has a simpler sound in comparison to the songs used in most popular horror films.

By Abbie and Cat

Genre Conclusion

To conclude our research on what kind of genre we would like to use for our coursework, we have decided to use horror.
We decided horror would be the most appropriate of genres, the reasons for this include:

• This genre relies mainly on camera shots and angles, our other choice of a romance film relies heavily on the effective use of dialogue. We feel that by emphasising the use of camera shots and angles we could achieve our full potential in creating a horror film opening.
• The limitations of locations would prevent us from creating an effective Romance, as that genre requires more elaborate scenery. A horror film, on the other hand, typically requires less emphasis on the location of the film, it concentrates more on the feelings that are portrayed in the scenes.
• As we are required to create a 2 minute opening of a film, producing the beginning of a horror film seems more appealing because it would allow us to create a more exciting opening, like the films we have so far researched. From the aforementioned research, it has been possible to conclude that romance films have a tendency to have graduated beginnings. This would not be beneficial to our production, as we must capture the audience within two minutes!
• Generally, horror films rely on the first few minutes in order to capture the audience's attention, whereas the typical romance film may spend the entire sequence drawing in the audience's emotions with the characters.

We feel, therefore, that the horror genre would be highly appropriate for our two minute film opening.

By Cat and Abbie

The Rush - an evaluation

Although we've had a bit of trouble posting this video, here is our preliminary coursework.

The preliminary coursework exercise required us to make a short film using a simplistic storyline.
The exercise also required Abbie and I to put our newly acquired knowledge into practise. This included camera shots and angles, composition and general rules to be used when filming, the 180 degree rule for example.

Although the difficulties we faced transferring the film from the disk to the Internet meant a long delay in posting the film, this may not have been such a hindrance. It is possible now to look back on the film and evaluate it's strengths and weaknesses with the appropriate knowledge and experience of filming and editing techniques, thus giving perhaps a more well-informed evaluation than may have been possible a few months ago.

After viewing this film again, i have taken note of several points to improve on for the coursework piece we are currently making.

These include:

• Shots used are too short, in terms of time, when they should not be. For example, the over the shoulder(OTS) shot of the girl sending the text message transcends from an OTS to a zoom close-up so quickly that it may discomfort the audience. This should be avoided in order to gain more of a professional film.
• Sound should remain under control. In this film, there is a great deal of unrelated diegetic sound from our fellow media students and other members of the school. This has quite an unprofessional effect on the film, and should be avoided in future!
• Continuity should also be a key element in the production of our current piece of coursework. The lack of continuity in this film, with Abbie's clothing for example, may confuse the audience and is an element of the project that we must take seriously!
• One of the most apparent mistakes in this film is my inadequate camera knowledge. When Abbie walks down the stairs, for example, i zoomed in too quickly, and had to zoom out again. This has an effect of making the entire production look quite amateurish and so i should perhaps gain more experience with the camera equipment!

By Cat Gough