Filming schedule and Risk assessment

Schedule
We will be filming the majority of our film on Monday 19th November 2012, after 12:30. Due to the fact we will be starting to film around midday, we will have to be careful not to lose light for our filming, so we must plan our time well in order to get all the shots we need. We have checked the weather forecast for this occasion, and it says it will be raining that morning. This is perfect as we want the scene to appear slightly dull and miserable to reflect what happens in the opening.
As we arrive we shall start filming by taking multiple shots of the outside of the station, this is so we can set the scene at the beginning of our opening, and doing this will not take up much time. We will then go onto filming the two characters purchasing the tickets, for this part there is the option to gain a large variety of shots so this will possibly be time consuming. Next will be the inside of the stations building, there are many mise-en-scène that are positioned within the building including the ticket barriers that allow people onto the platform, we will make sure we include clips of this. Then we will go onto filming on the actual platform, this is the part that is most important as it is a large space and breaking filming rules such as 180degree rule could be a possibility. We will also make sure to include a variety of shots and angles of the platform from different heights too. This part of filming will take the longest as we have to ensure it is perfect and we have all the shots we need as we will not be able to return because scenery lighting and surroundings will change.

Risk assessment
There are a variety of risks that can conflict with health and safety, reviewing the possibilities before filming in our chosen surroundings will help towards preventing them from happening. We will be filming at a train station on a damp wet day at around 1:00pm onwards.
The risk that can be included are

• Filming near the rain track meaning our attention could be distracted and there is a high risk level of falling onto the track.
• Due to the wet weather the floor will be extra slippery and slipping onto the concrete or onto the train track are also a possibility.
• As we are filming outside the floor will be mainly concrete if we was to drop the camera whilst filming it will do some serious damage to the camera and there are high possibilities it would completely break or smash.
• As we will be starting filming around 1o'clock and will be positioned outside during winter season then there is the possibility of loosing light.

Character profile and costumes

Research on females in the media
I carried out research on females in the media, and I come across and interesting article on this. Found here- http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/13/women-in-the-media-female_n_2121979.html this articles study is taken from a new study that was collaborated between USC Annenberg and Green Davis Institute on gender in Media. They looked at female characters' occupations, attire, body size and whether they spoke or not. There results were as follows

• 44.3 percent of females were gainfully employed, compared with 54.5 percent of males.
• Women across the board were more likely to be shown wearing sexy attire or exposing some skin, and body size trends were apparent: "Across both prime time and family films, teenaged females are the most likely to be depicted thin,"
• The ratio of men to women in STEM fields was 14.25 to 1 in family films and 5.4 to 1 on prime time TV.
• Perhaps most telling are the percentages of speaking female characters in each media form: only 28.3 percent of characters in family films, 30.8 percent of characters in children's shows, and 38.9 percent of characters on prime time television were women.

Costumes
Costumes play a very important part portraying to the audience details about the characters, if they wore a police uniform the audience would instantly know the characters were police officers. So an outfit for a character effects greatly how the audience assumes the characters personalities. For the costumes our budget we had the price range from £20-£100, this was enough due to the costumes being fairly basic. We researched the high street shops and what where the most popular affordable coats and autumn wear, we then chose from the mainstream teenager's clothes shops what clothing we thought would suit the characters personalities.
Character Profile
Bethany-
Age:17
Date of birth:27/09.95
Height: 5ft6
Siblings: 1 brother named Ben
Lives with: Mother and brother.
The character of Beths personality has good critical faculty and she is able to stand back and look impartially at matters which call for an impartial judgment to be made on them. But Beth does not tolerate arguments from anyone who challenges her opinions, for once they have reached a conclusion, its truth seems to them self-evident; and among their faults is an impatience of criticism and a greed for approval. But her characteristics are on the whole balanced, diplomatic and even tempered. Beths interests, like most teenage girls are mainly social. She isn't seen without her phone and has a fair few friends that are boys. She doesn't show many interests in hobbies although has tried countless clubs from Karate to learning a new language, but doesn't attend for long. Beth likes to do activities that are mainly activities and has a strong head for heights.
But unfortunately due to the traumatic events that take place within the film, Beth's personality is lost as she becomes mentally ill. But nearer the ending of the film, she develops to become stronger and is mentally restored.
Charlotte-
Age:16
Date of birth: 23/06/96
Height: 5ft4
Siblings: 3 brothers, 1 sister. Mark, Jason, Tom and Jasmine
Charlotte is born into a large family her home is very warm and filled with love, for its inhabitants tend to favour comfortable type of house a place which belongs to the family rather than existing as a showcase to impress visitors. Although Charlotte has grown up surrounded with family members, she can also be very reserved and because of this she can sometimes appear thick-skinned and unemotional, but she is the complete opposite, she just doesn't show it. But those who are very close to Charlotte (Beth) a very different character compared with others, she sees Charlotte as someone who is sympathetic and kindly sensitivity to other people, especially her family. Charlotte is very imaginative and can often over-imagine and is prone to fantasy, sometimes distracting her from what is happening around her. Charlotte's interests are not as much social compared too Beth's, but she has a passion for horses and that is her main hobby. She has attended countless shows and performed and one many too. Her, her mother, and siblings all work at a local stables and own many horses that perform.
James
Age: 19
Date of birth: 24/11/93
Height: 6ft
Siblings: 1brother, 1sister. Jack and Megan.
The character of James isn't shown until later on in the film. At the end he becomes Beths partner, and he helps her recover mentally. James is enthusiastic about life. He is friendly, warm and seeks to make other people feel good too. James tends to be generous with information as they are with gifts. They tend to be optimistic, bright and sociable. His life quest is to experience life to the full - incorporating adventures: mental and physical. He have a high degree of adaptability making his personality strong. This is why he is capable of helping Beth and doesn't stop fighting until he has her. This is due to his strong character and any other typical person wouldn't be able to cope. His main interests are cars, and his hobbies include football. He plays football regularly every weekend with all his closest friends on his team. He attends University at The University of Kent and takes a course on Architecture.

The main character (Beth) of our film is a teenage girl around the
age 16-17,  she will be a stereotypical young girl who is bubbly
and happy with  a clean girly natural clean appearance. We also
decided to having  a neat pristine appearance represents her
upper-class background.  We chose skinny jeans form Miss
Selfridge, plain pink top from New Look, brown ankle boots
from H&M, black side bag form Select and a Navy hooded
coat from River Island. As we already had the Coat, shoes
and bag available to us we only had to purchase the plain
bottoms and top; this came to a total of £35. 

Due to the character of charlotte being fairly shy and timid, we used
dull colours that weren't outstanding and bright, and made sure she
was fairly wrapped up to reflect her timid personality. We
purchased the basic grey cardigan and black leggings from New
Look for a total of £25.00. We already had the shoes available and
the coat which we thought was subtle and saved us money.

Planning

Location
The location of the film opening is very important, whether it is clear to see where the scene is set can help the audience get a better of understanding of the story. This includes the conventions within the location as they have to fit in with the scene and help determine the setting. Our film will be set in a train station, it will include conventions such as train tickets, train track, train barriers; showing clearly the location to the audience will give them a better understanding of what is happening.
The train station we have chosen to film at, is a local one that all our group can easily get to. It is situated on Station Road, Rainham.

Lighting
Lighting is very important and different lighting can give the scene a different characteristics. Such as gloomy dull light scene will portray a horror or thriller scene, but a brightly colourful lighting will portray more happy comedy theme. Lighting also has to be clear so that the audience can see clearly what is happening, if the lighting was very poor then the scene would be hard to explain. For our film opening scene it will be mainly filmed outside but on a dull day so the lighting is still clear but the gloomy weather reflects the mood of the scene.
Music
Music is very important part of a film, the type of music reflects greatly on the scene and it relates to the audience of the type of feeling of a scene. If a scene was horror related and something gothic happens, then the music would need to reflect this by being slow and eerie or fast and emphasise suspense; if the music was upbeat pop song it would not fit the scene and will confuse the audience. In our film we are using the song 'Use somebody' originally written and produced by Kings of Leon, but we will be using a cover of the song which is slower and fits our genre better.
Use Somebody, Pixie Lott cover:

Opening credit fonts
Opening credits within a film are very important, these include all people that participated in the creation of the film as it is important to give credit to peoples efforts. It also allows the audience to see the names of the actors and for well-known popular actors this is good as it will give the film a good reputation before viewers see it. At the beginning of our film opening we will make sure that we include all of our groups name, and we will be able to use a variety of effects to edit these into clips. The font we decided on for the credits is Cambria, we chose this one as it doesn't look too fancy and we think it fits the opening well. We didn't want something that was hard to read and we didn't want it to distract the audience from the contents. We also will choose the text to be white, we think this will be suitable as it will show up in each shot, choosing black then the text won't show up against the background.
Film certificate
A film certificate is an age guideline that the film would be acceptable for their viewing, this then means anybody wanting to watch the film has a rough idea on the contents being acceptable or not. For example a parent may purchase a film on dvd but are not sure whether it's suitable for their 9year old daughter and because of the certificate they will be able to know if it is.  For out film we have decided the film certificate to be 12, this is because the film includes a mature storyline and include very mild language, with some intimate scenes.
Nudity, bad language, drugs and discrimination
There may be some mild language near the middle of the film but that is all, there will be no nudity throughout this film. No recreational drugs will be used or feature in the film, although some medicines are included in the film. There will be no signs of any sort of discrimination throughout the film.
Film Company
Our choice of film company is Universal pictures, we have decided on this as we know that this it is well-known and has a good reputation for the films being of goo quality and this is what we want our film to represent. Starting with a popular film company can influence our audience to see the film, they are less likely to watch a film with and un-known company producing it. Universal pictures is an American motion picture studio, owned by Comcast, and one of the six major movie studios. It is one of the longest-lived motion picture studios to be located outside of Hollywood. They have produced a large variety of films over decades, with large vast genres from children's films to horrors.
Films also created under Universal pictures- Les Miserables,  Jaws, Fast & Furious, Bridesmaids, The Bourne Supremacy, Tower Heist, Snow White & The Huntsman, Ted, Wanted and many more.

Storyline and Film title

The genre of our film is Melodrama, this means that the storyline will include lots or drama from romance to deaths. The main character of our film is Beth Morgan played by myself (Emily Hamer). The story is her struggle with inner conflict as she recovers the shocking and disturbing loss of her best friend. Due to the traumatic event Beth is left with many mental problems and has developed trust issues, disorders and depression due to her beliefs on how the event really occurred from her point of view from preventing it occurring. Her life of recovery after the accident includes more dramatic turns that leads to her eventually meeting her sole partner although their relationship is complicated and troubled due to Beth being emotionally scarred. Due to the relationship of Beth's romance being unclear and not certain it leaves the audience indecisive of what the ending of the story will develop to be. But in a turn of events the ending scene is a flash to the future as it shows that Beth had been able to recover and settle down to have a stable relationship with not only her new Husband but also her family and friends.

Film Title

For our film we brainstormed to decide on a suitable title for our film that could grab our target audiences attention as well as fitting with the films plot.

Our final decision for the title is 'Morals' this is due to the fact we think Beth perception and idea on how the death of her best friend died is perceived as being completely different to the truth. As well as how her distinction between right and wrong affects her life and the decisions she makes, after the accident occurred.

Mor-al
/ˈmɔr əl, ˈmɒr-[mawr-uh l, mor-] 

adjective

1. of, pertaining to, or concerned with the principles or rules of right conduct or the distinction between right and wrong; ethical: moral attitudes.

Timeline of a film opening

In a motion picture, television program, or video game, the opening credits are shown at the very beginning and list the most important members of the production. They are now usually shown as text on a blank screen or over the top of pictures, or sometimes on top of action in the show. There may or may not be accompanying music. Where opening credits are built into a separate sequence of their own, the correct term is title sequence

While there are numerous variations most opening credits use some variation of the basic order noted within:

• (NAME OF THE STUDIO)

Name of the studio that is distributing the film and may or may not have produced it (Walt Disney Pictures, Columbia, Lions Gate, Universal, Marvel Studios, Dimension, Miramax etc.).

• (NAME OF THE PRODUCTION COMPANY)

Name of the production company that actually made the film or name of the investment groups or companies that financed a substantial part of the film (usually credited as "in association with" or "A (studio name) production.").

• (PRODUCER NAME) PRODUCTION(director only) e.g. A FILM BY (DIRECTOR NAME)

Director's first credit, often a film by' or 'a XY film'.

• STARRING

Principal actors, (Sometimes the stars' and director's credits will be reversed, depending on the star's deal with the studio; sometimes, as in many of Disney's films, the title of the film will be shown before the names of its actors; sometimes, as in many of Cannon's films, the names of the principal actors will be shown before the names of the producers.

• FILM'S TITLE

Name of the film (can sometimes be placed at the ending of the opening scene.)

• FEATURING

Featured actors.

• CASTING or CASTING BY

Casting director.

• MUSIC or MUSIC COMPOSED BY or ORIGINAL SCORE BY

Composer of music.

• PRODUCTION DESIGN or PRODUCTION DESIGNER

Production designer.

An example of a film opening following the convention of the timeline is the films Avatar, Wanted, The mummy returns, The dark knight, How to train your dragon and many more.

Timeline for our film opening
For our film opening we will be using this order of credits with only slight change in order. Firstly we will start the opening with introduction clip of our film company which is Universal pictures. Then onto the credits which will be edited into the scenes, first will be the title of the production company we will include 'See film productions'. Next are the names of the main actors/actresses starting with the main starring 'Emily Hamer, Sacha Wyatt, Emily Read'. We then will included the Director of the film 'Ben Affleck'. Next is the Editor 'Richard Jenkins' and the music producer 'Ben Pearce'. Lastly is the producer 'David Andrews'

Text size/font/colour
After researching film openings of different genre films we looked at the variety of font that is used. we decided to keep the font for the credits simple, we chose this as we wanted the text to be readable as well as not distracting the audience from the scene. But for the title of the film this is different as it will be the last clip of the scene and will have no background we decided on having a different font to make it appear more prominent, but still keeping the same colour as the rest of the text.

Target audience

To research about my target audience I have created a questionnaire to find out more information, and help me make decisions in what my film should include. I have included the basic details about the participant including gender and age; this will determine what type of audiences prefer what such as the genre they prefer and how many films they watch per month. I then have presented the information on clear graphs comparing answers of the questions with age and gender of the audience.

Our questionnaire asking a total of 50people, 25 of which are males and 25 females. 17people under the group of 11-20years old, 23 21-30year olds and 10 31-40year olds.

Results

 This is the results of the range of age and gender of the

participants for the questionnaire. This information was

collected by asking them individually 'What gender are you?'

and 'How old are you?'. By recording what questionnaire was

completed by who, I can then see what each gender prefers

and what each age groups prefer. By looking at the graph I am

able to see that 21-30year olds are the most common age group of

participants, which can mean my results may lean towards that

group slightly. But I will still be able to see what the majority

of the other age groups prefer.

These  are the results for 'How often do you watch films per

month?'. By asking this question I am able to determine what

gender are more likely to watch films, this means that if a

particular gender on average watched more filme then this

would be a better target audience as there is the opportunity to

make more sales from them. From my questionnaire it shows

males where overall more likely to watch the most films by 6

males answering they watched 11-20 films a month and 12

males watching 6-10 films a month comapred with 4 females

saying they would watch 11-20 films a month and 10

answering that they would watch 6-10 a month. So from this I

can see that males would be a slightly better target audience

compared with females, but this could be changed dut to age.

This is the results for the question 'What is your favourite film

genre?', I chose to record these results to show which gender

prefer which genre. This will then help me determine the

gender for my target audience. By looking at the results Males

prefer Action films as their favourite genre with 8 out of

25. Females said that they preferred Romance as their

favourite genre with 8 out of 25 choosing Romance.

Melodrama was the second most popular for females and

Horror was the second most popular for males. These results

I can then take into consideration, when deciding what genre to

use for my film and can see what gender my target audience

that my film will appeal to the most.

This graph shows the results for the question 'What is your
favourite film genre?' for the different age groups. For the age
group 31-40years old the graph shows that they are most
likely to prefer melodrama as the most popular genre. For
21-30 years old, their preferred genre is Action. 11-20 years
old is shown to prefer Action as the most popular genre. These
results will give a clear idea on what ages prefer which genre's
and when deciding on what genre to use for our film, we will
know what age group it most likely appeal too.

For further research on the questions that the answers were vague, I carried out a short focus group. A focus group consists of my main target audience so that I can carry out specific questions and receive more detailed answers. By doing this I am able to cover more research and in more detail. By looking at my questionnaire results I have a variety of answers across all genres. But because our chosen film genre is Melodrama I will be looking at the age range of 31-40years and the gender that showed they preferred Melodrama was Females. Although my questions could of been effected due to some age groups not knowing what some of the genres actually consisted on so instead they chose the genre they knew. So for one of my focus group question I will ask 6females 2 in each age range, will be 'What is your favourite film genre?' but I will give them a short definition of each genre and a stereo-typical summary of what they consist of. This is something I wouldn't be able to do in my short questionnaire as it would of made questions too long and the participants would of been less likely to fill it out. It will also give a fairer chance and the feedback will be more accurate.

1. What is your favourite film genre?

Aged 11years-20years: 'Comedy is definitely my favourite genre, no matter what mood i'm in the films always cheer me up and change my emotions.' Female aged 17
'I would choose other and say Romantic Comedies, as I can't choose between the two and all my favourite films fall under that category.' Female aged 19

Aged 21years-30years: 'I do like a Melodrama, it's always unexpected of what happens in the storyline, when with a action or romance you can basically guess whilst it's happening.' Female aged 25

'Romance is definitely my favourite, it's like watching a life you wished you had.' Female aged 29

Aged 31years-40years: 'I like action films as there is always so much drama and I actually enjoy the fighting scenes as it looks so realistic and I know it must of taken a lot of practice to pull of the moves and sequences.' Female aged 40

'Comedy is my favourite and always has been, they always make me laugh and feel good.'

The next question I will ask is 'What would you expect a good film opening to consist of?' this question will allow me to see what the expectations of target audience's opinion of a good film opening. Not only will this give my group inspiration for ideas on what to include, but it will also help us see what our target audience expects. I will ask 3Females aged 31-40years as this is what appears to be the genre Melodrama's typical audience.

2. What would you expect a good film opening to consist of?

'Anything that grabs my attention, usually something unexpected or a type of accident. Then I want to watch more to see how it turns out and effects the rest of the film.' Female aged 32

'Well in the opening I prefer when not much really happens, I don't like it when films open on to a really confusing clip and it leaves you feeling uncomfortable as you have no idea what is happening.' Female aged 40

'Definitely something interesting, the opening is always the part that consists of something shocking that the rest of the revolves around maybe like a death.' Female aged 35

Animatic for film opening

Animatics storyboard is a useful and important part of planning, it shows all the angles and shots that are included and helps determine the order in which they will go in.  In class we created a short video of an animatic plan for our film opening; we sketched out each clip such as the close-up angles and long shots, to show which order we wanted our opening to be in. We also added the background music that we created for our opening, this is like a rough copy to get the idea what our opening looks like. When editing the clips together, we was able to become familiar with the software discovering and testing the tools available made our editing skills develop. As at the moment the editing isn't very aesthetic and appears a little patchy but this will help when coming to edit our final piece as we would of been able to improve on the techniques used with the animatics.
The strengths of our film opening is that there is the possibility for a wide range of camera angles, as shown in the animatics a few of the possibilities, but after further planning we will be able to develop on this using the animatics as inspiration. A weakness of the animatics is that it isn't a very clear storyboard as it is very basic, and only to get a general idea of the scene, although this is a good basic structure to help develop our ideas further.