2. Background Information
• The Genre of our opening sequence is Teen
Drama.
• It is a story of a typical lazy teen age boy.
• He has his final exam next morning.
• He stays up at night to revise for his exam.
• And the opening scene shows how he was awake
until 3 in the morning but couldn't revise
anything.
3. Preliminary Task
• It was aimed to demonstrate our understanding
of storyline.
Link to Preliminary Task.
• I was playing three roles: director,
cinematographer, editor
• I also collaborated in writing screenplay.
• There were some errors in organising things also
in shooting schedules.
4. Overview of Preliminary Task
• It taught us some important skills which was
needed for main task.
• I learnt that each part of the production requires
time.
• Importance of technical equipment and other
properties should be ready for shooting.
8. Use of conventions
• Use of music: positive feeling, used for story
telling, eventually builds up the plot
• Limited Dialogues
• Use of stereotypical character: a typical lazy
student (teen)
9. Representation
• Teen Students: distracted, last minute
revision, lazy.
• Teenage Boy: unorganised, awake till late,
fond of cartoon(superhero) characters.
11. Distribution
• Our sequence influenced by Hollywood
produced teen drama-comedy.
• It would distrusted by
Fox Searchlight Pictures.
• They also might be able air
the film on television after
its theatrical release.
12. Our Target Audience
• Teenage boys between the age of 15-19.
• Lack of female character.
• So, it will not immediately appeal to female
audience.
13. How did you attract/address your
audience?
• Use of mise-en-scene related to comedy-drama.
• Location: bedroom of teenage boy .
• Some random books, scattered stationary, a
laptop with cartoon(superheroes) character’s
desktop background, game controller.
14. Use of technology
• For our main task we had used d-SLR
cameras.
• Started rehearsing the shots before
going for actual shooting.
• Use of light
• For editing we had used Final Cut Pro
and Adobe after effects. Paid a lot of
attention to details in editing.
15. Looking back at preliminary task…
• Things were organised, shoot went according to
schedule.
• Spent enough time on editing.
• I learnt new techniques for camera and editing,
also learnt independent learning.
16. Audience Feedback
• Link to Audience Feedback
• What did you like about it?
• Suggestion for improvement
Because as teenagers we can relate and justifythe story and the genre.As I see most of teenagers are lazy and irresponsible.The opening sequence shows a teenage boy who stays up at night because he has to revise for his final exam and how he was awake until 3 in the morning but still didn't manage to revise anything.
The first task of our production portfolio and as a group was to create a short one-minute video with a character opening door and a conversation. It was aimed to demonstrate our understanding of continuity editing etc. As the director of our groups I was in charge of the whole task from allocating activities to different group members to organising everything whilst shooting. I also played the role of cinematographer, editor, story writer along with being a director.I also collaborated in writing the screenplay around the preliminary task along with our dialogue writer. Although our preliminary task was successful and very helpful in understanding that how much time and skill needed to produce a media product and we also learnt some technical aspects of the media production but I felt, I wasn’t very successful as director because there was some errors in organising and shooting schedules but that encouraged me to do well in our main task.
Although the preliminary task was successful, it taught me and my group some important skills which was very needed for our main task.For e.g. as director I learnt that how each part of the production requires time so, how to organise everything and because of the less time we can’t give 100% of ourselves to the task.As group we learnt the importance of technical equipment and other properties should be ready for shooting, because a minor issue can lead to delays and which happened during the preliminary task so for the main task we ensured that everything is ready for shooting as scheduled.
After we finished our research I started writing the script and because, I had an idea of a basic storyline it didn’t took more time me to write the draft of the script. But the genre for our story was drama and according to research most of our target audience likes to comedy movie so, the question was how do we blend that into our screenplay. So, instead of writing a whole new out-and-out comedy scene I have been sensible and added a gag and a voiceover to give a funny twist at end of the scene.So, our opening sequence is not out-and-out comedy but it has a subtle gag which can make audience smile.After we have I wrote the screenplay, I started off with storyboards and now our opening sequence reflects what we had on storyboards.
The costumes of our character is casual and doesn’t go well which each other. Because of our opening sequence is based in teen student’s bedroom also our character is revising so we need a study table that is very much messed which can show his very lazy so, these kind of thing helped me to reflect on Sam’s characterisation, rather than giving him some body language to follow.Before we went on to shoot I made shot division list so, as a cinematographer I know which shot is needed. It also helped me to practice for the shots. Before we went on shot I tried to take all the shoots at my home so, that I well-prepared for the shoot.
Use of music is very important convention, because most of the teen comedy-drama movies’ opening sequence has music which fits to their theme. So, we stuck that and used a music piece which gives positive feeling. Limited Dialogues: most of the teen comedy and drama that researched on we noticed that one of the convention for the opening sequence is the use of limited dialogues more use of music in compare to dialogues. These helped easily establish for target audience because the film would feature characters they’d expected to see such as a student.Generally in teen movies main character are students who don’t have any sense of direction, not responsible, not focused in studies. Our character has all these attributes but our main character is trying to focus but because of his own thoughts and laziness.
Within our group we have been very careful with the representation of the social groups so, that out audience can relate to easily. Teen students: our character has his final exam next day and he starts revising at night and after some time he gets distracted by his one wrong decision which was ‘a five minute break won’t be harmful’ and due to this wrong decision he stays distracted till early morning.Our protagonist is a Indian boy, we thought it is a good was to break stereotype as generally the protagonist in teen comedy-drama movies tends to be white.Teenage boy: teenage boys are very unorganised. That’s the stereotype and we our sequence represented it very clearly in the first shot where our main character clears his table and make some space to put books. Generally teenage boys are awake till late but they spent their time on social networking sites or watching movie, etc. we subverting that by showing that our character is trying to revise at mid-night.Usually teenage boys are fond of cartoon characters especially superheroes and we represented that through the desktop background of his laptop.
As you can see the shorts of his very bright and vibrant colour and t-shirt is very dull so, this helps us to show the mix emotions of his.
As the film influenced by Hollywood produced comedy-drama films I fell our comedy-drama would be best distributed by Fox Searchlight Pictures because it is like independent film also it’s use of convention of teen comedy-drama. As previously stated the film would be best distributed by Fox Searchlight Pictures because they are specialised in distributing independent and British film along with comedy-drama. Fox Searchlight Pictures would also be able to our film the chance of being released in cinema and afterwards being aired on television which might increase the potential audience for our film- as if anyone who did not see in the cinema they would be able to watch on television.
Similar to most teen comedy-drama films our target audience would be teenage boys between the age of 15-19.The reason for this is due to the lack of a female character in the sequence, which is unlikely to strike an immediate appeal to female audience. After listening to our target audience's feedback on rough cut we felt that we really should add some voice-over so, our target audience can understand the storyline and can easily relate to our main character. After adding the voice-over the narration is much clearer.
To make the sequence appealing to our target audience we took the support of mise-en-scene. Because it is teen comedy-drama mise-en-scene should be related to teen comedy-drama.As far as location concern, we chose the bedroom of typical teenage boy, we had some random books, scattered stationary, game controller, laptop with cartoon(superheroes) character desktop background, so that our target audience can instantly relate. Symbolic.
Being a director, cinematographer and editor at the same time increases your responsibility towards use of technology.The preliminary task has effectively introduces the equipment that we would be using for our main task.For our main task we had used d-slr camera and even before I used for shoot, I had done a loot practice so I can get familiarise with the camera.For our main task I had planned some shots for which I had to be so stable while I am shooting and had to use some different technique to shoot.This was the first time I was shooting with lights. Firstly I tried giving key light and back light to our character but it wasn’t looking real and wasn’t making sense because it is middle of a night, none-of the light is on in the room then how the character’s face is lighten up. Then I added a lamp to the scene so, I can justify the lighting because a source light was there.For editing I had used Final Cut Pro, and Adobe After Effects. I had paid a lot of attention to the details for the diegetic sound especially the sound which occurs at night, to record this sound I approximately spent 3 nights until I get the what I wanted.
There was a drastic improvement for our group from preliminary to main task.This time things more organise, shoot went according to schedule, paid attention to mise-scene represent the teen comedy-drama.We gave enough time in editing.For me skill wise I learnt so many things such as some new techniques take some shot, new techniques in editing and independent learning was the most important for me because I learnt these new techniques by my self.
