Planning their film production involved several steps for the students. Initially they considered multiple plot options before choosing a simpler genre that was easier to film. They created a storyboard mapping out potential filming locations found using Google Earth. Students scouted locations near where they lived and further away, taking photos to review. They collated photos and chose the best shots to add to the storyboard. Finally, they created a timetable assigning who would film what shots where and when to successfully organize the production.

1. Stage 2: Planning your Production

2. Initially, we had several different plots that we were deciding on, and we eventually ran this down to the plot we used, which we thought was the best introduction into our chosen genre of movie, and that was simpler to put together. Once we had decided on out chosen plot, we did our final storyboard for this, mapping out all of our potential locations with this.

3. We used Google Earth and street view to find potential locations for our filming, usually near where we lived, so we could access them easier. After this, Calum, who had access to easy transport via his moped, scouted out the further away locations, taking photos of what he found. Theo and Harry went to the locations closer to them and did the same. We then collated the shots, and together, chose the best shots to use, and added this to our storyboard.

4. At this point, we thought that we should plan when we were going to shoot at certain locations, bearing in mind that some locations were to be shot at night. For this we created a timetable, of who was going to shot what, where and when. We used this to successfully organise who was doing what, and to make our film on time. This enabled us to bring our shots into school when we were supposed to, ready for editing.

5. Planning and Preparation Firstly we put all our ideas for the opening sequence on story boards and we spent a lot of time discussing which of our ideas of shots and for the plot were best. After choosing our shot we used Google Earth to find the best locations. We created a suitable time table of the shoots so we were prepared with the correct equipment on the day of the shoots. Before each shoot we also briefed ourselves on what shots we were going to shoot so we wouldn’t waste time.

6. The Industry One of the crucial aspects we learned about the industry was that the story always changes. This is because ideas did not work as well as we thought, so we had to adjust the plot so it would be more realistic. As said, we initially wanted a different plot, but we came to find, as we did more research, that it was very hard to create certain scenes without a higher budget and better equipment, so we brought ourselves down a notch, and tried to do what we were able, with what we had. We also found that, being a large group, we were constantly clashing on ideas, and in the end, we found that it was easier to compromise with our decisions.

7. We also found out that planning locations is difficult. This is because finding the perfect location which is easy to access is difficult to come across. Before we found our actual filming locations, we went through more than a few in which we decided, there was not enough light, or it was too inaccessible to the camera. But in the end we found our locations.

8. Furthermore we learned that editing is one of the most complex aspects of the industry. Linking the shots and music together to make it flow smoothly was a major challenge. It took a lot of time to get to grips with the software and process. Especially since we were using iMovie, which was only available on iMacs, and therefore we had to use one persons computer because the others had PCs.

9. Lastly we discovered that since digital technology has improved massively that there were many ways in which we could distribute our opening sequence. We came to the conclusion that YouTube and Facebook were the best ways to promote our opening sequence to our opening sequence.