Production Meetings

Before we came round to filming our opening scene, Alyx and I sat down to discuss the basics involved that need to be sorted out before we started anything. In other words, the pre production. In our first few production meetings during media lessons we sat down and started looking at some opening sequences to movies. As we knew that we wanted something in the realms of horror/ thriller/ Christmas we had quite a good niche to look for.

We looked at opening sequences ranging everywhere from "The Grinch" to "The Conjuring". In the end, we found a good base to set some ideas around. One opening we found that kind of cemented our ideas together was that of "Crimson Peak". In this one, we liked the fact that it was focusing on objects and those objects almost telling the story, rather than action in a scene. And we liked that idea. Below i have linked below the opening sequence for "crimson peak"

Crimson Peak 

Main Task Pitch

When we were presented with our main task for our media AS level, my partner Alyx and I set about thinking about our opening. We were spurred on by the fact that we knew we had to present our ideas in the next lesson. So, for the presentation we had to provide a mood board, ideal cast, and an "elevator pitch" giving our class and teacher a quick grasp of the plot. here was a list of our ideas at the time of the presentation:

Film Opening Plan Pitch

Main Task Brief

So, we were given the brief for our AS media main task, allowing us to start developing ideas around it. Never thought i'd be saying this, but thankfully, the brief was rather vague, allowing us to unleash our full creativity in our task. Down below is the main task and the activities that followed:

289964588 Media Studies Main Task

BFI Trip

Our class was privileged enough to be given the opportunity to visit the British Film Institute in London as an extended teaching session related to our main task. We were one of many schools and colleges that attended this event. There we had a few sessions with a renowned media teacher, showing us various examples of opening scenes and teaching us various factors to include in them. These sessions were incredible helpful as it brought to life many ideas and questions people had related to what was to be done for our main task.

Secondly, we had a Q and A with a film maker called Corin Hardy. Corin came in to promote his new film "the hallow", critique some of our ideas for opening scenes and give us an insight into the development of ideas and the amount of effort put into filming. He also showed us the opening scene of his film before it had even been put in cinemas!

here is a link to his web page; where you can find trailers, interviews and much more- the website

Never Back Down: Scene Analysis

In a media lesson last week, Mrs Banks tasked us with finding a clip from a film or TV show and making a short presentation on it in front of the class. I chose to analyse the final fight from Never Back Down (2008). This scene combines aspects of dialogue with high adrenaline action.

Firstly, there is evidence of close up shots of Jake and Ryan ( the two fighters) where Jake is talking about it being "a spectator sport". The close up here emphasizes that there is no other focus on anyone else in the scene accept for the fighters. This is further accentuated by shifts in camera focus as Jake begins to walk away from Ryan. During the fight there is the use of Go pro cameras to provide the audience extra immersion as these cameras give a good POV shot. This paired with: the superb choreography, the special effect used to accent the power behind Ryan's strike to Jake's side and the graphic match at the finishing moments of the fight linking back to Jake's first fighting lesson make for a great fight scene.

As this scene is only available on vimeo, i could only link it rather than including the clip in this post. Apologies for any inconvenience.

The scene on Vimeo

Preliminary task: Finished clip

Here is mine and Alyx's finished preliminary task starring Jay Ford. This task has aided my understanding of the amount of work that goes into making a film and all of the little things such as; making sure the camera's reflection isn't caught in the window, and that the slightest mistake in a scene can cause big problems later on in the editing stage. Enjoy.

Preliminary task: description

We were tasked with a preliminary task to show our understanding of camera work and action in a scene. In this task we had to include examples of; match on action, shot and reverse shot and a small section of dialogue. we were given the equipment we would need for the clip. The list included a camera, tripod and SD card to save our work on to. after filming, we were given some lesson time to complete the editing on the task. this included learning about cuts, transitions and credits; all in aid of finding the right balance for the short piece. This task has helped my understand some of the intricacies of working on a film set and that it is okay to be picky and want things to be perfect.