The Coalition

This shot was blocked in a long corridor of the school, to introduce the imaginary friend, hopefully if all goes to plan using a contra zoom, used by Alfred Hitchcock in Vertigo (1958).  The camera is also going to be on an angle, because subconsciously this will put the audience's mind on an uncomfortable edge, by distorting reality.

This is the desired effect, to signify to the audience that seeing this character is very significant to the film this will help portray the importance, in the short five minutes we have to tell our story successfully. Also the meaning to this style of zoom is a scene of something that’s not real, a fear or something out of the ordinary, it makes the audience understand how the character may feel by giving them a visual expression of an emotion or inner feeling.

Initially, I was going to look for music about time passing, however I think it would be more appropriate to find music that is associated with having a friend. The music which introduces Toy Story popped in to my head.  However, once listening to it, it didn’t seem appropriate.


Secondly 'you’ve got a friend, which i heard a while back on the AA advert, came to mind, however the original by James Taylor and Carol King didn’t sound quite right. So now I’m going to look for covers, and any other songs which might be appropriate for our montage.

Now that we have a clear idea of what we want to do with our film we sketched out a storyboard to help us have a visual idea of what our shots may look like. This part is definitely vital.

We are going to apply this dark, Gothic feel to our charater. Using costume avalible to us, the charater is going to wear a pair of black Dr martens. As a group we are studying 'Donnie Darko' as a huge inspiration for our film, this also includes the costume. From his atire we denote, that his character has quite a dark, Gothic side to him, he is sporting a grey hoodie which signifies his age as being a teenager, because it juxtaposes his party costume it suggests that he may have a more pore and innocent side to him. This use of colour in his clothing is also used in another scene, featuring a white tee-shirt and a black hoodie.

 

Name: Efa (Main Character)

Gender: Female

Age: 18

Relationships: She is the main character, she has a boyfriend (Rhys) & best friend. She also has the imaginary friend.
Background: She’s Caucasian, born & raised in central London. She’s a foster child who hasn’t seen her parents since she was 3 years old.

Personality: She's very kind, sincere, but she's really quiet, not so shy, she's boring to those who love to chat. You wouldn’t call her emo but she swings close to that circle.

Name: Simon/Jason (Imaginary Friend)

Gender: Male
Age: 19

Relationships: He’s Cecily’s imaginary friend

Background: N/A

Personality: Kind, sincere, caring, deep, dark, solemn, thoughtful, quick thinking, slimy

Name: Rhys (Boyfriend)

Gender: Male

Age: 18

Relationships: In a relationship with Cecily

Background: standard, regular family, middle class, been in a bit of trouble here and there but still seen as a good person...no one’s perfect aye
Personality: Controlling, a little foolish, kind, loving, crazy,

Quentin Tarantino has appeared in his movies, much like him i would like to feature at some point in our new one. This gives me a chance to, write the film, direct it, feature in it and also edit. This gives me all angles of experience i could possibly gain from a level media. Until the day i die, I will always own footage of me, in my prime years doing something i fully enjoy. This could also be the reason for Tarantinos appearance in Pulp Fiction, this also gives a face to the name of the director, which the audience will enjoy to watch.

Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet, is perfect to study, when gaining ideas on how to film a modern love story. In particular this clip is perfect, the way in which the moment, their lips touch for the first time, is captured takes my breath away, This is the kind of emotion we want to capture as film directors, in our short movie. The attraction is so strong, and the romance and excitement bursts through the screen.
Another reason to why this clip is vital to study, is because until he end of the scene, nobody actually sees romeo, they only see Juliet. Romeo at this point doesn't exist to the rest of the world, he is only visual and only exits in Juliet's eyes at this point. This is similar to what we want to portray in our film.
One other key point, about romeo and Juliet which links to our story line is, Juliet is in love, however they can't be together for a reason, which means eventually they have to let go, although they don't let go and are with each other for the rest of eternity, the idea is still very much there.

This famous clip comes from (director) 's Annie Hall, preformed by Woody Allen. This is extremely successful because it sets the whole film up, it introduces a few characters, it sets the tone of the film. From this monologue we now know who the main character is, his personality, what he thinks about, current affairs in his life and so on. It works perfectly also because, what he is saying could easily get boring, however Allen's performance keeps the audiences attention through out, the energy level is persistant which is what we aim to achieve. The way in which this scene is shot also signifies many things to the audience, the predominant colour is brown, which suggests he is an average normal day guy, with a normal job, a normal life, however his shirt is brown and red, which may indicate that his life has an heir of danger, or lust and something out of the ordinary, much like the brown against the reds, is about to occur.

Watching Donny Darko and drawing inspiration from Richard Kelly (the director), to get ideas about how to shoot a successful piece, which has the same concept, and evil imaginary friend. I drew quite a lot of inspiration from this film and found the following quite useful.
- Firstly, although we have an idea of how to introduce the imaginary friend using the contra zoom, this is proving quite difficult and may not be possible, so a second choice is always useful to have whilst filming. When the film director introduces the bunny, (the imaginary friend. he uses a close up of the main character, and uses a reverse mid shot to introduce 'frank' (the imaginary friend). he also uses a fade in between the reverse shot, and the bunny appears briefly on Donny's face, which signifies extremely well to the audience that this character is all in Donny's mind. (discussion: first scene)




- Secondly he montage was quite helpful,  i would like to use ideas from this, during our montage during the editing process. Firstly the choice in music, caught my attention, the lyrics spoke about time, if we could find a piece of music, which spoke about time, and tempo worked well with our montage it would be perfect, so I am going to do some research into this. Secondly in this particular scene, they use.............which is effective because it give the film a sense an edge, also quite dreamlike, so the reality seems to be quite messes up as Donny’s head, which is a clever way of helping the audience understand and experience the character’s mind. Both factors i would like to use in the montage, i will discuss this with my group and hopefully come to a decision, using these ideas and any which they may have had

Now as a group we had to choose between making a genre film or a conceptual film, this is a very important decision even if it may appear simple to many, this decision will effect everything from shots to costumes because by making a genre film you are knowingly or unknowingly agreeing to meet certain norms & concepts. Due to this, we as a group have decided to make a conceptual film which allows us to do pretty much what we like without being placed in a certain box...allowing creativity to flow without thinking within boundaries like we would need to if we were going to create a rom-com for example. Our film will be pretty much be a post modern piece.

Ate de Jong's, Drop Dead Fred is a child's film, about a grown up woman, who still see's her childhood imaginary friend. Fred tries to ruin her life in some ways, and wants her to return to her fun inner child, however has to let go eventually to have a successful adulthood. This film could be helpful, although its a comedy, which is completely opposite to our style, we could learn a bit about how to portray an imaginary friend, through film.
By watching this as a group, we will be able to take notes on successful camera movements, editing, and so on. This film is perfect for initial research.

To write the narrative of the short film we are going to produce, a very Strong theme comes to mind to create an eerie ambiance, by writing and narrating a poem or story similar to the works of Edgar Allen Poe.

A 'The Simpsons' has been a personal favourite of mine, which we would modernise further. By costume and lauguage, but this is the kind of clever, subtle cleaver ambiance is one which we would like to achieve.

The language will not be used as such, but the tone of voice and the pace, at which he tells the story, will be taken in to great consideration when writing, and preforming the script. 

The coalition is our group name featuring group members Femi, Nina & Nicholas. This blog will document our film making process right from the beginning until the end. This should be fun...