Our Film Opening Pitch

We have now completed and performed our pitch to the class and the teacher. Our pitch included a great amount of detail, we included everything that was supposed to be included. We also showed the audience that we knew exactly what was going to appear in our opening and in which order. We not only decided the camera angle we were going to use but we gave examples using images. The pitch was received well and the teacher said our idea was good enough to be approved and made. Next thing to do is to perfect our storyboards and scripts, we then need to create our shooting schedules, then filming should begin.

Our pitch powerpoint had many slides, here are a few.

The Pitch Preparation

We are currently working on the preparations for a pitch that we will perform and attempt to 'sell' to our teachers. The pitch will need to include details on; the film synopsis, a detailed description of the opening and what we are going to see, details on the location, the characters and the actors.
With all these details already decided we should have a well planned and organized filming process. We will also be creating a detailed and appropriately lengthened storyboard mentioning the camera shots, the camera movement and the timing of each shot. This will make the process altogether easier. We are currently creating a powerpoint and script which will make our presentation seem professional and organized.

Synopsis for Whole Film

Before creating our film opening, we needed to have an idea about how they whole film was going to go, although we didn't go into great detail we needed to discover how the film was going to end. This would help us to possibly give the audience subtle ideas on how the film will pan out, it'll also help us to portray our characters a lot easier, as the way their personalities are portrayed can affect the way we relate to, and gain emotional attachment too while watching the film.
We decided to create a rough outline as to how the film would go;

The Beginning
Equilibrium Set, Harvey and Katie introduced separately through their morning routine
Characters are introduced/ Personalities made obvious
Characters bump into each other
Characters are then at a date, and both get stood up, the couple interact

The Middle
Relationship develops
Girl’s sister (Janine) gets a job at the same place as male character
Janine and Harvey spend a lot of time together
Janine walks in on Janine and Harvey drinking together and gets the wrong idea (Disruption)
Katie and Harvey do not contact each other, yet still think about each other
Harvey goes to Katie’s house, brings singing lepricorn to sing her a romantic comedy (Attempt to restore)
Katie slams door in face
Katie constantly thinks about Harvey
Janine meets with Katie, and tells her about how she got the wrong idea, and explains that they were planning a romantic surprise for Katie

Ending
Typically ‘happy ending’ (Restoration of the equilibrium)
Harvey romantically proposes to Katie, by writing (in flowers) will you marry me on the ground (in a field)
Ends with a perfect wedding, and the couple drive past where they first met and smile to themselves.

Filming and Editing Preliminary Task

Once the planning had been done, we got our camera and tripod so we could begin filming our short task. We chose our setting, then began filming the whole situation from many different angles making it easier when it came to editing the whole thing together. We filmed Ollie walking into the hall, then walking across the hall over to a teacher, who then spoke to him and told him off.
We then went into the media room and began editing it all together, we put the shots together so that the walking around matched the next frame and eventually we had the whole scenario put together with many different camera shots giving the film some variety.

Planning Preliminary Task

We were then told that we needed to create a small task that would get us used to using the camera, choosing camera shots/movements and framing the different shots. We need these skills so that our final coursework opening looks professional and suits its purpose of intriguing the audience. We got together a story board, which included the frames we were going to film, the initial storyline and the timing of each shot. Doing this job meant that when it comes to filming the task, we will know exactly what were doing, and will take half the time.

Researching Universal Studios

The next part of our task was to create a detailed presentation on a well known production company. We decided to use the company 'Universal', this decision was well thought about as we took the most popular romantic comedy films that had been released and found out the distribution company/production company for each film, Universal was one that stood out.
We looked at the different stages of the film production, development, pre production etc. We also looked at the key elements of the film industry and why they were significant to the production. The films that have been released recently, and the genres were also explored and we put all this information onto a powerpoint presentation that we performed to the class. Mr Cramb said that our presentation was good and that the presentation had significant details on it.

Evaluating Our Texual Analysis

We then gathered together all of our textual analysis results, we found the common conventions within each of the different micro elements. We looked at the recurring themes, recurring settings, the typical lighting, the common colours used, the typical costume used, the stock characters, the actors, the use of editing, the sounds used, the camera shots and the camera movements. Aswell as looking at the movement and gestures, the narrative, the iconography and the enigma created through all of the films. Going into so much detail will improve the way our overall opening will look, including these typical codes and conventions will also help us to ensure that the genre of our opening is easily identifiable.