Practice opening 2: Research/ideas

What was the task?

The task we were given was to create a film opening based on conditioned mise-en-scene that we randomly selected. Mise-en-scene is an expression that describes all aspects within filming production, e.g. the characters, settings, lighting, costumes and basically anything you can see in the frame. Thus we were given a setting, character, lighting condition, prop and costume which we had include within our opening.  We could come up with any storyline that we wanted to, we just had to make sure we followed the conditions that we got given.

What elements of mis-en-scene were we given?
We were given the elements that are illustrated in this picture:

• Setting - the old rollercoaster on Yarmouth Pleasure Beach
• Prop - Fish and chips
• Character - 40 year old woman
• Costume - uniform
• Lighting condition - sunrise on a Saturday or Sunday morning

Our initial plot ideas:
We brainstormed a few plot ideas and then decided on one to develop further.
One of our initial ideas was a woman that visits the beach and walks to different places; the idea being that she would be remembering a specific time she spent there in her childhood, which we would depict by switching to clips of a younger version of herself whilst she was walking around. Another idea we had was of her being mugged outside the rollercoaster by a younger man, which we thought might be fun to try and film as we could make it into more of an action scene. Our last idea was having a woman go to the beach to meet the man she is having an affair with, whilst her husband remains at home oblivious.

Initial brainstorm

Chosen idea brainstorm

What were our casting ideas? 
Our original casting ideas were to have one of the group members parents as the adult as it would simply be the easiest when trying to co-ordinate a filming schedule, rather than bring in an external actor. For the younger people we were thinking of perhaps using someones brother or sister so that they would look similar to the parent, thus fit in with our idea. This would also be more convient to organise and our actors would be more likely to be comfortable with each other if they knew each other berfore-hand.

Location ideas/research:
We were given our location as part of the conditioned mis-en-scene so we didn't have to come up with any ideas of our own; our location was Yarmouth beach. Some of our group had been there a lot before so were familiar with the layout so we didn't need to do too much research into the actual location because we already knew the places we thought would be good for filming. However we did look into certain aspects, such as a ferris wheel to see if we could get some shots from higher up. Here are some pictures of our location:


Prop research/ideas:
The orginal prop we were given was a cup of tea, but we swapped it with another group for fish and chips as we thought that would fit in better with our location; there is an abundance of fish and chips shops by the sea so we would definatley be able to include even if it is just in the backgroud. We also thought perhaps we could link it to the plot as at the beach it would be relatively easy to include fish and chips and the storyline still make sense, whereas a cup of tea could be slighty more difficult.

Costume research/ideas:
The costume we were given was 'uniform', so we thought of a couple of ways to include it within our opening. Our first idea was to have someone who works at the beach within the film, for example someone who works in one of the stalls for the rollercoaster or staff in a cafe. We thought this might be a good idea because then we could just include it in the back of one of the shots, so we didn't have to worry about changing the plot. The other option we thought about was having one of our characters in uniform, for example the 40 year old lady in her work clothes or something similar. This way we wouldn't have to worry about asking people if it is okay to include them in our opening as the actors would have already agreed to do so.

Lighting ideas/research:
The lighting we were given was sunrise, so we thought we could get up early and try to film a time lapse of the sunrise one  morning on the beach to try and set the scene. We also thought of just having some of the shots take place early in the morning as well so we could have the lighting continued throughout,  however the majority of the group preferred the idea of trying to do a time lapse. We thought we would try and recreate a shorter version of the video below:

Filming plan:

We decided that the best time to film it would be in half term as that was when most of the group and potential actors would be free, so we could organise a day more easily. It also gave us more time to do the filming as most group members have part time jobs or other commitments at the weekend so our schedule would have had to be much shorter if we did it on a weekend. It would also give us the time to go back and film more shots if we needed to because we had a whole week off. We don't have a specific plan for the day of filming as we are planning on decided where the best places to film are on the day, as variables such as weather may change any ideas we have now.