FILM PRODUCTION

G.C.S.E. Film Studies

Starter

Where do you think ideas come from and why?

Todays Objectives

WALT Overview of the requirements for the production

task. Analyse short films and their structure. Understand where ideas are generated and create

an initial concept. WILF

Feedback on the strengths and weakness of short films.

Identify a range of ideas. Select a final concept and develop a synopsis for

your short film.

Production Tasks

This coursework task is graded in four areas. 1)   Pre-production – produce a

storyboard with a minimum of twenty slides (20 marks)

2)   Pitch – You will need to pitch your idea (10 marks)

3)   Production – construct a two minute scene from a film (30 marks)

4)   Evaluation – evaluate your contribution to the project. (10 marks)

Task 1

1) Pre-production You need to create two pieces of work to complete

this task: Synopsis – You need to produce a document of 150

words that identifies the genre of the film you are making (or sub-genre if relevant) and an overview of the narrative of the film, this should also include information on the scene you would produce.

Storyboard – You need to produce a storyboard of the scene you are going to produce, there should be at least twenty frames in the storyboard. These images should include any dialogue that you are going to use within the shot and also the movement of the shot e.g. pan, tilt or tracking shot.

Task 2

2) Pitch This will have to be done individually. You all have to pitch your

idea of your film. The pitch should include the following information: A logline  – a one or two sentence summary of your films narrative. Genre – what is the genre or sub-genre of the film? Narrative – what happens in the story, give an overview of the whole

film? Stars – who would be in your film? Why would these stars be good in

your movie? What is their appeal to the audience? Have they been in horror movies before?

Target Audience – who is the target audience for your film (age range, gender and socio-economic grouping)?

Justification – Why would your film appeal to the target audience? Overview of the scene you would produce for the film – include

the storyboard in your pitch, or show it to the audience.

Task 3

3) Final Production The sequence you are creating is around two minutes in length.

The scene you create should use the appropriate conventions from the genre and demonstrate tension and atmosphere.

You can work in groups up to four but you must be producing one of the ideas that were pitched. The roles you must work in are: Camera Operator Editor

Up to two of you can work in each of these roles; you must complete at least a minute each of the film for it to be considered a significant and defined role within the group. This will need to be identified from the first group-meeting, divide the storyboard planning in half identifying who will complete which shots for the filming and editing.

Task 4

4) Evaluation This must be completed individually. You can complete this task as either:

An essay – which should be between 350 – 500 words A digital presentation – with slide notes using Powerpoint.

The evaluation should cover the following criteria: What technical and creative skills did you use in the film. Also discuss the

skills you used within the job you fulfilled. What codes and conventions did you use to create meaning in the film?

Consider how you conveyed the type of genre the film is – you could refer to real films here to demonstrate you used similar codes and conventions to create meaning for the audience in areas such as: mise-en-scene, camera, editing, and sound.

What type of film language did you use, e.g. types of camera shots, pace of the editing.

How would the film convey meaning to the target audience? What would the BBFC rate the film, consider the material in the scene, could

they have an impact on the film, enforcing cuts or banning films. What company would produce a film like this and how do you know this?

Short Films

We are going to watch some short films.

In groups after analyse them and identify the strengths and weaknesses of these short films.

Feedback to the class.

Ideas Generation

In groups discuss what might inspire you to create an idea for a film

Where do ideas come from?

There is an argument that there are no original ideas do you believe this.

Feedback to the group.

Ideas

You are going to have to pitch an idea to the class and write an synopsis of your film – Task 1 and Task 2.

You need to brainstorm a range of ideas for your film, consider for each idea you have:

Story Narrative – beginning, middle and end. Characters Locations Effects

Feedback

Pitch to the class you best idea.

Give feedback at the end on how to improve the idea – class.

Only an idea pitched can be made into a film as a group.

Synopsis

Decide on your final idea and begin developing your synopsis or the final idea. You must cover:

Synopsis – You need to produce a document of 150 words that identifies the genre of the film you are making (or sub-genre if relevant) and an overview of the narrative of the film, this should also include information on the scene you would produce.

Homework

Complete the synopsis

Synopsis – You need to produce a document of 150 words that identifies the genre of the film you are making (or sub-genre if relevant) and an overview of the narrative of the film, this should also include information on the scene you would produce.