Initial Planning of Coursework Artefact

I have just started planning my coursework artefact intensively for the past week or so, which has to be a 2 minute opening to a feature film.

I quite liked the idea of being able to choose the genre ourselves. Although the task of getting the genre across to the audience in those crucial 120 seconds is not as easy at it first seemed.

To help myself and the rest of my class with this issue; we sat and watched the beginning 2 minutes of a number of blockbuster films. We made notes on Mise en Scene, camera work, editing and sound. It soon became clear that these films used countless methods including: a particular colour pallette to set the mood, different camera techniques, credits that also fitted the genre and certain music to accompany the mood of the film. I knew that these were things I would have to take on board with my artefact.

The storyboarding process proved to be quite difficult for me. I storyboarded some sketches for a Rom-Com opening. However when I thought further into it, I did not think it would be much of a challenge, so I decided to scrap that idea. From there on I found it hard to think of what else I could do. So to help me, I listened to a few pieces of original copyright-free music, already having a vague idea of the genre and mood I wanted to portray in my head (sad romance, tragedy) to help put a vision in my mind of what I could do. And it worked! I managed to storyboard the entire thing over two lessons.

There will most certainly be various things I will need to consider when I begin filming. The main one being getting to my location (beach) in time for the sunset; as this is rather significant for my establishing shot. However I will go into more detail about things such as this in my evaluation.

I have a couple of other things I need to complete before I can film, to complete the planning process: a shooting script, and a second-by-second timeline to describe what I am doing in finer detail.

Some time at the end of this week I will visit the location to take stills for a finalised and detailed storyboard, and begin filming next week if possible.