Coursework idea- Wax

The idea of our film opening is:

 about a woman who owns a salon in a small town, she is around thirty years old and has just been through a break up with her boyfriend of 7 years, She tortures her customers in her salon using salon equipment e.g hot wax, hence the name, before killing them off.

The beginning of the opening will consist of the salon owner/killer setting up before her customers arrive for their appointments.

The target audience: for our film is teens and above but is not suitable for under 15's.

The mise-en-scene: will be a made up woman with tied back hair and beauty equipment in the room.

We will shoot our opening in a real beauty salon in Ilkley.

There is narrative enigma: at the start you think she is the victim not the killer.

For the cast: we are going to hopefully have a real beauty technician to play the role of the killer.

We will have 2 women waiting in the waiting room to be seen to and a customer we see in the opening being tortured.

Shot types: We will have a panning shot of the outside of the salon, a point of view shot from the salon owner, a close up of the wax equipment, a close of of a kettle boiling and a medium close up of the other customers that are waiting.

The ending will be the salon owner coming out of the room and saying 'who's next please.' she smiles at the two women waiting and one of the gets up and walks towards her. The killer beings to follow her through the door.

PITCH

Pre-Lim Improvements

Pre-lim Improvements.

We could have made some improvements to our pre-lim tasks if we had more time to plan. The improvements we would of made are as follows;

1. Better story line- we would of planned a better idea to shoot our pre-lim. With more time we could of done casting even though in this case it wouldn't of mattered that much. It only would of been a better representation to have an older actor playing the teacher.

2. Better use of props-  We could of used better props when do the filming. we could of used a school uniform as anchorage that Sophie was the student and smart clothing for the teacher. This would of made our preferred reading better to understand for the audience.

3. We should of used a tripod which would of stopped the film becoming 'shaky'. As we were holding the camera during all the filming some or the shots were fuzzy.


4. We would of made a better script- the one we used doesnt use much dialogue and the speech in the pre-lim.

Pre-Lim

Pre-lim Task.

Preliminary exercise: Continuity task involving filming and editing a character opening a door, crossing a room and sitting down in a chair opposite another character, with whom she/he then exchanges a couple of lines of dialogue. This task should demonstrate match on action, shot/reverse shot and the 180-degree rule.


Match on Action- connects two shots cut together by having a character finish an action in the second shot begun in the first shot. For instance, if a character lights a match in the first shot, the same character will draw it up to a cigarette in the second.


Shot/Reverse Shot- After an establishing shot, the shot-reverse shot refers to the close-ups used when two characters are in conversation. (Because we have already used an establishing shot, we now know where the characters are in relation to one another.) First both of the actors engaged in a conversation are shown in a two-shot then the camera cuts in to mid shots and close-ups of one actor and then the other, usually from a position 'over the shoulder' of the other actor.


180-degree rule-The 180° rule is a basic guideline in film making that states that two characters (or other elements) in the same scene should always have the same left/right relationship to each other. If the camera passes over the imaginary axis connecting the two subjects, it is called crossing the line. 

Pre-lim Improvements.

We could have made some improvements to our pre-lim tasks if we had more time to plan. The improvements we would of made are as follows;

1. Better story line- we would of planned a better idea to shoot our pre-lim. With more time we could of done casting even though in this case it wouldn't of mattered that much. It only would of been a better representation to have an older actor playing the teacher.

2. Better use of props-  We could of used better props when do the filming. we could of used a school uniform as anchorage that Sophie was the student and smart clothing for the teacher. This would of made our preferred reading better to understand for the audience.

3. We should of used a tripod which would of stopped the film becoming 'shaky'. As we were holding the camera during all the filming some or the shots were fuzzy.


4. We would of made a better script- the one we used doesnt use much dialogue and the speech in the pre-lim.

Microdrama

Mircodrama was our first time using the camera and editing sofware 'imovie'.

My Top 5 Favourite Films

1. Honey(Bille Woodruff, 2003)
US Budget- $25,000,000.  Gross- $30 million

This is one of my favourite films because it stars Jessica Alba when she was younger and features some big stars.

Youtube Trailer










2. Coach Carter (Thomas Carter, 2005)

US Budget- $30,000,000.  Gross- $67million
Watched this film many times. Enjoy the acting and the storyline plus i like that it is based on a true story.

[YouTube Trailer]




3. Save the Last Dance(Thomas Carter, 2001)

US Budget- $13,000,000  Gross- $91 million
One of my favourite films, stars Jullia Stiles in one of her first films. Good dancing and a good soundtrack.


[YouTube Trailer]










4. Step Up (Anne Fletcher, 2006)

US Budget- $12,000,000  Gross- $65.3 million
Modern films about dancing, also has a romantic storyline which isnt too bad. Channing Tatum is great in this film.









5. Grease(Randal Kleiser, 1978)
US Budget- £6,000,000 Gross- $181.3 million

Everyone has seen this films, most people know the songs. Olivia Newton John and John Travolta have this film to thanks for their fame.

[YouTube Trailer]

My Coursework Task

THE BRIEF, EVALUATION + HOW ITS ALL MARKED

THE BRIEF

Your mission is to carry out the following brief:

Preliminary exercise: Continuity task involving filming and editing a character opening a door, crossing a room and sitting down in a chair opposite another character, with whom she/he then exchanges a couple of lines of dialogue. This task should demonstrate match on action, shot/reverse shot and the 180-degree rule.
Main task: the titles and opening of a new fiction film, to last a maximum of two minutes.
All video and audio material must be original, produced by the candidate(s), with the exception of music or audio effects from a copyright-free source.

The coursework is worth 50% of the AS (same at A2) and the marking (detailed later) is divided into 3 sections:

RESEARCH AND PLANNING: 20%

PRODUCTION: 60%

EVALUATION: 20%

EVALUATION

Even before you start shooting (let alone planning) your production, you need to keep this final stage in mind. If you start (b)logging notes on this now it will save you a lot of stress as the final deadline (in May!) approaches. You are tasked with answering these questions (see below for details on how this is marked):

These questions are making us think how the examiner would be marking our work, when we answer these questions we will see if there are anything we need to do to improve our work.

• In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? 

• How does your media product represent particular social groups?

• What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why? 

• Who would be the audience for your media product? 

• How did you attract/address your audience? 

• What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product? 

• Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

HOW ITS ALL MARKED [ie THE ASSESSMENT CRITERIA]

The grid embedded below summarises the criteria DB have to follow, and so you're advised to occasionally re-read this and ask yourself where you think you'll fall within the marking scheme!
For each section there are key components of the work which DB have to assess as being one of the following:

• MINIMAL
• BASIC
• PROFICIENT  
• EXCELLENT

G321 - Simplified Marking Criteria as 1 Sheet