Film Opening - 7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full product?

My preliminary exercise was one of the first pieces of film i had ever produced, and as such, a lot of mistakes were made. I used these mistakes as a stepping stone to make sure i didn't fall into the same traps as before. One of our biggest problems in the preliminary exercise was the lack of structure to our storyboard: Everybody seemed to have a different idea of what we were doing. This time, my group and i worked as a team to make sure that everything that needed to be done got done, and that we wee all on the same page in terms of where we thought the film was going.
Our storyboarding and idea brainstorming was definitely an improvement, which paid off in both the production and post production process. With my preliminary task, this lack of an extensive pre production process had caused problems when trying to film and edit.
Another key point was the distribution of roles amongst our group. This time round we each focuses on a certain aspect, whilst maintaining support and providing ideas to the people in different roles. This made sure that everyone was kept busy with a job to do, and eliminated people arguing over how a role should be performed. 
      As an example:

• Preliminary exercise: The role of camera operator was shared between a few different people, with the person doing the actual filming changing each time.

• Opening scene: We had one person in the role of camera operator, meaning he maintained the feel of the film and kept it looking natural. This is not to say that the other members did not get a say in how the camera was operated, as ideas were discussed between us.

We also managed to include a wider variety of shot types, and more overall footage. This meant the film could be kept interesting by means of the post production editing. Other editing techniques such as music, a voice over and sound effect were also present. Editing is perhaps our most progressed skill since the preliminary exercise.
More advanced title sequences also played a role. Before the names of those involved were put in at the end as more of an afterthought than part of the film. Our opening scene allowed us to play with and develop the idea of more immersive titles, that can be used as a part of the film not just a formality
To conclude, i would say that every aspect of my media knowledge and experience has increased, as well as my confidence in using different, more imaginative techniques, editing and shot types.

Film Opening - Ideas

Originally we thought of creating a zombie movie which focused on thoughts and feeelings of a lone protangonist. However we did not think this style of film would be easy enough to film and also contain all the information we needed in a 2 minute section. We started to watch some openings (usingYouTube) to get a better idea of what we were trying to achieve and also understand the limitations of an opening a bit more. We also used websites such as IMDB We had to keep in mind the type of equiptment we would be using will be basic and so this limited the type of shot we could produce, the type of costumes we could use which all would affect the whole stlye and structure of a film opening. 

We studied films such as:
- Enemy at the gates
- Che
- Saving private ryan
- Black hawk down   


We eventually came to the descison that we would create an opening for war film based around the Red Army. We thought this would be a good idea, due to the simplistic nature in which we could film the shots and also potray feelings and emotions even with lack of dialogue. The inspiration came from the fact that all of members in the group are also history students and all very interested in Russian history. However we still had to decide what period of russian history and what events to base the film on. We started to plan how we were going to shoot our opening, and also get an idea of what the opening should be about. We brainstormed many ideas, all to do with Russia however we began to relise the real limitations we faced while thinking of an idea. We decided to keep it as simple as possible because of the obvious limitations like setting, cast and props.

Film opening - Mise-en-scène

As we're making the opening for a historical film set approximately 80 years ago, Mise-en-scène is incredibly important for making our opening look believable, interesting and showing good continuation.
We wrote a list of items we could potentially need and went about trying to collect them. This ensured that when it came to filming we had a convincing set with excellent Mise-en-scène.

• Any bullets, bullet casings or shells.
• Any military style uniform, such as boots, military jackets and hats.
• Indicators of the location, era and situation the characters are in (war time) 
•  Documents and papers, some with black boxes over parts of the text.
• Ashtray
• A smoking fire/camp fire, or a campfire effect.
• Any replica weapons

Combined with our plans of making the titles and music represent the location and era, this will make our film opening look authentic.

Film Opening - The Briefs

Here are the four breifs we where given the option of using as a guide. We where given a reasonable amount of freedom to change these ideas to get a more creative and well made product.

Film Brief 1

A mainstream action film that will appeal to 15-25yr old males. Your film should appear to be based on a "fictional" comic book(Opening to Dark Knight, Kick Ass, Sin City etc)


Film Brief 2
A supernatural thriller that will appeal to female audiences. Your film should appear to be an international co-production
(Opening to The Others, Gothika, Shelter etc)


Film Brief 3
An independent movie featuring a young protagonist. Your film should appear to be financed through regional funding
(Opening to Fish Tank, This Is England etc)


Film Brief 4
An  art house feature to appeal to adult audiences. Your film should appear to be based on an actual event in the last 2 years.
(Opening to Elephant, Milk, Che etc)