CHANGE - Alternative Ending

After veiwing our footage, Keeley and I decided that our film seemed a little boring and didnt contain a lot of footage that would really capture and entice the audience.

After thinking on it we decided to film an alternate ending in which our protagonist returns home to find a dead body in her living room, (which later in the film we find out is her Father.) We thought this was a good idea as it added a shocking factor as the audience would not expect this to occur.

This is our alternative ending in storyboard form which I created on the website ToonDoos -

The only problem that this new storyline brings is that it shifts the genre and style from being Realistic / Drama, to being realistic thriller - therefore we will need to reaserch some more films of this genre.

Shooting Schedule - 2nd January 2012

On January 2nd 2012 Keeley and I went to Hastings seafront with my video camera and our storyboard for reference to film. We asked a friend Tallula Mcneilly to be our protagonist and we showed her our storyboard and general ideas for our opening and told her a little bit of background on our character. We managed to film the majority of the footage that will make up our two minutes, although there are some scenes that are filmed in a house and we require another actor so we have decided to finish this part another day.

Film Setting - 2nd Januaray 2012

Keeley and I decided to shoot our film in Hastings, East Sussex - in the town and along the seafront, as it is a local area and it contains many places that would be ideal for the type of filming that we wished to do, i.e walking, train station filming etc. Also the placement was ideal as it represented a very average town in Britain that would happily home a girl of that age and background, aiding our realistic style that we want the film to emulate.



We filmed our protagonist sitting on the beach at the start and then walking along the beach and along the seafront with the sea and pier in the background. The seafront was a good place to start off our filming as the beach often symbolises tranquillity and escape and that is exactly what we wanted to be apparent that our protagonist went there for.



We also used Robertson Street as a shooting location as when it was busy and people were all out together and in groups around our protagonist, it made it more obvious how alone she was and how she doesn't want social communication at the minute.



One of our final scenes was at Hastings Station in which we see our protagonist look at train times and travel via train to St Leonards Warrior Square. This was a good location as it provided a variety of shots that were necessary to make our opening more diverse.

Drama / Realism Film Opening Reaserch IN DEPTH - 'Fish Tank'

We decided after extensive film opening research and storyboards, that our two minute film will be of the drama / realistic genre therefore here we only researched the openings of drama / realism films. I analysed the first two minutes of Fish Tank in greater detail as this opening was similar to the opening that we hope to accomplish.

FISH TANK:


Titles - White font, no music, black background
Background noise - girl heavily breathing.


FIRST SCENE :
titles cut to girl crouched over, breathing heavily in casual - perhaps sports clothes - suggests she has being doing sport, or something physical has been going on. (a chase?)


Cuts to the back of her, showing that she is inside a building - view proves she is high up so possibly a flat? Camera pans around her while she picks up her phone showing more of the environment and view out of the window - phone kicks into answerphone and she leaves a message (camera still panning around her).
"Keeley its me - what is going on... I said sorry didn't i?!"
Shows how shes had an argument with someone - badly spoken "pi**ed off" shows the type of back ground she is from - rough?


Picks up her bags and leaves flat. (Doesn't show her leaving)


Protagonist walks to outside a different flat block: (showing she has left) looks like London, she throws stones at window - young girls sunbathing outside on the grass (doesn't greet them) addresses one of them -"What are you doing?!" shows she knows her well? younger sister maybe?


Man comes out of the flat that she had been throwing stones at - "F*ck off Mia, Keeley ain't here" - same accent, no respect, abusive language. Again, must know him well.


Obviously a relative of Keeley's... protagonist replies with "tell Keeley i think her old man is a c*nt" - very disrespectful language for adults, showing the norms of their lifestyle and how they react and their relationships with one and other is very informal and they don't really have any respect for each other.


 

After watching these first two minutes of 'Fish Tank' it appears to the audience that the director introduces the protagonist to the audience for the first time and gives a slight insight to whats going on in her life currently, (ie, her dancing, and the phone call she has with her friend making it apparent that there is a strain on that relationship.) This is a very similar approach to how we want to open our film, as we want the audience to have an idea of the protagonist's current situation and how she is feeling in regards to this situation. in order to achieve this, we could take ideas from 'Fish Tank', such as the phone to show the strain on a relationship.

So that we don't just copy the phone shot in 'Fish Tank', we will differ it, in that instead of an actual voice mail being left by the protagonist, there will be no dialogue, but only the view of 7 missed calls from her Mother to show to the audience how it is her Mother pushing the contact, rather than the protagonist.

We can take from these two title minutes of Fish Tank that it is very possible to establish some sort of a beginning to a storyline in the first two minutes of a film opening, as before we were not sure of how we could do this effectively, but using ideas from 'Fish Tank', we now feel that we can.

Drama / Realism Film Opening Research - Albatross

FACTFILE

Genre - Drama

UK Release Date - 14th October 2011

Director - Niall MacCormick

Writer (Screenplay) - Tamsin Rafn

Staring - Felicity Jones

              Jessica Brown-Findlay

              Sebastian Koch

Production Company/s - CinemaNX

                                      Isle of Man Films

Special Effects - Rushes Post Production

Camera Equipment - ARRI Media

Stationery Supplier - Media Services pre-production

Sound Post-production - Zound

STORYLINE 
The story follows Emelia, a rebellious, seductive and intelligent teenager played by Brown-Findlay. Taking a job as a cleaner at a guest house, Emelia befriends the teen daughter of the house, begins an affair with the husband and gets scowled at by the wife and mother of the family who live there.

Alternating between comedy and drama, the film has an awkward tone. The writer Tamzin Rafn claims it was written as a comedy but there are only occasional really funny moments. Instead, it is the drama that is more gripping with a range of characters who are trapped in miserable lives in a beautiful but dead-end location. Filmed with a great eye for scenery on the breathtaking coast of the Isle of Man by director of photography Jan Jonaeus, the narrative takes in the kids on the beaches, the family in the guest house and most notably Emelia and new friend Beth. But these disparate people all appear confined and resigned to unfulfilling and disappointing existences.

RELATION TO OUR FILM

This film is fairly similar to the film we wish to make the opening two minutes of, as it has that 'realism' tone and includes dilemmas revolving around family and friendship and one girls journey into finding herself, which is very similar to out protagonist. A major difference is that Emelia is an incredibly different character to our protagonist, in that she is an enormous tearaway and she is the main cause of the problems within the film, wears our protagonist is very shy and just happens to have been born into problems that are not any fault of her own. The fact that Emelia is a very colourful and outgoing character has a large impact on the audience as they grow fond of her and her tearaway ways. We would need to establish a different way of making the audience respond to our protagonist and relate to her as she doesn't have these traits.   

Drama / Realism Film Opening Research - The Arbor

FACTFILE

Genre - Drama / Documentary / Biography

UK Release Date - 22nd October 2010

Director - Clio Barnard

Staring - Manjinder Virk 

                 Christine Bottomley

                 Natalie Gavin

Production Company/s - Artangel Media

Filming Locations - Bradford / West Yorkshire - England, UK

Distributors - Strand Release

                         Verve Productions

STORYLINE + REVIEW
Andrea Dunbar was something of a child prodigy growing up on the underprivileged Buttershaw Estate in Bradford. Dunbar wrote her first play The Arbor, (named after the street on which she lived Brafferton Arbor,) at the tender age of 15. The play, which debuted at the Royal Court Theatre in 1980, depicts the turbulent life of pregnant teenager with a father who is an abusive alcoholic. In 1982 Dunbar wrote the follow up Rita, Sue and Bob Too! which was later turned into a film by the director Alan Clarke. By 1990, at just 29 years old, Andrea Dunbar was dead, killed by an apparent brain haemorrhage the talented author left behind three young children. Artist and filmmaker Clio Barnard's new biopic, also entitled The Arbor, attempts not only to tell Andrea's story but also that of her eldest daughter Lorraine, who was imprisoned in 2007 for the manslaughter of her son Harris.


Life has been particularly difficult for eldest daughter Lorraine growing up as a mixed-race child a predominately white estate she was racially abused on a daily basis for having a Pakistani father. Just 10 years old when her mother passed away Lorraine would later turn to prostitution to feed her drug habit. As her life quickly spiralled out of control she fell pregnant by one of her clients and struggled to bring up her child.

RELATION TO OUR FILM

The film 'The Arbor' has less similarities to our film than 'Albatross' as the protagonist in this film is a world away from the protagonist in out film, as this protagonist is a grown woman and a playright meaning she is of higher social class to our protagonist and of a different age. The main similarities between our film and 'The Arbor' is that it is a biographical storyline following the life of one person ie the protagonist. It also portrays the troubled relationship between a Mother and a Daughter, which is similar to our film as it portrays a dis-equilibrium between a mother and daughter which is precisely what happens in our film. The only difference is that the protagonist who leads 'The Arbor' is the Mother, wheras our protagonist is the daughter.