R+P Post 17: Our planned costumes and hair and make-up

To ensure the characteristics and styles of our characters were well presented, we decided to create a costume list. In this document, information such as guidelines on hair & make-up, costume descriptions and details on the references that we used for our costume were included. Initially, we did not have a costume list but after teacher comments on the lack of costume in the test shoot, we created a costume list to reflect our aims for thorough characterisation.

R+P Post 16: Casting

In the run up to our main shoot, there were a number of documents that we decided to create that we did not for our test shoot. One of these was a cast list. This document included key details of the characters and the actors that played them such as names, a short description of the characters and some information about the actors to play them.

Deciding on an actor to play our main character was more straightforward than we expected. Our first step on finding an actor was to ask within our friendship groups. We initially had doubts about doing this as we were not sure that they would be as serious and professional as we needed them to be, however we followed on and instead were sure to emphasise the importance of what they would be agreeing to. In the end after a few discussions in our group meetings, we decided to choose Celine to play the main character in our opening sequence. We were happy with this selection as we knew that Celine was an AS Drama student who is a capable actor that has been involved in a number of successful school plays/productions.

Ella Thompson and I, decided to include ourselves in the cast list and take up the roles of playing the remaining 2 characters, Ella and Anthony. We decided to this as we were not only confident that we would be able to act these accordingly, but we knew it would avoid the risk of any problems associated with having actors that were not part of the group, such as deciding on our shooting day; with more people, there are more schedules to satisfy, so by not bringing in another 2 people we could avoid this problem.

R+P Post 15: Our planned filming location, set design and props

Ella's Bedroom

For the filming of our opening sequence rough cut we decided to use the bedroom of a member of our group, Ella. We decided to use Ella's room as no any major changes to the set were required, and the room suited our opening sequence idea as it already had a number of things that we needed; we needed a mirror, a bed with some kind of bed side table and a wardrobe.

Please see the picture to the right for the filming location of our rough cut.

Following on from this, as a group we decided that the creation of a set & prop list would be of great benefit to the shooting process. This document was created for our main shoot and it entailed a list of the setups that would be used and a list of all the props we deemed necessity to have, to ensure the genre, personality and motives of the main character, and themes were further connoted. In hindsight, I feel that the use of a props list for our test shoot, would have maybe allowed for a better end product as the props would have aided the audience in understanding what was going on in our opening sequence.

Please see the picture to the right for the set & props list

R+P Post 14: Our Call Sheet

For our test shoot, we created a call sheet. This document will entail the specific details regarding our shoot; this includes the address of the shoot, the contact details of all the people that will be present at the shoot (all members of the cast and production teams), a health and safety list, and the call times for the crew times.

Please click the below for the call sheet used.

R+P Post 13: Our shootboard

We decided to construct a shoot board that would entail all the relevant information to do with the upcoming test shoot. This included the shot number, the location of the shots, a picture of the drawing of the shot and a short description of the shot. By including this detail on the shoot board, the shooting process could be made significantly easier as we would easily be able to refer to the shoot board to see what was required for each shot. One thing that we decided to do in an attempt to make us more efficient when shooting, was to group the shots on the shoot board by location. We decided to do this as we felt it would be of great benefit when shooting. From my perspective this would be the most meaningful decision to do with the organisation for our shoot as it means that we have a pre-organised list of shots for each location, allowing us to shoot without having to significantly adjusting of the position/location of the camera between shots.

R+P Post 12: Our Animatic

To create our Animatic, we captured still photos of the content would be shown in each shot. To do this, we constantly referred back to the sequence of shots that we had previously planned on our storyboard. As each shot was drawn onto a post-it note and stuck down onto the storyboard in the desired ordered already, we were able to use the storyboard and work shot by shot to ensure the still shots that were taken, accurately reflected the desired ideas presented on the post-it note drawings. Looking back, the use of the varying colours was very beneficial to us as it allowed us to quickly differentiate between the shot types and/or framework that each shot required, therefore allowing the production of the Animatic to be quicker.

The Animatic turned out to be a very useful tool in the overall production of our 2 minute opening sequence. It allowed us to:

• Test our shots to see if they worked well with the other shots in the sequence
• Make a final decision on the soundtrack that we would use as we were able to test the 2 potential soundtracks that we had chosen and therefore decide which one anchored the story line of our sequence more effectively
• Easily identify and correct any continuity errors in the sequence, which we later rectified by adding and replacing shots where necessary

Please see the video below for our finished Animatic:

R+P Post 11: Our timeline and storyboard

The next stage in the production of our 2 minute opening sequence required us to produce a timeline and storyboard which would entail the story line and plot of our opening sequence. These were both produced in the group meetings that we held, and in our lesson time.

Timeline:
The timeline was made by sticking 4 A4 pieces of paper together horizontally and drawing 2 straight lines across all of them with a space of 9 cm to create 3 columns. We completed this first as we felt it would be best to have the timeline done as soon as possible so the construction of our storyboard would not be delayed by the lack of a reference when creating the shots.

Storyboard:
For our storyboard, we used a large A2 piece of sugar paper to convey our desired plan for the shots. Each shot was drawn onto a post-it note and stuck down onto the storyboard in the desired order. The post-it's were different colours, either green, pink or orange, and this was used to denote the different shot types and framing to be used.

Our Storyboard

• Pink = Titles
• Green = Close up
• Orange = Mid shot
• Yellow = Long shot