Filming locations

These are the rece-shots we took on location of filming.

We shot the first footage on a train. 

Some footage was shot at Chelmsford Train Station

We shot quite a lot of footage in this arcade in Southend.

This was standing on a viewing platform in Southend where we shot some footage. 

The viewing platform where we shot some footage as it gave fantastic views over Southend. 

I took this from the viewing platform, we shot some footage at the places in this picture. 

Amnesia Representation

Representation is the way in which people, events and ideas are presented to the audience.

Characters-

Daisy- 

Daisy is the main character presented in the opening sequence. She represents a teenage girl with amnesia, deliberately not a generic character representation. She is not presented to the audience as a typical girly girl character but she is portrayed as a troubled young girl dealing with the problems she has. To most people she will be an object of sympathy, they want to help her but can't physically do anything and neither can she. 

Eliza Thomas & Naomi Waters- 

These two characters are Daisy best friends. They have been friends for years and stay together through thick and thin and share many memories together. They represent Daisy's escape in life, they distract Daisy and the audience from other events in the film. They are both normal, healthy young girls to represent that Daisy is not in fact normal and healthy.

Places- 

The main location in our opening sequence is a moving train. We are using the train to represent that everything around Daisy is still moving, her life is still going forward although she isn't remembering anything. Everything on the train is carrying on as normal to represent that everything around her is still normal. 

The memories are in various locations, they all represent her past that is slowly fading from her memory as she tries to keep it alive 

Shot List

Here is a list of our shot in the order they appear:

-The first shot is a level shot of Libby standing looking out the window of the lift.
-The next shot is a low shot of Libby walking up the stairs in the train station, we shot it from the top of the stairs.
-The next shot is a level shot of Libby walking through the barriers at the train station.
-Next is a static level shot of the train pulling in to the station.
-The next shot is a close up shot of the train moving past the camera.
-The next shot is a static shot of Libby walking onto the train from the platform.
-Next is a tracking shot of Libby walking through the train to find a seat.
-Another tracking shot but this time the camera is close up to Libby as she sits down.
-The camera pans around Libby as she looks at her scrapbook.
-The next shot is from over Libby's shoulder as she looks through her scrapbook, at the end of the shot it zooms into the scrapbook before zooming out into the next shot.
-The next 2 shots are both of the scrapbook, they fade into one another as the pages turn.
-Next it zooms into the middle picture on the right side of the scrapbook.
-It then dissolves into the first memories which starts as a still shot of Libby and Katie before paying round them.
-The next shot is from Libby's point of view as she walks through the arcade so it is close up.
-For the next shot we used the tripod to film a high shot of Libby bowling.
-The next shot is a long shot of Libby sitting looking out the window of the train
-The following shot is an extreme long shot of Libby and Katie walking down the pier.
-The next shot is an establishing shot that pans across the sea front.
-The next shot is of Libby and me playing air hockey.
-It then changes to a close up of the air hockey as if it were from Libby's point of view.
-Another establishing shot but this time of Adventure Island.
-The final shot is a static shot of Libby standing infront of the sunset.

Risk Assesment

This is a risk assessment for when we go to various locations filming. There is a very low chance that we will have a problem with any of this risks but we completed this form just in case.

Timeline Of Titles

                 

Opening Titles

When we decided to change our genre to a teen drama we had to research into some film openings within this genre. Through research i found '50 First Dates'- a film about a girl with short term memory who lives the same day every day of her life not knowing so.





Order of titles:

7-20 seconds- The Columbia (Sony pictures) production logo

20-24 seconds- blank screen

24- music begins to play

24-27- 'Columbia pictures presents'

28 seconds- picture in background appears.

30-33 seconds- 'a happy madison'

34-38 seconds- 'anonymous content'

39-42 seconds- 'and flower films production'

43 seconds- camera pans right to reveal film name

45-52 seconds- '50 first dates'

Genre Changes

When looking at our overall films we found that the genre was not obvious and us ourselves couldn't identify the exact genre we wanted to portray. We had different parts showing different genres, the titles were very quirky so they created the feel of a teen drama, the music did the same however the events occurring were more mysterious. Mystery was the original genre we wanted. We have done a lot of research into mystery and drama films that have similar events to ours but they are all very clearly within the mystery genre, we can tell from the lighting, the music, the camera angles, the titles and the acting. So far in our planning and filming only the events are mysterious.

So we have decided to change our genre, we came to the conclusion ours was more of a teen drama than a mystery, the titles are quirky, the music is sad and the events are dramatic so it all fits within this genre.

Practice Titles

We filmed our titles today, however we found that they looked boring as the majority of the space in the scrapbook was blank, so it didnt look like a genuine scrapbook someone had spent time creating.

We decided that we would find a different way to show the titles. When i was shopping i came across some 3d letters we could stick on the pages, when trying this out it looked more original and quirky.  So we have decided we will decorate the background of the scrapbook and then place the letters over the top.

 

Feedback

We have recieved the following feedback-
Mr Amato- 'The genre is confusing especially the titles which don't seem to match the genre, aside from this it is a creative, original idea.'
He advised that we add drawings, doodles and pictures do the background of our scrapbook.

In response to his feedback we have tweaked our genre slightly, it is now more a teen drama than a mystery film. The titles were too quirky to be associated with the mystery genre.

Izzy Payne- 'When filming the memories Libby will have to wear different clothes to show they are in the past, other than that it is a good orginal idea'

In response to this we realised she was right that LIbby will have to wear differnt clothes when filming the memories or it won't be obvious that it is in the past.

Genre Conventions

The genre of our film is drama, to fit in with this genre we used the following things.

-it exhibits real life situations and the reality of them, so the audience can easily relate to the characters and the events- which is the purpose of a drama film; to move to audience and take them on a journey throughout the film.

-The theme is dramatic and real.

-We have both tense music to build tension which leads on to the rest of the film.

-We have used little dialogue so there are many questions for the audience to ask about the film and want to watch the rest of it.

- During the memories we have used low key lighting.

-Many of the shots as long, establishing shots to set the scene.

Shooting Schdule

Moodboard

This includes all the places we got inspiration for our shots and titles from. It helped us decide how we wanted to lay it out and what order. These shots are from the following places-
-LOL- train scene
-Sunrise music video
-Wolverine- train scene
-Avicii- wake me up music video
-Bride Wars- title sequence
-Lizzie Migure- title sequence
-Diary Of A Wimpy Kid- title sequence.

Music Ideas

We looked at various types of music that would fit with our film opening. We wanted something that reflected the tone of the film and fitted with the genre conventions. We narrowed it down to the following songs:

Our first choice is a cover of Amnesia by 5 seconds of Summer. We choose this as the title and lyrics of the song are the same as our film title and reflect the reality of amnesia so people can relate to it. We wanted a song that wasn't fast pace but also wasn't slow paced so this song was perfect for that, the tone is just right for our genre. 

The next song is a cover of Say something by Jasmine Thompson, originally sung by Christina Aguilera. The pace of this song is slightly slower to the first option however it still reflects the events and goes with the conventions of our genre. 

Our final option is a cover of Adele's song Dont you remember, covered by Rachel Mount. This is slower than the other options however the title and lyrics reflect the events and the struggle our main character Daisy is going through. 

Institution Research

New Line Cinema-

New line Cinema was founded in 1967 and since then has produced Oscar winning films like The Lord Of The Rings trilogy and some of the most popular film franchises in the world such a Sex And The City, Elf, Austin Powers, and Hairspray. In march 2008 New Line Cinema became a unit of Warner Bros. Entertainment although they still maintain separate development, production, marketing and distribution but coordinates with Warner Bros. to maximize film performance .

We chose New Line Cinema as it appeals to a more sophisticated audience and that is what we are aiming for. Our film deals with a sophisticated, serious issue that wont appeal to teenagers and young children so we are aiming for a much more mature audience. It can help by advertising in the right way to appeal to this audience meaning our film becomes as successful as it can be.

Amnesia Script

 This is our film script for Amnesia, we have included little dialogue as we want the audience to just concentrate on what Daisy is doing and how she is acting. We want them to be unaware of what is happening to her.
During filming this may change and we may add more dialogue if we come across a problem but for now we are happy with this script and directions.

Audience research

The genre of our film is a teen drama so our target audience is from the ages of 12-18. This age go to the cinema the most as they have the most free time and want to spend time going out with their friends. The gender that will most likely enjoy this film will be mostly femaleas the film is about three girls and their friendship and lives. We feel as though anyone younger than our target audience would enjoy it however they wouldn't understand the main theme of the film amnesia. 


A prototype of someone who would enjoy our film is Jane, she is 14 years old and in year 10. She is a stereotypical girl who enjoys rom-coms and drama films. She goes to the cinema at least three times a month to see the latest films with her friends. Our film would suit her as it is dramatic and she is of the age that would understand the theme of our film. 

More Studnet Film Openings

I would give this film opening 56/60 so it is a high level 4. I have now watched it a number of times and it has taken me around three times to actually understand what is happening. The writing in some places is to small and is only on the screen for a short period of time but is vital to know what is going on. This makes it almost impossible to figure out the story if you only watch it once. However once i figures out the story line I was intrigued to want to find out what happens next in the film, The acting from the girl is very believable so it engages the audience, the effects they have used are very advanced so I haven't seen them in any other film openings but they make it very realistic. They have used simple titles so they don't distract from the other text and images. To improve i think they needed to not rush through the text and also use some different camera angles as they have only used one or two. 

I would give this film 53/60, again the story line is not fully clear to the audience, we don't know who the girl in the footage is or why they are in the middle of no where. However the voice over is very believable as his voice sounds robotic and shaky like he is nervous and being made to do something he maybe doesn't want to. They have used many different camera angles, tracking shots, low and high shots, mid/long, close ups and also used effects to make some shots blurred and some doubles or lapsed. To improve i would suggest trying to make the camera less shaky as in some places it moves a lot when the shot is supposed to be static. I would also say they need to change the order of some of the shots, one moment he is sat in the car watching the girl, the next he is sat on a hill, the shots don't flow into one another. 

Blog Reflection

Amnesia Research

I did some research on different types of amnesia and how to treat it to really help us plan how the character will react to the news she has amnesia and how she will begin to deal with it, as well as how to act with the disease.

Title Sequence

Memento-

0-2 seconds- The opening title 'Memento' is shown. The theme tune to the film by David Julyan plays.

0-1.10- Throughout this time all the titles are shown and the music continuously plays. The titles include 'Music by David Julyan', 'Costume design by Cindy Evans', Editor Dody Dorn', 'Executive producer  Aaron Ryder', ' Screenplay by Christopher Nolan', Directed by Christopher Nolan'. There were more but i picked out these as the most important as they are the ones we will list in our opening. 

The titles all appear in the same font and most last for around 4 or 5 seconds to enable the audience to read them. 

27- 32 seconds- the hand that appears to be static in the background begins to shake the polariod picture it is holding. 

The same action occurs again at 53-55 seconds and 1.04-1.06 seconds. 

The repetition of the action gives connotations of forgetfulness or a routine. 

1.10-1.11 minutes- here the shot changes from the static image to a close up of a man's hands holding what appears to be the same polariod.  

1.11-1.12 minutes- the camera pans left to follow the polaroid into the man's other hand. 

Through these seconds the camera is specifically placed so we can't see his face, it is hiding his identity. 

1.16-1.19 minutes- Here we finally see the characters face as the camera tilts up. There a two visible scratches on his cheek. 

1.19-1.21 minutes- static shot of the mans face

1.21-1.23 minutes-The man seems to hide something in his jacket but it happens to quickly we can't see what it is. 

All the shots that follow are static. This is significant as it shows nothing is happening, everything is still in this exact moment.

1.23-1.24 minutes-  Shot of his face

1.24- 1.27 minutes- shot of running blood

1.27-1.30 minutes- shot of static bullet

Both the bullet and the blood have connotations of death, guns, murder and gives the idea that the genre of this film is a thriller. 

1.30-1.31 minutes- shot of static glasses

1.31-1.34 minutes- shot of a head facing the floor, blood is splattered around the head. As the audience we presume he is dead.

1.34-1.43 minutes- Everything reverses in these seconds, the bullet goes back in a gun, the head and body facing facing the floor stand up before and the glasses are placed back on his head. 

1.43-1.48 minutes- the final shot is  a close up of a man's face that is half covered by a shadow, a voice over plays as this shot is carried out.  

Amnesia Scene's

Our film mainly revolves around the theme of Amnesia. The main character is diagnosed with Amnesia at the end of the opening sequence, this sets the questions up for the rest of the film. How will she deal with it? Will she get better? How much does she remember? There aren't many films that have these themes but I managed to find a few.

Although 50 First Dates is a rom-com it will help us with our film as it has the same themes. During this scenes the main character finds out she has amnesia, it shows how she deals with this and how other patients deal with it. There is a scene with a doctor where he shows how people treat amnesia and different ways that can help. This will help us portray our character in the best way for the audience to believe she really has amnesia.




A famous film revolving around amnesia is The Bourne Identity series. The main character loses his memory through two an incident in which he receives 2 gun shots in the back. He is told that before the incident he was a trained assassin but of course he can't remember this. The film follows him trying to figure out who is telling the truth. This is more like a film we will use for inspiration for our film as it has the theme of amnesia and is also a mystery/thriller.




Another film involving amnesia is Finding Nemo. Although it is a kids film it deals with the issue in one of the main characters, however it is only short term memory loss. She forgets things she has told people minutes after telling them. I think she is presented as the extreme character, she is very loud and outgoing as it is a children's film. We want to present our character as more mysterious and she keeps herself to herself.

All of these films will help us to portray the character and they all present the issue in a different way because they are three very different genres.

Production Diary

Tuesday 10th November 2014- Today we had our first production meeting as a group.
Each person had good film pitches, all of our pitches were around the same genre of drama so we decided to stick with that genre. We went through a few ideas before deciding on the final pitch.
We all contributed equal amount to the final pitch as we all had different ideas for shots, locations and order of events. I am working with the same people I filmed my Juno task with and we worked well together then so i think we will continue to contribute different ideas and equally share the work throughout this task.

In the next few lessons we will pitch our idea to the rest of the class to get some feedback from others prospective. We will then continue to develop our idea and begin to plan a timeline and story boards.
We have set a time of three days to film our footage as we want to spend a longer time on the editing.

Thursday 12th November 2014- Today we had our second group meeting, we began to plan further details of our film. We decided on the names, the locations we were going to film and began to research some more films that were similar to our ideas.

The names of the characters and who would play them we decided on are-

Libby- Daisy Blackman

Katie- Eliza Thomas

Frankie- Naomi Waters

Mr Amato- Doctor Peters

Locations of filming- 

A corridor that resembles a hospital corridor, most likely filmed in one of the school corridors. However if we can get access to a hospital like Broomfeild then we will film there. 

Southend- Some of the memories will be filmed here. Once will be shot from the person riding a roller-coasters point of view, another will be of a sunset on the beach, and the last will be in the amusements/ arcades. 

The main character will be reading the scrap book on the train so we will shot some at Chelmsford train station and then film her looking through the scrap book on a train, the train will most likely be to Southend so we can save money on train journeys. 

We researched some similar films to our own and found a few:

Memento- A man with short term memory loss uses notes and tattoos to hunt the man he thinks killed his wife. 

-Genre- Mystery/thriller

- Budget- $9 million

-Distributor- Summit Entertainment

-Producer- New Line Cinema. 

The Notebook- The story of a man and women told on two levels, one is in present day where the pair have grown old and live in a nursing home, the other is the story the man reads to his wife of how they fell in love. In the ending we discover that the wife has Alzheimers, her husband is reading to jog her memory.

-Genre- Drama/romance

- $29 million

-Distributor- Time Warner Company

-Producer- New Line Cinema. 

Both films show different the different extremes of memory loss, both are also produced by New Line Cinema so it is likely that we will choose them as our distributor. 

Friday 13th November 2014- today we had our third meeting were we analysed some film openings to help give us ideas for timings and font of titles. We also finalised our film producers and distributor, we decided on Runner Productions as the producer and New Line Cinema as the distributor.

Tuesday 17th November 2014- Today we divided up the various tasks we needed to complete during the process of planning and making our film. Some tasks we decided we would complete as a group or each do individually, we each have five tasks to complete along with the group and individual tasks.

One of my tasks was to write the script that accompanied our film, so i wrote this in todays lesson.

Libby began to plan our storyboard using postet notes.

Katie wrote a props list of what we needed for our filming. 

Wednesday 18th November 2014- Today we continued with the process of planning our film.

I completed my second task of producing a shooting scheduel of when and where we would film the shots and what kind of shots would be used.

Katie did some reaserch into different styles of music we could use and where they could fit in.

Libby continued with drawing and writing out story boards. 

Thursday 19th November 2014- Today i began making the mooboard, using our original ideas and where we got inspiration from. I used screenshots from films and music videos to show where we got inspiration from. 

Libby began doing titles research into different styles of writing and what would fit in with our genre and why.

Friday 20th November 2014- Today I continued developing our mood board using out original ideas from various films. We also prepared to film our titles on Monday so we didn't have to waste time preparing on Monday. 
Libby continued researching into different styles and fonts for our film title.


Monday 24th November- As planned in our shooting schedule we filmed our titles today. We wrote them out letter by letter and filmed them. We decided to just write one word first and see how it looked when we began to edit it together. Through this we found that writing it our letter by letter wouldn't work so we decided to have Libby write the letter as we film it and then speed the footage up on premier. This worked much better however the writing wasn't very exciting so we so tested our a few different fonts on some scrap paper. Again we found that none of these were exciting enough so i suggested that my Mum who has more exciting writing should write them and I film them. We all agreed to try this so I went home and filmed these. 


Tuesday 25th November- Today we looked at the footage I shot of my mum writing out the titles. We began trying out different ways in which we could present it when we realised that it looked really boring with just the writing. So we decided we would re shoot the titles once we had added in pictures, stickers and doodles into the background of the scrapbook, we thought this would make it more believable and realistic to someone's personal scrapbook. 

Wednesday 26th November- Today we began decorating the scrapbook to make it more realistic. We also got some feedback from our teachers and various other students in our class to see what they thought of our film. When getting feedback from our teacher we discussed what the genre was, so we began to realised that it wasn't obvious. We originally wanted it to be mystery but from the feedback and looking at the titles and music we had planned to use, it was clear we needed to change it to a teen drama.

Thursday 27th November- We continued to decorate the scrapbook today and finalised how we wanted to present our titles. We chose to present them as 3D letters that we will place into the scrapbook. Katie and i continued to draw out our storyboard towards the end of the lesson. I also began the marketing campaign and finished our titles timeline.

Friday 28th November- Today we got everything ready to film on Saturday. We filled out a risk assessment, completed our storyboard and then recorded the voice over that will play over some of the footage. I also began to plan our marketing campaign.

Monday 1st December- We looked over our footage today and began to begin editing it together. We managed to add in the music and link some footage together. We are using Pro Premier to edit our film opening together.

Tuesday 2nd December- We are continuing to edit our footage together. We also discussed where we are going to put the titles within the film. Whilst filming we were sure to leave space in the shots so we could edit in the titles.
I stayed after school to continue editing.

Wednesday 3d December- today we continued to edit ready for our final deadline on Friday

Thursday 4th December- we completed the final edits to our first draft. We knew it needed lots of improvements and some footage was missing but we were pleased with our first draft. 
I came back after school to complete editing for our first draft.

Friday 5th December- we sent our first draft to our teacher and began to receive feedback on our first draft.

Monday 8th December- Today we watched everyone's film opening draft and gave feedback on them, taking into consideration the genre, camera angles, acting, conventions, music. We gave them an overall score out of 60.

Tuesday 9th December- Today we received the feedback from the other classes about our film. Overall we are happy with our feedback, we mostly received good marks out of 60 and everyone gave some constructive criticism on how to improve our film for our final cut.

Wednesday 10th December- I blogged about our feedback today and in our group we discussed how we would improve our draft to make it the best we can for our final cut.

Thursday 11th December- As a group we edited in some more titles and began to think about what music we could use as the one we had chosen was too well known to use.

Friday 12th December- We continued to edit for our final cut today. I also blogged about the changes we were making to improve it.

Monday 15th December- As a group we looked through the lap chart to check we had completed everything, we found that we needed to complete our storyboard and blog about the genre conventions and then everything was completed.
Me and Libby filmed the storyboard and i began to edit it together. ]

Tuesday 16th December- I did some research into genre conventions of drama and then compared them to our film and what we had included before blogging about it.
I also came back after school to complete the final editing.

Wednesday 17th December- Today we sent our final draft to our teacher.
Individually we began to blog anything that we had missed along the way and anything extra we wanted.

Group Film Pitch

Student Film Opening Evaluations

Roses Are Red:

I would give this opening sequence 49/60 making it a low level 4. 

Although they have been very creative with the titles, making them out of everyday objects and including them in the scene rather than editing them in over the top, my favourite being the costume designers name sewn into the girls clothes. the sequence is boring as it stays in only one room for 2 minutes. To be more captivating it needs more locations, this also enables the scene to be set more. The music is also very annoying and seems to drag for the majority. However i think they have been successful in captivating their target audience, i imagine they wanted to attract teenager girls to watch the film. The genre is not clear as the first shots portray a teen drama/ rom-com genre but the final shot has a very creepy voice over which suggests something completely different. 

The Edge:

Out of all the film openings we watched this was my favourite and what i thought the best. I would give it 58/60 making it a high level 4. They found an interesting unusual location to film which makes it seem much more realistic. They have obviously spent a lot of time editing and adding in the title's which has paid off as they look very professional. The genre is not quite presented to us but we can see that it is along the lines of a detective/thriller. I really like all the different camera angles used, they included interesting ones like the birds eye shot of him running, i also like that they have shot some of it from the characters point of view so the viewer feels like they are in the story with them. 

Micheal

I would give this 51/60 as they have been creative with there shots and adapted the generic events of rom-coms. A typical rom-com is about the girl being upset but they have changed it to show the boy dealing with a break-up. I really like the slides that show all the different ways he is dealing with the break-up. The camera stays still throughout all the shots so you aren't distracted from what is taking place in the shots. They have been successful in using different types of shots, close ups, tracking shots etc. To make it more interesting they could of use different angles of shots.