flashbacks/flashforwards

In out opening 2 minutes we have planned to include some flashbacks/flashforwards (as Its only 2 minutes into a film, the audience will not know, and will keep them engaged) Rory would of been having these and he doesnt know what they are trying to tell him, they are reocurring but he can never make out who or where? If we were doing the whole film we probs would them of as flashforwards, and the film would go to them later in the film when they are actually happening..

When writing for an audience, keep in mind they want you to show them what's going on. They're not fond of being told a story. Two great ways of illustrating the past and future events in your story are through flashbacks and flash forwards, respectively.

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FlashBacks
A good flashback example can be seen in the recent film Forgetting Sarah Marshall.

Flashbacks throughout tell the audience of the kind of relationship they shared. There were good times and bad times, but perhaps most memorable of all is a flashback example involving Sarah and her old memories of Peter.

In less than a minute, the film communicates to its audience where Sarah's feelings for Peter are, even though outwardly she shows no signs of the reality. Thus, the flashback example is relevant and triggered by something in the present.
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Flash Forwards

In Stephen King's The Dead Zone (novel, film, TV series), the protagonist acquires the gift of predicting the future after a nearly fatal car crash. When he makes physical contact, he is able to flash forward and see a person's future.

The flash forward of a nuclear event becomes a plot point on which the rest of the character's path must travel.

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To Note...

Whether it's a flashback or a flash forward, the information that comes to light must be triggered in the present by something relevant...and the information either literary device provides must be essential to the audience's understanding of the story.

Possible filmimg locations

Merton Street Oxford.



It is an old cobbled road, with the right angles we can make it look it like a 'dodgy' back street. Which would be a good setting for the criminal genre... Hopefully it will be a quiet location with few factors what could effect continuity, like cars, people etc.

New College Lane...


The road with Oxfords symbolic 'Bridge of sighs' which we could also use in the film. The locations aren't meant to link together. the chase will go through several locations...

StoryBoard

This is the outline of our storyboard. It will only be when we get to the place of filming that we will know how reasoble these shots are and we will obviously be trying different shots at filming to see what will work best.

Idea Expanded

Wednesdays are good days, 1 lesson and thats General, means a whole school day for media!!

here are my notes I wrote..

- First scene. Girl screaming in darkness, Boy wakes up.
Idea how to do this... Darkness, but can just make out a girl but is not identified, the camera is going in to reveal the face, when suddenly there is bright white light, it only then when it comes into focus that, the audience realize that we're in a different room, and the light is coming from a window. (camera is looking up, and blinks as if eyes) The shot will then change to the boy (Rory) laying on the floor of a dirty place with just a blanket, he then jolts up...shaking and sweating, this dream has been reoccurring to him. He then lays back down and nods off again with the blinking black again...

- Second scene. A chase scence.
Idea to do this... Over the blackness we hear the sounds of running (panting and footsteps) it then leaves the blackness into the chase, Rory is being chased by 3 guys, several locations can be used. During the chase it can go to 'flash back' type shots, ( What Im struggling to explain to my group but... When you're asleep dreams are random and change regularly, sounds what happen while you're asleep can be something else in a dream.. for e.g when the radio goes off, in your dream sometimes it fits in with the dream like it could be music at a disco) We could use this in our film, like The sound of rain outside in a dream could represent someones head being held under water, people banging on the door to get at rory in a dream could be fighting to stop being tied up and getting peoples attention, a door shutting, in a dream could be the boot of a car being slammed shut. What Im suggesting is what the audiences thinks are flash backs are actually what will happen in the film. Like the dream of the girl Rory thinks its his mother who went missing when he was 5, but in fact it could be his girlfriend. but he doesnt know and nor does the audience until its revealed...
So the chase will use many different shots, quick durations to show urgency, makes it exciting.
The 2 mins could end with: Rory thinking he got away from the chasers but in fact when he looks back in front gets smacked and blacks out... title
or.. Him getting to a dead end, with an over the shoulder shot from the attackers...and leave the audience thinking what happens next...
or he could get away.. e.g finding a bike and cycling off into the distance with the chasers chasing the bike for a bit but then giving up and shouting even though hes long gone.

Media Idea

Possible film names: Time for action/ Action time
Break away
Ground Battle
equilibrium/expectations/Persistance/ ( Random word generator)
Conscience (ibby)
Withholding information (favorite)


Tag lines: To escape the trouble, you must be the trouble.
Does a new life mean the loss of an old life?
Is a life of crime ever left fully behind?

Genre: Action | Crime | Romance
Rory Slein had a bad start to life as a child he was largely neglected and forced to look after himself. His father a persistent jail occupier and now in the second year of a 9 year charge for the manslaughter of a local supermarket security guard. While his mother has never been seen since Rory was 5 years old, going between foster homes, life hasn’t been easy.
Rory now 17 years old, unemployed and living in an abandoned flat, involved with the wrong type of people now has a reason to try and change his life around; Rory has fallen in love with Gemma Sharpe a part time shop assistant. Rory realises that the only way he can keep Gemma and to keep her safe is to get away from the trouble, but those who he wants to leave behind aren’t so keen on the idea of him changing and just gets him in even more trouble, threatening lives in the process… can he get away? Can he change his life around? What Will Happen to Rory and Gemma? Will the people he once hurt help him?
Side story: Rory trying to locate the whereabouts of his mother, Will he discover the constant screaming he hears in his head? Is it the sound of his mother? Will he find her?!

The group is having several hiccups, with disowning ideas which we originally thought were good, today in the double lesson, The 3 of us were in disagreement probably more to the fact that we werent getting each others ideas... So we all did our own story board for our idea...
My idea was we see torch lights in the wood, first coming towards the camera, then we see the main character, we see them clearly looking for something, and it goes back and fourth between an Interrogation in a room, where it shows it links with voice overs like.. "I'm not telling you anything!" over the shot of them looking and "Where is it?". I was thinking that it was MI5 looking for something and this person was withholding it from them, which would be the story line throughout the film, them trying to find it, with side stories aswell, like relationships, but clearly we don't need to show that in the 2 minutes..

Below I have uploaded a quick video I did to demonstrate my idea as much as I could with just me being the camera man and the actor.. It would be alot shorter, I only tried to edit the light transition, with more time and better filming I could do a lot better but its just an idea.

Torch


The video basically shows the light coming towards the camera, we then see me, a bit of mucking about with the light, then I tried to go into the light of the torch and out through the light in my room on to a computer, It doesnt quite work but it could with more work and filming.

RESEARCH! Own video Practice

Wall kick Jump

Sorry I didnt edit this dowm, perhaps should of.. but um this was really just testing movement of character rather than the camera shot itself.

Cycle Cam


We wanted to test how easy and effectively it would be to record action whilst cycling... We did this by Patrick holding the Mobile phone (Camera) in one hand while directing the bike with one hand. There was no pedaling just a roll down a slight hill we found from this that it did produce a fairly good, few shakes shot, but this was on smooth ground, probably on not so smooth ground shake would of been significantly shakier. But Overall a good shot and if possible to use, would be good.

Jumping down over Obstacles





Ok these 2 videos, again were more the movement of the character we wanted to see, we could use this technique with clever shot and editing to make it look like someone jumping big distances and high walls, making it more exciting...
Jumping up over Obstacles

Final film IDEA.

Ok literally in the last few minutes. The group have come up with a good solid idea. With the use of facebook, we managed to expand on an initial idea. Ok basically our dilemma before is what could cause a chase sequence. Basically I will just sum it up..

Guy thrown in boot of car, car boot closed.
Driving somwhere (whether we show this)
Car stops
one of the gang open the boot thinking that the guy is still tied up
Guy in boot knocks this person out the way, gang member falls on the floor and shouts to get the attention of the others, seeing the guy escaping causing a chase... possibly through woods.

Only thing we havent decided is how our 2 mins will end, maybe with it somehow going to a black out, whether he escaopes or gets caught again is to be decided... also a synopsis of the whole film is needed.


We were ahead of the class now were not so much, we must get ahead again :) so competitive.

Chase scenes and more specfic research.

Hostage 2005

Director: Florent Emilio Siri
Release Date:11 March 2005 (UK)
Genre: Action | Crime | Drama | Thriller
Plot:A failed police negotiator turned small town cop, must save the lives of a family held hostage, which draws him into a much more dangerous situation.

Ok on friday I saw this on film4, what caught my attention straight away was its creativity in the opening titles. It uses red and black graphics going around the location of the first scene, having names of actors and other 'important' people on buildings, cars etc. It is not clear at the beginning it has anything to do with the first scene, until it flows into the film effortlessly and then goes to show that the graphics were showing the scene. The scene also sets up the main character for the rest of the storyline. But I'm mainly talking about the titles as we could implement this into our own films.

Casino Royale


Ok this is completely impossible for us to do, but this is just an example of how the camera shots and editing is done. They had lots of cameras recording the same action at the same time, we will not have that so will have to like in our prelim do shots over and over again from different angles. The shot durations are quick and change rapidly thus showing urgency, continuity and pace, all what we can develop into our own film.

Tony Jaa Ong-Bak


Basically this chase scene is so bad that its funny. The only thing to note is that when one of the characters does a spectacular move it shows it from different angles, although this isn't continuity, it works well with the sound.

Point Break


Ok this has very good elements what we could implement, again quick camera shots, lots of variety going between each character but also having both in the scene. We could realistically do shots like these.

If we want to have free running in our film. there are several groups in oxford who we could email (through youtube) and ask if they would help us out.

Planning For final task.

The group have been trying to come up with an idea for the final task for quite a while, but we are struggling to come up with a solid idea what will look good. The first 2 minutes of a film need to be exciting to keep the audience engaged. We have an initial idea of a chase scene, which I did last year but never evaluated. Maybe with the use of free runners. But the problem we are facing is how the chase could start without making it look basically ridiculous (thank you thesaurus.com) Also with a chase scene we may have problems with continuity, e.g random people walking, then change camera and there gone.
Another idea is an escape. But we have nothing concrete yet. But we want to do clever titles instead of just being placed there. I was going to do more research in this post, which would be more specific to our current ideas, but then I shall do it in another post.