Every rose has its thorns’ film project evaluation.
For this project I had to work in a group with two other peers to create a two minute opening of a film. The film could have any storyline and could be filmed anywhere we chose. As preparation for filming, my group and I had to create a detailed storyboard, a pitch and a synopsis. We then had to pitch these plans in front of two teachers so that they had an idea of what we were planning to do and then they could allow us to use the school cameras.
Firstly, as a group we sat down and discussed some ideas we thought would be good to use for our film. All of us agreed straight away that we wanted the film to look ‘professional’ and ‘classy’ which gave us the conclusion that mystery was the best genre to go with. From mystery we got the idea of a film noir theme. I knew a lot about Film Noir as I had been studying it in art, so I immediately knew what kind of characters were involved.
As a group we were enthusiastic about the main character being a tragic, flirtatious, young lady who often got dominated by men. From that description our story evolved and our ideas flowed easily and quickly. We sat down together and all three of us had strong input into writing our pitch and synopsis. Our pitch had to only be a couple of lines to make the viewer intrigued and therefore want to watch the film. We included its genre and the era it was set in so that the viewers would have an idea of the film’s general theme. We then added the description of the main character as being tragic and to reinforce that we ended the pitch with the question, ‘Everybody wanted to save her- But did anyone succeed?’ Our aim was to influence the viewers into wanting to also be like everybody else and try and save this tragic character. The word ‘save’ gives an effective, emotional impact and gives an insight into her life. Ending the pitch on a question created a cliff hanger which creates suspense and mystery, and as a result leaves the reader wanting to know more.
Our synopsis had to be a longer, more detailed version of our pitch. It gives a brief summary of what the film is about. My group and I wanted to make every sentence in this paragraph strong, to grab the reader, so we included descriptive and emotive language. For example words like: heart-breaking, desperate, sinister are strong words that keep your attention. The paragraph consists of a short analysis of the main character’s life/troubles, when the audience first meet her in the film, the time period of the story, the main characters heart-broken best friend and finally ending the synopsis on a question. When writing the paragraph we didn’t want to give away the whole story line but just to feed the readers a snippet of what they would be feeling and viewing in the film. Again, we ended the synopsis on a question, as we did with the pitch, to carry on with the theme of mystery because that is the film’s genre.
When creating the storyboard it was advised to have sixteen frames. It had to include detailed shot types, props and camera movements so that when we filmed we could know exactly what to do and not waste time. Our first storyboard went over sixteen frames at first and when it came to pitching the idea to the two teachers they told us to cut some of it down, otherwise the film would run over two minutes. My group and I re-looked at the storyboard and took the least important frames out; adjusted some of the shots and in the end the storyboard came to fifth-teen frames. We were aiming for our film to run in between one minute-thirty seconds and two minutes. In the end it came to one minute-thirty eight. We also had to show exactly what the camera was going to be doing in every frame and make sure that all of the props were authentic; for example, using matches instead of a lighter and wearing the appropriate outfits. I was the main character in the film so I researched what the fashion was like in the 1940s and what kind of outfits the ladies were wearing in the ‘film noir’ era.
As a group we had to decide where the filming would take place. The area had to be mostly surrounded by walls so that the camera didn’t show any modern houses or cars in order to keep the ‘1940’s film noir’ theme. The area we chose was very appropriate as it was close to where we all live and it had plenty of brick walls. We decided on the background being brick walls instead of trees or a room because we thought it fitted the main characters personality. We realised that everyone has a survival instinct in a city and if you’re not wealthy then making money can lead to some dirty jobs, which is what the main character learns.
Most of film noir is filmed in black and white and we were keen to try and do that with our film to make it even more authentic. We were happy to discover it was very easy to do so on the camera we were given.
Film noir is also known for its jazz-like, instrumental music. My group and I were keen to add music to our film to give it a professional feel. Finding music was surprisingly easy as we used the school computers and uploaded it from there on a memory to the editing process. We were very satisfied with how well the music fitted with our film.
In conclusion, I was very happy with how well the film looked when finished and I found that everything went very smoothly with planning, pitching and filming and we got the project done really quickly. Our peers had a chance to evaluate our film and we got a very positive response. They commented on the ‘artistic, professional’ feel and liked the use of black and white colouring. This was important feedback for us as that is what we wanted the audience to feel, so we felt that we succeeded in our task. The only real problems we faced was altering the storyboard, otherwise everything else went according to what we had planned.
For this project I had to work in a group with two other peers to create a two minute opening of a film. The film could have any storyline and could be filmed anywhere we chose. As preparation for filming, my group and I had to create a detailed storyboard, a pitch and a synopsis. We then had to pitch these plans in front of two teachers so that they had an idea of what we were planning to do and then they could allow us to use the school cameras.
Firstly, as a group we sat down and discussed some ideas we thought would be good to use for our film. All of us agreed straight away that we wanted the film to look ‘professional’ and ‘classy’ which gave us the conclusion that mystery was the best genre to go with. From mystery we got the idea of a film noir theme. I knew a lot about Film Noir as I had been studying it in art, so I immediately knew what kind of characters were involved.
As a group we were enthusiastic about the main character being a tragic, flirtatious, young lady who often got dominated by men. From that description our story evolved and our ideas flowed easily and quickly. We sat down together and all three of us had strong input into writing our pitch and synopsis. Our pitch had to only be a couple of lines to make the viewer intrigued and therefore want to watch the film. We included its genre and the era it was set in so that the viewers would have an idea of the film’s general theme. We then added the description of the main character as being tragic and to reinforce that we ended the pitch with the question, ‘Everybody wanted to save her- But did anyone succeed?’ Our aim was to influence the viewers into wanting to also be like everybody else and try and save this tragic character. The word ‘save’ gives an effective, emotional impact and gives an insight into her life. Ending the pitch on a question created a cliff hanger which creates suspense and mystery, and as a result leaves the reader wanting to know more.
Our synopsis had to be a longer, more detailed version of our pitch. It gives a brief summary of what the film is about. My group and I wanted to make every sentence in this paragraph strong, to grab the reader, so we included descriptive and emotive language. For example words like: heart-breaking, desperate, sinister are strong words that keep your attention. The paragraph consists of a short analysis of the main character’s life/troubles, when the audience first meet her in the film, the time period of the story, the main characters heart-broken best friend and finally ending the synopsis on a question. When writing the paragraph we didn’t want to give away the whole story line but just to feed the readers a snippet of what they would be feeling and viewing in the film. Again, we ended the synopsis on a question, as we did with the pitch, to carry on with the theme of mystery because that is the film’s genre.
When creating the storyboard it was advised to have sixteen frames. It had to include detailed shot types, props and camera movements so that when we filmed we could know exactly what to do and not waste time. Our first storyboard went over sixteen frames at first and when it came to pitching the idea to the two teachers they told us to cut some of it down, otherwise the film would run over two minutes. My group and I re-looked at the storyboard and took the least important frames out; adjusted some of the shots and in the end the storyboard came to fifth-teen frames. We were aiming for our film to run in between one minute-thirty seconds and two minutes. In the end it came to one minute-thirty eight. We also had to show exactly what the camera was going to be doing in every frame and make sure that all of the props were authentic; for example, using matches instead of a lighter and wearing the appropriate outfits. I was the main character in the film so I researched what the fashion was like in the 1940s and what kind of outfits the ladies were wearing in the ‘film noir’ era.
As a group we had to decide where the filming would take place. The area had to be mostly surrounded by walls so that the camera didn’t show any modern houses or cars in order to keep the ‘1940’s film noir’ theme. The area we chose was very appropriate as it was close to where we all live and it had plenty of brick walls. We decided on the background being brick walls instead of trees or a room because we thought it fitted the main characters personality. We realised that everyone has a survival instinct in a city and if you’re not wealthy then making money can lead to some dirty jobs, which is what the main character learns.
Most of film noir is filmed in black and white and we were keen to try and do that with our film to make it even more authentic. We were happy to discover it was very easy to do so on the camera we were given.
Film noir is also known for its jazz-like, instrumental music. My group and I were keen to add music to our film to give it a professional feel. Finding music was surprisingly easy as we used the school computers and uploaded it from there on a memory to the editing process. We were very satisfied with how well the music fitted with our film.
In conclusion, I was very happy with how well the film looked when finished and I found that everything went very smoothly with planning, pitching and filming and we got the project done really quickly. Our peers had a chance to evaluate our film and we got a very positive response. They commented on the ‘artistic, professional’ feel and liked the use of black and white colouring. This was important feedback for us as that is what we wanted the audience to feel, so we felt that we succeeded in our task. The only real problems we faced was altering the storyboard, otherwise everything else went according to what we had planned.
