The Cast

For filming we are going to use my family as our cast, as they fit the conventions of a typical faimly- mum, dad, and a little boy and girl. They all want to be a part of our film and charlie will be playing the little girl that goes missing.

Charlie is actually 11 or 12 but in the film we want her looking around 9 or 10, which we hope we can create using costume. She said she was quite happy to be filmed down the beach dressed like this which was lucky considering it was going to be busy!

We borrowed a red coat that was aged 8-9 but fortunatly Charlie was petite enough to squeeze into it. Also we tied red bowes in her hair to increase her innocent persona which was quite effective.

Giving charlie a dress and white socks also contributed to her innocent character, and her overall costume was effective.

Film Preperation

In order for our filming day to run smoothly we created a schedule. There are Three main scenes in our film opening: The Journey, The arrival, and The disturbance in the equilibriam. And all three required a variety of capture angles.

The Journey
This needed to establish who the family were, and the general genre of the film. It captures the stereotypical middle-class happy family, leaving for a day out, and shows the setting of the film. Camera angles are mainly wide-shots to establish the film, and there are not too many close-ups or variations, to ensure there is no awareness of any disturbance. We wanted the "opening of the opening" to be relativly calm and un-asuuming.

-wide-shot of family leaving the house following dad
- getting into the car
- various worms-eye and high-angle shots supplimented by long shots and wide shots of the journey from outside the car
- high angle long shot of car pulling into the car park

The Arrival
This scene begins to build more on the characteristics of the family, and the camera angles become more varied as the opening begins to build pace. During this scene the stereotypical conventions of the family's happiness are continued further as they all walk along the beach, whilst the music plays a role in building suspence and tention.

- establishing wide and long shot of family walking toward the beach
- low-angle of family approaching
-worms-eye close up of children running past
- wide shot of childen chasing eachother along the sand dune
- mid shot of family walking along the beach
- long shot of family approaching beach huts

The Disturbance In The Equilibriam
This is the point in our opening where music dies out and the anxiety sets in. The pace of this scene is disturbing, and there are more high-angled shots of the family to imply the characters helplessness. Also the shot sequence becomes more rapid to aid the "Thriller" convention.

- Over the shoulder shot of charlie hiding inbetween the beach huts spying on her family
- mid close-up of her giggling and slipping inbetween the huts
- slow motion close up of her sliding round the back of the beach huts
- establishing shot of family realising charlies disapperance
- cut to a high angle from on top of the beach huts
- High angle of shouting and searching
- Cut to a mid close-up of philip making an emergency call
- Cut to wide-shot of police radioing in and pulling away
- Cut back to a 180 degree pan of the beach huts showing charlies red coat on the floor

Moodboard

This is the moodbaord Lauren created for our film, and it uses possitive and neggative imagery to inspire our unexpected disturbance.
The colour scheme of this moodboard is also relative as it interprates the vivid red connoting warning and danger, contrasted against the wide shot of the beach in pastil blue, that opposes the initial neggativity.

Inspiration

Inspiration has come from various other movies, not mainly the narrative, but more the Mis-en- scene of costume and also sound and the mood it creates. We didnt want an inspirational narrative as we felt it would be more creative for us, if we developed our own, hence why we chose an indipendant film.

however inspiration in the form of music has progressed and Lauren and i have concluded upon a solo piece of either piano or guitar. origionaly we thought about orchestral music but after further film reseach, the genre of our film was more suited to a solo of some sort, or possibly a mix of the two.

Thomas Newman was our main inspiration, as his music has been used in two very strong emotive thriller films i have watched, where music is used to build suspence and tention. The first film looked at was Road To Perdition (the music is piano/orchestral which we hope to include in our film) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aM0Iu7Mdw4A 

and the second called Brothers which is more guitar http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFs7Rv7J3To

But both create a similar effect which we hope to interpret into our film; its that deep emotive feel that Thrillers often create, making the audience empathetic.

Development of Idea's

As we look further into actually producing our film, we have started to wonder how its all going to come together. Opening up the scene will be the various shots of the family leaving the house and getting into the car...we want it to appear as if the film has started without an intro. We want to attempt some high angle shots of the family vehicle leaving the drive, and have thought about shooting out of the top window of their house or even on the roof of the garage. We want these angles to create a sence of distance between audience and the characters, to challenge the conventions of family drama which often try to create empathy between audience and viewer.

Also we want to mute normal digetic sounds during the car journey and during the taking down the beach, again to create distance and fustration between both, the characters and the audience, but also between the audience and the film narrative. - To inhance film intensity and audiene focus

The mood of the opening scene is intended to broadern with its progression, and the realisation of a disturbance in the equilibriam should only become apparent as the opening scene ends; thus setting up the story for the rest of the film. To help this we are increasing music volume and muting the digetic background sounds to iscolate and highlight the problem, before rapidly cutting to the intro credits projected onto the side of the beach huts where the little girl goes missing.

Animatic

Film Opening Brief

Out of the Four briefs, Lauren and I have chosen to follow the convention of...
Film Brief 3An independent movie featuring a young protagonist Your film should appear to be financed through regional funding
(Opening to Fish Tank, This Is England etc)

and also some of...

Film Brief 4
An art house feature to appeal to adult audiences Your film should appear to be based on an actual event in the last 2 years.
(Opening to Elephant, Milk, Che etc) 

Our independent/art house movie opening conveys the Kidnapping for ransom, of a rich families youngest child, during an evening walk down the beach. The idea is to capture the disruption of equilibrium in our opening, by using a variety of shots and effects, uncluding:

-The use of digetic sounds and non-digetic music to contrast tranquility with tragedy
- Prolonged shots of the colour red, paired with dissimilar pastil colours to provoke the presence of danger
- And also the use of bluring to connote disturbance, accompanied by extreme close-ups to inhance the severity of the situation. - Facial expressions will express tone and mood.

Influences that have helped me plan my opening include the 2010 film Inception.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VXkUzf1et4   - In this opening the digetic sound of childrens laughter at the beach contradicts the dark opening graphology. Also the fading of heavy music into the peacful crashing of waves, is an effective way of diverging the audience, keeping the sence of the unexpected.

A heavy influence was the film Road to Perdition. The soundtrack has inspired me to include somthing similar in my opening. I have thought about using a choir recording suplimented by piano, played over the top of the opening scene, fading in at the start and getting louder, as a way of creating depth and meaning.

My final film influence came from Schindler's List. The black and white images are heavily contrasting the little girl in the red coat. The red strikes danger, even though she is unaware. In my film opening i intend for it to connote a 'Red Light' - a turning point or a distict change that occures and sets the path for the rest of the film.

Idea's...
-extreme close-ups of foot prints in the wet sand, and then credits edited in over the top
- pan round the beach huts using p.o.v to create panic and confusion
- close-ups and eye line match used in the rear-view mirror on the way to the beach
- bridge shot of the car going down the motorway
- track and zoom along the beach, spotting the beach huts