Actors from young to old

Because my narrative has the main character going from younger to older, I have had to think of how I will show this, so I have asked for the permission from the parents of a next door neighbour to use their daughter who I babysit for to use as the younger version of my main character, however she has asked that I do not give away her name, but has given permission to have her in my film trailer, she will be put down on my trailer and on credits etc. as anonymous.

Email #2 with Location (Simon Cronk)

Email Content:

To Simon,

Thats is great news! Thank you again, I am currently in the stages of writing a script and working with getting actors and the planning process, however it will be in mid-November, if you had any specific dates you had that are free, if you could get back to me and I will then work around this.

Jessica Barron

So after recieveing the reply from the location, I realised how much I have to plan especially since my location will be holding a day and time for me to film, having this I have started to think more about my actors and other locations.

Storyboard using Pixton

When I signed up to use Pixton, at first it was quite easy to get the hang off, however when I started to add backgrounds and involve more characters it became harder and more time consuming, at first you would add one character and then change their expression and their body proportions and then adding more and more characters I started to get confused on what they are meant to be feeling and would want to show one emotion, but ended up showing the opposite. As you can probably see in the image above, the use of body proportions started to get a little harder and unable to control the movement of the characters, therefore I have decided to move on from the use of Pixton and try another storyboard creator, be it my own drawings and for them to be uploaded onto my computer or to find another online storyboard maker.

Storyboard using a PowerPoint Document

I have kept this storyboard very simple, given myself a key and a small written insert under each shot to explain what will be happening and sometimes the duration of the shot. I wanted to keep this simple because there is expected to be some change in the storyline and narrative. 

Narrative ideas

My first narrative idea:

A teenage girl is in a school lesson and a there is a knock at the door, an assistant walks in with police behind her. The next scene is at a church where a funeral has happened, we see a the girl standing in front of two graves, a woman comes up behind her and whispers something to her, she slowly turns her head away from the graves and sees a couple standing there. We see her walk into a room that is clearly for a younger girl, she looks around the room whilst holding onto a photo frame. The girl is later wearing very smart clothes, and starts to walk to a car. The next thing we see is a large shot of a church and people walking towards it. We see the camera focus on things around the church (crosses, paintings etc.) One day walking home from school, the girl in a school uniform, stops and looks at the church, we focus on her eyes and watch another colour appear in her eyes, she quickly blinks and walks away with a frown. We see a lot of flashing images, then her waking up in the church with a possessed look, looks at the paintings and crosses and burns them. Black screen and then the girl lying in the middle of the church on the floor and the camera shot on her eyes again showing the split of colour.

My second narrative idea:

We see a younger girl and whilst playing in a park a football comes rolling in front of her and she turns around to see her mum talking to her friend and not looking at her, she turns and walks towards the football picks it up and the next scene is flashing of the ball bouncing then landing on the ground. We then see a news reel showing that it has been ten years since the girls disappearance and a montage over the years of the parent the camera shot will zoom further and further onto the television screen whilst this is happening, once this is over the camera shot then zooms out and we see a dark room with an older girl in at a table the lighting is a swinging light above her, and the screen goes black. We then see her walking out of the room (so facing the camera and walking towards it) action shot to her leaving and walking around in a group of people and no one seeing her, the parents right next to her.
The location in this narrative idea would be the use of the park and also the parents are told that the young girl is most likely to have died, as they find a body of a young girl that matches the description of the girl as if she had been older this is when I will be using a church.

Update of Timetable

Location dates Email

Email content:

Thanks Jessica - some dates to avoid - Friday 14th Monday 10th. Let me know some dates when you might like to come apart from these dates and we will see if we can fit you in.

Simon

20th September - 17th October 2014

Blog Entry 2: Week Two to Week Four

So looking through at what I have done for the past few weeks, I have paid a lot of attention to theorists and doing research on my specific genre. By creating moodboards I have gone into further understanding of my genre and what aspects there are included in it. I have also started to do research on narrative structure not only on Todorov's theory and Levi-Strauss's theory but also looked on how it would be to write a narrative.

After getting feedback from my teacher on my blog's overall look I realized that the work that I had posted on my film trailer analysis and the work that I had done on theorists was not to a good enough standard, so have been going back and editing them to make them better. This has been quite difficult as I have been going back to do that whilst trying to keep up to date and complete my narrative work and start my storyboard, both which are needed to be finished by this next coming week.

I have started to do a surveymonkey to get some more feedback as Twitter and Facebook are not getting much feedback. My account is

Starting to look at filming I have sent an email to the vicar at the local church to ask if they are able to let me film and also sent an email to Shannon Barlow who I asked to play my main character, she will hopefully respond to my email as will the vicar and I will then go on to write my script and start to make plans on filming. If it turns out that I am not able to use this church, I will look on to other churches.

To understand my genre more I started to do some research on it, including looking up what sort of things I need to consider and have found that I need to consider quite a bit, here is a link to the blog entry which includes this Research On Genre.

Email for Main Character

Content of the email:

Hi Shannon,

To confirm our conversation about you being the main character of my film trailer, I am currently organizing a script and will be doing a copy for you. Concerning the starting date of filming I am currently not sure when this is, but should start in late October - early November.

I am also waiting to hear back from the location for the majority of the film trailer. So when I have I will let you know.

If you could please send an email to verify whether you are able to take part that would be great.

Thank you again.

Kind regards,

Jessica Barron

Confirmation of Location Email

Contents of the Email:

Dear Jessica

We would be very happy to help you in any way we can. I think the best thing to do will be to give me some dates when you might like to come and we can see if they are free?

Simon Cronk

When checking my school email, I saw that I had an email from Simon Cronk and was happy to hear that they would allow me to film at their location, I chose to send this early because I would be planning the camera shots and acting directions around the location, which most of the trailer will be filmed here as well as at a home location. I am now waiting for the response of the main actor, hopefully to hear she is able to do film it, I will then be looking to who will act as the foster parents of the main character and people to be extras.

However, since finding out that I have the location, this is still great news and will now be looking to plan my storyboard around it.

Location for Filming

I have recently sent this email to the Vicar at my local church asking him for the use of the location. Content of this email is:

Good Afternoon,

My name is Jessica Barron and I attend the Misbourne School in Great Missenden, but live in Hughenden Valley, I have been to your church before with Great Kingshill school but am now in year 13 and doing my final year of studies. For media studies my project is to create a film trailer, and sort out location, acting, sound, lighting etc. I am asking you if I could possibly use your church as part of the setting for my film trailer, if it is possible that you have a free date in which I can use your church.

It would be much appreciated if you could get back to me,

Kind regards

Jessica Barron
Year 13
The Misbourne School

Feedback from teachers on blog entries so far...

When I spoke to my teacher one on one, I was told what I needed to have on my blog by a certain time, so my goals by the end of this week are to...

• Submit another diary entry 
• make sure that all of my film trailer analysis are up on my blog
• create my narrative for my film trailer
• upload information from my social media questions
• research on film posters

From here I will then go on to apply my narrative to my storyboards, which will show the different camera angles used in my trailer, I will then start to plan, I will post another diary entry explaining how I will do this. 

Research on The Narrative Structure

When researching how to write a good narrative I came across this structure:

Image taken from SlideShare

Exposition - is where the audience meets the characters, establish the setting, and setting the tone. 

Rising Action - the main conflict is introduced and tension between the protagonist and antagonist begins to show.

Climax - this is the turning point, for the good or bad of the protagonist's future.

Falling Action - the major action has happened, this would show the aftermath of the climax, sorting out the major conflict in the trailer.

Denouement/resolution - conflict is resolved and a new conflict is resolved. 

The different ways that characters are shown:

• Flat - are minor characters who do not go through as much change throughout the story.
• Round - more fully developed characters who may experience change in the story.

A plot (syuzhet)

• The use of a plot is to show events that are in the story - it involves reordering events - so for example to show flashbacks or flashforwards. Re-positioning these events from chronological order are a good way  to not give away the outcome or to reveal too much to the audience.

The story (fabula)

• This is when the narrative is in chronological order, this also shows the characters back story. 

Pramaggiore and Wallis from Narrative Form said that 'The distinction between the fabula (the story) and the syuzhet  (the plot) makes clear that each event represented in the film has been selected for dramatization and has been ordered systematically - there are no accidents... The syuzhet need not chronicle every moment in the fabula, and it usually emphasizes the importance of some moments relative to others' 

Research on Genre

When writing my narrative I wanted to do some more research first, a website that helped me was Link to Website media studies website. I found that the genre I have chosen to do has:

•  a high production value
• a younger target audience
• a mainstream production agency - Disney or Warners Studio
• sometimes has an obsessive fan base - e.g. Twilight
• a lot of merchandise 
• often exaggerates life
• use of primary colours - e.g. red, blue, yellow
• high key lighting 
• use of a green screen 
• positive outcome 
• simple and linear narrative 
• Vladimir Propp's character theory can be applied
• quite mystical 
• often set in the past or in an imagined time period 

An image taken from 'Avatar' to show how a green screen adds the environment to a single person. In this example he is the only thing that is not in green for the effects. (Left)



However, another example in a film is in 'Alice in wonderland' where even some of the people and props are in green to have effects added later on. (Below)

Twitter Account

The photo above is showing how I had recently set up the account, and I got an email through to my school email asking me to follow a link to activate the account, since doing this I have tweeted two questions, which unfortunately do not get a lot of attention or replies to so I will be trying to post questions on Facebook.