What Needs To Be Done?

Here are the planning tasks that need to be completed between now and when we return to school in January:

Planning : Target Audience Feedback

Planning - Writing A Treatment For Your Chosen Opening

Planning - Writing A Screenplay For Your Opening

Planning - Producing A Storyboard For Your Opening

Planning - Location Planning For Your Opening

Planning - Casting For Your Opening (if characters are required)

Planning - Considering Mise-en-Scene For Your Opening - costume and props

Planning - Producing A Shot List

Planning - Filming Schedule

You should all now be busily collating audience feedback and this will allow you to then decide upon the idea for your film's opening.

Once you have done this you need to create a post titled Planning : Target Audience Feedback in which you, as in previous posts, explain the process you followed to generate audience feedback and provide evidence of this.

When deciding upon the idea that you are going to move forwards with, remember that you must always keep in mind that you are only producing the opening 2 minutes including titles - don't try to cram in too much and consider how you can avoid ending up with a film opening that looks more like a trailer!

Once, as a group, you have confirmed the idea you want to move forwards with, the next step is to begin planning it in detail. 

This will require you to write a TREATMENT for it.

What is a TREATMENT?

You have already produced a synopsis of your film idea (your 60 second pitch) and shared this with your target audience. A treatment is a more detailed account of what you envisage your film's opening to look like once it has been completed.

The treatment has to be done before you can move on to the production of a storyboard and  a screenplay for your opening. 

Try to think of it this way; if the storyboard is the blue screen for your screenplay, then the treatment is the blueprint for your storyboard.

Your treatment for the opening of your film must be produced electronically and should fit onto 1 side of A4. 

You need to have a single treatment for your group but this will need to be worked on collaboratively. The top of the sheet should be titled as follows:

Treatment for the Opening 2 Minutes (including titles) of 'FILM TITLE' by PRODUCTION COMPANY.

The treatment should then explain how you, as directors, envisage your film opening will look. 

You need to talk through what you think the audience will see and hear during this opening 2 minutes.

Make sure that your treatment includes references to how titles will be used as well as non-diegetic sound.

Here is an example of a treatment produced by previous students:

Treatment for the opening 2 minutes (including titles) of 'iWatch' by Dench Productions

The film starts with an establishing shot of an empty field. 

DENCH Productions appears on the screen. 

This then fades out into a black screen and the diegetic sound of the wind is heard. 

The black screen then fades to an empty field where the non-diegetic music gradually gets louder. The tone of the music is eerie and menacing.

We see three blurry figures walking up towards the part of the field where Josh's ashes were scattered. 

There is a cut to a close-up of a blurry picture frame being held in someone's hand.

An extreme close-up forces the audience to focus on the picture frame where they see Josh's picture for the first time, identifying the victim.

A focus pull blurs the photo and there is a cut to a close-up of the picture frame being put down onto the ground.

An extreme close up of a match being lit fills the screen.

As soon as the match is lit, the non-diegetic music comes to a sudden stop.

A mid-shot shows the characters lighting a candle and placing it next to the picture frame.

The next shots are extreme close-ups of each of the three figure's faces. This enables the audience to see their emotions, therefore the relationship's between the figures and the victim (for example someone's teary eyes, someone's sniffly nose and someone else's  quivering mouth)

Now it is silent. 

The characters hear Josh's voice and look at each other, then look around and discover an iPhone on the floor about 3 metres away from where they are standing. This sequence of events is shown through a series of quick cuts to emphasise the unsettling nature of what is happening. Non-diegetic music is heard again in order to heighten the atmosphere.

There is a cut to an over the shoulder shot of one of the figures looking down at the iPhone.

As a group, they all go to the phone and one person picks it up. 

There is a close up of that person's hand slowly picking up the phone.

An extreme close-up of the phone allows the audience to see that a video of Josh at a party is playing. 

There is a cut to a long shot of the friends crowding around the phone but, from behind them, there is a rustle of the bushes and they suddenly turn around. 

Opening titles appear at regular intervals throughout the opening and act as a kind of punctuation between events that are shown. The titles are white on a black background and are not overlaid over the top of the film.