Practice : Character based Opening 2 Minutes to a film

2 minute Opening to a film Preparation

Our Second AS media task was to create and develop a character and use this character in a 2 minute film opening set in a given location. We had to create a plot, cast, film and edit this 2 minute opening. Both characters in the group we were given had to meet at some point during the opening and to spend at least 20 seconds in the location we were given.

Creating my character
In our lesson we were given an A4 sheet with pictures of people from the internet, our task was to choose one image and create a character and a backstory for that character. Here is a picture of the images we were provided :

From these images I chose the girl in the top right:

After choosing my person I was then told to brain storm ideas for who my character was, what she did, her friends, her lifestyle. To basically craft an entire character from this one image, this is what I came up with...

Characters group members created
Tasmine created a character and brainstormed the same way I did however she chose a different image therefore creating a completely different character to me, she used this image:

Creating this mind map of her ideas to what her character could be like etc:

Characters
The characters Tasmine and I created were...

Ellie (female)
The way I created Ellie was I thought of issues I am facing at the moment and people I know, Ellie is a good girl gone bad. She was brought up in a middle class suburban area. Her mum and dad have good paying well respected jobs, she works hard at school to get the grades she needs to get into a prestigious university. Despite having an amazing life full of opportunities ahead of her. She appears to be in with the wrong crowd, she wants to fit in with her friends and to do that she goes to parties, gets drunk, does drugs and one night she gets into a car with some drunk friends and towards the end of the evening they hit someone in a car and he dies. They try to hide the body. Her life goes downhill and shes stuck with this group of manipulating people getting her to do things like drug deals threatening to call the police on them if she doesn't, which is where we meet Tasmines character

55 year old man
The character Tasmine created was a sleazy 55 year old homeless man who is dating a young super model, he does drug deals to get his money. He had a wife and a family but he's now divorced and very rich, he often cheats on his now girlfriend the same way he did his wife, he has two kids that he doesn't talk to. They have completely disowned him. He used to manage a top bank in London. he wants the best for his kids and secretly buys them gifts



Group Brainstorming

 In our groups, we were given a location in which our 2 minute opening had to be situated. We got 'farmyard' . We then had to come up with a scenario in which these characters would meet. It also had to be engaging.

We did a lot of planning for this, we mind mapped ideas, one of our ideas we mind mapped we eventually decided not to do because it would take up longer than 2 minutes and would be too hard to film in the end. The area was too difficult and we could not get someone to drive us there during the week as parents were working so we created a new story line with a location just outside Aidens house, We decided that he would be her dealer, or something of a more suspicious nature. Aiden joined us half way through our project as he moved classes and proved extremely helpful.

We came up with some other concepts such as her being another fling but we decided that was not in the character (Ellie's) nature. We also thought maybe we could film flashbacks from her hitting someone with a car but in the end we thought we would start the film half way through to engage the audience so they had to concentrate.

Here are some of the notes we made in class as a group:

Location
We decided to film in a farm in watton outside one of our group mates village. We did this because it was convenient and exactly what we were looking for.


Casting
Casting the roles proved rather difficult, as we had to find actors who were free on the evening we needed them and who were actually willing to act for us. On top of that we had to find people who looked similar to the images of the people we based our characters on. We had to find a female actress, fairly young with blonde hair and fair skin. Luckily one of my friends who goes to the same 6th form as me fit the required description, she was willing to act for us so that was one of our characters cast in the early stages of this project. This is the actress chosen:

I chose her because she is an incredibly talented actress for her age and takes drama at school and keen to be part of the production, she fit the wide eyed and scared criteria I needed for my character.

The man was the hardest to cast as we actually had to find a middle aged man who was willing to film as part of our production, who was free in the evening and didn't mind acting with someone younger than him. Again luckily my dad volunteered to help us, he didn't fit the description but he was an excellent and helpful choice, it saved me having to do actor hunting across Wymondham and surrounding areas.

Props

Props we might need include :

- A brown parcel ( being handed from the man to the girl ) probably around medium size, easy to stuff in the bag

- A necklace ( something for her to fiddle with so we can tell she is anxious )

- A bag or small rucksack

Plot

We have finally decided on a definite plot line for our opening, for a few weeks we had been playing with different ideas but today we have decided on one.

The start of our opening is our female character walking down a long wooded path, a tunnel of trees. She looks bedraggled, messy hair, very anxious. She is playing with a necklace and looks very uneasy, she has a rucksack on. She reaches the end of the path and turns into the farm, she looks around, we don't know what or who she is searching for until a man, dressed in mismatching clothes walks out with a parcel in hand. He hands her the parcel and she shakes his hand. Then she stuffs the parcel into her rucksack and as she is walking away someone walks round the corner and catches them in the 'deal'.

Filming schedule

We are filming after school on Thursday 22nd of September, we're getting the bus afterschool to the location near Aiden's house and hopefully completing all the filming on one day, if not we can go back on Saturday as everyone is free.