Friday, 11 January 2013

Preliminary Task


The genre of our film: Crime/Comedy

What influenced us to create what we've created:


Yusuf (A group member) is a big fan of scam films.  He's quite an expert on the genre.  Also, shows like the Real Hustle influenced our decision to make a film involving one of the most known scams: Somebody buying something, opening the case/box and finding nothing inside.  

Enjoy the video below containing a 'The Real Hustle' scam!


Storyline:

The film starts off with a phone conversation between Nile and Yusuf.  They're planning to meet inside a private building in order to exchange a camera for money but Nile doesn't know that Yusuf is planning to scam him into buying a camera which isn't actually in the box.  They meet on the top floor and exchange their goods.  Nile then looks into the box and finds a note.  Realising that he has been scammed he puts the note into the box turns around and walks out of the door behind him.  Nile then sees the not very smart Yusuf walking away instead of running and chases after him.

Script: 

Nile: Have you got the camera?

Yusuf: Yeah, I've got the camera.

Nile: OK, where are you?

Yusuf: Make your way to the third floor, yeah?

Nile: OK, I'll see you there.

Yusuf: Alright.

(Nile walks up 3 flights of stairs before finding Yusuf on the top deck with a bag containing the "camera")

Nile: Are you Yusuf?

Yusuf: Yeah, you're Nile? 

Nile: Yeah.

(Nile and Yusuf  both walk into the room together)

Nile:  Can I see the camera please?

Yusuf:  Here's the camera.  It's all in perfect condition (Yusuf takes camera out of box) You got the money?

(Nile gives Yusuf money) 

Nile: Is that enough? 

Yusuf: Yeah.

(Yusuf walks off)

(Nile finds a note in the box and realises he has been scammed)

Nile:  The guy has scammed me. 

(Nile walks through the door behind and sees Yusuf walking)

Nile: YUSUF! 

(Fade-out) 


Shots we used:



Low Angle Shot





Over-the-shoulder shot








Close-up shot of Camera









Point-of-view Shot 









Evaluation:


The finished preliminary task is above.  

I feel, especially because we only had 3 members in our group, that we were quite able to handle our roles without much hardship and difficulty.  Yusuf was in charge of the floor plan, Nathan was in charge of the Storyboard and I, Nile, was in charge of the script and where everything was going to be filmed.  

First of all, we all were going to do a prison scene in which involved drugs and one friend setting up another friend.  We then presented our idea to our media teacher and she helped us improve the film.  We ended up, as a group, deciding that we should make a, sort of, crime/comedy film containing a scam artist and the victim.  What mainly influenced our decision was all the crime shows my friend, Yusuf, watched.  

We had some difficulty when filming our film; because we had to film it in college we couldn't exactly expect there to be no background noise.  We had to put up with students and staff coming in and out of our shots.  At one point, we had to wait 20 minutes to film one scene because it was the lower school's lunchtime when we were filming and there were students needing to go toilet, students needing to go meet teachers and staff needing to walk past us as we were shooting.  Also, there was the issue of continuity in a sense that everyone had to be wearing the same clothes as they had on when we shot our first scenes and some of us came in to college wearing different clothes so we had to film every scene again - extremely tiring.  We also conformed to the 180 degree rule when filming mine and Yusuf's conversation in the room which was relatively easy.

The camera angles we used weren't too difficult to use.  We used the low-angle shot, high angle shots and POV (Point of View) shots.  We also used a dolly shot, which involved us using a school trolley, placing the camera on top of it and wheeling along the camera in the scene which has Yusuf walking down a corridor.  We used a CCTV shot but didn't include it in the final production because we realised it didn't exactly go too well with the match-on-action we had to have in this film.  This was probably the most difficult shot because we didn't have anything to place the camera onto, Nathan (the cameraman) had to stand on a chair, holding the camera above his head in order to film it - it took us numerous attempts.

Overall, our preliminary task did go according to plan.  I just wish we had a bit more time to really edit the shots and get the camera angles we needed.  I think if I had another chance to do this, I would concentrate more on the camera angles we actually needed and how an actual film is shot - in other words, do a bit more research!  

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