Main Task - Plot & Title REVEALED!

Introduction
Our Main Task, we have decided, will be completely unrelated to our preliminary in terms of plot because we feel that trying to extend the narrative of the preliminary would be difficult, time-consuming and too complex under the time-constraints we’ve been given. Instead we as a group have elected to branch into a completely different narrative arch; one that will be explained and expanded on below.

Title
The Title of our full movie is:
“One Man’s Terrorist…”
We chose this phrase from the maxim “One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter” because we thought it embodied and emphasized the main aspects of the narrative in that it expresses the difficulty in defining a terrorist; the ambiguity of the idea and the subjectiveness of its accusation.

We, as a group also feel that it is an ambiguous title in itself and one that will immediately get the audience thinking and draw them in. It has somewhat of a hidden or fuller meaning other than its obvious denotation which again increases its effectiveness and intelligence.

Synopsis
Secrets, lies and government deception are something that is all too often revealed in the media these days. But when an MI5 operative discovers a secret so great that it threatens the stability of the country and the lives of the many including his own family; he is forced to go on the run in an attempt to stop the hideous plot he so unwittingly discovered.

He, of course, does not go unnoticed by those who he has exposed; a mysterious group of Christian Extremists within MI5 and realizing the gravity of this discovery hatch a plan to neutralize him using his young daughter as bait.

“One Man’s Terrorist…” combines intense action, drama and suspense into one neat 2 hour package that ultimately never lets you off the edge of your seat.

Plot Explanation – Detail of Opening Sequence (To Be Filmed)
The Film’s opening sequence is one that is, interesting, fast-paced and sobering. We decided that chronologically the film’s opening would be near the end of the narrative as will feel this would allow us to open the film with fast-paced action without the risk of cliché as well as leave the audience wanting explanation of the action right from the beginning. It would allow us to capture the audience’s imagination and attention almost immediately.

The Film opens with a smartly dressed, but now disheveled, man running through fields as fast as possible. He seems to being running from someone/something; but this is not made immediately obvious to the audience. Camera Shots are pacy with fast cuts and peculiar shots and framing. The Camera is often jerky which replicates a sense of confusion and disorientation, which conveys to the audience the character’s onscreen emotions. As the camera follows the action, it continues this pattern and it revealed that in reality there is no one chasing him which simultaneously smashes the audience’s perception of regularity and the expected as well as tell the audience that this film isn’t what should be expected.

The Opening Sequence progresses as we see the “chase scene” progress through an unknown town (at this point in the narrative) and whilst running and bumping into various strangers the titles roll, interspersed with various action shots. All the while complimented with non-diegetic fast-paced music and drum beats that increase the tension. It is not for several minutes from the beginning of the opening that audience is shown the destination of his journey. It is, however, finally revealed. We see him run up a path at first to a destination hidden but then revealed to be a place of worship, a church.

At this point in the film, the audience is completely unaware as to why he is running toward a church or the how the gravity of what is about to be revealed is connected to him.

As he passes into the church we quickly cut to a long shot down the aisle with pews neatly framed, and see what appears to be a dead child in the foreground of the shot. At first the shot is out of focus but the music by this point as abruptly come to an end and diegetic footsteps are all that is heard as the body slowly comes into focus concurrent with the man slowly stepping gently towards it. As he kneels down, the door, not out of shot slams shut with some drama and tension; its sound is ominous, loud and significant to the end of the filmed extract.

Plot Extended
Narratively this fits somewhere in toward the end of the film, but as explained previously, we have chosen to have this as our opening because it contains both action and intrigue.

If we were to continue our filming, we would then cut to credits before opening on the narrative beginning of the film. We feel this approach both disorientates the audience and we have chosen to purposely break the narrative rules laid down by theorists like Propp, but we also deliberately decided not to venture down the path of including anything that could be viewed as supernatural of “the fantastic” (in reference to the literary theories of Todorov) because we felt that for the film to be taken seriously it would have to remain firmly grounded to reality.

In Conclusion…
Over the next few days the other members of the group will be adding their additions of the pitch to the blog, responsibilities detailed in a previous post and we will post an update on how we felt our presentation went within a week.

- Rory

Main Task - Planning Stage & Pitch

During Our Half-Term break; we have been tasked with planning the Pitch for our main task and film project, and as the first step on this somewhat daunting task we, today, had a meeting to discuss the possible plots of our film and the artistic direction that we felt would be appropriate.

The Pitch
Essentially, our task is to present a series of facts, research, concepts and mood boards combined with a multimedia presentation and speech elements to convince our classmates of the viability of our film and ram home the points we believe it emphasizes and techniques it demonstrates.

During the course of the meeting we discussed the following:

• Plot - We decided upon our basic plot for the opening as well as the over-arching narrative of the film. This will be revealed in due course when one of our team has created the relevant synopsis with references to relative theorists.
• Inspiration - We were aware that this was an important aspect of our project and as such tried to actively note anywhere from which we had gained inspiration and noted anything that gave us ideas - Again this will be revealed in a relative blog entry.
• We briefly discussed other aspects our main task but decided that the bulk of this would be drafted by individuals and then scrutinised by the group at a later date, areas that were included in this were; Audience, Stars & Studios.
• We also discussed further meetings for the Concept board aspect of our project and have set a date for this and delegated overall responsibility to a group member.

We have decided that the following people will be responsible for these aspects of the initial pitch:

• Rory: Blog Updates, Plot Synopsis, Concept Board
• Kim: Audience & Appropriation, Actors
• Laurence: Studio Research, Powerpoint Pitch, Concept Board Creation
• Charlotte: Mood Board, Inspiration

We have been given a deadline of the return to school, 23rd Feb '09, to complete this section of the coursework and currently we feel confident that we will reach this target. We will update the blog within the next few days as the various components of the pitch are completed.

- Rory

Preliminary Task - Production

As detailed previously, we have been filming and editing our Preliminary Task for around a week now. Having had our timetable (An updated version of which will be posted in the coming days) disrupted due to the heavy snows a few weeks, we have managed to complete our preliminary Project only a week late, which we feel is an admirable achievement and one which we are proud of.

We have uploaded our Preliminary task for the examiner to see. We would like you to note the following;

• The deliberate use of Black & White effects create a darker and more intriguing atmosphere which we feel works well with the initial plot of the film; as well as the feeling that is trying to be conveyed to the audience.


• The 16:9 aspect ratio again highlights the classic feel of the piece and communicates to the audience the very traditional yet hidden feeling of the film.


• We have also experimented with the deliberate breaking of the 180 Degree rule; because we felt that this would both confuse the audience and also serve to demonstrate the switch of power half way through the scene when it becomes clear that the power lies with the sit ted character rather than the standing character (as it was first portrayed).


• We also paid careful attention to the 30 Degree Rule with the opening shots of the scene alternating but with each shot at a 30 or more degree tilt so as to keep to convention and not immediately jar the audience's feel toward the film.


• Also, we were careful not to over use the same perspective or shot type as we were aware that audience's would quickly lose interest.


• We also consciously decided that the cloaked character's face would not be seen throughout the scene because we felt this would increase the audience's sense of both mystery as well as fear of the character; but also serve to accentuate the power that he (initially) yields.


• Also, note the use of non-diegetic sound that is amplified on the soundtrack whenever the standing character is on screen, this again connotes an air of hostility ans suspicion about the character.


• Finally, we also switched the types of shot we used to portray the sitted character throughout the scene as the character transitioned from being controlled to being in control.

Overall, as a group, we feel that this was a very good initial piece of work and we have learnt a lot from it both in terms or technique, method as well as which mistakes not to repeat.

• For example, on one of our raw shots (not included in final edit) one of the camera crew could be seen in the corner, clearly this is the sort of thing one should check before filming a take.


• The camera was at one point not completely level with the horizon because of a mistake with the tri-pod, although we did notice this part way through filming; this is something we should check at the beginning so that footage is not filmed and then subsequently found to be unusable.


• The first time we went to edit; we accidentally deleted one of the clips from the mac; this caused considerable problems; as the entire camera tape had to be re-imported into iMovie. Although this was a "beginner's mistake" it won't be something that is repeated.

In summary, the group feel that the prelim. was a good opportunity to experiment with techniques and learnt the ins and outs of film production.

- Rory

Preliminary Task - Presentation

On Friday 13th Feb we presented our prelim. task to our class. It was recieved well and as a group we are proud of what we achieved in the short amount of time we had to complete the task.
We feel it has been very useful in terms of a practice run before attempting our main task as it has allowed us to identify potential problems that may occur when it comes to producing our main task. It has also highlighted areas where we could improve, which will make things easier in the long-run once we have filmed our main task. For example, we wasted a lot of time re-taking shots that we didnt even need during the preliminary task. Whilst in some cases this was good because we were able to select the best parts of each shot and then edit them together to get a much better all round finish, it was mainly a big waste of time both during and after filming when it came to the editing. As time is not something we will have a lot of, it is important that we use as much of it as effectively as possible during the main task.
Another thing highlighted to us was the importance of a clear and detailed storyboard. Whilst we didn't stick to the storyboard exactly due to various reasons, we always felt like we knew what the next move was so this helped us to keep on target and not delay even more time by discussing what we should be doing next.
This was also the first real chance we got to see how are group would work together, and in my opinion everyone worked extremely positively and effectively which I hope is reflected in our preliminary task. Everyone was given a chance to use the camera and we always made sure that we came to a compromise if there was a disagreement in the group about how we should film a certain shot. After filming, Charlotte and me focused on the editing and splicing of shots together into a sequence, whilst Rory and Laurence focused on the soundtrack. I felt that the work was shared out very evenly and everyone put an equal amount of effort into producing this preliminary task.

- Kim Rayner