Filming Schedule

Friday 27th January 2012 edit, could not film due to exams
Tuesday 31st January 2012 - Scene in school
Saturday 4th February 2012 - Scene by Picadilly

Practice Production Card

Click image to show animation

This is the production card I have been trying to perfect for our first shot. This is not the final one as I will try to get a different picture of the piano and add more animation.

About the image: I created during the day we were intially supposed to film but were unable to use to school hall to due exams, so instead I created a draft logo.

I used the piano as our film is a musical, to symbolise the music.

Our storyboard

The first shot is showing our production card (Piano Productions). The screen then fades to the sign of 'Piccadilly Circus', the camera pans from the sign to the stairs (entrance of underground) and you see the protagonist struggling up the stairs with the suitcase. Finally, as you exits the camera follows her from behind then a close-up of her dropping the suitcase shortly follows. You see a low angle shot to show she is superior or powerful. We see shots of the screen and city to 'pass the time'. She then walks through the street looking at a map when she bumps into somebody on the street. The person drops something and the protagonist picks it up for them.. the character barges them and walks on. The character walks into a theatre looking building and then the location switches to Bishop Thomas Grant. The character runs to the audition studio and just before a song being sang, the screen fades.

Our storyboard was five pages in total. In Piccadilly Circus we had to use quick cuts in order to avoid tourists ruining the shots.

Props that will be used in our Film Opening

The first prop we decided to use is a suitcase. We are not exactly sure of this prop as I am not sure how to bring it into school for the day. The suitcase is used to show she is foreign without having to use dialogue. The suitcase will be chunky to make it look like she has a lot of clothes, or is staying in the country.

·       The second important prop will be the a-z map of London to show that she has no idea where she is going and is new to the location. There will be  small picture of the theatre auditions to show what the person is aiming for.

Our presentation

In our presentation we spoke about our influences, research and planning. We spoke about our protagonist and the storyboard we created.

Note: Filming Dates:  Friday 27th January & Saturday 4th February 2012

Location for our Shooting

For our opening shot, it will be a picture of the underground sign, before it pans to our protagonist exiting the underground and walking up the stairs. On the picture above, the arrow shows where the character will walk after exiting the underground.

I used Google Maps to show the location as the street is not busy and you can clearly see the underground. We plan on filming when the streets are empty so that the editing will not create bad continuity shots. 

The picture on the right also shows what the shot of the characters 'point of view' will be when they are looking at the screens.

The reason that we have chosen to shoot in this area because it looks as though it was the 'fashionable' side of London. The movie is about a 'small town girl' who moves to the 'big city' for a big audition. We were considering to use Big Ben for this but have decided that it wouldn't give off the 'musical' sense of the film.

Representation of characters in Musicals

Different set of characters from Hairspray, Chicago and A Chorus Line

Above, are screenshots from the different movies that I have looked at from the same genre as the movie opening I am doing. The different clicks of characters are often very focused stereotypically and you can clearly see what sort of people they are as well as the time it is set in. Men, like the two in the top right, are in suits. Women, are often wearing brightly coloured clothes and crop tops (along with tight jeans).

Another thing I have noticed is the lighting. The camera often focuses on one person and lighting is often used to make a certain person stand out (as seen above from the screenshot of the character from Chicago). Dark lighting is rarely used and if they do choose to use it, it is only when a character is preforming.

Films within genre (influences)

During our planning for the opening, we looked at three movies from the same genre.

First was A Chorus Line which is a musical from 1975 centered around a group of Broadway dancers auditioning for spots in a famous musical. It has nineteen main characters and the location is on a Broadway theatre stage.

Second was Chicago which is a much darker type of film. Re-made in 2002 from the original in 1975, it is set in the times where Jazz was a famous type of performing. It focuses on sandal and corruption in the city of Chicago. For the analysis we focused on the original in 1975.

The last film which we looked at for influences was Hairspray. This was the most recent musical out of the three which was made in 2007. It was about a young girl from high school from Baltimore who auditions to become part of a show called 'The Corny Collins Show'. This was a reproduction of the original created in 1988 which we focused on.