Practice Robber Scene

We have produced some practice shots for the 'Break in' scene. This scene took place in my house and we felt as though we needed to see exactly how the camera angles we have planned would be affected by the location, and whether they would still work effectively.
Sam would be playing the role of the thief, but as he was unavailable we decided to use Gareth instead as the shots were not focused upon acting roles but rather developing the camera angles and movements of the scene. This was unfortunate as it meant that Sam missed out on some possible practice but we could overcome this by spending more time on the scene during the actual filming.
Although this is a very unpolished draft of the scene, we decided to edit it to test some of the effects and transitions that we have planned. This included a to-black-and-white snapshot of a scene, in which writing appears, and the last scene where we use a crossover effect to speed up the shot and also to suggest that some time has passed.
Whilst part of the first scene, the very beggining of the scene will have a 'sweep' shot as the theif breaks into the front door. Due to already having practiced this sweep, and time restraints, we decided not to practice this part of the scene to focus on the part that needed further development.
Here is the Practice Scene which is edited but not completed: LINK

Script

The only scene with any dialogue contained within it is the Chief inspector scene, and therefore our script comprimises of this scene only.

Chief Inspector Scene

Actors: Mr Aherne, Tom, Gaz

Scene 3

Starting shot of Mr Aherne looking out the window from the side with a serious look on his face

Mr Aherne: You two…

Shot changes to shot of Mr Aherne from the front with Gaz and Tom in the shot, as he turns around he starts to say

Mr Aherne: are the biggest pair of incompetent buffoons that I have ever had the displeasure of having on my force. You are a disgrace to the police, this nation and to the whole of the human race…

Gaz: (in a feeble voice) but…

Mr Aherne: Shut up I’m talking. I’m giving you one last chance to prove you’re not a pair of stupid, un-educated oafs who…

Mr Aherne’s voice fades to quietly murmuring in the background as focus changes to see Gaz lean over to Tom in the fore-ground and says

Gaz: What’s an oaf?

Tom: It’s the stuff they put in Weetabix

Gaz: Ohhh

Focus changes back to Mr Aherne as his voice fades back in

Mr Aherne: OI! I’m talking so your not!

Shot of Gaz and Tom looking “scared”

Mr Aherne: I’m giving you two idiots one last chance to catch the worst delinquent in history, currently on trial for stealing a hand-bag and robbing an officer’s house.

Reaction shot of Tom and Gaz looking shifty

Mr Aherne: You may want to go… in disguise.

Cut to next scene.

This script is by no means the final script and therefore may be adapted in future.

Changes to 'Chief Inspector' Scene

Whilst developing our storyboard we felt that our chief inspector scene seemed lacklustre when compared with our other scenes. We tried to think of a way to expand this scene and give it more depth and meaning to the viewer, keeping them focused on the rest of the trailer.
We have therefore decided to include a small piece of dialogue between my character and Gareth's character. Mid wa into the scene, we have included a part in our script where the chief calls us 'a pair of oafs' to which Gareth leans over to me and says 'what's an oaf?' and I reply 'Its the stuff they put in weetabix.' By using a pull-focus camera technique we believe we can effectively draw the viewer's attention away from the chief and towards us, as we are about to speak. This will demonstrate to the viewer that something of importance is about to be made, and therefore they will be prepared for the joke.
As myself, Gareth and Mr. Aherne will be in this scene, we will have to find someone else, possibly Sam, to be in control of the camera during the pull-focus effect. From my own experience from our AS work I know that this is a difficult technique to pull off effectively, and we must therefore be prepared to repeat the scene many times in order for the pull-focus to work.
We also worry that the scene may now be too long, as comedy trailers generally usually use short quick cut scenes. However, when we come to edit the trailer, if we find the scene becomes too long and slightly monotonous then we can edit out this idea and use the original plan.
This scene is elaborately explained in our script which I shall upload to my blog shortly.

Storyboard

These 3 photographs comprimise all of the scenes we are planning to include in our film. This storyboard will become very helpful when we come to film our trailer, as it shows us exactly what camera angles, camera movements, and plot development we will need to consider when filming. This storyboard demonstrates what our film will look like after editing, but we still need to think about the sound and music that will accompany our film.
Now that we each have a copy of the storyboard, we no longer have the worry of having contradicting ideas when we are filming, i.e. we now view each scene in the same way.

Weather

Throughout our storyboard and mind-mapping processes, we have always imagined that the outdoor scenes would take place in sunny weather. However, being in mid-November means that winter is now upon us and there are now very few sunny days in which conditions are ideal for our film.
This is becoming a major issue for us. Renting police costumes means we have a few weeks to film before having to re-rent them. There are also few days in which both myself, Sam, and Gareth are available to meet up at the same time. Add to this the fact that the weather has to be nice and we are facing a serious problem, with very few chances available to film in perfect conditions.
We do however have a few scenes that are filmed indoors, and therefore weather conditions are irrelevant. We could therefore save these scenes for when the weather makes our other scenes impossible. Although this may disrupt our filming schedule, we may have no other choice.
If the weather stays consistently bad, we may have to rethink and adapt a few of our scenes. We could change ideas so that they take place indoors, or change them so that it would make little difference what the weather is, or adapt part of the storyline so that rain or wind in particular scenes would actually make sense.
Weather is an inconsistent part of the film-making process that we have learnt that we must be prepared for.

Worries with the 'Car Slide' scene

Whilst creating our storyboard some thoughts arose about various problems we might face with our 'car slide' scene.

First is the fact that we want the failed slide to look as real as possible. The original idea was that we run fast into the side of the car at the wrong angle, and therefore fail the attempt and slowly slide off the front of the car, rather than the side, and fall to the floor. Although Sam, who will be playing the thief in our trailer, has kindly accepted for us to use his car for this scene, we cannot rule out the possibility that if we attempt this scene unprepared his car may become damaged in the process. We obviously do not want this and have thought of a few ways to try and reduce the chances of such an occurance:
- Study various scenes from films that use a car slide
- Slowly build up our speed, and use trial and error
- Practice this scene a lot at a safe speed beforehand
Hopefully these techniques will help keep the car, and more importantly us, from damage.

Secondly, we realised we needed a good reason for the car slide to even be attempted in the film. i.e, why not go around the car? We have therefore decided to make the car slide the only 'quick' option for the thief and the two policeman. We think that the best way to do this would be to make the front of the car as close as possible to the back of another car, making going inbetween slow and near impossible. For this however we would need two cars, and we would have to park them so close eachother that they may actually accidently bump into eachother when we set up the scene. Another method we have considered is having a wall in front of a car. Although this may be easier to organise, it would leave little room for us to fall in front of the car during the failed slide attempt. We therefore face the issue of leaving a small enough gap so it would be impractical to run through, but at the same time having the gap big enough so that we could fall off the front of the car.
We have decided that we will go out and practice this scene as soon as possible, to see whether the location will provide us with an answer, or whether it is possible for us to get the gap as we would like it.

Video Shooting Schedule

This is our shooting schedule that includes where each scene will take place, the order in which we will perform each scene and the actors that will need to be available for each scene. This is a precaution that will ensure our time is not wasted going unnecessarily back and forth between locations. This schedule is slightly misleading as it may make you believe that all people required for the scene are mentioned under the 'actors' heading, wheras in reality another person would be required to be in control of the camera.