The objectives for this lesson are;
- To investigate the relationship between titles and films.
- To use a software package to prepare a storyboard for your short.
- To use a software package to prepare a script for your short.
Having produced a treatment for your short which has been developed after reacting to feedback from your peers, the time has come to start the realisation process. Remember, your film can only be 5 minutes long, and that includes titles & credits. So the first thing to consider is 'how are we going to incorporate titles into the start of our film?'. I would expect to see individual posts in your blog relating to title research; perhaps examples from similar films/genres and then, maybe, some ideas constructed in LiveType (you could export just the titles as a .mov file and host it on YouTube, without including the film, and then embed a link into your blog). If you constructed several styles of title, you could run a poll which asks peers to vote on the best (ambitious or what?). After the style and type of titles has been established, you must consider how the titles interact with the film footage. Are the titles independently bolted on at the start of your short? Are the titles the first thing you see or do they appear after the start of the film? Are the titles superimposed over footage? Does the footage freeze or continue as the titles are superimposed? Are titles 'inserted' between footage? Do the titles fade in/out? What about colour? Do the titles represent something from your film? Do the titles provide any clues to the genre or narrative of your film? How do the titles interact with the soundtrack? Do you accompany titles with sfx, a music track or just the sound from the filmed footage? Consider some imaginative transitions between titles and the film; I particularly like the one where the titles are accompanied by a music track and the last title crossfades to a shot of a radio which is playing the track and the character comes and switches the radio off mid-track; hey presto, on with the action and the audience have been brought into the film!
Most importantly, what titles do you have? Film title, obviously! Director? Producer? Actors? What? You must demonstrate in-depth research, development and consideration of the titles to access the level 4 marks for construction.
After this, you must complete a storyboard and script, as you did at AS level. Unlike AS level though, you MUST follow these guidelines to access level 4 planning & research;
- You must have a storyboard slide for EVERY shot in your film (likely to be loads in 5 mins).
- For every slide you must include a caption which states the type of shot and the motivation behind the shot (what does it achieve?).
- Camera and character movements must be shown using the arrow tools in SBQ (describe the track in/track out/zoom in/zoom out/pan/tilt/dolly shot in the caption as well).
- The script must be written in Final Draft AV.
Homework;
- Complete the work and email JPEG versions of your storyboards and PDF version of your script to the usual address by 3.30pm on Friday 18th November.
- Add storyboard and script to your personal blog.
Next Lesson;
