Filming

We finally started filming on Friday, but even though the forecast again said it wasn't going to, it started raining before we had finished filming all of the opening. We filmed the rest of the outdoor scenes on Saturday, which now only leaves the short indoor scenes for us to do.

Script

Our film opening doesn't contain a lot of dialogue, so our script is quite short.

There will be a short dialogue in the beginning, as they leave the party, which will be like
"Thanks for inviting us!",
"It was a really great party!"
and then "Bye!" and "See you!"
or something similar to that.

There won't be any or only very few talking when the two girls walk home, maybe one of them saying
"Oh, it's sooo cold!".

Then, when one of the girls arrives home, they will say "Bye!" and she's going to say
"Text me when you're home!" to the other girl.

Similar Characters

I looked for characters in movies that are similar to the ones in our opening and I came up with these:

Bring It On

High School Musical

Clueless

Mean Girls

They are all that kind of "girlie girls" as the girls in our opening are supposed to be.

Filming

Unfortunately we couldn't film our opening last weekend, because even though the weather report predicted no rain on Friday, it was raining all day and so it was on Saturday.

We will have to film the opening this weekend.

Friday and Saturday would both be good days for filming if the weather report is right this time, because it won't be raining both nights.

Weather report

As we want to film our opening this weekend, we looked at the weather forecast and decided that Friday would probably be the best day to film the parts outside as it's not going to rain. We could then do the parts inside on Saturday or Sunday.

Characters

The characters in our film opening:

• between 16 and 18 years old
• all very girlie → dressed up, a lot of make-up, high heels
• actors: I'm going to play the main character and two of our friends are going to be the other two girls.

Risk Assessment

What could go wrong?

1. It could start raining/snowing.
2. Batteries could run down./Camera could break.
3. An actor could be unavailabe.
4. We could forget to film a scene./A scene was filmed wrong or doesn't look good.

What could we do about that?

1. We need to have an alternative date to film.
2. We have to take spare batteries./Have an alternative date.
3. We need to have alternative actors and actors we can trust.  
4. We need to be well organised (stick to Storyboard and Shotlist).

Classification of our film

We wrote about the Biritsh Board of Film Classification (BBFC) earlier (here).

If we would have to classificate our film, it would be

15 - Suitable only for 15 years and over

• work mustn't endorse discrimination
• drug taking may be shown but not promoted or encouraged
• (no sadistic or sexualised) strong threat allowed
• no dangerous behaviour on detail
• may contain frequent use of strong language
• nudity allowed in sexual context, but not on detail
• sexual activity permitted, but not on detail
• may contail strong violence

because not the opening but the following action would possibly contain violence, threat and frequent strong language.

Testing the camera

Alina and I tested one of the school cameras, because we wanted to see if the light of a street lamp was enough to make a proper video, and luckily it is most of the time.
The video also shows some possible locations for our opening.

Watch on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DApvVVqDweQ&feature=youtu.be

Film Opening - Tatort: Zwischen den Ohren

The opening starts with an Establishing Wide Shot of a boat with two anglers on a river. The camera then pans to a poster saying "Münsteraner Night Fishing". These two shots introduce the location and the topic; the two anglers are obviously taking part in the night fishing. 
The mood is a little scary through the dim light and the non-digetic sounds.

It continues with a Mid Shot of one of the anglers smoking a cigarette or drugs. The name of the main actor is blended in the bottom left corner of the frame. We can see both body language and facial expressions of the man; he looks very relaxed. 
He's got long grey hair that he wears in a ponytail and he's not shaved, what makes him look a little messy and alternative. 

Next is an Establishing Shot again, showing how he pulls something out of the water.

The next shot is a Medium Shot again. As he sees what he pulled out of the water he looks very shocked first and then leans back in disbelief.
As the other man asks "Fish?", he answers "No, foot." This gives us an idea of what the crime film might be about; the angler probably fished a foot out of the water.
The name of another actor is blended in the bottom right corner.

The opening continues with a long shot of the main actor, one of the inspectors, sitting on his sofa, turning the TV on and drinking out of his bottle of beer at the same time. He sighs and leans back on the sofa and puts his feet on the table. The presenter on TV announces the football game Bayern München vs. St. Pauli; the inspector is a supporter of St. Pauli.
He is still wearing his shoes, what gives the impression that he just came home and is probably looking forward to watch the game now. 
As his phone starts ringing he looks really annoyed, and as he sees that it's his father calling he puts it back on the table and continues watching TV.
That gives the audience a first idea of the relationship between him and his father. It's obviously not too good as he doesn't seem to consider a call of him as very important.
As the phone starts ringing again he looks even more annoyed and leans forward to make it stop, but then looks very surprised as he looks on the screen. He mumbles some words that sound like this caller is more important and can't just be ignored. His body language makes us see that this is probably the end of his football evening.

The location changes again and now shows a high angle Close Up of a shoe with a human foot in it. At the same time it's a Point of View Shot, which we can see in the next shot. Next to the foot is a number how it's used by the police to mark certain points of a crime scene.You can see the flash of a camera and hear people talking in the background, so the police is probably there.

In the next shot you can see the inspector, the woman who called him and the police photographer in a Mid Shot from bottom angle bending over the shoe.
The inspector looks still very annoyed and argues with the woman, because he's angry he left his TV only because of a foot. He's very sarcastic and asks, if he should question the foot now.
He's now wearing his St. Pauli scarf, probably as a sign that he'd rather be at home watching the game now.

From an Over the Shoulder shot of the policewoman we see the inspector shouting a few instructions, and then walking away. 
This is a shot for the identification with the police, as we as the audience will follow them through the plot of the movie.

The main title is blended in in the bottom right corner.

Then we see a Medium Shot of the policewoman asking him, if he doesn't want to know who found the foot. We can see from her body language and facial expressions that it will probably be interesting for the inspector. She looks a little amused and also superior, though she actually isn't, but who found the foot only seems to affect the inspector.

We see her now from behind the inspector, another Over the Shoulder shot for the identification. As the inspector answers "Yes, deeply.", a male voice shouts from behind him "When I call you don't answer...", so the audience knows at once that his father must be standing behind him, as he called the insepector earlier.

The camera changes sides and now films the inspecor from the other direction as he turns around, so we can follow his sight. We see the man from the boat in the beginning and can now make the assumption, that the angler is the father of the inspector and fished the foot out of the water. 
The inspecor slowly turns back to the woman in disbelief.

We see a Mid Shot of her again, shrugging with a smile on her face and then putting her hands in the pockets of her coat. She looks like she finds it really amusing and wants to leave the whole thing to the inspector.

The camera changes sides again and we see the inspector again shouting angrily at his father if nothing in Münster can happen without him being involved. That gives the impression that this is not the first time that he has to work with his father and that he's obviously not very excited about it.

Next is a Mid Shot of the inspector's father and the man who was in the boat with him. The father looks surprised, as if he couldn't believe what is so bad about the whole thing and claims that he only found a foot. The other man's got a notepad in his hand and looks rather excited. While the father is still talking he starts walking towards the inspector.

In a long shot we see him introducing himself to the inspector and telling him that he writes for the angler's newspaper. He sounds very exited and almost stutters. The inspector is rather unimpressed and just walks past him. Then he turns at him and says "Good evening." as a sign that he doesn't want to talk to him at all.

The camera changes sides and we see the inspector from behind. This shot shows that he wants to leave now and is not interested in a conversation, but the man still follows him and wants to question him.

Next is an Over the Shoulder shot of the man and the inspector's father, who looks rather unimpressed as well.

We then see a Mid Shot and an Over the Shoulder shot of the inspector, as he angrily says to the man that he's not going to write anything at all. The man looks very surprised and stops talking. He only looks to the inspector's father looking for help. He doesn't look surprised at all and says that that's just the way his son is, cheeky and uncooperative.

The inspector gets really angry, grabs his father and pulls him away from the other man. We see them in a Two Shot and the inspector first looks as if he's going to say something mean, but then obviously decides against it and just asks his father when he started going fishing again. His father answers very knowingly, since he's looking for his inner center again. The inspector is obviously superior, because when he says angrily that his father uses his rod, he looks a little scared and grabs his bag tight. 
This conversation shows us more of the relationship between them; it's probably not the best and the son's got more to say than the father.

Initial Storyboard

Though I thought we could never ever finish this, Alina and I did complete our initial storyboard for the film opening. 
It contains about 40 shots, including the titles and actually gives a pretty good impression of what our final film opening might look like.

What we decided to change now is to put the main title as second or third shot to make it look less like a trailer.

Working Outline

This is the working outline Alina and I made for our film opening. It's not completed yet but shows all the basic information for now.

Moodboard

This is the moodboard I made for the idea we chose to use for our film opening.
























The moodboard shows someone walking on a street at night, what represents the girl in our idea that's walking home alone. The pink high heel is there because she just left a party, the phone because everyone tries to call her as she doesn't arrive home, and the eyes giving an idea of what happens to her.  

Presenting Our Ideas

Today, we presented our initial ideas, which you can find here, to our Media Studies class.

Our teacher suggested to go for Idea 2, which is good as it was our favourite idea anyway.

• two girls going home from a party
• one girl reaches her house
• other one goes on alone
• followed by someone

This helped us to make the idea a little more concrete in our heads, for example about the beginning at the party; we shouldn't include to many people being filmed as it would be very hard if we had to refilm a certain scene, because not all persons could be available again or changed their hair or something like that.

Pieker Pictures goes YouTube

Alina and I just created a YouTube account for Pieker Pictures!
You can find it here.

Initial Ideas

Title Sequence - Buried

Moodboard - Our first idea

Today we tried to summarise our first idea for the main task in a moodboard. It shows basic ideas in form of pictures. Our moodboard is divided in two parts; on the left is a glade, a bird and a couple; on the right is a dark forest and a dark person. The two parts are connected through the spyglass in the middle.

So our basic idea was two people (a couple) on a glade being watched by someone in the forest.

The problem is that we probably won't be able to put this idea into operation, because the opening should actually take place in spring or summer, but it's almost winter now and spring would be too late to start filming. 

British Board of Film Classification

The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) was established in 1912. Since then, they've been classifying cinema films independently from the government, and also videos and DVDs since 1984.

BBFC based their classifications for films on their guidelines, which they made up of consultation of the public and research.
The films are classified in seven different categories.

Universal - Suitable for all

• suitable for audience aged 4 and over
• positive moral framework
• counterbalances to violence, threat or horror
• no discrimination
• no references to drugs
• only brief, mild and unlikely scenes of horror
• no potentially dangerous behaviour
• only very mild bad language
• nudity only mild and occasionally
• no sexual context
• only mild sexual behaviour, such as kissing, and only references
• problematic themes may be present
• sensitive and appropriate treatment with problematic themes
• only mild violence

Recently classified: LOUYRE - THIS OUR STILL LIFE



Parental Guidance - General viewing, but some scenes may be unsuitable for young children

• unaccompanied children of all age may watch
• not disturbing for children aged 8 and older
• parents have to consider whether their children could be upset
• discrimination only in historical context
• references to drugs must carry a clear anti-drug message
• no prolonged or intense of frightening scenes
• no detail of potentionally dangerous behaviour
• only mild bad language
• only natural nudity
• no sexual context
• only discreet and infrequent sexual activity
• no themes condoning unacceptable behaviour
• only mild and justified by context violence without detail

Recently classified: MEMPHIS



12/12A - Suitable for 12 years and over

• works may upset younger children
• 12A for cinema films
• 12 for video works
• no discrimination endorsed by the work as a whole
• only infrequent and not glamorised misuse of drugs
• only moderate physical and psychological threat
• no dangerous behaviour on detail
• moderate language allowed
• only infrequent use of strong language
• nudity allowed
• only brief and discreet sexual context
• brief sexual activity
• mature themes acceptable
• moderate violence allowed, but not on detail

Recently classified: THE BLACK POWER MIXTAPE



15 - Suitable only for 15 years and over

• work mustn't endorse discrimination
• drug taking may be shown but not promoted or encouraged
• (no sadistic or sexualised) strong threat allowed
• no dangerous behaviour on detail
• may contain frequent use of strong language
• nudity allowed in sexual context, but not on detail
• sexual activity permitted, but not on detail
• may contail strong violence

Recently classified: PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 3



18 - Suitable only for adults

• adults should be free to choose their own entertainment
• no material in breach of the criminal law
• no material risking harm of individuals or society
• no more explicit sexual activity than justified by context

Recently classified: SLEEPING BEAUTY



R18 - To be shown only in specially licensed cinemas, or supplied only in licensed sex shops, and to adults of not less than 18 years

• special, legally restricted classification
• explicit work containing sex or strong fetish material
• no material in breach of criminal law
• no material encouraging an interest in sexually abusive activity
• no sexual activity involving lack of consent
• no infliction of pain or acts causing lasting physical harm
• no penetration associated with violence
• no sexual threats, humiliation or abuse which is not part of roleplaying game
• no strong physical or verbal abuse