Storyboard

'Taken' Analysis

The opening scene starts with opening credits; I noticed that all the credits are all capital letters; this is maybe to emphasise the importance of the text. The first clip we see is 'EUROCORP PRESENTS' in where the 'EUROCORP' is much bigger than the 'PRESENTS', this is because the directors would've wanted the audience to see the main film production company; this could be classified as promotion aswell.

The clip after shows a flashback of a previous birthday; we as viewers know it is an old birthday due to the quality of the video footage; the brightness and saturation is much different, it has a yellow-tinting effect and is also darker which concludes to the viewers thinking it has some kind of 'old' cement . Also the extreme close up on the birthday hat shows it was someones birthday; this was taken on a handheld camera, this would give the viewers the impression that it's a home-made video.

In the next main clip, it shows a man (viewers are thinking, maybe, the little girls dad?) waking up from this flashback; as it's some sort of dream. However he doesn't seem that happy due to the facial expression and body language. It feels that he is missing out on something and in his expressions shows some sort of anger towards the viewers. Also the the two clips are to a contrast, in the previous clip it shows a light/bright tint wheras this clip shows a man in a dark room, room so dark that it's hard to see him. In a room this dark, it may represent he lives in a dark world and wants to escape this world.


The flashback birthday party is in any case would be more of a celebration (a happy memory) but in this case it seems more of a bad memory. He then turns the light on in where the viewers can see a focus on him but the props (take-away boxes) show that he lives a lonely/quiet world.

First, it was recorded on an extreme close up but now recorded on a medium-long shot. This may be for the viewers to identify the man's surroundings and maybe show them the kind of conditions he's living in. It shows the difference and creates a contrast between the video footage seen in the flashback; that was the life he was living and now it feels like he's lost it all.

In later scenes in the film, the viewers believe they will be given the reason why everything has changed for this 'lonely' man. He then picks up a picture of a little girl (probably his daughter) and looks at it for a good couple of seconds, when he puts the picture down you can tell by his facial expression that he misses her and want to put things right. From what I can tell as a viewer it seems like the attention is all on his daughter. This creates an emotional connection so viewers feels empathy towards the daughter.

The next main scene shows the man get out of a car and walking into a shop. When he talks to the shop keeper he seems to be smiling and looks more of a cheerful guy; he is obviously putting on a front to hide his true emotions. When they're both talking it shows a shot-reverse-shot pattern and also shows a good example of the 180 degree rule.

In the main last scene it shows that he buys a present for his daughter as it seems that it is her birthdays soon, the way he wraps her present shows he's some kind of perfectionist.

Production Treatment

Title: '24 hours'

Genre: Thriller

Duration: Approximately 2 minutes

Audience: Our target audience will be late teens to early twenties, so around the 16-25 range. Although it may attract some older attention.

Resume: The opening of our film will tell two stories at once by consistent flashbacks of what has previously happened in order to indirectly explain the purpose of the other story.
The flashback will show the lead up to the kidnapping, so Emma waiting at the bus stop for Mo to collect her, but he never does. At the same time, we will show Mo receiving a threatening phone call from the kidnapper and him making his way to where he should of collected Emma from, but instead he finds her phone and bag.

Suggested Elements
Performance
Emma: Stands waiting for Mo to pick her up, shivering because she is cold.
Mo: firstly, Mo appears calm and chilled, but then he speeds up his pace to emphasise the importance of saving Emma.

Costumes
Emma: Casual clothing. Leggings, Uggs and a jacket.
Mo: Gang related clothing. Black jeans, red hoody and a black jacket.
Antonio: Gang related clothing.Black tracksuit bottoms, black tracksuit jacket with a hood.

Props
We will use several phones throughout the opening of the film, Emma's bag.

Key Locations
Bus stop
Mo's House - living room

Title/Opening Credits
LEMA presents
Director: Louise Atkinson
Writer: Mohammed Abubakar
Louise Atkinson
Emma Cousins
Antonio Paulo

Characters
Lucy: Emma Cousins
Dwayne: Mohammed Abubakar
Warren: Antonio Paulo

Recording Days

Filming (pre-production)
- 28th february - 9th march
During this week we will aim to film the majority of our opening scene, although we may need to film into the next week aswell.

Editing (post production)
-9th march - 30th march
We will begin editing as soon as we have finished filming. We may have to re-shoot some of our shots so therefore will make the process longer.

Main Task - Shotlist

• Opening Credits - Black screen with white texts to make the text stand out. The role in smaller text and the name of the student in larger font to emphasise the name.

• A sound bridge of the phone ringing will link the two scenes. Close up of the phone ringing. The setting of this would be in a living room or maybe bedroom - a room where it's dark to create an intense start to the film.

• Zoom out from previous scene so viewers can see 'Mo' in the shot which. will show a shallow depth of field, the focus was first on the phone whilst 'Mo' is blurry but reverses to the telephone being blurry and now the focus is on 'Mo'.

• This will be a flashback. A long shot of Emma walking home. She will be on her phone texting. The location will be dark with very little lighting and on a quiet road. We will add a different effect to this so that the viewer can identify that it has already happened.

• Mo answers the phone with some hesitation.

• We will split the screen for this scene so that both characters can be seen at the same time. Both characters will stand with the phone against their ear. Both will be in different locations, Antonio walking quickly down a busy road and Mo inside his house. The conversation will take place during this scene.

• Back to a flashback of Emma texting. This time we will zoom in on the phone screen to focus on what she is texting and who she is texting.

• Medium close up of Mo still on the phone to Antonio looking worried. The phone then ends with the "end tone" which we will use from Garage band.

• Mo slowly takes the phone from his ear, as he slowly takes in what has just be said to him and replaces the phone back on the table.

• Flashback of Mo at his house receiving Emma's text.

• Shot of Mo leaving his house. First shot is him opening the door, the next shot is Mo exiting the house.

• Long shot flashback which shows Emma walking with Antonio in the background, following her. This scene will have low key lighting also.

• We see Mo get into his car and start the ignition. The lighting here will be brighter, natural daylight.

• Extreme close up of the car wheel to show Mo speeding off.

• Flashback of Emma's phone lying on the ground ringing out. A sound bridge will link the two scenes.

• Long shot of Mo bringing the car to a sharp standstill, where he should have been picking Emma up.

• Mo finds the phone alongside Emma's bag, coincidently a her phone receives a text at the same time.

• Flashback to Emma in a dark room, alone.

• Black screen and '24 hours' appears on the screen in a large white font.

Preliminary Video

Evaluation of Preliminary Task

What did you learn about the camera and editing software during the preliminary task?

During filming our preliminary task, we learnt how to use some of the much-important features of the camera. In our group, two of the students are A2 students and have already produced a music video so therefore were able to help the others in our group to use the cameras quite quickly.
Due to the two A2 students, we was able to record and edit in a short space of time due to the experience gained from the production of their music videos.
We also learnt how to fix the camera at different angles to create a greater effect on the footage overall. We extended the legs of the tripod to help us to film from a high angle shot of Mohammed running up the stairs and also a low angle shot close up of his feet. When filming, we built on our knowledge to position the camera in different places in order to create different views and help with our continuity editing. The advantage of taking so many different types of shots of the same scene is that we were able to choose and pick the best angles and it gives our preliminary task a professional cut.
Secondly, we learnt and developed our editing skills on Final Cut Pro 7. Some of us had not used the editing software before and was a completely new experience but due to the help of others in our group we was able to work together and put our video together. Before we could start editing our filming, we had to convert our footage using MPEG Stream clip which was a task easily completed.
We used an editing keyboard to quickly edit our footage, from the keyboard we learnt how to ‘mark in’ and ‘mark out’ which allowed us to cut out the footage not needed from the start and the end.
We also learnt how to add effects which makes our video fit together easier., using effects also creates different types of atmosphere and it also makes the audience/viewers think about why the effect was used, what was its purpose which we want, we want a spontaneous edge to our preliminary task.
A the end of the video, we used the fade effect, this simply faded out the end scene which adds more of a professional view.

In the filming and editing of your project, what worked well and what could have been improved?

In our project, what worked well is that our video had a good standard of continuity. We edited to make sure all the scenes more or less matched the previous ones, we had a lot of footage, which was another thing that gave us an advantage, we could choose from different type of scenes, from different angles therefore our continuity was standard and would do nothing to change it in this particular task. Having a standard continuity indicates this task was done at a professional pace. Another point was we had a fade out which works out well because it’s a sign of closure, to close the scene and let the audience and viewers know that it was the end of the scene. The last point that worked well in our video was when Mohammed was running upstairs (rushing), we recorded plenty footage for this particular scene. In the video, we have a combination of, high angle shot, medium, close-up and extreme close up shots. We had covered most angles, which was great, as we had completed our task in a great standard.
However, our dialogue in the preliminary task was to a great standard, it was only a 35-second clip, which is very short. The actual dialogue was short as it was only a couple of words from two different characters. The reason for this would be the group planning, we didn’t plan to as much detail as what could’ve performed.
Another area in where we could’ve improved on is the sound. The use of non-diagetic was nil, we could’ve used this to create some sort of theme to let the viewers know what kind of genre the video is. Also non-diagetic sounds also create some sort of anxiety, some sort of rhythm that goes with the video clip. Also we could’ve improved on the diagetic sounds, the two main characters should have maybe spoken more louder or closer to the camera, this would be because maybe the older generation may have hearing problems and with the improvement, they will be more likely to hear the footage.



Give a detailed, specific example of how you have used a shot/reverse shot combination in your film.

In our short video, we have used a shot/reverse shot combination to show the dialogue between Mo and Antonio. This shot shows the two characters interacting with each other when Mo enters the room and confronts Antonio about his phone, an insert of the Blackberry, and then a low angle shot of Mo then cutting back to Antonio.

Give a detailed, specific example of how you have achieved match cuts during the editing process.

During our editing process, we used match cuts to make the editing look smooth and continuous. We achieved this by filming more footage than we needed to, which enabled us to edit the shots together easily. An example of this in our video is when Mo is running up the stairs. There are several cuts that fit together of Mo at different places on the stairs. Because these shots match, it prevents the viewer from being distracted. 


How did you achieve continuity in this task? Or if your transitions weren't entirely smooth, what have you learnt from this?

We achieved continuity in our short video by carefully editing our filming together. In order to achieve this, we had to plan ahead and film the same sequence several times from a different prospective. By doing this, during editing on Final Cut Pro 7, we were able to easily fit our filming together as we had too much footage. It was better for us to film too much than not enough, because otherwise we would have realised during editing, that the sequence didn't match and would have had to go out and re-film certain aspects of our video.

Preliminary Task

For our preliminary task we had to film somebody entering a room, walking across the room and dialogue between two people. This task should demonstrate match on action, shot reverse shot and the 180 degree rule.

The 180 degree rule is when two characters in the same scene should always have the same left/right relationship to each other.
If the camera passes over the imaginary axis connecting the two subjects, it is called crossing the line. The new shot, from the opposite side, is known as a reverse angle.

We will then edit out footage on Final Cut Pro 7 and add effects in order to make our short video.