Tuesday, 11 February 2014

Location Plan

Things that can go wrong:
Unavailability of Locations- The pub which we will be using for the majority of the shots, The New Inn in Buckingham, has set opening times. We had to ensure that the times we wanted to use the bar did not conflict with the owners business plans. As the landlord was my father it was easy for us to get an estimate of what times we could use the bar to avoid this issue.

Continuity- Continuity was the biggest issue for us. We had to do several days of filming in different locations. On the first day it was heavily raining but on the days shot inside the bar it was not, we had to position the camera very carefully t ensure that it was not obvious to the audience that the weather has suddenly changed.

Access to Public Locations- The few shots in the underpass will be shot in a public area. People will be walking past us on a regular basis and we will not be guaranteed privacy at all times. We will have to be patient and take photos of the scenes so we can make sure everything looks the same in each shot.

Safety Hazards:
Stairs- There is a shot in which Oli Harbord has to push myself up a very small flight of stairs. The stairs have sharp edges and are part of a solid wooden floor, so if I am pushed to hard and fall I may sustain a serious injury. To avoid this issue we will practice the movement before hand and opt to make little contact in the shot to avoid any injuries.

Action shots- There are two shots where I have to make sudden movements as if I am hurt. The second is a shot of me being thrown onto a table by Theo Daniels. It must look realistic but be safe for myself. We will have to again act out the impact so it is not as heavy as it would be in reality.




 ----The Location----



 The Underpass:


The first few shots of the film opening are a series of long shots of Josh Graham from various angles of an underpass in Milton Keynes. The pictures shown are of the angels we will cut together for the film.  The top three rows will be panned shots and the final shot will have the camera slowly coming towards Josh. This will then cut to a close-up of Josh’s profile.



The New Inn pub:

 This is the show downwards of the entire bar, for the shot of Oli, Theo and myself bursting in. The camera will be placed a few inches to the left of where this picture has been taken. After the match-on-action explained in the picture below, the camera will change to the opposite end of the bar in this picture of the three of us struggling down the bar.









 After the shot of the three of us coming in, we will have a match-on-action of us coming through the door. For that shot the camera will be placed where the door with the poster on it is. This is also the bar where Jamie Vaill, the person who played our barman, will do his shots.






The seats and table set up here is used for the birds-eye view shot of the poker game. There is another shot of Oli, Theo and myself struggling in this area but the camera is facing to the left. On the far side of the this picture we can see part of the stairs that I mentioned in the possible safety hazards section. As you can see the floor is solid wood and the stairs have a metal lining on them so we will have to take precautions to ensure none of the actors injure themselves.






The scene then changes focus to this room, which is up from the stairs in the previous picture. The first shot will have Oli hold me in place by the grey stone fireplace on the left of the picture for when Theo goes to hit me. The table on the right of the shot is where Oli will throw me.
Finally Josh will come up the stairs in the background of the picture for the climax of the opening. The first shot will be up the stairs before having a match-on-action of Josh’s face.







Thursday, 6 February 2014

Props

Props:

Guns
-A gun is a main prop in a Western. In every Traditional Western, there is always a shootout or at least a sight of several guns throughout the film. We made sure we ordered a gun that looked traditionally western and obviously wasn’t real.
Chairs
-As we were set in a pub, chairs/stools were a must have.
Whiskey glass
-We needed a whiskey glass as we had a shot with ‘Whiskey’ in the glass. We used coke and water to make it look like whiskey and the glass was a normal glass but we had to make sure it wasn’t near the edge so it didn’t fall off and smash causing an injury hazard.
Ice
-Ice was used in the whiskey to add effect.
Cards
-We used cards for a shot on the table. They were there as cards are a source of entertainment now and so we thought It would be a good idea to implicate them in our opening.

Sound Research

Sound Research


Jake Bugg-Trouble town

-This song had the western feel but wasn't quite right. The lyrics didn't fit well and it was too slow for our movie. Our western is a strong mix of a modern and traditional western so it would be preferred if we had something more up beat and something with a more modern flare. Overall, this song is a very good song and was a good starting point for us.

Devilman-On Dis Ting/John Dege-Too old to die

-As we were are doing a modern western, we were told to maybe try and mix these two songs together to give it both the modern and traditional feel. We thought about it as 'On Dis Ting' is under the grime genre, which is popular at the moment but we were limited with the software and would struggle to make it sound good so we decided that it wasn’t the best idea to do.

A large reason for choosing John Dege is because this song was featured in Django Unchained. As Django Unchained is more of a future Western that has been released within the past 3 years, we listened to the soundtrack and analysed which song(s) would fit best for our opening.

Kanye West Ft Frank Ocean- No Church in the Wild

We decided that this song was perfect for our opening. This is because it has a strong guitar bass, which makes it both modern and traditional. The guitar side makes it feel older like the traditional westerns such as ‘The Good, The Bad & The Ugly’. The heavy bass and the rapping is what includes the modern aspect.

Title & Font Study

Title
When discussing potential names for our film, Josh and Ollie suggested we look up some old Western slang. We suggested a title about the characters actions in the film, which caused debate in the group, which then lead us to come up with the name ‘Raising Sand’. We chose this name as it means ‘Causing Trouble’ and it conveys some of the context that will be shown in our opening.

Font Study


We narrowed some choices of font styles down to four options. We then asked all males what their opinion on each font was and what one they liked the most out of the four. We asked males, as they are our target audience. Responses concluded that people preferred either Cheap Stealer or Promotion. However on personal taste and choice, among the group we chose Promotion.

Actor Contracts