Evaluation 1 - Camera Shots

Our first shot was an establishing shot. We chose to use this shot first so that we could introduce the setting of our film. This is crucial in the opening of a film because it makes the film more relatable to the audience. We chose to set our film in Guildford because we wanted somewhere close that inhabited a lot of people. We wanted the film to have lots of people in because it would reiterate the fact that the girl was completely alone in a place where there is so many people. Choosing to film in Guildford was a good choice because as usual there were a lot of people around and it really added to the atmosphere we wanted to create. One downfall of the setting is the time we actually filmed. Initially we wanted to film it nearer Christmas so that we could capture that atmosphere and make the girl seem even more alone because Christmas is such a magical time, but we were unable to do this as we were all busy. That left us to film it in January, which meant that the Christmas lights were down and the joyous atmosphere was no longer around. We tried to get shots of all the Christmas lights we saw, so that we could try to capture the atmosphere but i think if we had filmed it nearer Christmas it would have made the overall meaning and message of our film a lot stronger. Many drama films are set in busy towns. They are usually set in these sort of town to make a character seem lost and alone. The big city makes them seem like a little fish in a big pond and that adds to the drama. This is exactly what we tried to do in our film.

We wanted to follow the typical conventions of drama films when concerning our title. In most drama films, the title is very simply shown in the opening. Our inspiration behind the font was through the drama film 'The Holiday'. In this film, the monologue stops and the title is shown in the corner of the screen. We thought this was really effective so we tried it out ourselves and it really worked. The font is quite simple and it normally fades in and out in the corner of the screen. We decided to follow conventions and have our title in the bottom left corner of the screen. We wanted a black background so that the title would stand out as it is quite small. We think this title is very effective because although it is simple, we think it really portrays the dramatic message we want it to. We chose a font called Papyrus. This font was quite fancy but simple at the same time. It really worked well with the genre of our film and the storyline. The font has a lot of holes in the colour, which is sort of like the girls life. She has a hole where her parents should be and she needs to fill it. This link confirmed our choice of this font. The colour we chose for our title was a like brown colour. There wasn't really any deep meaning behind the colour we just thought it fitted well with the story. We think the font really fits well with the genre of the film and although it is simple, we think it is really effective.

In all films (not just drama films) characters have props and costumes. It is something that you use in order to make the film more relatable to real life. Costumes are necessary for the character to be relatable to a specific class, race or religion etc. For example in a film like The Great Gatsby, the costumes are very period and they link to what people actually wore in those days. Because our character was pretty much homeless, we needed her to look homeless in order for it to be believable. We decided to make her wear really baggy, tatty clothes, this way she would conform to the stereotype of a homeless person. As she is homeless she would need to make it believable so Lauren as an actress really committed to the role, for example she would shiver and be really jumpy and defencive. This really worked well with the character she was playing. We gave her a sleeping bag to carry around with her. This conforms to the stereotype of a homeless person because they always seem to have blankets and lots of layers on. The sleeping bag only made it more believable that she was homeless. The coffee was a major prop that we needed. We wanted her to seem cold, which would make the audience sympathise with her. We decided to make her hold a hot coffee to see how much she needed it more to be warmed up than to actually drink it. I think the props we used really made the fact that she is homeless, more believable and relatable.

In action films, the shots are really fast paced and edited with lots of fades and quick cuts. That wasn't really an option when filming a drama film as they are quite slow paced and simple shots. In films like 'Forest Gump' the shots are very continuous with lots of camera movement. We wanted to include that in our film so lots of our shots were filmed with the camera on a tripod and we would move the camera as the girl was walking. This made the scenes quite continuous and we think it made them flow quite nicely. We wanted our film to match up with the pace of our monologue so a lot of our editing was based around that. We would cut certain bits out and make them fit. A lot of our shots were filmed when it was a bit darker, as the sun was going down when we were filming, this made one shot seem really light and another quite dark, which really didn't fit. To fix this we made the shots that seemed dark, brighter, making it fit together well. One of our shots was the main character walking up a high street. In this shot, we followed in front of her with the camera, capturing all of her emotions and movement. We think this was one of our most effective shots because you can really see her emotions and her expressions. We added a lot of fades which made the film really flow and join together which was really effective in our opinion. Overall i think that we used all the shots we could use in order for it to conform to the stereotypes of a drama film. 

"A drama film is a film genre that depends mostly on in-depth development of realistic characters dealing with emotional themes. Dramatic themes such as alcoholism, drug addiction, infidelity, moral dilemmas, racial prejudice, religious intolerance, sexuality, poverty, class divisions, violence against women and corruption put the characters in conflict with themselves, others, society and even natural phenomena. At the center of a drama is usually a character or characters who are in conflict at a crucial moment in their lives."

This definition is what we mainly thought about during the whole process of our film. We wanted to make our character have some sort of problem to have to get over. We wanted her to be damaged because that is what makes a drama film dramatic and emotional. As we only have one character in the opening of our film, we had to make sure it was still interesting to the audience because they only have one person to try and relate to. Because she was homeless we wanted her to really seem hurt and lonely. This is why we tried to introduce her in quite a lonely situation. On the train she is seen holding a sleeping bag, this really lets the audience know straight away that she must be sleeping somewhere that isn't home. Throughout the whole opening she is seen on her own, not talking to anyone or interacting at all. This makes the audience feel bad for her which is what we wanted because that way we know that she is relatable and liked. We needed her to be relatable to all kinds of people as she is the only character so we really tried to capture her at her worst to show people that everyone goes through hard times, and she is no exception.

The opening doesn't really have any action to it, this is because  the drama isn't always right at the start of the film, it builds up. We wanted to give our character a back story before entering into the drama and real emotion, this is why we wanted to include a monologue so that the audience could hear the characters point of view of her situation. I think the monologue is what really makes it clear that our film is a drama film, because the emotion and almost heartbreak in the characters voice is what really lets the audience know. I think that the actresses facial expressions throughout also gave it away. She was very dismissive and kept herself to herself which is what you would expect a depressed person to do. We didn't give our main character a name because we wanted this to be part of her journey. At the start of the opening she says "I'd tell you my name, but whats the point when it doesn't mean anything" This sort of ignorance gave us something to lead up to and create a climax for the characters journey. If we were making the full film, at the end we would have a scene in which she tells someone who she has grown to trust, what her name is. This would show that she has moved past her anger and sadness onto something better. Overall i think we made sure that the audience knew our film was in the drama genre from start to finish.

Our storyline entails a newly homeless teenager on a journey to find her biological parents. The opening of our film starts at the beginning of that journey. She is finding somewhere to sleep for the night, walking through a busy town. We wanted to really prolong that journey to make it seem longer, making the audience feel sorry for her. The storyline of our opening suggests that she is homeless and walking through the town alone at night, which is correct. This really sets our story up for the main characters emotional journey. The story is sort of a coming of age drama, because she will go on a journey throughout the film which will end up in her becoming a lot more mature and understanding of other people. She starts off a being an angry, sad and immature girl, but the film is about her going through that and coming out the other side of it a better person. She will become a more forgiving and understanding human being, because when you are young it is easy to think that everything bad that the people you care about around you do, is specifically to hurt you. But throughout her journey she realises that maybe those bad things that were thrown at her, were really protecting her from something alot more dangerous. I think the story really shows that our film is in the drama genre because it is emotional and complicated.