Heathrow Filming

On Thursday last week we completed our trip to Heathrow Airport. We jumped on the Piccadilly line for an hour and a half and luckily we all had work to get on with; Rachel's attempt at writing an essay on her phone was interesting! Once there, we had no idea what was in store for us, so our best option was to sit down, have a cup of tea and gather our thoughts. As we were at the third busiest airport in the world, we knew we could not spend ages there and we had to be as discrete as possible. We all grabbed some form of videoing device and surprisingly we filmed most of the footage on iPhone's which was actually very good quality.

Lucy, Rachel and I each filmed Anna from different directions so when we merge the footage it should all flow. We have an idea of rapidly showing a variety of angles of Anna walking through Arrivals in our film which connects with our genre of Action as it will be very fast and lively.  As well as the shots coming out of Arrivals we also have some footage of the toilets and her starting her transformation in to the spy. Our footage of the toilets was a really good starting point as we knew the shots we wanted, but we were all very aware of the time we were spending in the toilets and completely forgot that we had to keep redoing the shots from different angles. We now have started filming from our school toilets which in fact look very much like airport toilets and we have the time to ensure we get the correct angles. All in all our time at Heathrow was memorable, we got the footage needed, relaxed and had some tea, and we even managed to ask a member of staff to take a picture of us with the Christmas tree. Success!

Tube Vlog

We have finally started filming! Today we went to our most dreaded location, Heathrow Airport. Overall, I think we got the shots we were looking for and hopefully this means we will not have to return for more footage. Me and Anna did a quick Vlog before, explaining the plan for the day.

Costume

As the character is going to be transforming from an almost innocent student into an intense female spy, there is going to be a change of costume. Our idea is that the character should wear very casual clothes to begin with, and throughout the opening you can see her stripping away this student character into her true identity as this powerful spy. I very much doubt Anna will let us anywhere near her hair, but this image from Salt shows the true change of identity from one character into another.



Our transition will not be so drastic, but we plan to have a change from the casual clothes into more striking 'spy' clothes, her hair tied back and darker make-up all of which will show a more mature character. These images show a similar idea of the transition we wish to have.

Preparing for Heathrow

Instead of us going to Heathrow Airport next week we have decided to go tomorrow after school. We have researched international arrivals to insure we are going to the right place for a start but we can also incorporate this into our film as we want it to look as if the character has just arrved home from an exotic location. We are all quite terrified to be going to Heathrow, as we are sure one of us will be tackled to the floor by security, but the filming we get tomorrow should look really effective with the footage we already have of a journey on a plane.

 

Inspiration

We are using Mr and Mrs Smith and Salt as inspiration for our opening as both are based upon spies and their missions.

We had a clip of 'Mrs Smith' walking into her work place but we were unable to get it onto our blogs so here is the trailer which shows the action packed film.




This is the action packed trailer for Salt which relates to our genre and it is also similar to our theme with a strong female protagonist.

Change of idea

So we have changed our idea... again. We have all been really indecisive about our idea but for now, I think we can say we have our FINAL concept. We have now changed from a psychological thriller to the genre of action. The concept is going to include all the locations in Central London we had already agreed on but instead of having the girl running in London it is going to be her transition from a student into a spy.

Pitch

In Fridays lesson we pitched our idea and I think we expressed our concept quite well. We were all certain and very positive of our idea so it seemed easy for us to explain it. We have agreed on all our locations and the variety of shots going to be used. We have organised most of our concept but there are few things that need to be finalised.

We were going to finish the opening with a panning out shot with the back of the psychiatrists head and the protagonist in a wheelchair. We thought this would give it the shock factor and it would also represent disability in our film. But Miss Foster pointed out that it would look too much like an ending to a 2 minute film, rather than the opening 2 minutes to a film, and sorry Lucy; who was extremely adamant to use the chair, I do agree, as the wheelchair would reveal too much.

We may end with a panning out shot of the protagonist seated, and then fade it to black before the chair is seen. We also have the alternative of the character lying down on a psychiatrist sofa and panning out of a close up of their face to make it look as if they have just woken up from a dream or coming out of the flash back into the present time. We are not completely sure of our finishing but we hopefully soon will have an idea, or we may just see what looks best when filming!

Storyboarding

In today's lesson we decided to do a rough storyboard (apologies for my very poor art skills) just to outline and give us some ideas on how we can organise ourselves for filming.These basic drawings are going to be expanded and in much more detail which can then help us when we start filming our openings.

Concept Vlog

We made a vlog about some of our ideas and also possible locations and shots. I think we were all quite shocked with how quickly we came up with our concept and also how we all loved and agreed on an idea.

Concept

Today we had a really successful group meeting and came up with a general concept. We discussed the possible location of our opening, the genre of our film, the various shots needed and also an idea of who we are casting. We are all very keen to take advantage of where we live and central London seems to be a perfect setting, which will add to our concept and there are numerous shots we can get using the scenery. With what we have come up with so far, the genre of our film is seemingly going to be a Psychological Thriller as it is going to include some sort of mental health issue or disability. We think we are going to cast someone within our group so it shall be interesting to see who is in front of and behind the camera! Here are some of our ideas that we got today