New idea: department store

Today myself and my group attended the camera aesthetics drop-in session. This is something which Dan is most likely to want to take into consideration, given that he is Director of Photography, however it is also useful for myself and Abi to take into account.

We talked through the extra meanings that can be gleaned from editing two shots together, and the juxtaposition that this could create.

We were encouraged to think in more detail about the meanings we wish to construct within our shots and the symbolism behind the following filmic techniques:

• Proximity of camera to subject - Close or Far. Extreme Close-up, Close-up, Medium Shot, Long shot etc. 
• Camera Angles - High angle/Low Angle. 
• Framing - filming a scene through an object could work as a stylistic motif, for example. It also serves to represent the characters feelings/emotions. i.e portraying a woman through a window which has bars on it could suggest that she is feeling claustrophobic and trapped within her own life.
• Camera/Lens movement - i.e. a change in depth of field/rack-shift effect. Change of aperture/pulling focus = altering of depth and perspective.
• Shot Duration - how long do the audience need to see a certain action before it becomes irrelevant/boring.
• Point Of View Shot - This is normally deployed to placate the audience in the characters position, perhaps to encourage a sympathising nature, in which the audience experiences things as and when the character does and thus feels more emotionally involved with the character.
• Over the Shoulder Shot/Reverse Angle Shot/Shot-Reverse-Shot - This can be deployed in dialogue sequences especially, when a conversation is batting back and forth.
• 180 degree rule - This involves positioning subjects and objectives within a scene to replicate a realistic sense of space and environments. 
• Movements - Static/Pan/Tilt Shot/Pedestal (move up and down on a pedestal dolly), Crane shots, Zoom shots, Tracking shots. Also take into consideration the speed of the motion. i.e. Wide angles give the feeling of high speed.
• Rule of thirds - Placing the subjects/objects in aesthetically pleasing places, within the thirds of the screen/lens/image.
• Symmetry Balanced Framing - This refers to the visual, orderly repetition portrayed on screen. This can instigate the sense of order and stability within a film. 
• Asymmetrical Framing - This is the opposite of the bullet point above. It evokes tension and builds upon volatile situations.
• Image Tonality -  This refers to the brightness and contrast of an image. High Contrast = Limited range of grey tones. Low Contrast = Wide range of tones.

We must take all of these aspects into consideration when filming, and understand them in order to be able to break any of these conventions effectively.

We also looked at Aspect Ratio's (The Width x Height of an image)

They are as follows:

• 4:3 -> Shooting
• 16:9 -> Widescreen -> Shooting
• 1.85:1 -> Projection
• 2.39:1 -> Projection

We must make sure we film in the standard widescreen 16:9, 1080 setting.

This session was useful as it made us consciously think about the style that we wish to achieve from our piece, however as we are not certain about an idea as of yet, we could not start to plan any of these elements.

Therefore we used the other half of this lesson to discuss and develop ideas and. Dan and Abi did not believe that the "Photo Collecting" idea would be viable for a 15 minute short and so we have ruled it out. I feel that we could still use it as a contingency plan, should the other ideas go wrong.

We began by watching some short films on the BBC film network to see if anything from there would spark an idea in our minds. 



Abi said she had an idea about two people who are stuck in a department store for an elongated amount of time. She liked the idea of people being forced to be with each other, and how they would react in this situation. I like that the situation is ephemeral but a long enough situation for some sort of relationship dynamic to be created. We discussed the idea and the others thought that maybe the two characters could be drunk and sneak into one of the beds within the department store, and wake-up finding themselves locked in. We then thought that they could jokingly enact the life of a married couple in the department store settings, which would also provide us with the scope to include some intertextuality (which is something that Dan was very keen to do) i.e. we could turn one part into a sitcom and use canned laughter, when the dynamic of the relationship between the two people is happy but when they're arguing, the genre style could develop into a thriller, or horror or soap, and we could parody, or pastiche some archetypal features from these types of genres. 

I do have a number of reservations about this idea however. They are as follows:

• In terms of narrative, it may be hard to explain why the department store is open at the same time that these two people are drunk. Most people drink at night time, whereas department stores generally close in the early evening.
• There would also be security in these types of stores, and if we did not refer to this in the script, it could well appear unrealistic.
• If there are only two main characters and the film is dialogue heavy, as opposed to plot heavy, we will have to source some very good actors, who could be quite hard to find. I also worry that the relationship between a boy and girl could quite easily fall into the cheesy romance category, which wouldn't be very effective.
• There isn't really much of a story line as it stands, so the dialogue would have to be poignant and, again, is at risk of becoming cheesy, especially if the characters have "deep conversations" The characters would also have to be fully developed, and have to seem truly believable. 

We tried to think of anything else with a similar story line to give us further inspiration...

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNEkwcY7OI0

In 500 days of Summer the audiences expectations are undercut when a couple is portrayed in a typical domestic setting, but through the dialogue and the mise en scene, we realise that they are actually acting out stereotypical domestic situations, in a department store. We thought that this would be an interesting and humorous technique to include in our piece and imagined that we could play on the typical conventions of a romance drama, which often begin with a man waking up hungover, realising he's in bed with a woman and trying to make a hasty getaway without waking the woman up, however in our film, when the camera draws back, we want the audience to realise, at the same time as the character, that he is in a department store and is locked in.


I feel that when I next see my group we need to answer the following questions:

• Why is the department store open late?
• Why is there no security? Should we even make reference to this?
• Do the drunk man and woman know each other before this night? Do we want the audience to keep guessing for the first few minutes as to whether they know each other? Does it turn out that they are actually a couple at the end, and that everything they have been telling each other before hand is fabricated and some sort of role-play?
• Do we want to include flashbacks of their night, previous to them being locked in a department store?
• What are their personalities like? What are their interests? What do they look like? What is their relationship like with one another?
• What do they learn from one another?
• Do they go their separate ways after this night?
• Do they both comically role-play what their life would be like if they were together? i.e. domestic bliss or depressing.
• How will we be able to film in a department store? Will we have to build sets?

We randomly typed "people stuck in a department store" into Youtube to get some further ideas regarding narrative, and found this video.

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbqLdLpXONI

The piece begins with corny porn/muzak style music and the dialogue between the characters is stilted, unbelievable and cringe-worthy. However this is all explained following the twist, when we find out that the characters both know each other and appear to be a husband and wife trying to spice up their marriage with role-play, hence to why the dialogue is so unbelievable and the music so corny to begin with. This is an idea I had thought of previous to viewing this video and I think a narrative twist such as this could be something that we may like to consider in our piece. I think the cliched style of this short is something which we definitely want to avoid but it is helpful to us in terms of conflicts and twists within plots.

We told our idea to Adrian, our tutor, and the class, and some people seemed enthusiastic about it. Adrian did think the major issue would be regarding the settings/location and he feared we would not be able to execute this well enough if we do not get permission to film in a store. We discussed this as a group and decided to contact smaller, independent department stores, who are probably more likely to agree, but also Abi's father owns a bathroom store and knows other people in similar industries who may be more likely to let us film. As well as this we will not shy away from set building and hope to edit efficiently to make the piece appear fluid, consistent and as if it is all filmed in one location. 

We have been looking into independent department stores around the local area and have singled out a few which we may like to contact following the completion of our idea and 1st draft of our script. Obviously, we may have to alter some scene locations and so the script, when it is written, may need to be re-jigged at some points.

http://www.vokins.com/
http://www.homefromhomestore.co.uk/pages/About.html
http://www.davidsalmon.co.uk/instore
http://www.william-hill-interiors.co.uk/bedroom.php
http://www.bentleyandhall-hastings.co.uk/index
http://www.thorndalefurnishers.co.uk/?c1=Living


Another idea which may be more feasible, involves an estate agent who uses a show home as if it is her own home and invites people around. Perhaps old friends who she feels have done better than her in life, or someone who she is desperate to show off to, and not feel inferior to. Perhaps the film could be based around their dinner table conversation and she could pretend that the people in the photographs on the walls are her family. She could create many elaborate lies about herself and her "family", but at the end another estate agent could walk into the room, showing a family around the house and completely ruin her night of false pretences. We haven't thought about how it could end but it may be more realistic to achieve, given that it is based in one location. 

Dan, Abi and myself are going to meet up next week to watch a variety of films and clips; ones which have a particular style which we'd like to work from, or be similar to, as so far we've been mainly concentrating on narrative content rather than the overarching feel to the film, which is very important as it could inspire the narrative and dialogue within the script.