IDENT IDEAS

SETTING IDEAS - WALKING HOME SEQUENCE

For the same reasons as stated in the 'exiting the club' sequence setting, I knew I would have to find locations in and around Wandsworth. 
For the first part of the walk homewards, I felt it would be best to use the actual road on which the 'club' they had came from was, mostly because it made shooting slightly easier and since we were going for the more 'grungey' look instead of high end Chelsea clubs, I thought the fact that it was a semi-residential road wouldn't really matter.
The final scene, revolves around an alleyway within which one of our main protagonists is captured. For this we obviously needed a pathway that was:

• well lit
• long enough in length for other girls to exit and Helena still be left on the phone
• not in a dangerous area (carrying around v.expensive equipment)
• average-looking, nothing glamourous, just a run of the mill cobbled alleyway
• and of course, in an area which was relatively easy to get to

I subsequently did a recce in in which I narrowed my choices down to 3 alleyways in my area, and with the help of Blake and Emma we decided on one which was very close to Wandsworth Common overground station. On the map pictured, it shows the alleyway jutting off from Balham Park High Rd. We chose this particular alleyway because it was very well lit, was sufficient in length and due to the train station being so near, made it easy for us all to get to. I have included a picture I took which shows the high walls (creating an imposing feel to the scene we will subsequently shoot), good lighting (from the two lamp-posts), and perfect length.

PROTAGONIST PROFILE

From just our opening, the character roles are relatively ambiguous.

The main character present within these two minutes is:

• Unnamed girl at beach with whom the film opens - played by Anna Schofield

I think the main influence for this particular character, our main protagonist, would be Effy from Skins, played by Kaya Scodelario.

From the opening, the viewer understands this female as someone who was friends with the victim of the kidnapping. We wanted her to seem:

--> dishevelled, an outcome from the 'night before' which we would subsequently cut to

--> dressed as if she were on a night out

--> heavy eye makeup, as is common for characters like Effy

--> we would have wanted the character to smoke but we didn't feel right our actress to as a non smoker

CHARACTER INSPIRATION

I had three main influences in terms of character creation. As we were going for a more urban/grimy/London tone of film I had to choose accordingly, including:

• CHERRYBOMB, described by IMDB as a film where 'Three teens have a wild weekend of drinking, drugs, and stealing that quickly spins out of control.' Because this is one of my favourite films, I have been heavily influenced by it. Released in 2009, it is a grimy drama that centres around two boys (Malachy played by Rupert Grint and Luke by Robert Sheenan) attempting to win the same girl's affections by outdoing eachother on a wild ride of sex, drugs, vandalism, shoplifting and fighting.

• GLUE - T.V. SERIES, a new E4 drama described by radio times as 'Skins meets Broadchurch'. I think the main reason this was such an inspiration was because of the series' plot - a murder mystery. Although it is set in the countryside it includes many of the themes of young urban life, parties, drinking, drugs and amicability - which is especially portrayed within the first five minutes of episode 1 - pictured.

• SKINS, a British T.V drama that started in 2007, following the lives of a group of teenagers living in Bristol as they battle controversial story lines like dysfunctional families, mental illness, adolescent sexuality, drug abuse, death and bullying. I think Skins relates to what we are trying to produce in our opening, especially in the second series which features Kaya Scodelario. The grimy, darker quality of the programme as well as it being set in an urban environment.

DANCE SCENE MUSIC

Knowing we wanted a deep house track for our dance scene, we were influenced by many songs including:

We felt this song was

This is another darker house beat we thought would go well with the 'sense of foreboding' we wanted to achieve in our scene.



Here is a dance beat from the different genre of music - drum and bass.

ANIMATIC

This is the animatic I have made of the 'STROBE' storyboard. Using iMovie, I made use of the Ken Burns effect in slowly panning and zooming out of certain shots. I think it works really well in showing the main frame of the opening, incorporating all the key shots.

STORYBOARD

Here is the storyboard I have drawn out. Only the shots for the beach scene were actually drawn prior to filming, as we thought it would be nearing on impossible to draw all the .05 of a second long shots within the club scene. So, for the latter and the walking home sequence I have picked out the key shots and drawn them in the way that we wanted them to be portrayed.