Storyboard

This is our storyboard for our film along with a commentary about the shots. 

Titles task

For this task we had to watch a few short clips about the history and origin of 'titles' to see how they have evolved and developed over the years. Then we had to compare their titles to ours. 
This is the titles of Paranorman. They all lasted around 3 seconds. 

Conventions of Teen Drama Film Openings

A typical convention of a teen genre would be: 

Themes

• a romance between a girl and boy best friend 
• cliques (cliques are staple to any teen drama)
• out caster
• 'hating life'
• peer pressure

Characters

• nerds
• cheerleaders 
• jocks

Settings

• high school
• the houses of the characters  
• the mall 
• sometimes universities 

The typical conventions for a teen drama are shown above and they feature as a big part of any film. A genre convention for teen drama is usually an over dramatized teen issue such as boys or looks. The titles usually appear in a creative and girly style like being written out in lipstick. They also contain a voice over of the character speaking about his/her life. We have included a voice over in our film opening to convey the genre clearly to the audience. We also styled our titles to appear in a creative way. The setting usually follows the main character involved and you get to know them and their importance within the film. In our film opening we follow the girl on her journey on the train. 

Script Changes

When we recieved our feedback from our peers on our film opening it became apparent that the majority thought our voice over was too short and came too early on that if you were late to see the start of the film you would miss it and wouldn't understand the rest of the film. It was an important piece of dialogue and so it needed to be heard. We moved it back to when she gets onto the train as it still presents the same mood. 

We added more to the script as our peers said it was too short, therefore we added the amount of dialogue into our voice so that it also explained where the girl was going as many asked "why was she on a train?" so within the voiceover it explained where she was coming back from to help with the understanding of her journey. 

Originally the script was - '"The doctor said brain activity should be maintained, he said looking at old pictures and going through my everyday routine would help"

The improved speech is now - "I'm on my way back from the neurology unit at the specialist hospital in London. There was only a single thought running through my head that afternoon. The doctors that brain activity should be maintained. He said that looking through old pictures and going through my everyday routine would help. This was my first therapy to help with the retrieval of my memory and i was determined to make it work'

Final Draft

This is our final draft. Our film is called Amnesia.

Music Feedback

We got a lot of feedback on our music in our opening sequence. 

• The first piece of feedback we got was that the music we had was too much of a famous song even though it was a cover. So if the artist found it he could claim copyright and we would have to remove our entire film therefore we decided to change the music. We found this difficult as every song we found was either too famous even though it was a cover. Then we found that the songs we were finding were too slow and didn't fit the pace of our film. The songs were love songs and didn't fit the genre of our film as it is a teen drama.
• The second piece of feedback we got was that the music we decided on for the opening scene of our film, the xx intro, didn't suit the theme of our film as we wanted to portray a theme of teen drama whereas they said the music made it feel more like a thriller and as though someone was watching the girl or following her. In order to improve on this we changed it to Let Her Go by Passenger instrumental but then we were told that this too was a famous song and we shouldn't use it. 

Titles Feedback

Here are a list of titles that will feature in our film in order of appearance. Some of the feedback we were given was that we didn't have enough titles throughout the start of our film so we added a few more to the original ones we had. Our feedback also said that the titles had to appear for a minimum of 3 seconds and that some of our titles weren't on screen for that length of time so we made them longer. 

Below is a full list of titles that will feature in our film opening. 

1. Libby Collins 
2. Runner Productions 
3. Frankie Edwards 
4. Katie Harragan
5. Title of film  (Amnesia)
6. Directed by Simon Hull
7. Edited by Julie Walker
8. Executive Producer Andrew Lavin 
9. Sound Effects by Debbie Ellis 

Titles we added: 

1. Music by Philip Round 
2. Casting by Jacob Odd
3. Production designer Melanie Smith 
4. Costume designer Leanne Clark 
5. Photography by Robert Cole 

More Feedback

We got some extra feedback from our teachers and peers after asking them to watch out film after making a few amendments. These were there comments for more improvement: 

• We need to look at pur titles research and pit the titles in the right order
• They need to be 2-3 seconds each
• Part of the voice over doesn't make sense so we will delete the part saying she want to 'achieving my memories'
• More photographic effects- freeze frames before they play
• Sort music out- they change to quickly so it doesn't make sense 
• Bowling alley and ice hockey shots are too long so we need to delete a few seconds off each

Once we changed and improved our film by adding these we were ready to hand in our final draft of Amnesia. 

Feedback

A variety of people watched our film and then gave it a mark and told us their opinion about it. 

Overall we received a mid range mark of between 35-42 for our first draft and we were aware that there were a few things that we already wanted to change. 

Refelction

Throughout the process of putting our film together we have made many changes of which we have written about. There were many reasons for this as they all differed. 

• We had a lot of trouble trying to get the 'look' of the titles correct. Originally we wanted them to be written into the scrapbook but the timings weren't working and the style of handwriting we couldn't agree on. Then we decided we would have the titles to appear letter by letter with 3D foam letters but then we couldn't make that idea work properly without it looking messy and we were pushed for time as we needed the scrapbook when filming. 
• We also had to change the script as we realised there wasn't enough dialogue within the film and that was also one of our feedback points. We changed the script to lengthen the voice over but also to clear up any confusion as to where the girl was coming from/going to. 
• We also found that we had to add in more memories to the flashback as we had more time to fill than we had anticipated. We planned to only have two or three memories but then we had to add more into it as we had time left over. However, this wasn't an issue because we had shot enough footage in Southend to make up for the time we had to fill in. 

Draft Feedback

On December 5th we handed in our first draft. We were given some feedback on how we could improve our film to make it better. When we handed it in we knew we were short of footage by about 30 seconds and so this was our first point we needed to improve on for the final draft in a weeks time. Here was our feedback:

• Our voice over was too early in the film so if you were to miss the first 10 seconds of the film the theme wouldn't be as clear. Also the speech "brain activity" wasn't very clear and was read to quickly. In order to improve on both of these points we will look at changing the placement of the voice over in the chronological order of the film. We will also re-record the voice over to slow down the speech and clearly pronounce all the words. 
• There was a wobbly shot. Our tracking shot that we filmed at the train station was wobbly which looked unprofessional. In order to change this we will experiment on Premier to try and stabilise the shot.  
• Too many flashes to black. After the first few shots flashed to black it lost its effectiveness and started to make it annoying, they also lasted to long, as the original idea was for it to look like a blink. In order to improve this we will experiment on Premier using different video effect and transitions to keep our audience interested.
• Slow down the shot where Libby is looking at the scrapbook as the scrapbook is supposed to be an important prop within the film. We can improve this by editing the shot on Premier and slowing down the speed/duration to make it last longer. 
• The shot which has the teacups in is too dark and a different contrast of black and white compared to the other black and white shots. In order to improve this we will make sure that all of our black and white shots have to same brightness.
• One of the titles is missing from a shot so we will need to add that back on and check that all the other titles are included and correct.
• The title of our film comes in too late and needs to feature earlier as only trailers show the title at the end of the clip. To improve this we will play around with where we could have the title come in but making sure it doesn't give away the concept of the film.  
• They liked the first shot of the lift.
• They thought that the titles that are pushed by the train work well and show good use of editing. 

Amnesia 1st Draft

This is our first draft of our opening scene "Amnesia".

Shot List

Here is a list of our shot in the order they appear:

-The first shot is a level shot of Libby standing looking out the window of the lift.
-The next shot is a low shot of Libby walking up the stairs in the train station, we shot it from the top of the stairs.
-The next shot is a level shot of Libby walking through the barriers at the train station.
-Next is a static level shot of the train pulling in to the station.
-The next shot is a close up shot of the train moving past the camera.
-The next shot is a static shot of Libby walking onto the train from the platform.
-Next is a tracking shot of Libby walking through the train to find a seat.
-Another tracking shot but this time the camera is close up to Libby as she sits down.
-The camera pans around Libby as she looks at her scrapbook.
-The next shot is from over Libby's shoulder as she looks through her scrapbook, at the end of the shot it zooms into the scrapbook before zooming out into the next shot.
-The next 2 shots are both of the scrapbook, they fade into one another as the pages turn.
-Next it zooms into the middle picture on the right side of the scrapbook.
-It then dissolves into the first memories which starts as a still shot of Libby and Katie before paying round them.
-The next shot is from Libby's point of view as she walks through the arcade so it is close up.
-For the next shot we used the tripod to film a high shot of Libby bowling.
-The next shot is a long shot of Libby sitting looking out the window of the train
-The following shot is an extreme long shot of Libby and Katie walking down the pier.
-The next shot is an establishing shot that pans across the sea front.
-The next shot is of Libby and me playing air hockey.
-It then changes to a close up of the air hockey as if it were from Libby's point of view.
-Another establishing shot but this time of Adventure Island.
-The final shot is a static shot of Libby standing infront of the sunset.

Things that went well

From our first draft there were a list of things that we were told which went well: 

- The footage is Southend fits well with our genre and looks good.
-The idea of the film is original and creative

- Putting some of the effects to go with the music was good

- People thought the final shot in front of the sunset was good.
-The parts that fit with the beat of the music work well.
-We included various camera shots.
-People likes the production logo
-The titles that are pushed by the train look good.
-We had many comments saying the editing was good.
-Most of our shots were steady.

Production diary

10th November: This was the first day we sat together as our group to discuss film ideas for our potential opening sequence. We pitched each of our ideas to each other to see which we thought was best and we came up with 2 or 3 ideas although they were fairly similar. The first we came up with was an idea about a girls holiday where you could film the opening sequence as them getting ready in the morning whilst including the titles into that, however it didn't really have a plot to develop so the rest of the film wouldn't be interesting. The second was a pregnancy theme, the girl discovers she is pregnant whilst in an abusive relationship. You don't discover until the end that she is pregnant but she shows signs and symptoms throughout, although we didn't go with this idea as we thought it was done too often. The third idea that we did come up with was a girl with amnesia who is on a journey as she looks through her scrapbook of memories. We eventually chose this idea because we felt it had the best story line and we could develop it the most. We also talked about the different locations we could use to film our opening scene. 

11th November: We put all of our ideas for the film onto a power point so that we could present our film pitch to the class. We each typed a slide so that it was a joint effort. 

12th November: Frankie wasn't here today so Katie and I decided on the character names for the titles and for the characters in our film. These were, Libby - Daisy Blackman, Katie - Eliza Thomas, Frankie - Naomi Waters. Then we researched some similar films to ours such as Memento, which features a man who creates a strange system to help him remember things; so he can hunt for the murderer of his wife without his short-term memory loss being an obstacle and the Notebook, which is set as an elderly gentlemen telling a lady a story from their past in which, a poor and passionate young man falls in love with a rich young woman and gives her a sense of freedom. They soon are separated by their social differences, as they follow similar memory loss story lines to ours. We time lined the titles of the Notebook, the last passenger, Memento and 50 first dates. 

13th November: Today we found an art book that we could use for our scrapbook so we covered the front page in butterfly wrapping paper so that you couldn't see the writing on the front. Then we thought of some designs we could put into the book and where we could fit the titles into our opening scene. Today, we finalised who we wanted to produce and distribute our film, we decided Runner Productions would produce our film and New Line Cinema would distribute it. 

17th November:  In this meeting we decided on the task we were each going to complete separately and the ones we should do as a group. I started to plan out the storyboard roughly as we were still unsure on how we would work all the shots. Frankie wrote the script for the voice over that daisy will recite at some point during the film and Katie wrote a list of props. 

18th November: We continued to progress with our designated tasks in today's meeting. I carried on planning the storyboard, adding to it and changing certain bits so that they fitted to the genre. Frankie created the shooting schedule which gave us a plan of what we wanted to film, when we wanted to film and where we wanted to film. Katie started to research cover tracks of songs we could use as background music for our opening sequence. 

19th Novemeber: Today, I started to research into the font for our titles. I researched which fonts would be suitable for the genre and themes of our film and wrote why they would be appropriate. Katie continued with some research into music for our film. Frankie started the mood board in which she screenshot evidence from other films of our inspiration. Throughout this week we keep changing our minds as we're coming up with more or different ideas as to how the film can continue. 

20th November: In our meeting today, we all continued on previous tasks we had started. I continued to research font titles and researched the fonts of titles from similar films to ours and Frankie continued to develop the mood board. Today we also started to practice and trial out how we wanted the titles to appear and how we could work them into the scrapbook. It proved to be quite challenging as each time, something wasn't quite right. 

24th November: Today, we began to film our titles which I was going to write letter by letter so that we could film it individually and edit them later using premiere, however when we tried to do this we found it difficult as the camera angles weren't exactly the same so the shot was moving around meaning the titles didn't stay in the same place. So then we decided to film me writing the whole word out and speed it up later by editing it on premiere however we weren't impressed by the titles as we thought the styles weren't as stylish as we thought they would look. Frankie told us her mum had smart handwriting and that she would be happy to write out the titles for us, so Frankie took the camera home to film. 

25th November: Frankie showed us the footage she got of the titles her mum had written out and we all agreed that we liked them. Once we tried to edit them to make them look more aesthetically pleasing we realised it wasn't working and you could see there was nothing on the page overleaf. So we thought it would be a good idea to shoot the titles again with a series of pictures portraying a memory on one page of the double spread and then the titles spelt out in foam letters on the other side.

26th November: Last night, I took the scrapbook home and began to decorate a few pages of memories to make the scrapbook look personal. Then when we met at school, Katie and Frankie decorated more pages. Whilst they did this, I started doing some audience research for our film. We got some feedback from our teacher and some other peers within the class and the general feedback was that the genre wasn't clear and it was a little confusing as to how you would tell the memories apart from the present day. So we re-evaluated the storyboard and the genre of what the film had now become due to the music we had chosen.

27th November: Today we finished the scrapbook and decided all of our shots that we need to shot whilst on the train, at the train station and in Southend. Katie began to rewrite the storyboard out in neat and Frankie began the marketing campaign. 

28th November: We completed a risk assessment for the day we planned to shoot and made sure we had everything ready for Saturday so we could film. We also recorded the voice over, so that we were able to edit that into the film once we had all of our footage. We finalised the storyboard and shot list so that we were clear on everything we needed to shoot. 

29th November: Today we filmed. We were faced with a dilemma once we got to southend as our main idea that the film was based around had to be ruled out as the theme park was closed so we were unable to get our roller-coaster shot. Instead we tried to get some other footage so that our film didn't finish short of 2 minutes. 

1st December: After filming on Saturday we sat down and got all of our footage onto the computer so that we were ready to edit. We began to edit a few of the first clips in this meeting and added the music that we had originally chosen, and we put some video effects into the footage, whilst also adding the titles on via Premiere as the written titles didn't go to plan. 

2nd December: Today we continued to edit together. We experimented trying different effects and transitions to make the opening sequence more interesting and also decided on where we could edit in the numerous titles we needed to include. 

5th December: Today was the deadline for our 1st draft. Before we handed our film over we tried to add some more footage into our film as we were around 30 seconds short of 2 minutes as we had a vital shot that we weren't able to include although we will have it filmed for our final piece. We also changed a few bits around and changed the speed of one or two shots. Our teacher gave us some feedback that we are able to improve on for our next deadline. 

Music Changes

When we received our feedback for the choice of music, many commented that the pace and theme of the music didn't suit our genre or theme therefore we changed the track a few times to see which fit well and worked with the pace and themes of our film. We researched a few different tracks with different paces, some with lyrics and some without and then made our decision. 

Frankie suggested this piece of music as it had a heavy beat behind it which automatically builds suspense within the film giving it the desired effect we wanted although we were unable to use this piece as it was too well known. 

We looked at another track which was similar to our first choice although it's an instrumental cover of John Legends song 'Made To Love'. We thought this track might fit our film better as it was had  change of beat through out the track, which is what we originally wanted for the start of the film.



The track we decided to use was a song that none of us had heard before but Frankie found it when searching through YouTube and we thought it would suit our film. 

Recce Shots

Here are some of our recce shots that Frankie took. This enabled us to see the different places within the locations that we could film in. 

This was the first shot that she took of the train station. We thought this was appropriate for the location of our first few shots in our film. We filmed going throught the barriers, on the platform and getting onto the train. 

This was the second recce shot she took. We used a train as a location as the representation of the film relied heavily on the train moving. We filmed quite a bit of our footage on the train. 

This was the third recce shot she took. We chose to use this location as a memory as it featured the sun setting which was a shot we wanted for one of the memories. 

This was the fourth shot she took. We filmed in some of the areas that you can see from this viewing platform. 

This was the fifth shot she took. This was the viewing platform and and the lift in which we filmed. It was an appropriate location as the lift was glass so you were able to see out when we filmed in it. 

This was the sixth recce shot she took. This was the arcade in which we shot a lot of our footage in. This was also an important location as this was where one of the memories took place. 

Font Research

For this I had to chose a variety of fonts that would be suitable for our film title 'amnesia'. I researched similar film titles to see the style of their fonts so that we could base ours on a similar style to suit our genre. 

In the end we actually chose a different font altogether as we thought that the font we chose looked like it was typed like a doctors style. It was simplistic yet still conveyed the complex tone of our film and they don't distract you. This was the font we chose. 

Titles Timeline

Filming

Today we went to Southend (via the train) to shoot our film footage, we went to various different locations to get the footage we desired. By the end of the day we had all the footage we wanted to get at Southend. 

We started filming at Chelmsford Train Station where Katie and Frankie filmed me walking through the barriers from behind, walking up the stairs from above and walking along the platform from across. They then shot me walking onto a train from behind, we tried to make sure shots like these were good as we didn't have many opportunities to re-shoot. We had already accounted for train timings so that we weren't waiting around and were able to make the most of the time we had to shoot at the train station. We watched most of the footage we got at the train station to make sure if we needed to re-shoot it we used our time wisely and where possible in the same places. 

We got on a train to Chelmsford and Katie and Frankie alternatively filmed me whilst I walked through the train to find a seat. This shot also took a few takes as we hadn't thought about the stability of the train and we fell a few times whilst trying to film. We also got the other shots we needed which included, looking at the scrapbook and looking out the Window. 

We had a bit of spare time when we were waiting for the train from Shenfield to Southend so we re-shot the footage where I walked onto the train as when we watched the footage back we saw that someone was staring straight into the camera. We found this quite common throughout the day that people kept staring at the camera when we tried to film but I think we got enough shots without people doing that.  

When we reached Southend we went straight to the seafront as that was where we wanted to shoot the majority of our footage. Straight away we ran into a problem as we discovered Adventure Island wasn't open and we were hoping to shoot some of our footage there so we discussed quickly as to where else we could get some footage so that we wouldn't fall short of 2 minutes when we edited. 

We shot quite a large part of the footage in an arcade where Katie and I featured on an car racing game and Frankie and I had a game of air hockey. It was really busy in there so we tried to go the quieter corners of the arcade so that we didn't get others in the shot.

Then we went to the seafront and got some shots of Katie and I walking down the pier and Frankie filmed a panning shot of the seafront and she got the sunset into it as we filmed at the right time of the sun setting which was in front of me as I looked forward towards it. We also shot the sun setting from the lift at the top of the hill which over looked the sea front. This concluded the footage we wanted to get from that day. Over all it went really well and we got most of the footage we wanted and we were happy with the quality of it. 

Amnesia Representations

Characters: 

• Daisy - Daisy is the main character to star in our film. She represents a teenage girl who suffers from amnesia, which isn't a generic character representation. She is portrayed to the audience as a surprisingly mature young girl and not the stereotypical girly girl. She isn't physically representing a mental illness yet she copes with her underlying problems that she has. To most she would be a character of sympathy and we think she will be viewed as a sympathy character. 
• Eliza & Naomi - These girls are Daisy's best friends and they would been seen as her biggest supporters and always catching her when she falls. They share many memories together and stereotypically are there for each other through thick and thin and help her when she needs it most. They represent Daisy's escape in life, they distract Daisy and the audience from other events in the film. They help to show up Daisy's imperfections and represent normal, young, healthy girls. 

Places:

• The location we plan to use as the biggest representation is the train. We are using it to represent that life carries on no matter what you are having to deal with, it shows that everything around Daisy and her life will move on whether she joins it or not.
• The memories are in a variety of locations, they all represent her past that is fading from her memory as struggles to keep it alive.

Risk Assessment

This is our risk assessment that Frankie completed in order for us to be ready to film on Saturday. 

Institutions Research

We chose New Line Cinema to produce and distribute our film. We did some research into their company so that we were able to see the films they have produced and distributed in the past. 

New Line Cinema was originally founded in 1967. Building on more than four decades of innovation and creativity, New Line Cinema continues its long and successful history of producing critically acclaimed hit films that resonate with both mainstream and niche audiences around the world.

New Line produced the Oscar Award-winning The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, which generated a combined worldwide box office of almost $3 billion (and an additional $3 billion in consumer products and home entertainment revenue). The studio is also credited with revitalizing the genre of the R-rated comedy, based on the success of Wedding Crashers in 2005 and, more recently, Horrible Bosses in 2011. New Line is one of the few film companies that still works in the horror genre, being widely known for the iconic A Nightmare on Elm Street and Final Destination franchises. 

New Line became a unit of Warner Bros. Entertainment in March 2008. The company maintains separate development, production, marketing, distribution and business affairs operations, but coordinates those functions with Warner Bros. to maximize film performance and operating efficiencies. 

Shooting Schedule

This is our shooting schedule of when, where and what we intend to film. We originally planned to film on Wednesday 26th November but due to the weather we were unable to film so we changed the date to the 29th November. 

Audience Research

For our film we decided that our target audience would suit most females as the genre would typically interest them more than males. Our target audience would be suitable for the age group of 12 to 17 as the genres and topic of the film would appeal to them and they would be able to understand the amnesia theme. We would expect the majority of our audience to be teenagers around the age of 14 because they would be of the age to understand the topic of amnesia and what the girl (Daisy) is going through. Jane would be our prototype.
Jane is 14 years old who is a stereotypical young girl who likes to watch romance films and girly genres. She is interested in romance films and loves to see films which would be filled with romance. Our film would suit her as it is a teen drama with a bit of a twist. She is of the age that she would understand the connection of amnesia with Daisy and she has the potential to feel an emotional connection with the girl. 

Marketing Campaign

Synopsis

What we will need: 

• A scrapbook of memories 
• A train (+ train station)
• An arcade 
• Theme park ride 
• Beach 
• Bag
• Change of outfits 

Characters: There are 3 main characters in our opening scene. We have Daisy who is played by Libby, Eliza who is played by Katie and Naomi who is played by Frankie. Daisy is the main character who is featured and is diagnosed with amnesia and Eliza and Naomi are her best friends who are pictured in her memories. 

Costume: Our costumes are simplistic and casual as we wanted to reflect the tone of the memories as casual because she was normal when these memories took place. We kept the costumes simple because we wanted the focus of our film to rely on the memories rather than the actors choice of clothing. All 3 girls wore everyday clothes such as jeans/leggings/tops/jumpers/coats. 

Location: Our film opening will be located at Chelmsford train station and Southend. We will be using the train station and the platforms for some of our shots and then we will also be filming on the train for some of our shots. We will be filming on the beach, in the arcades and the theme park in Southend. 

Audience: Our film is aimed at mainly females, however males can view it if they wish to, around the age of 12-17 as we think it would appeal to this age group more than anyone younger as we think it would be difficult for them to understand the theme of amnesia. The certificate is 12A. 

Music Ideas

This is one of the videos that we looked at on YouTube as a possible choice to use for our music, it is a cover of the song Amnesia by 5 seconds of summer. It is sung by Lauren Bonnell. We like this song because it resembles our actual film title Amnesia, the lyrics relates to the reality of Amnesia and people can connect with it. The mood of the Music also fits in with our genre.



We also looked at this video because the tone and pace of this music makes the situation of the film seem really real. It is a cover of say something by Christina Aguelieria. It is sung by Jasmine Thomas.



This is another video we looked at, we like this cover because the lyrics resemble the struggles that Daisy is going through in this opening sequence. It is a cover of Dont you Remember by Adele and it is sung by Hedda Mathide.

Amnesia Research

Memory loss, also called amnesia, occurs when a person loses the ability to remember events and information they would normally be able to recall. This could be something that happened only seconds or minutes ago, or a memorable event that happened in the past. The memory loss may have started suddenly or may have been getting worse over the last year or so. 

Doctors classify memories as either:

• Immediate memories, such as sounds, which are only stored for a few seconds.
• Short-term or recent memories, such as telephone numbers, which stay in your memory for 15-20 seconds. The brain can store about seven chunks of short-term information at any time.
• Long-term or remote memories - more permanent memories, which have been reinforced because you've repeatedly gone over them in your mind.

Generally, GPs find that patients who see them about memory loss are most likely to have:

• Anxiety
• Stress
• Depression

Their memory loss is due to poor concentration and not noticing things in the first place because of a lack of interest. Sleeping problems make the memory loss worse.

Other common causes of memory loss are:

• a head injury, for example after a car accident
• a stroke that cuts off some of the blood supply to the brain and causes brain tissue to die

These will cause sudden memory loss, where you either forget events that happened before the trauma (retrograde amnesia), or you forget everything that happened after the trauma (anterograde amnesia).

Ways to cope

• Keep everyday items, such as car keys, in the same place and try to do things in the same order each time.
• Write information down and keep paper and a pencil near the phone.
• Keep a diary at home as well as at work to remind you to do daily tasks.
• Use an alarm to help you remember to do something in the future, such as taking something out of the oven.
• Repeat back to someone important information you need to remember.

Practice Titles

These were our practice titles that Frankie's mum wrote out, although they didn't look like we thought they would as the pages weren't decorated so they just looked blank and didn't fit in with our scrapbook theme. We came up with some other ideas and ways of presenting our titles. Frankie suggested that we could use 3D letters to spell out the titles as this would be a unique, innovative style of presenting the titles. 

Amnesia Moodboard

This is our Moodboard for our film. It includes some pictures and ideas that gave us inspiration for our film.

Amnesia Moodboard from Libby_Collins_

Ideas Feedback

Before we left to shoot we asked our teacher and some peers to give us some feedback on our ideas as this would help us with the genre and the actual construction of putting the film ideas together. We also wanted some feedback on the titles within the scrapbook as we were finding this difficult. 

Mr Amato- 'The genre is confusing especially the titles which don't seem to match the genre, aside from this it is a creative, original idea.' 
He advised that we add drawings, doodles and pictures do the background of our scrapbook. 

In response to his feedback we have tweaked our genre slightly, it is now more a teen drama than a mystery film. The titles were too quirky to be associated with the mystery genre. 

Issy Payne- 'When filming the memories Libby will have to wear different clothes to show they are in the past, other than that it is a good original idea'

In response to this we realised she was right that Libby will have to wear different clothing when filming the memories or it won't be obvious that it is in the past.

Alternative Production Companies

I also looked at Twentieth Century Fox as a production company but they were a larger company and therefore may be uninterested in small budget films. They may also be unwilling as we are a smaller, less known production company. 

Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation also known as 20th Century Fox, 20th Century Fox Pictures, or simply Fox (20CFFC), is an American film studio and one of the six major American film studios. Located in the Century City area of Los Angeles, just west of Beverly Hills, the studio used to be a subsidiary of News Corporation, but now it is currently a subsidiary of 21st Century Fox. It is the world's second largest major film studio, after Warner Bros. 

The company was formed on May 31, 1935, as the result of the merger between Fox Film Corporation, founded by William Foxin 1915, and Twentieth Century Pictures, founded in 1933 by Darryl F. Zanuck and Joseph M. Schenck.

20th Century Fox has distributed various commercially successful film series, including Avatar, the first two Star Wars trilogies, Ice Age, X-Men, Die Hard, Planet of the Apes, Night at the Museum, Taken, Fantastic Four, Alien, Predator, and the live action Alvin and the Chipmunks. Television series produced by Fox include The Simpsons, M*A*S*H, The X-Files, Bones, House, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Futurama, How I Met Your Mother, Glee, Modern Family, New Girl, and 24. 

Richard Morrison Interview

At first he talks about when meeting a director or a producer to keep your ideas short and not to over complicate it. He is able to remember Ridley Scott when he sold Alien to him as 'Jaws in space' which got him the money to be able to make the his film which tells you SIMPLE IS GOOD. 
He believes that once you go past the storyboard, it's a good idea to make a model so that you're able to visualize it because it's a visual object. If you use your senses with the physical object it feeds you subconscious information into you. He believes it doesn't matter how good the object is but that you are engaged in the process makes it believable. 
He says that you should never dive in and do high end visuals because by doing that you are stopping a creative process. "You are putting all the clothes/colours on before you have had time to test it out." He says that if you put ideas onto a storyboard you can always rub things out and collectively you can add a few things. 
I could apply these pieces of advice to my film titles to make sure that they are a good as I can make them. 

Group Film Pitch

This is our group film pitch which includes out intital first thoughts and ideas for our film. 

Script

This is the script for our film opening. There is little dialogue in the opening scene so that the audience has a chance to understand the thoughts and processes in Daisy's head. We feel that the amount of dialogue used was sufficient to introduce the film and the characters in the time frame of footage that we produced. We chose to utilise this dialogue in a voice over. 

British Film Institute Trip

On the 7th November we went to the BFI in London to attend a conference. Once we were there we had a talk and were shown a presentation of all the things relating to independent and mainstream films. The conference introduced several speakers from different production and distribution companies and we were given the chance to ask them in a question and answers session. It was an interesting and enjoyable day. Here are some of my notes I took on the day. 

Independent vs. Mainstream Films

Independent films - make you think and make you want to ask questions. 

Mainstream films - make you laugh and cry, and you associate them with commercial success. 

Distribution led industry- Mainstream films attract significant advertising budget. 

"The big six"

• 20th Century Fox
• Sony
• Warner Bros 
• Disney 
• Universal 
• Paramount 

Typically a safe genre convention would be - Sci Fi or Fantasy - as these are popular amongst a large age group and therefore would appeal to a larger target audience. 

Skyfall (Mainstream)

• 2012 - Action Adventure
• Distributed by MGM/ Columbia Pictures 
• Starring Daniel Craig, Javier Bardem, Dame Judi Dench, Ralph Feinnes
• Directed by Sam Mendes 
• Adele soundtrack makes it mainstream (synergy)
• Drama and excitement 
• Violence (guns)
• High production values 
• Star marketing 
• Emotive, non-diagetic music
• Elaborative CGI

The double (Independent)

• Genre - Noir, Drama, Thriller, Black Comedy
• 2013 -Directed by Richard Ayoade 
• Critical success 
• Released at 2013 London film festival
• Independent distribution - Studio Canal 
• Based on a novel by Fyodor Dastoyevsky

What makes it independent?

• Character driven 
• Minimal set locations 
• Not a clear genre 
• Eerie non-diagetic music 
• Mise en scene - disorientation of characters 
• Difficult humour 
• Subterranean, claustrophobic location 

Film Production

• Warner Bros - owned by Time Warner 
• Paramount - owned by Viacom
• Universal - owned by NBC 
• Disney - owned by Disney 
• 20th Century Fox - owned by Fox Entertainment Group
• Sony - owned by public share holders

Big Talk

Big Talk productions - TV

Big Talk pictures - Film

Countries they sell to: 

1. Australia 
2. United States 
3. Scandinavia 

Distribution - The big six dominate but the UK has many independent film distributors. 

Film Marketing 

• POS (Point of sale) e.g displays in cinema 
• Market research - before, during, after 
• Above the line advertising - television, cinema trailers, press, outdoors, online
• Below the line advertising - viral videos 

Distribution case study (A Field In England)

• Multi platform release in 2013
• Director - Ben Wheatley
• Shot in black and white in a field 
• Took 12 days to film 
• Budget £300,000 

Exhibition/ Exchange 

• The way the audience consume film 
• Viewing via Netflix, Lovefilm is increasing 
• DVD/ Blu-Ray sales are down 
• Cinema - Box office curve suggests theatrical distribution still reasonably healthy
• IMAX/ 3D levelling out but still commercially successful
• Film on TV = 77%
• DVD/ Blu-Ray =14.2%
• Downloaded/ Streamed = 5.5%
• Cinema = 3.4%
• Less than 1 in 10 UK films make a profit 

Types of UK Cinema 

• Multiplex (278 cinemas)
• Independant
• Small chains 
• 2013 - 172.5 million cinema admissions, £1.1 billion
• 2013 - 769 cinema sites in the UK, 3817 screens 
• Piturehouse (runs its own film distribution company - Picturehouse Entertainment)
• Currently 19 in the UK