PLAN FOR SHOOT hospital scene

Casting
Tanay Saigal
The protagonist/tennis player
He is needed from:
11:40-12:30
3:15-4:30

Hannah Ni Leigh Evans
The partner of Tanay
She is needed from:
11:40-12:30
3:15-4:30

Sam Lau
The coach
He is needed from:
11:40-12:30
3:15-4:30

Harriet Barlow
Tanay's teammate
She is needed form:
11:40-12:30
3:15-4:30

School nurse
Nurse
She is needed from:
11:40-12:30
3:15-4:30


Location
The school nurses' office in our school, we had to ask the nurses for permission and we gave them a brief of what we want to do - we had to be flexible for shooting because if a student came in the space had to be free
We eventually filmed after school so we had more time to get all the shots we wanted
Date:
27/12/18 - cancelled because actor could not make it
28/12/18 - cancelled because nurses office was occupied
07/01/19 - "
11/01/19 - "
14/01/19
Time: 
11:40-12:30 
3:15-4:30


Equipment

• Sony A58
• Tripod
• Dolly

Props

• printed out picture of brain scans
• folder
• bandages
• blanket
• trophy
• cigarettes/packet - we included this in the training scene because it made more sense
• Nurses outfit
• Coach's costume

Shot List

• POV shots of Tanay waking up (hand-held)
• MS 2 shot of teammate and partner next to Tanay in bed
• CU BE of Tanay's face waking up
• ECU hand nervously tapping on trophy
• MLS 3 shot of coach arriving
• shot reverse shot sequence for dialogue
• CU HA of trophy being put on bedside table
• MLS 3 shot of all dialogue
• OTS MLS of nurse coming in and her dialogue 
• MS of nurse's dialogue
• CU OTS of nurse  pointing at brain scan images in folder
• CU of coach's reaction to tennis news
• try 
• try a few different shots for reactions to the news
• CU of various things in the space (looking at watch, stethoscope, bandages etc.)

Screenplay

I showed the screenplay to the nurse, and she suggested edits for her lines to make them more realistic, those are the ones used in the final cut
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Sample scene 2: Packing scene - 1st attempt

This is the scene where the Tennis player's partner is leaving him

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NOTES FOR IMPROVEMENT

• Mise-en-scene
• include tennis equipment in the background (racket, bag, water bottle)
• passport (shot of it being put in the bag)
• photos of the couple together and the team (have partner pick them up then put them down again, angrily)
• panning shots of props
• in wardrobe have clear split of his/her side
• have a larger suitcase, get a shot of Cathy grabbing everything from one side of the wardrobe and putting it in the suitcase
• Acting
• include clearer demonstrations for the actor/actress
• make it angrier and sadder
• aggressively throwing clothes into the bag
• slamming down the photos
• get a closeup of her face (expression)
• do a 'final look' around the house (living/kitchen) - more realistic and chance to include more mise-en-scene for exposition
  
• Editing
• bit at the start has very fast-paced editing, but you can't really see the shots because its so fast
• get some more ELSs to use for establish shots (closer and closer to the house, similar to in Psycho) 
• Get shots of the wife entering the car and slamming the door

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Sample Scene

This is the scene from The Journey where the wife is leaving her partner.
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• we are still missing the panning shot of the pictures, trophies (connotes he is a professional tennis player)

PODCAST4

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In this podcast we are talking about:

• the shoot this weekend(the packing scene, jogging in the forest, Tanay practicing tennis and the scene where he gets hit by the car)
• updates on cast
• more industry research
• and another deconstruction of a social realist film

GENRE RESEARCH Historical context

French New Wave (nouvelle vague)
In the 1950s and 60's a post-war movement began in France, lead by writer's for a French magazine Cahiers du Cinema such as Francois Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard (A Bout de Souffle) and Claude Chabrol . It encompassed a lot of documentary style film techniques in order to challenge traditional film styles and make audiences acutely aware that they are watching a media text which has been artificially constructed, as a backlash against the influence of Nazi propaganda.

A Bout de Souffle poster

 


The idea of an anti-hero emerged form a lot of these films, having protagonists be morally ambiguous and focusing more on an aspect of audience identification rather than aspiration.


Some conventions of the movement found through research:

• Low budget
• pretty much all indie productions
• shot on site because of this (people's houses or public locations)
• cast was often people that the director already knew
• transportable equipment
• e.g. in Godard's A Bout de Souffle a scene shot on the Champs Elysees used a shopping trolley for a tracking shot
• improvisation (of lines, and spontaneity in filming)
• Themes:
• existentialism (often criticisms of organized religion, or nihilistic protagonists)
• gritty (disillusionment, abortion, rape, violence, poverty)
• Jean-Luc Godard did extensive research into Marxism and it is present in some of his films
• Techniques
• long takes (film reel was expensive)
• hand-held cameras
• fast cuts
• breaks of convention (e.g. the 180 degree rule) to subvert expectations
• jump cuts
• character asides
• breaking eye line matches
• Discontinuity editing (more on this in prelim blog post)
• Other:
• Lots of intertextual references
• e.g. A Bout de Souffle has quotes form Dylan Thomas, William Faulkner; music from Bach and Mozart, and lots of film posters as a part of set dressing
• They were black and white films, a lot of them made for television due to low budget
• The progression of time was often close to that of real life
• Cleo 5 to 7 follows 2 hours in the life of an actress/singer as she awaits the results of a medical test, however the narrative is divided into chapters follow her state of mind

  

  Cleo from 5 to 7 screenshot

• Open ended narratives
• some scenes are shown more than once but from the points of views of different characters - showing both the objective and subjective events

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British New Wave
British New Wave (1959-63) was inherently similar to French New Wave, as it was the spreading of the movement. Because of this most of the techniques used were the same, but some notable differences:

• Often had a focus on working class struggles, particularly those in the North of England
• e.g. Room at the Top has a protagonist from Yorkshire (though the actor's accent is inconsistent at best) 
• Heavier focus on relationship and social drama (hence the name 'kitchen sink drama/realism)
• e.g. Billy Liar follows the life of a man with three girlfriends
• e.g. The L-shaped Room uses the social interactions between the protagonist and her neighbors to explore social conventions and challenge social status quos
• 
  

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Italian Neorealism
TBC


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