British Film Institution Visit

On Tuesday my class took a trip to London, South bank to visit the BFI (British Film Institution). We were given useful information from Pete Fraser, the Chief Examiner for the OCR Media Studies A level, and did Q&A with Simon Frame (Vsx Supervisor, Molinare Ltd.) and Joe Cornish (Writer-director of 'Attack the Block').

Throughout Pete gave us handy information to enhance our coursework, here are some of my notes:

Key features in opening sequences:

• Genre
• Narrative (enigma)
• Character
• Atmosphere
• Setting

We were told to start general, then more specific, then make research which was focused and relevant.

After that we watched different opening sequences which were all completely different looking at the titles and key features.

One of the openings was 'Napoleon Dynamite' (click here to watch) a film which I have never seen before, however, after watching the opening sequence and looking for the key features I could identify what it was about. The titles of the opening are part of the shots (on food, cards, books etc) which I thought was really clever as gives us an insight into what the film is about very subtly. The only character we see is Napoleon Dynamite on one of the cards so he is easily identified as the main character. The music in the opening sequence is 'jolly' and country like and portrays an American setting. The books, stationary, canteen like food we see represent it is set in a school. And judging by the opening we can see it is most likely to be a comedy.

This lead us to learn a little about titles:

• The directors name must be last
• They are often throughout the opening sequence rather than at the end
• 'Starring' is not using in film openings but in trailers

The Team GB cycling coach, Dave Brailsford, said "It's important to understand the 'aggregation of marginal gains" which also applies to our coursework (lots of small things add up to get better marks).

We were given a list of the six most common opening sequences to avoid doing:

1. Saw- victim in shed
2. Scream- hooded stalker
3. Se7en
4. Lock, stock- gangsters
5. Waking up
6. Flashbacks and flash forwards

and common problems in opening sequences:

• Making it look like a trailer or short film
• Not enough titles
• Poor sound of lighting
• Poorly directed actors
• Making it confusing or complicated
• and doing one of the most common openings badly!

The sequence should be up to two minutes, 20 marks is awarded for research and planning, 60 marks for construction and 20 marks for evaluation.

Pete's main advice was to:

• Plan
• Learn from others
• Avoid the obvious
• Pay attention to detail
• Vary our blogs

Step 1: Take stock

• Build skills
• Build research
• Build planning
• give yourself enough time to shoot and edit
• Keep evident throughout the whole process

Step 2: Set up a blog

Step 3: Build up skills

Step 4: Investigate

Step 5: Brainstorm ideas

• Pitches
• Mood board treatment
• Feedback
• Be realistic

Step 6: Planning (the more planning= the less problems)

• Experiment
• Examples of shots, costume, props etc
• Storyboard (post it notes) 
• Logistic planning

Step 7: The shoot 

• People, places, props, costumes
• Rehearsing, directing
• Equipment/ jobs on day
• Keeping a record of process

Step 8: Editing

• Everyone have a go
• Screen grabs
• Audio and titles
• Foley (the art of putting sound in sync with movement)
• Rough cut deadline and peer feedback

The big picture before the fine detail

Step 9: Evaluation