Coming Down the Mountain

Recently I have studied the television series 'Coming Down the Mountain' to help me understand how to use various aspects of media (camera angles, mise-en-scene, editing and sound) to convey the message I wish to in my own production piece.

Story Board

This is our first story board. It that shows all of the different aspects of our film intro that we would like to include, such as: an in depth description of any sound (both diegetic and non diegetic) that are taking place, a clear description of all of the shot types that we would like to use and what will be happening in each shot. There are also some drawn pictures that give a rough idea as to what mise en scene there will be and what we would imagine these shots would look like if we did manage to successfully take them.

Sound

All of the sounds that we plan to use in our production piece so far are diegetic. Whether
or not we have any non diegetic sounds in our film opening we are not sure, but if we did then it would be in the form of a soundtrack of some slightly sinister music. I would want this music to be entirely instrumental instead of electric because it would not suit the tone of what was happening and contextually it would not make sense for the time period our piece is set in.

Costume

As this film is going to be taking place during the night, we want all of the actors and actresses to be wearing pyjamas. I have been doing some research and it looks like during the 1940s, dressing gowns were as popular back then as they are now. The only difference is that it looks like a lot more adults would have worn them in comparison to how many children wore them. Depending on peoples social class, their dressing gowns would have been different colours and materials. As all of our characters are of the upper class, some of the actors are going to wear dark red burgundy dressing gowns as they give connotations of wealth and luxury.

Platoon Opening

As our film is a war based film I have been looking at some openings for popular war films so that I can get an idea for what I want our film to not only look like, but feel like. One of the films I have researched is Platoon. In the film opening for Platoon it immediately jumps into the action of war using both diegetic and non diegetic sound, whilst simultaneously demonstrating to the audience with mise en scene and camera angles what this film will be about, and where in the world we are.

This is similar to what we want to try to do in our film opening, because we want to be able to show the audience the time period, location, and who the main characters are. Mise en scene will be vital n order to show the audience what time period this film is based in. This means that we need to think about the types of toys that we are going to have laying around the setting. Like for example rather than having a toy that is electric in any sort of way, we would maybe have something wooden like a Yo Yo. We couldn't have anything electric because that is not the type of toy that a child would be likely to have during the 1940s.

Film Opening

We have now started what we are going to do for our coursework. For our coursework we have to create a film opening that is around 2 minutes long. We have decided that we want to do an opening for a film based during the War. What we are going to do is going to give us a lot of opportunities, for example, we will get to work with a larger cast than we are used to, we will get to create a professional storyboard, and also get to write an in depth script.

In our film opening we are going to have a house filled with children being evacuated by the owners of the property and into a bomb shelter due to a siren sounding. Because we are starting our film with an intense scene it is important that we use a wide variety of camera angles so that we can show the audience what the feel of the moment is.

This is a mind map that we drew up in class that displays some of the ideas that we want to incorporate into our film opening. Along the bottom their is a time line of what we would want to happen if we were filming the entire film.