Film Plan

We met up a number of times to plan for going out and shooting the film where we planned each of our shots, contributed to the narrative and organised what we would need to do when. The narrative was a big part of the discussion as we needed it to be clear and solid in order to plan shots effectively, so we eventually decided to make the film about a kleptomaniac who is seen stealing something and followed back to where they hoard all of the objects they have stolen. We want to start the film in the university studio after a shoot and have the main character, the thief, steal a camera bag from it but is seen by another person. The thief then leaves the studio and is followed to a forest (Grindleford) where he realises the other person is onto him and tries to lose them. When he does, he goes to where he keeps all of the items he has stolen and leaves again to carry on his 'spree'.
Although the narrative isn't very deep or tight, we all agreed that this would be a very effective way of addressing all the cinematography elements in a short film, without over complicating the story making it too hard to follow and too much work to complete given our time limit. Also, we are not marked on sound, our group has decided to use no dialogue in the film, so the simple narrative aids this decision as the story is quite easy to understand without the help of speech.

First draft of Narrative Plan

Addressing the different elements
After discussing and finalising our narrative, we began planning how we would incorporate each cinematography element into the film and where we would use them.

• Colour - We needed to use colour as a narrative and symbolic element at some point during the film. We thought about using the object that the thief steals as the main colour element for a while, but then decided to use it along side another just because we would have to frame every shot to get the camera bag in which could prove problematic when doing the POV sequence, so we thought we would have the thief wearing a red hoodie. This is symbolic of not only the thief being a danger to society by braking the law, but also that he is the one in danger by being almost caught. The camera bag is black with a little bit of red on, and this is symbolic of mystery and incognito in terms of the thief not wanting people to know that he has stolen it.
• POV - We needed to have a 2 minute long sequence that favours the point of view of the non-active participant, which is the person being followed (the thief). We thought planned this sequence to be in the forests surrounding Grindleford to show the thief's realisation that he is being followed and the panic it causes. To do this we're using a mixture of shots and a lot that surround a three step pov sequence that I mention in a previous post. This is where the first shot shows the characters eyeline in third person restricted POV, then an over the shoulder, first person or modified subjective of the direction of the eyeline, then a final shot of the character, normally close up of them, with a modified subjective of the direction they are still looking in.
• Lighting - We need an internal and external example of a lighting change used as a narrative device. For our external change we are going to use a reflector to show the symbolic change of emotional joy when the thief sees all the items he has hoarded. For the internal change we are going to use the thief escaping the crime scene through a dark corridor into the light which is symbolic of freedom, but also shows the narrative progressing into a different space (from one location to the next).
• Sequence shot - We need to plan a sequence shot/long take. We have already planned a few of these but the main one we will use is the opening shot in the studio where we will have a wide of everyone packing up after the shoot and in the centre of the frame, have the thief steal the camera bag and walking off shot followed closely by the person that sees him and follows him out. We have taken influence from Michael Haneke with this shot as he frequently uses long takes with important actions occurring within them as a method of making the audience actively search for the action in scene abolishing the passive audience watching of films.

 Here is the rough shot list we created after discussing both the narrative and the elements to include within it and how to realise this into a film.