Welcome, moderator! I am Ally Macleod 1472, I worked with Megan Sedgwick 1472 and Josie Dean 1470. I hope you enjoy my blog, which contains my work on my G321 Foundation Portfolio. We chose the video brief, the titles and openings of a fictional thriller film which we named Unforgotten. My preliminary exercise follows immediately underneath. 

I took specific responsibility for filming the first scene which is the pan of Emily walking through the graveyard. I also filmed the second scene which is the long shot of Emily walking through the graveyard. I also filmed scene 3 and 5 which is when Emily visits her sisters grave. As well as this I shot scenes 6,12 and 14. These are of Emily on the train. I edited the sound of the train and the dial tone at the end. I also choose an effect on the flashback scenes of Emily and Cara to show that they are memories. We all took part in directing the film.

 My evaluation questions are above.

 

PLANNING: FILM OPENING CREDITS

Studio that is distributing the film: Metrodome
We chose this distributor because it based in London and well known for distributing films made by independent and new film producers. They wanted to reach a young, urban audience known as Urban Genre.

Production company: JAM
We thought this fitted well as a production company as it is an acronym of our names.

Film title: Unforgotten

Featuring: Jane Sedgwick, Megan Sedwick and Ally Macleod

Casting by: Josie Dean

Editor: Megan Sedgwick

Based on the play (novel, graphic novel) by: N/A

Screenplay: Ally Macleod

Director: Josie Dean

PLANNING: WRITING THE VOICE OVER

We decided to write a voice over to give some information to the viewer about what was happening when watching our film opening.

Our script: Six months, the worst six months of my life, I miss her so much, my sister, my best friend.

This would give more context to the scenes and would also show who the sister is talking about.

PLANNING: PADLET

Our group decided to create a Padlet account. In this account we would form a digital noticeboard to put up videos, images and comments that would help us put our ideas together.
 

Click here to view out Padlet-Character development

REPRESENTATIONS OF CHARACTERS: TV DRAMA

My mother and other strangers

The differences between American and Irish identity

Both the Americans and Irish had a clear and recognisable accent to them in which they were easy to tell apart. The type of vocabulary the Irish and American used were slightly different from one another as the Americans would say words such as ‘Santa’ instead of ‘father Christmas’ and ‘the movies’ instead of ‘the pictures’ or ‘the cinema’. Most of the American soldier’s personas were portrayed as confident and slightly arrogant. One of the American soldiers had asked the young Irish girl out to ‘the movies’. This shows he is very self-assured and clearly thinks he has a good image and could easily get her.

On the other hand, the Americans did take great pride in how they looked. They had a well fitted uniform on with a fur lining, sunglasses on even though it may not have been sunny and they had very open and relaxed body language showing that they were confident satisfied with themselves. Through the mise-en-scene of the programme we can see that the American identity shone through very intensely. At the Christmas party, instead of the traditional British Christmas decorations with the red and gold colours, the Americans had jam-packed the room with cookies, the USA flag, USA motifs and a colossal Christmas tree. The party costumes that the Irish children had on were the American air force uniform and cowboy hats. This shows that the Americans had a lot of power and influence over the Irish and shows how the Irish children look up and admire them. The young Irish children are in awe of them and want to be more like the Americans.

The Irish are much more reserved and to themselves, most of them have been living there for many years. Michael Coyne, who is the father of the Coyne family has been at the heart of the town for generations. He is presented as very hard working as he manages the local pub, shop and family farm. However, as Rose Coyne is British she doesn’t feel completely accepted as she is far away from her family in London and finds it hard to fit in because she is an outsider and none of the Irish can empathise with her. Another family that have been living in Ireland for generations is the Hanlon family however they are not looked upon fondly in the community. Unlike the Coyne family, they are not impressed by the Americans arrival. This shows diversity within the Irish community and how they have different views.

RESEARCH: BIFA

I have been interested in the nominations within the BIFA. In particular, the film American Honey that I was introduced to from a study day trip I went on to the BFI on 2nd November.

BIFA 

I am predominantly interested in American Honey because it had a budget of £2.7M which is relatively cheap to make. It featured a lot of unknown actors except for Shea Labeouf. The actors were young which defined our generation so I was able to relate to it more.
I first viewed this film at BFI and I found out that American Honey counted as a British film because of its British director and the cast and the key organizations involved. Andrea Arnold (director) is also well known for producing Fishtank (2009) which had a budget of only £1.3M. Compared to the Star Wars budgets of £230M. American Honeys films key themes involve the youth and hedonism and love and betrayal. These are themes and issues not usually covered by mainstream cinema. Moreover, there were no expensive sets as it was all shot on location. Part of the social realism of urban youth is that the camera work was all handheld so it gave us a sense of cinema verité which exposes the truth and reality of cinema.

In both production values and budget our film has very similar qualities to American Honey, we will also be shooting on location and have unknowns in our film. The themes we share are youth, love and realism.

PLANNING: INTERVIEWING OUR CHARACTERS

OPEN SOURCE HERE

We have decided to interview the younger sibling, older sibling and the mother to get a more in depth look into the characters and why they are in the positions that they're in. Pen Densham who is an Oscar nominated film maker and author of the book 'Riding The Alligator'. In one of the chapters of the book, he writes about how you should think up questions to ask your character, similar to a questionnaire in order to open up your own understanding on what your character may be like. 

Interview - younger sibling

Exchange in whatsapp messages between Emily and her friend. 

'Are you alright' Friend

'Yeah' Emily

'Hows your mum doing?'

'She is fine, why wouldn't she be?

'Well your sisters gone Emily, shes not coming back. You need to accept death sooner or later' 'always here to talk'

'I don't need to talk, i am with my sister'

'What?'

'I am sitting next to my sister now'

'You have to let it go some day'  

Interview - mother (Mrs Hodgson)

In her house on the sofa with a journalist interviewing her

'Nice to meet you Mrs Hodgson, we would just like to ask you a few questions concerning your eldest daughter, Cara.' The journalist

Mother agrees by nodding her head calmly

'Thank you, I understanding this may be hard but I want to get a deeper understanding on what happened to Cara'

The mother continues to have a blank face. 

'Is it true you had an argument with Cara the night she went out'

'I don't see why this concerns you, its none of your business'

'I understand Mrs Hodgson'

'Would do describe yourself as a liberal mother'

'I would say i was fair and i was always very generous towards Cara' 

'I have heard some rumors that Cara witnessed a crime the night she went missing'

'Yes she did witness a crime but that question is irrelevant' 'I believe Cara is gone and shes not coming back'