CONSTRUCTION: Devising our film title

Production Log 17 (11th Feb.2014)

Today we worked on the exact wording for our film title. We wanted the title to:

• Establish the film’s genre (modern, thriller, crime, dramatic and realistic)

• Convey the key ideas (boy who is unconfident about his body figure)

• Intrigue the audience through enigma (the boy dies and audience does not know what caused his death/ who’s behind the poisonous medicine)

• Tap into intertextuality through shared knowledge of cultural codes (through using terms or images that the audience is already familiar with)

Short List:

• DNP

• The DNP Network

• The Serpent’s Sting

We finally selected the name “The Serpent's Sting” because it has so many connotations that work with our plot. A serpent is a snake, symbolising the evil characters in our story, and the "sting" represents what they have done - poisoning the medicine which caused a boy to die. It symbolises betrayal and mystery.

Snakes have been associated with some of the oldest rituals known to humankind and represent dual expression of good and evil. It could symbolise fertility and rebirth, guardianship, poison and medicine, vengefulness and vindictiveness.

My perfume adverts

PLANNING: New Storyboard (continued)

Production Log 19 4th March.2014

Today my group and I  have continued to work on our storyboards. We aim to create more suspense and tension than our previous storyboards.

PLANNING: New storyboard

Production Log 18 26th Feb.2014

Today we have decided to add some extra scenes to our film opening. This is part of our new storyboard:

We have decided to add some scenes we have to shoot from Chinatown in London to add oriental elements to make our film more visual. 

We have decided to focus on comparing a teenage boy's life in a rural area to a girl's life in the city, which is more dangerous.

PLANNING: Filming Sessions

Production Log 16 (5th Feb.2014)

In the lesson today we have planned our filming sessions. We are planning to film on the 11th, which is a Saturday so everyone is free.We have also made notes on what each person is bringing: Sisi is borrowing a camera and tripod from a school, and keeping it for a weekend; Bertie is coming in school uniform as he is the main character of the film opening; I am bringing in my macbook for editing if needed.

PLANNING: Storyboard

Production Log 14 (29th Jan.2014)

In the lesson today we have created a storyboard for our first and second scene in our film opening.

Our first scene is:
 - a boy comes home from school
 - kicks his shoes off at the door and goes to the kitchen to look for food (turns the kettle on)
 - he then hurries upstairs to his room
 - he sits down on his bed and starts going on his phone
 - he saw the drugs on his table and is tempted to take it
 - he takes the drugs, and sits back on his bed and continues to look at his phone
 - after about 2 minutes, he starts feeling very uncomfortable and starts shaking
 - he tries to reach the phone, but he fell to the floor
 - he eventually stops moving
 - the water in the kettle is done and the kettle goes off
 - his mum turns it off and looks for her son
 - she goes into his room
 - scene fades as we hear her scream

PLANNING: Challenging Stereotypes

Production Log 13 (28th Jan.2014)

Today we created a brainstorm about generally what our story will be about. We have decided to make an opening about something based on a real story. A Chinese herbal company that produces slimming pills putting illegal materials in their pills which causes deaths. However we re-thought an aspect for our narrative because we realized after discussion that we would be positioning Chinese medicine as suspect we were reinforcing negative stereotypes. As a group, we were not comfortable with this idea. We would like to challenge stereotype by shifting the negative slant towards either the consumer of the medicine or the middle-man (distributor). 

 Here was our brainstorm before we changed our idea:


Also the newspaper we based our story from:

PLANNING: The Plot

Production Log 12 (22nd Jan.2014)

I am working in a group of 3 with Bertie Simpson and Sisi Nemeth.


My group decided to use our resources and create a plot based on a true story. The newspaper published on 18th of September has an article about a young girl that took slimming drugs and died. Therefore we created a mindmap and decided that I am a Chinese chemist who uses Chinese herbs to produce slimming drugs. Bertie is a boy who takes the drugs, Sisi will be interviewing the boy's parents.

RESEARCH: The Opening of Taken (Pierre Morel, 2008)

Production Log 11 (21st Jan.2014)

Taken opens with white text on a black background. The black background builds up tension and suspense because black symbolises danger, mystery and death - the audience doesn't know what's going to happen next.
After the black screen, there is a low quality video that is clearly filmed by an unprofessional.You see birthday hats and birthday decorations, notifying the audience that this is a video that is shot to capture memories. We hear children laughing in the background which shows the fact that people in the video are having a good time.
Those scenes jump to where a woman is holding a birthday cake, revealing the age of the birthday girl and also her vulnerability. We see the little girl blow out the candle.
The home made video shot suddenly jumps to the main character (Brian Mills played by Liam Nesson) waking up as if he was having a nightmare.

RESEARCH: Moodboard

Production Log 10 (15th Jan.2014)