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)