Aisleigh, Anna, Chloe & Maria;s Shot Sequences/ Screenplay

Shot Sequence
1. Long Shot- Lucy by herself; lonely and deserted
2. Long Shot- People begin walking past (speeded up)
3. Over The Shoulder Shot (OTS)- boy approaches “What’s the matter?”
4. Establishing Shot (ES)- Lucy pushes flowers onto the boy and begins to run away
5. Pan Show/ Travelling Shot- Lucy begins to run (full body shot).
6. Blackout…….
7. Full Body Shot- Lucy opens her door and slams it behind her.
8. Zooming In Shot/ Birdseye View- camera films Lucy running up her stairs.
9. Travelling Shot- Lucy runs down corridor into her bathroom; slamming the door
10. Mid Shot- Lucy leans against the bathroom door; breathing heaving and distressed

11. ES- View of whole bathroom to establish her surroundings.
12. Mid shot- Lucy travels to her mirror; crying and panicking.
13. OTS- Lucy reflections becomes apparent
14. OTS- Lucy turns on her taps
15. OTS- Lucy opens the mirror cupboard and begins searching through the pills
16. Mid Shot- Lucy holds pills; distraught and confused.
17. Mid Side Shot- Lucy is still holding the pills; quivering and indecisive
18. Zoom Out- Camera zooms out and she closes the cupboard which are now misty
19. OTS- Lucy clears the mist of the mirror to show her distorted reflection
20. Close Up- Lucy Begins to open pills and pour onto her quivering hands
21. Zooms In- Zooms in to her mouth and stops as her hands containing the pills enter her mouth

22. Blackout entitles ‘6 Months later’

Aisleigh, Chloe, Anna & Maria's target Audience

Our film is based on drama and potentially real life situations. We thought it would be very useful to find out different people’s opinions on drama films and what kind of age range preferred them the most. For our target audience research, we conducted a questionnaire containing a series of questions that would enable us to see different people’s views on drama films. We started off the questionnaire with, how would you rate drama films on a scale of 1-10? We found that out of 15 people interviewed, 10 rated drama films as 6 or above (1 being the least, 10 being the most) and the majority of these people were sixth form students aged between 16 and 17. When asked about aspects and features in a drama film, basically everyone put things like violence, action and family and friend related problems, which is something we need to consider including in our film. Our next question presented a list of films such as Kidulthood/Adulthood, Casablanca, 8 Mile, Brief Encounter, Flight 93, Alpha Dog and The Godfather. These all relate to our project and we asked people to tick which ones they preferred the most. We found that Kidulthood/Adulthood was by far the most popular among teenagers and people from this age group. We thought this because its deals with realistic events and many teenagers can relate to it as things that happen in Kidulthood probably occur in every day life. This also helped in deciding what to use as our influences and inspiration. What would you expect to see in the opening to a drama? This question showed us that majority of people expected things such as the setting, some of the key characters and maybe a small bit of action to hint of what is to come later on in the film. Our next question asked was if they preferred films set in the past or present and most people said they preferred present day films. Our final question asked if they thought it was important to be introduced to the main character straight away and the majority of people thought that it wasn’t. All these answers are vital for how we should approach our films and what aspects should be included in it.

Aisleigh, Chloe, Maria & Anna- Pitch Ideas

For our project we can up with a serious of different ideas that we could pitch to enable our film to be the best it could be. All of our ideas are based on real life issues teenagers and young adults face in today’s society.


Pitch idea 1- Party scene
One of our ideas for our project was to show teenage life outside of school with friends and socially going out. Out main character throughout our ideas is Lucy Barker. The idea begins with Lucy getting ready for a party with her friends at her house. They are in her room with music playing in the background, putting on their make-up and having a good time laughing and enjoying themselves. There is then a fade from that scene cutting to them walking into the party greeting other friends. Lucy is a bit tipsy and gets close to a guy who flirts with her all night. Lucy is unaware that when this guy gets her a drink he spikes it and therefore accepts all the drinks he brings her as she thinks she can trust him. After that her vision is blurred and she passes out. The camera will ‘fall’ to the ground as Lucy does. Time passes and she wakes up in the house not feeling right. The following scenes (that we will not be filming) are about Lucy after this event trying to figure out what really happened and if justice is made.

Pitch idea 2- Bullying
Our second idea for our media coursework was to base it on the issue of bullying as this is a key problem many children have to deal with. We are going to have Lucy Barker at school, being approached by a group of intimidating teenage girls who make snide comments about the way she looks and just generally being abusive and nasty to her. This continues on more than one occasion and we see how the character changes from before and during the bullying. Lucy eventually reaches breaking point and results to drastic measures.

Pitch idea 3- Drugs
Our third idea was the concept of drugs and how many teenagers face problems with the issue of drug abuse. We wanted to show how the drugs affected the lives of those who use them and affect other people around them. The involvement of drugs in Lucy Barkers life is taking them through depression of being bullied and her disruptive family life. She feels that taking them is the only way of forgetting everything around her. When Lucy gets into the new crowd her friendship life is changing at the same time her family life is getting worse. The use of the drugs results to Lucy committing suicide. In this idea we linked the concept of bullying and changes to life.









Final pitch
Through our working ideas we came to a fourth pitch which is going to be our final pitch. It contains elements of realism which we extracted from the previous 3 ideas and implemented them into our final pitch; including stress, suicide, loss and bullying. We concluded out final pitch by looking at similar movies whose ideas we have taken a particular interest in.

Pitch 4- suicide
Lucy is a distressed young girl coping with the recent death of her mum. Lucy is locked in her bedroom accompanied by a bottle of pills and a pen and piece of paper on which her once hidden emotions and heartfelt feelings will be spilt. The scene as a whole will be quite distorted with flashbacks of herself and her troubles along the time frame leading up to her suicide. The final built up of Lucy’s death will be of her writing the last goodbyes on the letter and taking the pills which will lead to her eventual death.

Meida Synopsis- Aisleigh, Chloe, Maria & Anna

A reconstruction of the attempted suicide of Lucy Baker, set in the heart of south east London at the present day. In the UK there are around 400 recorded suicides per year. An estimated 30%-50% is under-reported. Masked with smiles and laughter Lucy lives life day by day; surviving. Oblivious to those around her Lucy is trying to find an escape, an escape from her corrupt past, an escape from her deteriorating soul and an exit from the cruel society that tears her down.

Lucy finds herself battling with the tragic events from her past, present and unknown future. Unable to cope with the recent death of her mum and ongoing bullying; she feels isolated and alone. At 15 years old Lucy is emotionally frail and socially unstable. Confused and morally broken she begins to break down from the moment she says goodbye. Each day since the death Lucy gets emotionally unstable. Running seems like the only way of escaping her harsh reality. Frantic, quivering and distressed Lucy can’t help but fiddle with the pills that are so temptingly beside her. “Who would have thought something so small can cause something so immense?” Familiar tears flow constant and Lucy’s fate is undecided. With no one to turn to or heal her pain Lucy results to the only thing that’ll answer her echoing question, “When will it end?” For some people-including Lucy, death seems like the easiest and quickest resolution for unhappiness.

This story reflects the unacknowledged seriousness of teenagers in need of help from there pasts and troubles.

Media Evaluation


Over the past few weeks we have been undergoing a practical production to help further our ideas of what creating a short film entails and also assess the strengths and weaknesses of our production so that we can alternate this in future productions.

We started off by using story boards to create a general idea of what shots we wanted to use and what scenes we wanted to include into our production. The story board helped us immensely with giving us as a group a guideline as to what needs to be filmed where and when, also that who will be in the shot at what time.
We also created a list of props and additional notes that would give us guidance as to what to bring in for the days of filming i.e. if ‘Karen’ was wearing an outfit on one day, we had to ensure she was wearing the same clothes on the next occasion when we would be filming; this ensured consistency and realism of the production. The list also contained things such as the following:
· Business suit- used to show ‘Karen’ Is a women of business and power
· Tatty clothing- used to portray the idea that the person had been kidnapped
· Rope & Cloth- Used to tie the victim to a chair
· Chair- Used for the victim to sit on
· An Area For Filming- Somewhere desolate and dark; suggesting mystery and eeriness
· A time of day appropriate- during the course of a school day

One of the strengths of our production as a whole was the planning; our planning was well organised and contained sufficient amount of information necessary. Also the story line of our short film was good as it was simple but yet effective. It therefore didn’t contain any stunts or anything out of the ordinary but also portrayed our techniques with camera direction.
Unfortunately there were a lot of weaknesses to our production! We only had one lesson out of around ten where the whole of the production team was punctual, this meant an insufficient amount of work done and lack of dedication between us. I, personally felt like a lot of the work done was by myself and Karen and I didn’t feel like I had the help and support from my group, for example Positions are usually allocated to each candidate as a guidance as to what they will be doing during the course of the filming process (Script writers, camera people, cast, directors etc.) However I acted on all of these parts; this meant I filmed the film as well as acted init, I also drew up the story board and edited the film. The last lesson we had to film was vital as the whole of the film had to be completed; including editing. However I and Karen found ourselves doing all the work as a pair rather then as a group of four. Editing wasn’t completed to a high standard neither filming. Although we planned sufficiently and thought the production would run accordingly, this practical production enlightened me as to how important every person in a group is and gave me an outlook into the importance of being punctual and consistent.

During the last few weeks we have proceeded to practice and develop our media practice capabilities; both individually and as a group. Almost immediately we noticed a significant difference between GCSE and A Level media and how media as a whole requires a vast amount of creativity and individual expressive ideas.




We started off initially with the filming aspects of media. Me and my fellow group members began our filming simply by recording a short opening extract including basic camera shots and techniques. The shot involved an excited student approaching a more oblivious student (displayed by a travelling shot at a wide angle, helping set the mis-en-scene of the class room and the two students). The next shot was of the two students begining to sit down (A mid shot was used for this; yet again its basic but effective as it shows the students in more detail and there facial/body expressions more clearly). The last shot we used was more difficult and used a zoom technique to show the tensity of the dialect, "You'll never guess what...." "What...." "She did it!...." ( The zooming camera shot created tension and ended at a close up on the student using dialect, yet again the camera was set upon the tripod to ensure steadiness).



During the short time we had to produce this film piece i belive we did considerably well. When watching the final product which lasted around 10 seconds, i came across quite a few triumphs! The zooming effect i was especially happy about as i feel it expressed the tensity of the situation really well and helped display the character emotions; anxiety and excitement. Although the shots were simple and didn't display an extreme amount of technical camera shots/angles, the shots however were relevant to the topic and fitted in with the scene for instance it would irrelevant to use a high angle shot to display a person entering a room! Therefore in this sense we made all our shots relevant to the scene. Individually my role as a director was fulfilled. I was able to contact fluently with my group and direct them so that everything was perfected to the best of its ability. My Responsibility as a director meant ensuring the camera operators were prompted correctly aswell as the actors and filing ran smoothly and accordingly; this ranged from making sure the tripods were connected safely to ensuring actors knew there lines, timings and reactions. As a group i believe we also did well. Everyone responded efficiently and accordingly to the quick prompt! Next time I get the opportunity to film, i will explore every single role in more depth so that i gain a greater outlook on the filming process as a whole and not just as a director. Also Next time I will ensure we locate our scene in a more desolate area so that we are not disrupted by fellow students hence forth making out short film more realistic.





Shortly after we began to look at the next important stage of the film production process; editing. This was completely new to me and we all had to get used to the schools editing programme. We started off my uploading the film we had previously made which contained around 40 individual shots which we then had to crop, cut and insert to make the short film ( entitled 'the phone call'). This process was extremely time consuming and made me realise how much work and technique had to be used to make even the shortest clip or production. The post-production personally i believe was the hardest part of post production however necessary. After cropping clips we had to join them together to make the production run efficiently and to ensure timing was accurate, this meant in some cases re filming shots and also creating new ones!



After me and my group felt the film was presentable we began adding transactions to make the film both more interesting and more professional. We didn't want to add too many transactions so that it looked untidy so instead decided to only add transactions when a new character was introduced to the film; this way it kept the film simplistic and not too confusing for the viewers. Finally we added the begining titles and ending titles, this consisted of a black screen with childlike writing gradually floating from the left hand side of the screen to the middle, stopping for 5 seconds and then floating off to the right. We repeated this same colour scheme and entrance with the ending credits to keep a continuous theme.

The editing process of pre-production was definitely the most difficult due to the many different techniques we had to learn and apply in such a short period of time, however i believe me and my group did considerably well as we tried to made everything look presentable and keep it as simplistic and professional as we possibly could in the time we had. When attempting editing again I would ensure i have a good knowledge of the editing programme and all of the techniques of the editing process, this way i will not be time consuming by looking through the programmes contents.





Sound was the next stage of the production making process. This involved cropping, cutting and editing as well as making sure the music fit accordingly into the short film so that it didn’t run over dialect or leave blank opening and ending credits. We began by uploading the film to the sound editing programme (entitled Garageband).



We then had the option to explore the variety of sounds ,noises and rhythms the programme had to offer; this ranged from orchestral music to r&b or guitar base to funky base. After testing all the sounds suitability we began to apply our chosen music and recordings to the short film. For the first line of music we used a sound called ‘BLANK’ in the string department. We then incorporated a second line of music into the sound to play over the first; as a group we believed this made our sound more original and present our ability of overlapping diverse beats and rhythms. Lastly we used a voice record to apply into the third line; Martel’s voice, “Hello….Hello….Hello- H-H-Hello” This repeated, echoing sound added originality to our film as well as relating to the topic of our film (‘The Phone Call’). We used the same music for the ending of the play as well to yet again carry on our ‘ongoing’ theme.



I personally thought the sound practice and getting into the mind of a sound technician broadened my perspective of how much time and skills are necessary to pursue and endure a career in this department of the often alternating global media based world!