THE FINAL CHILDRENS FILM

Childrens Film - Callum Adams

Wassuuuuuuup
I thought I would give you a little bit of information on how I have worked throughout the project so far. Oli and Luke should give you an update about their own work sometime soon.

So, the plot of our film is the stereotypical bad guy vs good guy, evil vs good. Obviously as this is a PG film good will eventually prevail over evil. Therefore our superhero characters needed to appear able to defeat such an evil character. The three 'good guys' needed too vary and for my own character I chose to use 'Superman' as an influence. The attire i chose for my character was basic but meaningful:

• A cape, merely a black bed sheet.
• Proper Leather shoes; to portray the characters serious attitude and to link with the mise en scene of Olde England.
• The shoes coupled with plain dark trousers which children would invisage as olde time clothes.
• Unfortunately my choice of jumper was not good as it had a commercial brand label slap bang in the centre. So, I attemtped to disguise this with my black cape when we filmed.
• Finally I gave 'Buster' a pair of avaiators to, just like Superman, mask his identity and add mystery to the character.

My Specific Scene:
As our characters varied I chose to base my character on an all action 'Superman' type hero whereas the others were mysterious magicians and querky scientist/inventors. The scene begins with the camera zooming from the superheroes black cape with my back turned. As the camera zooms back and I come into full view I turn around and take a stereotypical heroic, hands on hip stance and look into the sky. I'm no actor so I tried to use stereotypical superhero character conventions to portay my character. From out of nowhere a henchman runs in and attacks me. As this is a only a PG I chose to use fist fighting, but in fear of this being to vivid and violent I made sure all the action was clearly fake. After the fight scene finishes the scene then cuts back to the book and my scene is over.

The Book: The book dictates the plot of the story to the audience. I thought of this format from watching the film 'Shrek' where the foundations of the fairytale are explained from the start to give the audience some background information and leave the story on a cliffhanger. Due too the resources avaliable we couldn't film use full animation like in Shrek and turning the pages with I-Stop would have been nearly impossible and very time consuming. We decided to film the book section with a camcorder.
I then pulled a story of good vs evul and a quest plot together as the rest of the group brainstormed ideas.
Rather than making a book from scratch we took an old book from the libary with similar coloured pages to the tea stained ones we had made.

Filming: I wanted to do most of the filming for this project, I chose to incorporate different techniques.

• 180 Degree Pan - I used this in the 'Barry action scene' while he used the computer to give a feel of the audience walking behind the character and coupled with,
• Over The shoulder shot - this gave all aspects of the Barry Scene to the audience.
• Point of View Shot - Again in the Barry action scene I used the point of the view of the computer that Barry was typing at so the audience can get a clear view of who the character is as he has his back turned to the camera in the other shots
• Close Ups - I used numerous close ups; In the shooting of the book I used an extreme close up as I panned up and down the page while the narrator dictated. I also used a close up on the evil character as he sat in a menacing position. Note that I also used a low angle shot here to enhance his notoriety. Again, a close up of 'Merlin' as he sat meditating.
• Medium Long Shot - As Oliver filmed me and Luke in 'Busters'' fight scene I advised him to use the tripod in a stationary position as though the scene was being watched by a stationary onlooker. This worked well and a mini pan that Oli threw in as the henchman ran towards Buster gave a little more effect.
• Panning Shots - I used panning shots twice. Firstly with the evil character and secondly with Merlin. Both times I panned across the shot slowly then when the camera had passed the character a little I panned back fast so that the character was in the centre of the frame. I used this technique to give the effect of the audience looking for someone and then being surprised when they find them. Also I used a normal pan at the start from the sky towards the book to establish the setting.
  
• Zooms - I used numerous zooms, for example with Merlin I zoomed into his face at the end of the scene so that there wasn't a mere cut.

All of this is subject to change when the process of editing takes place.