Permission To Film At Windsor & Eton Riverside!

I delivered the letter by hand to the office at the Windsor & Eton Riverside station, this left us waiting for a response over the half-term.
We recieved a response email which was sent to our google mail account letting us know we are allowed to film at the station and that there will be staff there to assist us while we film on the platform.

We then had to ring F Roberts on the day we had planned on filming at the station so we can ensure everything goes to plan.

This means we can start filming on our desired date the 28th Februrary

Risk Assessment

Filming at Windsor and Eton Riverside station can be quite dangerous given the fact that there are a few risks and hazards we need to consider when we go and film. It was in our best interest and the interest of the station to be as safe as possible when filming on the platform. We would be supervised by staff at the station and the manager would also ensure we didn't cause any distress to their customers.

The risk assessment filled out below will be shown to our teacher and connotes that we have full understanding of the risks which we may encounter when we go to film on location.

Confirmation Emails.

Here are just a couple of the emails that were sent to request permission to film at Windsor and Eton Riverside station. This was a key part in our project as without the permission to film at this location our film wouldn't of been made.

Main Location - Windsor and Eton Riverside Station

Our plans are to film at the Windsor and Eton Riverside Station because this sort of location is stereotypical of where you would see a tramp, especially buskers who have been known to sit near train stations so we though this would be a great general location for us to film at.
As the train station is a very busy place due to the fact Windsor is known for being a tourist attraction and the station is one of the main ways people transport, we needed to get permission from their management to film because we plan on filming on one of the platforms.
Here are a couple photos of the station which we took just to show you the environment in the station, we will be primarily filming on the platform to the right.

This 1st picture clearly shows both platforms and the size of the station, as you can see the platforms are quite large and allows us a lot of filming space.

This shot shows you more of the platform on the right and how large it is, also this space allows our time-lapse which we plan on doing will allow both trains and platforms to be seen in the shot.

Letter for Permission to Film

We decided to draft the letter in one of our lessons so we can as a group decide how we should write the letter, we tried to make it quite formal as we wanted to sound professional so we could give ourselves more chance of getting the permission we needed so we can start filming after half-term.

 Windsor Boys School,

1 Maidenhead Road,

Windsor,

Berkshire.

SL4 5EH

South West Trains,

Windsor & Eton Riverside Station,

Datchet Road,

Windsor,

Berkshire.

SL4 1QG

14^th February 2011

Dear, Sir/Madam

We are Flicka Films, a production company from The Windsor Boys’ School currently studying Media Studies for the first year of our A-Levels. For our year 12 project we would like to shoot a partial part of our film in your Windsor & Eton Riverside Station. The filming would include two actors (school boys) between the times of 3-5:30pm on Monday 28th February 2011.

We would like to film our two actors on the train platform – we wouldn’t require them to actually go onto any of the trains on this day, but may require some footage of them walking off the train later on in our project if that’s possible. We wont be anticipating any direct contact or involvement with the train customers.

Our film crew is very small, involving one small handheld camera, no lights and no cables.

If you have any questions, please contact us on flickafilms@gmail.com or *********** to discuss any further information you may need. We would be really grateful if you could reply to us within the next week, allowing us to commence filming on the date set.

Many thanks for your time,

Jamie Calder, Sam Correa, Ramtin Totonchi, and George Holgate

Flicka Films

The Windsor Boys School.

Props, Actors and Locations..

We now have a clear understanding of who is going to be the main actors, what our main props are going to be and where we are going to film.
We decided to put everything on paper so we typed up a list of things we have ready so when it comes to filming we will be fully prepared, below you can see we put everything under 3 main headings on an A4 piece of paper.

There isn't much information on paper because our film doesn't require many things as we are trying to make it quite simple.
We made sure each of us had a copy of this work so that we all know exactly what we need and when we need it.
All we need now is permission from W&E Riverside station to be able to film on their site.

Ideas and Shot List

After many hours of thinking and brainstorming different ideas, we now have one which we think is perfect to fit in with the psychological thriller! The first idea we were thinking of doing was something involving Sam's band, Sephiroth. However we thought this wasn't necessary and came up with the idea of a day in the life of tramp, with a twist at the end. After discussing the idea with our teacher, we decided to remove the drug deal, and include another character which over looks the tramp, and ends up locking him in the toilet at the end, however the audience don't know who it is. We're trying to make the opening play on the mind as much as possible, whilst keeping it relatively simple.

The plot to the opening is as follows:

• The Tramp (Sam, Main character) is walking through train and gets off at Windsor and Eton Riverside Station.

• Once he's on the platform, he sets up his busking equipment and starts to play the guitar.

• Whilst he's playing the guitar, another character (Me) is looking over at him, constantly watching what he's doing.

• Whilst the tramps busking, there will be a background time lapse of the station moving fast as time passes by, making a nice effect showing the tramp trying to earn money.

• Once the day turns to night, the tramp packs up enters the Windsor and Eton Riverside toilets to do his business.

• Whilst in there, the other character (Me) locks the door.

• The tramp then tries to leave and realises he's locked in.

• He then starts to panic and time is passing by quickly, with different camera angles of him around the room showing him trying to escape, we show this as it is a natural reaction of a human to panic when locked in a confined space.

• The tramp then starts to become really hot and agitated, making him become angry and feel faint.

• He slips and blacks out on the toilet floor.

• So we now have our plot complete, and have also finished our shot list and storyboards! Below is a presentation of our shot list, showing you what we have come up with!

Flicka Films Shot List

View more presentations from flickafilms.

Storyboarding our film!

Having decided on a plot for our film we began storyboarding it so we can get a clear picture of what we wanted to do. This stage was quite lengthy as none of us were good drawers, but we as a group tried to show through illustrations what our film will look like.

As Jamie was the person in our group who did all of the drawings he had to compromise drawing detail when it came to drawing a crowd of people so he drew a few stickmen just to show how the shot would look like.



We made the storyboards match the shot list so you can clearly see what shots go with what kind of sounds/dialogue.

You can see below a slideshow of the storyboards so you can see our developement into this project and also for us to look at for future reference.

Flicka Films Storyboards

View more presentations from flickafilms.

Demographic Audience Research!

As a group we wanted to extend our research into target audience and what kind of audience would like to watch a film like ours, we already know it's aimed at a niche audience but we wanted to know more about demographics and how it affects some films in the psychological thriller genre.

I did some research into "The Da Vinci Code" which is also a psychological thriller and is a film which also did quite well at the box office. Using the Pearl & Dean film planner I could see what kind of people went to watch a film like this. The questionnaire was quite limited to the people we gave it to and we wanted more information about the audience we should be targeting.

These results show a clear picture of what kind of people watched this film. As you can see more people aged 15-24 watched the film than other ages followed by 25-34. This is good as it allows us to pinpoint certain groups of people that our film would interest.
When it came to gender it was pretty even but it shows that more males watched the film than females but this is something that can easily vary. Class is something that can either be really easy to target or really hard, it all depends on what kind of film it is.
All in all, these statistics on Pearl and Dean have really helped us understand what kind of audience we need to target

Results for The Taget Audience Questionaire

We got the questionnaires we handed to our friends back and it allows us to have a clear picture of what types of films people in our age range want to see.

We asked 6 questions which are based around film genre and the decision between which films people would like to watch.

1.  Out of the following films, which ones would you be prepared to watch? (Please tick)

o   Inception

o   The Butterfly Effect

o   Looking For Eric

o   Terminal

o   Di Vinci Code

o   Quantum Of Solace

o   Paranormal Activity

o   Taken

     2.     What is your favourite film genre? (Please tick)

o   Comedy

o   Action/Thriller

o   Horror

o   Sci-Fi

o   Romance

o   Psychological Thriller

o   Anime

     3. Why do you like these films?

     4. What is your favourite film of all time?

     5. Are there any films you’re planning on seeing in the near future?

     6. Would you be prepared to watch our opening two minutes of a film in the genre of a psychological       

        thriller? (Please specify why you have made that decision)

The main result from the questionnaire was that the 16-18 year old male favourite genre on average was Action/Thriller, and not far behind that was Comedy. However, as we offered the psychological thriller as an option for them to tick 5 people put this as their favourite genre, which is promising! The last question of the questionnaire was whether they would be prepared to watch the opening of our film, and everyone agreed and said they would, which is great!

The Hermeneutic Code

The Hermeneutic Code:
"The Hermeneutic Code contains anything in the text that is mysterious or unexplained, usually leading to questions which the reader needs answered".

That is the definition given by an online dictionary. To keep the interest of the viewer, the final truth of the film isn't revealed until the end of the story and some devices are used to keep it covered such as the snare, which is a deliberate avoidance of the truth. This teases the audience and sends them down the wrong path in thinking what the final outcome may be. Partial answers are used to reveal some but not all of the final truth to increase suspense for the audience and put them on edge which allows them to think about what could be coming next. Equivocation is a mixture of the truth and snare, making it more confusing for the viewer, as it leads them into a blurry path making it hard to predict the future of the film. Jamming is also used to suggest that the problem may be completely unsolvable therefore creating a tense viewer.


In the opening 2 mintues of "Saw" it was clearly apparent that there were many unanswered questions, this may be due to the fact it's a horror film and films in that genre tend to have a lot of unanswered questions until the end of the film and even in some the questions are not entirely answered. The questions that people could ask would be "Why are they there?", "Who are they?", "What's the significance of the blue light?". Those are just some of the questions that I picked up from the opening of this film.

"iRobot" is in a different genre to "Saw" but it still contains one thing that could lead to a question. It's apparant there is a flashback sequence which shows a traumatic experience which the main character (Will Smith) has gone through, this could lead onto a question like "What significance will this have later on?". Other than that, the beginning 2 minutes of this film consisted of just titles.

"The Day After Tomorrow" had an opening 2 minutes filled with several narrative enigmas which hopefully the audience will find the answers to later in the film. Some of the questions that could be asked are "Who are they?" Why are they drilling into the ice?" "What cause the ice to crack?" These questions fuel the audiences interest in the film.

As our film opening is going to be in the genre of a psychological thriller, we want to make sure that we include a large amount of techniques within the Hermeneutic code to get the audience thinking about the plot of the film and why our characters are being used. We hope to produce our opening correctly within the genre as its really important to make sure the viewer stays interested and wants to keep watching.

Opening 5 minutes to a film in my genre – Inception

Inception is a film, which is in the genre we are currently studying for a final 2-minute film opening. After I watched the first 5 minutes of Inception I immediately saw different ways in which they made the film more interesting to the audience by grabbing their attention using different techniques.

The opening scene is on a beach with medium and close up shots of the waves htting the coastal rocks, this doesn’t show much in terms of location but shows that the location may be somewhere tropical.

The next shot is of what the audience would associate as the “main character” laying face down in the water, which suggests he washed up on the shore and is enhanced by the diegetic sound of the waves. This possibly shows us the opening sequence of the film is either a back story or a insight into the future of the film, there are quite a few examples of this and in most cases it proves effective. It does this by making us try and guess what happened to him or what is going to happen to him, which keeps us interested.

The next significant shot shows children playing in the sand and do typical things such as building sand castles, this usually suggests that the area is happy and safe but is contradicting the fact someone has washed up on the shore. The cuts in this scene are spaced out, which helps the slow tempo non-diegetic sound, which is playing in the background help to emphasise that the mood is calm and could well possibly mean the main character is disorientated, due to previous events.

The camera then cuts to a gun which is held against the mans back as he is laying down, this indicated that he is in trouble. This sudden change of events has created a different mood in which confuses the audience and has them wanting answers such as the significance of the children and the man.

The music in the background has changed slightly to more of a subtle tone as a shot of the soldier revealing who the character is, reinforces the fact the character may be in trouble.

The main character had a pistol which was revealed by the soldier shows us that his character is slightly developing as we find out new things.

These things leaves the audience questioning what is happening and what will happen, this ultimately keeps the audience interested and is something we need to consider in our coursework piece.

The opening of this film plays a lot on the mind of what’s going on as the audience need to think hard all the way throughout by taking in all information which is given to them in the first 5 minutes. This is a psychological thriller as it shows all of the key techniques in the opening to be a part of the genre I want to make ‘Black Out’ fit into along with Jamie, Sam and George, making Inception an appropriate film to relate to.

Flicka Films Youtube Channel

Hey there guys, FlickaFilms now have a Youtube channel. Youtube is a great way of sharing videos and is an ideal way to link our production videos here on my blog, this makes it much easier on our group and allows more interactivity with my blog. We will upload videos of our progress through the project on our Youtube channel so you can see how it's going.
I made a stylish background using photoshop for our channel as well to make it more professional and presentable.

Feel free to check it out!  http://www.youtube.com/flickafilms