First Shoot - Mise en Scene - Alleyway

To create a sense of place and heighten the mise en scene of our shoots, I captured film of the alley ways that were to be used in our opening sequence. This film could be used to fill in between shoots. 

We filmed PoV shots and panning shots that will help us set the scene of our piece. These shots detail and emphasise the dirtiness of the setting, capturing visuals of a cobbled back street, dustbins and brickwork. Filming the raindrops contacting the puddles connotes the dullness and sadness of this "world" in comparison to the female dancer's world.

Gaining additional inspiration and artistic direction

When refreshing the inspirational influences for the shooting of our opening sequence, I researched more dance routines. This 'Nike' advert displays the fusion of hip hop and ballet danceforms, much in the same way we want to achieve. 

However, the girls in this advertisement are filmed together in a "dance-off" situation, whereas we will juxtapose the female dancers with the gangster character through alternating scenes.

Nike Advert

Lists

To prepare ourselves for the shoot taking place I have made a prop, cast and location list. This is basically all the things and places we need for our shoot to be successful, listed.

PROP LIST

* Large Black Holdall

* Ballet Shoes & Costume (Dancer's own)

* Baseball Cap & Trainers (Actor's own)

* Men's Dance Pumps/Ballet Shoes

CAST LIST

* Male, Age 17-18, Tall, Well Built

* All Male Gang, 3-8 People, Ages 15-20

* Dancers (Ballet)

* Dancers (Hip-Hop)

LOCATION LIST 

* Grotty Back Alley or Run Down Area (Possibly Blackburn or Great Harwood)

* Dance Studio (College Drama and Dance Academy)

With this list our film shoots will be organised and completed successfully.

Storyboard

To create a clear idea of the visuals of the shoot we are about to undergo, and how the filming will look when edited, we have drawn out a storyboard. The storyboard will keep the visual ideas we have in our minds and motivate us to capture these shots. It also outlines the story of the opening scene.

Storyboard for 'En Pointe' -

...awaiting storyboard...

Box Office

      The genre of our film is dance. Dance films have been popular since the 70s when the film ‘Saturday night fever’ was released in 1997 earning a worldwide lifetime gross of $237,113,184. In 2006 the film ‘Step up’ with a production budget of $12 million made $20,659,573 in its opening weekend and worldwide gross of $114,194,847 in 2,647 theatres. The film was such a success Buena Vista made a sequel in 2008 ‘Step up 2 the streets’ bringing in $18,908,826 in its opening weekend and a worldwide gross of $148,172,291 at 2,528 theatres. In 2008 Buena Vista also made the dance musical ‘High school Musical 3’ with a production budget of $11 million, it was released in 3,626 theatres with a worldwide gross of $223,871,675. The genre is popular at the moment, with two of the most popular films of the year 'Step up 2' and 'High School Musical 3' being dance.

Preliminary Task

To give us camera experience before we begin to shoot our actual project we did a preliminary task. This involved filming a conversation between 2 or more people. We had to include someone walking through a door and shots from a variety of angles. Though the story of this short clip is somewhat insignificant, it is the filming from different angles, keeping to the 180 degree rule and the continuity of the piece that we focussed on.

The good aspects of our film was the continuity throughout, all the scenes flowed smoothly together also.  Even though the acting was not a focal point we still got the main angle shots into the clip. With all the smoothly flowing scenes and the angles which had been shot it made the clip short but aesthetically pleasing to the voyeurs.

However, the sound in some parts of the short film were barely audible. This may have caused confusion over the story line as some vital speech could not be heard. Though only a short film, the story could have been slightly more complex and interesting. This would have been accomplished if we had created a more unusual situation to shoot.

Atmosperic Music for Piece

From researching films of the dance genre i have found that they often use a fusion of music as well as a fusion of dance styles. While thinking about the music we could stage our opening sequence to, I have come up with the idea of mixing classical and hip hop music. Here is one example -

Step Up - Opening Sequence

I think that the mood of these two music pieces would work well with the overall idea of our opening-

Scala - Palladio

T-Pain - Church