'10 Minutes'

As a group, we came up with a new film idea about a school boy who's life changes due to the setting of his alarm. We thought that this would be a good idea to use because it covers many genres; comedy, social realism, among many others. This makes it an easy film for us to relate to, and produce. 

The new idea (10 Minutes): 

This film is about a schoolboy who has an upcoming exam, and (in one half of the story) wakes up late, causing a series of unfortunate events and, ultimately, ending up with him missing his exam. The other half of the story shows the opposite of this, the boy wakes up on time, causing him to avoid all of the previously shown unfortunate events, and eventually he turns up on time to his exam.  This results in him receiving a good result, setting him on a good path for the rest of his life. 

We decided to use this idea for our film because, the basics of it has proven to be successful by mainstream films. Films such as 'Run Lola Run' and 'Smoking or not smoking' have used the same idea as we plan to, and have become successful and well known as a result of this. Our film will follow two stages of our main characters life. One will be the unfortunate side, where he wakes up late and misses his exam. The other will be the good side, where he wakes up on time and does well in the exam. 

We also felt that this idea would easily relate our film to our target audience, adolescents. Using a young schoolboy helps us do this, along with the themes of comedy and social realism. 

Early Stage Planning: New film idea

After some careful consideration, we decided to take a new approach to our initial film ideas and we came up with a new idea:

10 Minutes
The film follows the main character over the course of an eventful day. There are two sides of the film both displaying differents paths taken by this main character. Path 1, the character forgets to set his alarm on the day of his final exam, therefore waking up 10minutes late at 8.10am, this is then followed by a series of unfortunate events which ruin his day and potentially his future as it causes him to eventually miss his final exam.  Path 2 his whole day then rewinds back to the start, whereas this time he remembers to set his alarm, allowing him to wake up on time at 8.00 am, and due to this 10 minute difference, the main character manages to avoid the unfortunate events, he had encountered when he had woken up late, which has a much more positive effect on his day.

 

The narrative structure of this film was very much influenced by the german film 'Run Lola Run'. Unlike normal hollywood mainstream films which have a common beginning, middle and end, this film follows an unusual pattern.The beginning will present the time, the setting and the key characters of the story, and portray their lives in a ‘normal’ situation. This initial ‘normality’ is then broken by some kind of event or action which alters and distrupts the sequence of events.

We really wanted to play on the fact that certain decisions made, can have a huge impact on our lives, even the smallest detail can make a huge difference and this is something that we never think of or even realise.

Audience and Purpose

As a group, we decided to target adolescents (i.e. anyone from the age 13-19). We thought this would be the best audience to target because we can easily relate to them, being teenagers ourselves, and the themes of our film (comedy, social realism) satisfy the typical adolescent needs when viewing a film. Furthermore, we felt it would be easier to cast people of a similar age to ourselves and our target audience, rather than trying to cast adults or very young children. This is another reason why our group decided to target teenagers.

The first ideas for our film were based around the themes of violence and racism. Further down the line, we moved towards love as our main theme before finally deciding on comedy and social realism to be the two themes we centred our film on. The film idea we came up with focuses on a schoolboy and two paths he takes that result in him waking up late, causing a series of unfortunate events, before finally missing his important exam. The other side of the story focuses on the lighter side, the boy wakes up on time, causing him to luckily avoid all of the events the audience have previously seen, before finally sitting his exam and achieving a good grade. This film, as a whole, is solely based around school and pupils, something every teenager in the UK can relate to.

Moreover, when thinking about our target audience, we decided that our film should be able to target teens of all classes, and both genders. The themes of our film can relate to anyone, despite their gender, class, sexual orientation, and so on. This gives us a wide audience to show our film to, instead of pinpointing a small section of society and ignoring everyone else. As a group, we felt that this would be the best idea for our film.

Early stage planning: Film Ideas

We had previously intended to target a teenage audience, ranging from the age of 15 and above, therefore whilst planning the film it was important to consider the theme and many other aspects of out potential film, so that it is appropriate for our audience.

The purpose of the film had not yet been decided it was a decision between a film to raise an issue or a film simply for entertainment purposes or even perhaps combining the two purposes.

The brainstorming for the film ideas had begun. With such a broad range of themes to aim at we found it difficult to spark up original ideas, we were suffering from writers block. However we had finally settles down up came up with a few ideas:

Idea 1: Creating a fake documentary style film, following the daily lives of the rioters as they explain there own version of events.

Thee concept of this idea was a good one, however filming a documentary will limit the amount of different camera techniques to use, furthermore there will be a lot of dialogue taking place, which could also be an issue.

Idea 2: A film which showed the everyday life of two different people from contrasting backgrounds, showing how life can be so difficult for some people where as for others life is a walk in the park.

Idea 3: This idea combined the idea of following the everyday life of two contrasting families or people, however this idea would consist of a life cycle, showing a baby growing into a child, teenager then adult.

The cast would be a clear issue for this idea in particular, it will be difficult to find or assemble all these different characters.

Idea 4: The previous ideas that we had thought of tackled serious issues and themes within society, which were aimed at raising an issue, therefore we now decided to think of a much more light hearted film, which aimed to entertain.

We came up with the idea or teenager love/lust as we all have experienced this during s period in our life making it easier to relate.

The idea for the film is a boy who loses his wallet and soon realises that it has gone missing and goes into a state of panic, not known to him an attractive girl stumbles across the wallet. She is now determined to return this wallet to its owner and goes on the search. The boy re-traces his steps desperately aiming to find his wallet, both boy and girl suddenly cross paths, the wallet is returned as they both awkwardly stare at each other with lust. However that is the end of it they both begin walking in opposite directions.

This is just the outline of the film, there is still a lot to do in terms of developing the scripts.

  

Film Idea 2

Are we really different?

Two sides, black and white. Two colours that are completely different from each other. One group of white adolescents are returning from a football match, eager for a fight with the opposing teams fans. One group of black adolescents are hanging around on a street corner waiting for their next victim to mug. The two groups get closer and closer to one another. Suddenly both groups are parallel to each other hurling abuse to the opposing race, and waiting for someone to make the first move. The tension builds and builds until the groups charge at each other, hurling missiles as they get closer. Suddenly, the camera shuts down and a black screen appears.

The scene reappears, but the situation has changed. Everyone is getting along with each other and race seems to be nothing but a colour between friends. The group of teenagers clearly share the same interests and hobbies, and walk off together. After this, a title appears asking 'Are we really different?', followed by 'Stereotypes cause violence, think before you judge'.

As a group we decided that this idea is just a back up in case Idea 1 doesn't work out. Although this is the early stages of planning we felt that this film needed to be developed further, and we may decide to use it if we can find a way to add some sort of twist to it. 

Film Idea 1

Lost and Found: 

Lost and Found is a Rom-com about a boy and a girl destined to fall in love. The boy in the film loses his wallet on the way home from work, and is devastated because it contained all of his money, credit cards etc. However, a beautiful young girl finds the wallet and makes it her top priority to return it to its rightful owner, and her journey to find him begins. When the girl finds the boy and returns his wallet it's love at first sight. However, they are both too nervous to talk to each other and go their separate ways almost immediately after they meet.

This is the most likely idea we, as a group, will use for our short film. We feel that it is something we can relate to our target audience, and is also a genre that provides us with a platform to make the film entertaining and fun. 

UK Film Magazines

EMPIRE MAGAZINE

Is a British film magazine published monthly by Bauer Consumer Media. From the first issue in July 1989, the magazine was edited by Barry McIlheney and published by Emap Bauer purchased Emap Consumer Media in early 2008. It is the biggest selling film magazine in Britain. The target audience that Empire tend to tagert is 16-25 year olds because of advertisement and semi naked pictures of women in some issues. However it it suitable for both male and females, as it has a balance of action and feminine issues.In common with most British film magazines, Empire is populist in both approach and coverage unlike less irreverent and more 'serious' magazines such as Sight and Sound. It reviews both mainstream films and art films, but feature articles concentrate on the former.

As well as film news, previews and reviews, Empire has some unique regular features. Each issue  features a Classic Scene, a transcript from a notable film scene. The first such classic scene to be featured was the "I could have been a contender" scene from On the waterfront.

TOTAL FILM

 is a British film magazine published 13 times a year every four weeks by Future Publishing. The magazine was launched in 1997 and offers film, DVD and Blu-ray news, reviews and features. Guest editors have included Peter Jackson, Kevin Smith, Kermit the Frog, Ricky Gervais and Stephen Mer. It is the second-biggest selling film magazine in Britain, after Empire.Each month, Total Film provides a range of features, from full-length interviews and photo shoots with established and up-and-coming actors and directors, to major film previews and retrospective pieces. All issues contain the Total Film Interview — an in-depth chat with a celebrated actor or director, along with a critique of their body of work; the Abridged Script - a one-page parody of a recent release and Total Film loves..., a one-page celebration of a film, a scene or a performance.