Each member of our group pitched an idea for a short, 5-minute film, including a presentation and some location pictures and other research such as a rough treatment or script.
Melissa's idea revolved around christmas and Santa. The main idea was that Santa would 'shrink' whilst in a house on Christmas Eve and enter a child's dolls house. The genre is a festive/children's film and is quite original compared with examples we had seen from previous student's work. The plot was fairly consistent, staying focused around themes of happiness and joy.
PROS:
1 Original and innovative ideas
2 The content contains no violence or fast-paced action, making it easier to produce and available for everyone to watch
3 The green screen effects contained in this film would be very effective
CONS:
1 Only appeals to a small, younger audience
2 Effects may be challenging to recreate
3 Some scenes relied heavily on 'rare' snowy weather, also meaning we would have to film within a specific time period (December/January)
4 This film is seasonal, therefore may not appeal to anyone after Christmas.
Overall the presentation was very effective and informative, she had done a lot of research and thought of many aspects of this production, however it was difficult to include new ideas to this project and we found it quite restrictive.
Richard's pitch was very well thought out, he had made a slide-show containing parts of a treatment and script. His film consisted of a young man's memories being shown as he appears to be lay down in a field on some grass. It is later revealed that these events led up to him being stabbed and the camera pans out to reveal he has a knife in him.
PROS:
1 Nice plot with an effective twist at the end
2 Had a clear target audience, the character and events can be easily related to
3 Showed changes of mood and setting which would be effective to watch
CONS:
1 The plot could potentially lose people as it changes time setting along with locations
2 Relies heavily on editing
3 The genre was unclear
Overall, I liked the idea and felt that with contribution of extra ideas added to it, this could be a good film to produce. The presentation was filled with a lot of information but was sometimes unclear due to the amount of writing.
Jodie's presentation was very bold and bright, containing lots of images that helped people to follow the plot and the idea. The idea was about a prank that was played on a character to do with a glass of water. The idea was entertaining but the storyline was very weak.
PROS:
1 Twist in the plot was effective
2 Young characters are relatable and present a target audience
3 Locations and scenes included make it easy to film, giving us an opportunity to be creative with camera angles and shots
CONS:
1 Too short
2 Flawed storyline
3 Didn't give much of an opportunity to expand on the existing ideas here
Overall the presentation was great but once we dug deeper into the plot it became quite weak and we found very few ways to contribute new ideas to this film.
My idea featured an average man stuck in a dead-end job who dreamt about what his life was like when he was younger and where it went wrong. The film is a mix of a tale of romance but with elements of a psychological thriller. My pitch featured a slide show of location images to help the audience through the different stages of my idea.
PROS:
1 Good story, very detailed plot
2 Ambitious locations
3 Contains conventions of two kinds of genres
4 Appeals to a broad audience
CONS:
1 Weak ending, needed to be worked on/developed
2 Ambitious locations
3 Relies on weather and other 'natural' factors to create atmosphere in most scenes
Overall, I thought my idea would be good to do but needed contribution from other group members to make the storyline solid, as the ending was weak the way it was. My presentation involved a lot of talking and was maybe a little too long. Also, I only used images in my presentation when I could of utilised the use of text in the slideshow.
