StoryBoard

Poster for 'Labels'

This is the poster we created for our short film 'Labels'. It was created in Photoshop and is based on the idea that characters from the film are shown as pictures pinned onto a notice board. The title is spelled out on post-it notes, with the tag-line "Tag, you're it!" on a crinkled piece of notepad paper. The billing block contains all cast and crew with their respective roles.

Script - 'Labels' redraft

Title on black. Labels.

Score enters

Int. School. Day.
Protagonist walks down corridor placing 'Post-it' notes on walls containing credits and stereotypical slogans on objects.

Ext. Road. Day.
Walking down a road towards school, protagonist passes a girl and labels her a "UP FOR IT"

Ext. School. Day.
Exiting school, protagonist side steps a young male, maintaining distance suggesting he is undesirable but quickly braves his perimeter to label him "PIKEY".

Int. School. Day.
Protagonist continues along corridor, a young male walks past at the same time on the phone and upon walking past, the protagonist tags his back with the label "TOFF".

A young Indian male walking up stairs passes the protagonist and is labeled "FOREIGNER".

Ext. Road. Day.
Protagonist walks down road, passes young black male and draws up label reading "THUG".

The protagonist proceeds to walk away and as he does, the camera reveals several labels on his back. "RACIST" "XENOPHOBE" "CLASSIST" "SEXIST" "PREJUDICE" "BRITISH".




Reasons for Changes

Several things changed between the initial script for 'Labels' and the final product. We decided to remove the "FAT" scene due to filming/set difficulties, also we changed "BLONDE" to "UP FOR IT" as we felt the idea of a 'easy' girl is more British than the stereotype of blondes which we saw as more American. Removing the 'POOF' scene was done as we saw homosexuality as having a less impact on British society compared to other countries in the world and the other stereotypes we used had a greater reflection on British identity.

The film magazine we have invented and why.

Our magazine resembles that of “Empire” film magazine. We have created the film magazine called “tomorrow’s cinema” and our section title will be called “scene it”. The target audience for our film magazine are young cinema goers but not fanatics they just skim read through the article in order to get a brighter view of the film they most want to watch next. This will be targeted at 15-30 year olds. They don’t necessarily want to know what the film is about before hand but still want an expert analysis and overview of the film they would like to see. It is important that we get all the movie genres so that we can appeal to the target audience of every one from the age of 15-30.
The film magazine will be very casual as it tries to interact with its audience as if the magazine were best friends with the target audience. It is important that the target audience of our film magazine is comfortable reading our magazine, further to this they need to feel that they can refer back to the magazine, as a place of reference. This is further enhanced with the chatty nature of the author of the article. He can relate to the target audience and will try and make conversation with them without actually doing so because he's obviously writing an article. This will attract the reader further and want to read more film reviews because they can then relate to the article writer. It will try to be humorous, our target audience are people that dont take films to seriously. They enjoy a wide variety of comedy and our humour will be quite sarcastic and witty, we identify these genres of comedy as some typical british humour. We must allow the audience to feel comfortable reading this but all in the knowledge that the film review will be the serious opinion of the author with a bit .
The magazine will display one big picture above the main headline and will have an introduction aswell as a subheading underneath the headline. The introduction will introduce the film we are discussing. This will be further discussed in three columns. Thus making the audience read what they paid for. There will be a breakout box to attract the reader to some facts and statistics about the film it is important that we accommodate for all members of our target audience we know that our that not all our readers will actually read every article however they will still buy the magazine because of their interest in the figures. There will also be a breakout paragraph of the choice sentence selected by the editor. This sentence is the one the editor feels most comfortable to bring about more readers to the article thus possibly making the author quite popular in the youth circle.

Shooting Schedule.

Date: Friday 25th of February 2011
Where: this scene will be filmed in the hall outside James’s flat.
Time: the shots will be filmed between the hours of 1-4 pm in the afternoon.
Scene: we will film shots 34 to 45 which is the end of the film.
Cast: James Shaw
Crew: Sean Mcgowan (camera man) and Ross Dalton-Short (director)
Props: we are going to use paper in disguise as labels and keys to the house.
Concerns: Katy Szkuta is away for this which we put into consideration, we don’t specifically need her for this scene so we are getting the scene out of the way whilst we can.

Date: Tuesday 1st of March 2011
Where: these scenes will be shot in school
Time: the shots will be filmed between the hours of 9 am till 1 pm
Scene: we will film shots 4 to 20 on this day they will consist of the main character labelling some of the other characters.
Cast: James Shaw, Neehar Ravi, Chris Mccann and Joseph Davidson.
Crew: Sean Mcgowan (camera man), Ross Dalton-Short (director) and Katy Szkuta (technical director)
Props: labels (paper)

Date: Thursday 03rd of March 2011
Where: just outside of school on Murray Road.
Time: the shots will be filmed between the hours of 3-5 pm
Scene: we will film shots 28 to 33 this is when the main character labels the girl.
Cast: James Shaw, Katy Szkuta.
Crew: Sean Mcgowan (camera man) and Ross Dalton-Short (Director)
Props: labels (paper) and Handbag.
Concerns: We were going to cast Rosie Sinfield ahead of Katy however we realised that this was not practical as rosie may not have been available which would have delayed our film.

Date: Thursday 03rd of March 2011
Where: Just outside school on Murray Road
Time: between the hours of 3-5 pm
Scene: we will film shots 21 to 27 this is where the main character labels the “thug”.
Cast: James Shaw, Bashiru Shardow.
Crew: Sean Mcgowan, Ross Dalton-Short, Katy Szkuta.
Props: Labels and hoodie.
Concerns: These shots should have been filmed on a Friday however bashiru couldn’t make it so we moved it forward by a day.

Storyboard

(INSERT STORYBOARD)

Our storyboard comprises of a variety of shots that we intend to use in order to create our short film. In our short film, the protagonist labels five different people to express what he thinks of them therefore we had to think up different ways of showing how the protaganist would label the people. If we kept doing the same scenarios then the audience would start to realise what was happening in the film and would have an idea of how the rest of the film would plan out. Furthermore, if we did do the same scenarios then the audience may become bored of seeing the same things over and over again. In order to stop this, a variety of shots have been included in our staryboard such as close-ups, medium shots and long shots as well as different camera angles. Also, we have added transitions between shots such as a wipe to show an elipses in time in our storyboard.

Casting

Main character - James Shaw. James has to be able to show an embodiment of society's ability to abruptly judge people at first glance. He is a typical school boy of seventeen years and wears a school uniform to show his equality with all the other students - ironic for the character which he will be playing. He has a middle build, blue eyes and it is visible that there is something more that he is feeling. Unfortunately, he cannot keep his thoughts to himself and has to let them out into the open.




'Foreigner' - Neehar Ravi. This character will be played by an Indian. At first glance, he looks like a foreigner however one may get confused when they hear his unbroken and perfect English accent. He is also wearing a school uniform.




'Toff' - Chris McCann. This character glides through the school corridors full of confidence and charisma; nothing will stop him not fitting in where he feels most comfortable. Through this he exudes an air of superiority. He is a bright English young male who wants to have the best possible future for him. His school uniform is neatly worn and his crisp white shirt portrays depicts the pride that he feels whilst wearing something of the school's. He could also be carrying some books and folders in his hand showing that he is eager for his next lesson and he is not ashamed to show this. He speaks in the most formal English accent and this shows that he is somewhat posh.




'Up for it' - Katy Szkuta. A young eighteen year old girl is walking down the corridor in jeans and a shirt, there is nothing to show that she is easy or that she is interested in the boys. However, males at this age experience various sexual awakenings and therefore believe that any girl who looks at them is 'up for grabs'. This character only needs to either look or smile at one of the boys for them to think that she wants more. This is a very stereotypical portrayal of teenage girls and should be easily understood by the audience.




'Thug' - Bashiru Shardow. A definition of a thug is; a common criminal, who treats others violently and roughly. This character will not be shown in school uniform but will be filmed lurking around in the side streets. He will be wearing a hooded jumper covering up his face to not be identified and some black trousers. The audience will immediately link this with violence and being afraid; and this is exactly the effect we want to create. What is hiding beneath this character's eyes - his hard life and his past experiences - no one will ever know. Whilst a chase ensues between the protagonist and the thug, he could shout 'you have it so easy, but look at me!’

'Pikey' - Joseph Davidson. A Pikey is a pejorative slang term used to refer to Irish Travellers, gypsies or people of low social class. In this case, Joseph is a young male who comes from an Irish background. 'Pikey' is not a racial group, the term is used to describe anyone who lives in a caravan or shares the same values and "culture" of "the travelling community", and whose main sources of income are crimes. Joseph is very stereotyped because of his family roots are but this not stop him having a lot of friends who accept him in every way.