2-minute Mise-en-scene Film Opening Plan

What was the task?
The main aim of the task was to create a two minute film opening, using mise-en-scene. Mise-en-scene is defined as 'the arrangement of scenery and stage properties in a play' - which is why we were given a location, a costume, a time, a character and some props to incorporate into it. We had free reign with the plot - we could make it whatever we wanted, as long as it incorporated the criteria allocated to us.

What elements of mise-on-scene were we given?
We were given 5 different elements of mise-on-scene to work with in our two minute film opening, shown to the left. Firstly, we were given a location - ours was the old rollercoaster at Yarmouth Pleasure Beach. Then we were given a prop (fish and chips), a time (sunrise at the weekend), character guidelines (a 40 year old woman), and a costume (uniform). We were fairly happy upon receiving these, because a lot of them seemed to fit quite well together, e.g. the fish and chips and the beach, and the 40 year old woman and the uniform.

What were our initial plot ideas?
Initially, we came up with a few plot ideas. We then picked our favourite one to develop further, which would potentially be our final idea. Our first plot idea included a 40 year old woman in various places at the beach - as she visits different areas, she remembers different parts of her childhood (shown using younger people playing her younger self). We also thought about developing this into the beginning of a love story - she could potentially be there remembering the time she spent there with someone in her past. Our second potential plot was quite different to this. We thought about having a 40 year old woman walking past a rollercoaster, and being approached by a young man, who then tries to mug her. Our final idea was a woman who is visiting the beach to meet up with a man she's having an affair with while her husband is at home. She meets him and they walk along the beach together, passing the rollercoaster.

What were our casting ideas?
We decided on using a group member's parents for the cast. We thought this would be easiest as organising and co-ordinating everyone wouldn't be as difficult as it would be with a stranger. We weren't really sure about who to cast for the younger version of the woman (in our initial idea), but we knew it would have to be someone similar looking (e.g. same ethnicity, hair colour etc.)

What location were we given, and what research have we done about it?
We were given Yarmouth Beach. There wasn't much research needed about this location as we had all visited it many times before, and so we knew the general layout and where everything is. However, I did do some research about certain vantage points, specifically a Ferris Wheel, as we thought a high up shot would be an effective way to set the scene.

What props were we given? How can they be incorporated with our film opening?
We were initially given a cup of tea as a prop, but being allowed to swap one part of our given mise-en-scnee with another group, we then had fish and chips. We chose to swap to this as our given location was a beach, and so we thought this would make it easy to link into the plot - whatever we decided to do, fish and chips would fit in very easily (even just in the background).

What costume were we given? How can it be incorporated with our film opening?
We were given a uniform as the costume part of our mise-en-scene. Initially, we thought about linking the costume to the location/prop - e.g. ask to film someone working in a chip shop, or someone working at the roller coaster. However, we also considered having our character wearing a uniform - as we had to cast a 40 year old woman, we thought it would also be easy having her wear a work uniform (e.g. a suit), as it wouldn't look out of place, especially if she is passing by the beach on her way to work.

What is our target audience?
We decided the best age range to aim for would be similar age to the character - middle aged, probably women. We decided this as when watching a film, people relate best to characters that they can see themselves in, and so aiming it at teenagers would be less effective, as not a lot of teenage girls would see themselves in and relate to a 40 year old woman.

What's our filming plan/schedule?
We decided to film some time during the half term holidays, as it gave us plenty of time. Since we had to film in the early morning, having it during the half term would be best as we wouldn't have to film it on the weekend when a most people in our group are often busy. Also, if we didn't manage to film it during one day, we would have the opportunity to go back another day. We didn't have a specific plan for the order of filming, as that would have really required us to visit the location before filming to figure out angles etc. but we did have a few things in mind beforehand, such as what we wanted the characters to do, and the basic plot etc.

Final Ideas
Our final and developed idea was the first one we came up with. We decided this would be the best one as we all agreed it would be the most fun to edit and film, and we thought this was the most interesting, least generic plot of the three. However, there were some things we had to change. Due to cast availability, we had to change the plot to have the given character in a house, and the other ones at the beach. However, our final idea was to have a young (teenage) couple, at the beach. We would have various shots of the beach with the sun coming up, and them on the beach doing things like skimming stones, eating chips, walking and walking in the sea. We would then have them walking past the old roller coaster, and have someone take a picture of them - the picture would be the focus of the screen for a couple of seconds, zooming out to reveal it's stuck in a photo album. A 40 year old woman, in a work uniform is seen to be looking through a photo album as memories from her childhood.

We decided not to have any sound or people talking in our opening two minutes, not only because a lot of films don't feature sound (apart from music), but because filming at a beach without any proper microphones to record speech would result in distorted sound and an overall reduced quality of our end product. We decided to have music playing over the top, probably piano music, as it would set the scene of memories and nostalgia quite well.