The main character Peter in 'Nineteen Minutes' and our actor, Tom also reminded me of the character 'Charlie' from 'Perks of Being a Wallflower' and 'Oliver Tate' from 'Submarine' due to their character's having similar in vulnerability. Tom also came across as quite quiet and thus fitted the role perfectly. Not to say that he is the kind of person who would be bullied, he just had a sense of perhaps hiding things behind the surface as with the character 'Oliver' and 'Charlie' who also share traits which Peter (the main character of Nineteen Minutes'). In this way, think this drew me to the character more since I love those films so much. Also, similarly both Charlie and Oliver have an interest in writing which also relates to Peter's character (despite his writing perhaps being more sinister and suicidal). In particular near the beginning of the 'Perks of Being a Wallflower' there is a scene of Charlie writing a letter just as Peter does. Also, Oliver's character in 'Submarine' is introduced though a tracking shot which reveals the interior of his room beforehand. This is similar to how we wanted our film opening to be. Charlie from the 'Perks of Being a Wallflower' was quite influential in creating Peter's character initially since the characters were very similar and both struggle from depression.
Similarly, 'Oliver Tate' was an influence due to the character being portrayed as isolated due to the affects of bullying and perhaps not being perceived as 'normal' by other people the same age.
Since our film opening only required one character, a 17 year old boy, it was fairly easy to fit the role since we were not planning to have them being explicit acting, nor have their whole body on screen. However, we chose a person, Tom Downey, who did have experience in acting and in fact took media studies themselves, so they knew what to expect (in a way) when it came to shooting day. As a director, I wanted to be able to communicate effectively with the actor so that we could shoot effectively and efficiently, in this way it helped that I already knew the actor previously. It also helped that our narrative did not rely on his acting and so he was not heavily required other than just sitting and typing in the scene in which we wanted to conduct. We mostly wanted to rely on the message created by the note he was typing out as well as his surroundings, in order to create appropriate meaning about his character in a coherent way. However, I thought that Tom was perfect for the role as being a 17 year old boy himself he could relate to his character, Peter (except the school shooting plot-line...hopefully). The only thing that was perhaps different would be relating to being an American boy however, the social issues tackled in the opening are perhaps thing that many people have been affected by. Mental issues being a serious problem in today's society. We also wanted the character to have quite a small frame, since the main character is no 'soccer' player but rather one of the kids who sits in the library and reads throughout his breaks to stay away from all the people who bully him for perhaps being 'different' or just a target. In this way, Tom was the perfect size to portray this character in the right way, displaying his vulnerability.
Tom also reminded me of the character 'Charlie' from 'Perks of Being a Wallflower' and 'Oliver Tate' from 'Submarine' due to their character's having similar in vulnerability. Tom also came across as quite quiet and thus fitted the role perfectly. Not to say that he is the kind of person who would be bullied, he just had a sense of perhaps hiding things behind the surface as with the character 'Oliver' and 'Charlie' who also share traits which Peter (the main character of Nineteen Minutes'). In this way, think this drew me to the character more since I love those films so much. Charlie from the 'Perks of Being a Wallflower' was quite influential in creating Peter's character initially since the characters were very similar and both struggle from depression.
Similarly, 'Oliver Tate' was an influence due to the character being portrayed as isolated due to the affects of bullying and perhaps not being perceived as 'normal' by other people the same age.
We wanted Peter's character to be dressed plainly, since it would be odd if we conveyed a depressed character like Peter's by having him wearing a yellow t-shirt or a Hawaiian shirt. In this way, we dressed Peter in just a black t-shirt and jeans. Thus, implying that Peter is a saddened character as well as not really caring what he wears, just as long as he doesn't stand out and hence blend in with the rest of his high school. We also dressed Peter with black rimmed glasses to imply that his character was perhaps seen as 'nerdy', stereotypically.
Similarly we wanted to imply that Peter is perhaps disturbed due to the effects of the other people at his school, that he was bullied. His black t-shirt may also imply that he wants to remain anonymous, so that no one will suspect what crime he eventually commits (a school shooting). The black t-shirt also connotes depression and perhaps a sense of suspicion.
Inspiration for Peter's character also stemmed from 'Charlie' in the 'Perks of Being a Wallflower' who tends to wear dark, monochromatic clothing. In this way, we wanted to portray his character similarly to Charlie's in the way that their character's are being bullied.
The use of props in our film opening was key in signifying certain aspect of Peter's character as well as displaying the setting in which the film its set. We knew that Peter's character was very much the typical perhaps 'nerdy' 17 year old boy. In this way, we attempted to portray this through his glasses, the type of books such as 'Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy' and 'The Hobbit'. We also placed what is often perceived as 'nerdy' DVDs such as 'Star Trek', 'Lord of The Rings' and 'X Men'. As well as this we wanted to signify that this film opening was set in America and so we placed half eaten, American chocolate bars. We also placed an left over cereal bowl, which we wanted to have been marinating for a while, along with a glass of water and a can of monster. We wanted to imply that Peter's character was dis-organised and perhaps didn't really care if his room was dirty and messy since only he abodes there.
Our props perhaps took inspiration from the opening and room of 'Oliver Tate' in the film 'Submarine' since we hoped to create a room with was full of all 'nick-nacks' like Oliver Tate's. Despite the locations of the character's being in Wales and America, the concept of a teenage bedroom was very much the same. We thought the rooms should have the personal touch of the character. The only different being that Peter would have more American-themed items in his room. Props List:
Death Wish poster
DVD’s (Star Trek, Superman,
Doctor Who, X-Men etc.)
Finding a location for our film opening was surprisingly easy since we already had a location in mind in the development of the screenplay. We wanted a location that would be dark and preferably be something you would expect from an American boy's bedroom. We came to the conclusion of using a loft bedroom, with sloping ceilings, and one skyline window. This window had a black-out blind and so perfect for a dark, depressing bedroom. In this way, we wanted to imply that Peter's character is a little different and disturbed as well as suffering from depression. Thus, implying that perhaps something disturbing will occur later in the film and hence creating enigma. As we only had 2 minutes, we did not feel it was necessary for us to change locations since we also wanted to create a very closed-off feel, making the audience feel as if they are trapped as Peter is, almost in his own head. The low ceiling helped to give us this feel of being stuck and confined.
By having the location of the bedroom being so confined it helped to convey how the main character, Peter, was isolated both at high school and at home. Thus, we wanted it to be evident that as well as being physically isolated in the attic room of the house, out of the way from everything else that is going on, he is also psychologically isolated in that he feels he is the only person who is truly effected by bullying. Personally, I think that the location was perfect in representing an isolated, 17 year old, American boy's bedroom since it was so isolated in itself as well as being confined, as Peter's character is throughout the narrative.
A list given to the film production crew which indicates the sequence of scenes being shot for the day. This list may include the scene number, the location of where the scene is being shot, a description of the scene, the length of a scene (listed by number of pages from the script), a list of actors who will be involved in the scene, and, special notes to all departments of what will be needed or required for a particular scene being shot.
Shot Number
Shot Type
Storyboard Number
Shot Description
1
Tracking Shot
2,5,8
Tracking Shot of
Peter from the desk, revealing parts of his bedroom gradually.
2
Medium Close-up
3
Hand on mouse and
pot of pencils on the desk.
3
Close-up
4
Close-up of a
mouse clicking on the music. Switch focus from the play button to the title 'Fall Out Boy Golden' - of music.
4
Extreme Close-up
6,7,9,111,13,14,16,17,
18
Close-ups of
different objects in the room. Switch from out of focus to in, focus on the
object.
Although shots are simple, if the tracking shot works out it will hopefully turn out well and look effective. As well as this difficulty, achieving the extreme close-up with Peter's eyes with the reflection in his glasses may be hard, since we need to have the gun which he is looking at on the computer -achieving the right angle for this may be difficult. We also wanted the extreme close-ups to go from out of focus to in focus in order to achieve a little ambiguity and therefore we wanted to reveal about his character gradually, but enough so that it meets the conventions of a film opening: creating enigma, establishing time, place and introducing character. We wanted to make sure that the meaning was clear as well as being creative with our choices of shots.
Similarly, we do not want to over complicate the number of shots/shot types since when t comes to production day we do not want it to be over-complicated but it still needs to be challenging enough. In this way if the tracking shot works out it should hopefully look more impressive. The influence of this tracking shot stems from Wes Anderson's signature of using tracking shots, with not cuts.
a sequence of drawings, typically with some directions and dialogue, representing the shots planned for a film or television production.
Coming up with a storyboard felt like a daunting task, yet after doing various film opening deconstructions, we managed to come up with shots we thought would be effective, as well as doable with the equipment and budget we had. We came up with the idea of perhaps having one tracking shot, and then entering various close-up shots of the room, of objects, to be able to give us an introduction to Peter's character, as well as creating enigma about the rest of the film, in particular him as a person. In this way, we thought it would be effective if you did not see his face as a whole, but rather bits, fragmented, leaving the audience to piece together parts of his character, without giving too much away.
By having diegetic sound, we thought that it would enable us to be more effective in our music choice, having something that Peter would listen to, and American band, in order to ensure we were portraying the character in the right way.
The text/typing will contain the whole letter, but focus will be on the main words - 'Don't blame yourself;', these being the only ones being still typed out, to draw the audience's attention to it.
Close-ups will ideally start off unfocused and become focused to gradually reveal objects.
I also compiled an alternative storyboard, in case the tracking shot did not work, since we did not have the equipment to create the shot, we may have to use something with wheels with a Steadicam to enable us to conduct this. But, just in case we came up with an alternative, in this way if things did not turn out well on filming day we had something else to follow:
Ideally we would like to have a bird's eye view shot of Peter typing, however we thought it would be hard to could to camera still without having a shaky camera, however we would have to come up with a solution of being high enough to be able to capture the shot -but, it would be effective.
We thought that we could perhaps overlay the typing in post, if the shots on the computer did not turn out well.
