Location Visit Sheet

After we came to a definite agreement with the drama academy on where we were going to film we produced a location visit sheet for Morden Park.We used this opportunity to find any last requirements we might need when filming on location such as extra lighting and also any health and safety aspects we may need to consider when filming on location and also when traveling there.

Review of Titus Andronicus Play

In preparation for our project our BTEC Media class went to see Titus Andronicus at Stratford upon Avon. Viewing the professionals interpretation of the play and the way certain characters were portrayed and the use of spacing gave us a new perspective on the play. For instance, as a group we felt sorry for Tamora and that she was a very weak vulnerable character. However, they way she was portrayed in the play was actually as a much stronger evil character. Another aspect of the play I thought was creative was the use of multiple time periods such as some soldiers were dressed as traditional Roman soldiers, and Titus' sons were wearing hoodies and riding BMX bikes around the stage. This was useful to us as we have decided to set the film in a more modern time so seeing the play being successfully performed in the different time periods with it still being understandable means that we should be able to replicate this within the film.

The play itself made me consider multiple aspects of our film production due to my role as the main editor, While watching the play I was gaining a greater understanding of who the important characters were in each scene which I would have to represent by the shots used in our production. Another interesting part was the way the play transitioned between each scene in a creative yet fluent way, I knew that I would have to have some attempt at recreating this in the post production of our film to not only maintain the continuity but to also still have creative and interesting transitions between the shots while maintaining the focus on the key characters. 

Additionaly, as we have been given a specific segment of the original text which had parts cut out to work from. I will need to make sure there is a smooth progression through the film, allowing the audience to be able to understand what is happening at each part of the film and its relation to the play. It will also be important to create some significant contrast in the segments of the text where the build up to the point is not present, the visual differences will hopefully clarify the change in position within the piece itself to prevent the audience from becoming confused. From reading through the final scripts I have gained a greater understanding of the essential messages specific to each part of the texts which will need to be portrayed equally through the performance of the cast, but also through the cinematography and style of editing accompanied by special effects to emphasise the performance and therefore messages and themes within the piece. 

Joint Session

Assessing the joint session with the drama academy

We collaborated with the drama academy to discuss our ideas from both aspects of film and also theater. We first briefly discussed some of our basic concepts and thoughts by presenting our story board, props, costumes and also the location. We received their feedback on what they thought about the individual ideas and they were comfortable with most of them and we built upon some ideas such as the props and costume which we then re-incorporated into our original idea. They then performed what they had worked upon so far from start to finish. As Media students we then briefly discussed amongst ourselves how we can work and integrate with what the drama academy has produced.

We put forward our ideas and they were open to our criticisms, our main concerns were that the piece was heavily theatrical. To overcome this we discussed the spacing and movement of the characters to allow us to work with the shot types, angles and also being able to clearly identify the significant characters in each scene. For example in the first shot which is based upon the return to Rome there is a distinctive separation between the Romans and Goths however they are sitting and unguarded. So we worked on the positioning of some of the characters and mixed some roman guards in with the goths keeping control of them and also have the goths walking along with the Romans.

Another important decision we made was based upon Tamora's speech. The drama academy had produced a piece in which the entire cast spoke the lines with Tamora in the foreground and everybody else behind. From a filming perspective we thought this would confuse the audience and also due to the amount of people talking at once it lacked fluency. We incorporated the idea from our storyboard of Tamora performing the speech directly to Titus with her sons in the background which the drama students improvised and went very well. We are planning to also add some additional Roman guards into the scene to emphasize that the Goths are still prisoners of the Romans and have very little power.

 

In addition to this change for Tamora's speech we will also add some cut-aways to prevent the clip dragging out too much, but the audio of her speech will remain constant throughout the clips. For the cut aways we decided to keep the clips relevant to the speech and cut between characters expressions depending on who she is talking to/about.