Shots of our location

 

We decided to use this toilet to shoot the scene in which Diane hangs herself as this is one of the few places in school where students can depart themselves from everything else by locking themselves in. It is therefore seen as typically the most likely place for someone to commit suicide in a school environment. As we planned to leave her identity as a mystery, we decided to only show her feet dangling at the end of the trailer. We took into consideration that this scene has hazards, which need to be dealt with, therefore we had Diane holding herself up with the bar as shown in the picture above. The mise-en-scene of this scene is effective in terms of being an obscure shot, which will be shown unexpectedly, capturing the audience’s attention and making them more drawn into the storyline behind the suicide.

We originally planned to use this toilet to film the shot in which Louise walks in to find the dead body, however whilst filming, we found that the toilet was not long enough to create an effective shot as it was too small. 

After realising the problem with the other toilet, we deciding to film in this toilet as its longer, and therefore it is easier to get more mise-en-scene into the shot. We decided to use a high-shot whilst filming this scene to almost act like a CCTV camera. This may work well in terms of making the audience feel as though they know more than the characters in the sequence know.

We used the Sixth Form common room to create a sense of social realism, to show the audience the everyday social hangout which is shown in two clips in the trailer. Here, we plan to introduce the four girls in soap by panning the camera to follow the girls into the room, and merge shots together to show them as close friends. This will help the audience identify with this environment as the centre point in the soap.

This location is where we planned to film an over-the-shoulder shot in which Diane is looking out of the window, and over-looking her is a hooded character whose identity is unknown. This creates a sense of uneasiness for the audience as they begin to see Diane as the vulnerable character, and potentially a victim.

We used this location as the mise-en-scene of the walls and staircase create an edgy feel, communicating that there is more to the scene. Moreover, we plan on panning the camera whilst Amber and Tanny walk across this corridor. This is effective in proposing to the audience the environment of a school due to the notices put up as well as the photos of art work by students, allowing them to relate to the surroundings.

During the scene of this shot, the camera pans to follow Amber and Tanny, who are having a conversation about Diane. This seems to leave the audience questioning the story behind Diane and why she is such a vulnerable character. We decided to use this corridor as the way in which the mise-en-scene allows the corridor to look narrower as it goes further down, it can be used to imply Amber and Tanny making their way to the answers of the audience and their own questions.

Plan for filming

Location - School building.

Below is the narrative of what is going to occur when we film and what we are going to film throughout the trailer:

Monday:

·         Amber, Louise, Diane and Tanny are seen walking together down a corridor.

·         They enter the common room and sit together closely.

·         The purpose of this scene is to show a strong sense of friendship between the four girls. The common room is also shown in this first scene to present a community.

Tuesday:

·         Diane is shown sitting alone in the common room.

·         She looks around, almost in search of someone and then receives a text.

·         The camera pans around into a point-of-view shot to show the text which reads “I know you did it.”

·         The intention of this scene is to show that there is some mystery behind Diane’s character.

Wednesday:

·         Amber and Tansu are shown walking together in the school corridors, talking about Diane wondering what is up with her.

·         This is to show the audience that Diane seems to be mysteriously absent on that Wednesday, without informing her close friends what is wrong with her.

Thursday:

·         An over-the-shoulder shot of a mysterious character looking at Diane is shown.

·         This portrays an edgy feel to the trailer as another unknown character is shown; which the audience are unfamiliar with.

·         Diane is seen looking through a window.

·         This signifies her misery of being alone staring out of a window.

Friday:

·         Again, Amber, Louise, Diane and Tanny are all shown sitting in the common room, talking.

·         Diane is seen looking quite upset in this scene.

·         We decided to use the location of the common room three times in our trailer as one of the conventions presented to us through all the soap trailers we viewed was a sense of community, which is required for establishing realism. For example, in Eastenders, the pub is seen as the center of the soap where the characters meet and new stories are introduced. Similarly, we decided to keep a location of the common room as the center of our soap as this area is realistically the area in which most Sixth Formers meet and socialize, showing that this location should be presented with more importance than the other locations in the soap. This works well in terms of drawing in the audience to the center of the soap and proposing a location which the audience can identify with.

·         For the second scene, Diane is shown in the school toilets, looking in the mirror at something the audience cannot see.

Additional scene:

·         We decided to show the title of the soap after showing the scenes for each day of week, similarly with a black background and white font; however, we plan of displaying the title in the middle of the screen, whereas the days of the week will be shown in the bottom left corner of the screen.

·         After the title is shown, we’ll surprise the audience with the shot of Diane’s feet dangling, which is attract the audience to the trailer, leaving them questioning what the reason behind her suicide is.