As part of the planning for our children’s film, we watched the opening sequence of the film, ‘Back to the Future’ and created a storyboard for it. A storyboard allows the director to film something the most appropriate and effective way and is a visual blueprint for the film, it also makes it easier to go back and redraft something.
We watched the sequence once and made notes on the types of shot, sound, duration, camera movement and possible themes and genre. We then drafted these notes into a storyboard in our groups, by drawing the key objects in the setting in each box at different parts of the sequences, made some notes on the storyboard about sound, duration and shot order. We used arrows to clarify the way the camera was moving and wrote what type of angle or shot used at that specific moment in the sequence. We did this because it will demonstrate to the examiner our knowledge of storyboarding, as we will have to create a storyboard for our children’s film sequence, which needs planning before filming.

The lesson before the storyboards was about film classification. We learnt that the BBFC (British Board of Film Classification) are responsible for the certification of films in Britain, so that they are suitable for the target audience.
We looked up the guidelines on the BBFC website (www.bbfc.co.uk) for U and PG films and each group were given either U or PG and we wrote on pieces of A4 the basic guidelines, to feedback to the class. Then we watched four sequences and had to guess in our groups what certificate they were and justify why we thought they were either U or PG. We watched Harry Potter and the Philosophers stone (PG), Up (U), Watership down (U) and Home Alone (PG).
It was important we knew the differences between a U and PG so that our film sequence would be suitable for our target audience of children and so we could give it the correct certificate.

Our opening sequence is going to be an animation, using stop motion, of a Unicorn visiting different parts of the world. The Unicorn is searching the world for his owner and is eventually reunited at the end of the film, if we were to create the whole film.
By watching the Milkmaid video by previous Long Road media students, we were inspired to do our own stop motion video. The Milkmaid video is about a maid who becomes a star, after having to look after a farm left by her father as her mother is too old and her brother is a baby.
They used characters drawn and coloured in by hand and had several cut outs of things like stars, letters and thought clouds. The music was relevant to the film as it was also about a milkmaid and set a happy mood because it was upbeat. During a sadder part of the film, such as when they sang about her father dying and her mother being too old, the music slowed down to reflect the mood.
Our group liked this style because the drawing doesn't have to be to a professional standard and therefore makes it easier for the target audience to understand.