1. FILM PRODUCTION
G.C.S.E. Film Studies

2. Starter
 Where do you think ideas come from and
why?

3. Todays Objectives
 WALT
 Overview of the requirements for the production
task.
 Analyse short films and their structure.
 Understand where ideas are generated and
create an initial concept.
 WILF
 Feedback on the strengths and weakness of short
films.
 Identify a range of ideas.
 Select a final concept and develop a synopsis for
your short film.

4. Production Tasks
 This coursework task is graded in four areas.
 1) Pre-production – produce a storyboard
with a minimum of twenty slides (20 marks)
 2) Pitch – You will need to pitch your idea (10
marks)
 3) Production – construct a two minute scene
from a film (30 marks)
 4) Evaluation – evaluate your contribution to
the project. (10 marks)

5. Task 1
 1) Pre-production
 You need to create two pieces of work to complete
this task:
 Synopsis – You need to produce a document of 150
words that identifies the genre of the film you are making
(or sub-genre if relevant) and an overview of the narrative
of the film, this should also include information on the
scene you would produce.
 Storyboard – You need to produce a storyboard of the
scene you are going to produce, there should be at least
twenty frames in the storyboard. These images should
include any dialogue that you are going to use within the
shot and also the movement of the shot e.g. pan, tilt or
tracking shot.

6. Task 2
 2) Pitch
 This will have to be done individually. You all have to pitch
your idea of your film. The pitch should include the following
information:
 A logline – a one or two sentence summary of your films
narrative.
 Genre – what is the genre or sub-genre of the film?
 Narrative – what happens in the story, give an overview of the
whole film?
 Stars – who would be in your film? Why would these stars be
good in your movie? What is their appeal to the audience? Have
they been in horror movies before?
 Target Audience – who is the target audience for your film (age
range, gender and socio-economic grouping)?
 Justification – Why would your film appeal to the target
audience?
 Overview of the scene you would produce for the film –
include the storyboard in your pitch, or show it to the audience.

7. Task 3
 3) Final Production
 The sequence you are creating is around two minutes in
length. The scene you create should use the appropriate
conventions from the genre and demonstrate tension and
atmosphere.
 You can work in groups up to four but you must be
producing one of the ideas that were pitched. The roles
you must work in are:
 Camera Operator
 Editor
 Up to two of you can work in each of these roles; you must
complete at least a minute each of the film for it to be
considered a significant and defined role within the group.
This will need to be identified from the first group-meeting,
divide the storyboard planning in half identifying who will
complete which shots for the filming and editing.

8. Task 4
 4) Evaluation
 This must be completed individually. You can complete this task as either:
 An essay – which should be between 350 – 500 words
 A digital presentation – with slide notes using Powerpoint.
 The evaluation should cover the following criteria:
 What technical and creative skills did you use in the film. Also discuss the skills
you used within the job you fulfilled.
 What codes and conventions did you use to create meaning in the film? Consider
how you conveyed the type of genre the film is – you could refer to real films here
to demonstrate you used similar codes and conventions to create meaning for
the audience in areas such as: mise-en-scene, camera, editing, and sound.
 What type of film language did you use, e.g. types of camera shots, pace of the
editing.
 How would the film convey meaning to the target audience?
 What would the BBFC rate the film, consider the material in the scene, could they
have an impact on the film, enforcing cuts or banning films.
 What company would produce a film like this and how do you know this?

9. Short Films
 We are going to watch some short films.
 In groups after analyse them and identify the
strengths and weaknesses of these short films.
 Feedback to the class.

10. Ideas Generation
 In groups discuss what might inspire you to
create an idea for a film
 Where do ideas come from?
 There is an argument that there are no original
ideas do you believe this.
 Feedback to the group.

11. Ideas
 You are going to have to pitch an idea to the class
and write an synopsis of your film – Task 1 and
Task 2.
 You need to brainstorm a range of ideas for your
film, consider for each idea you have:
 Story
 Narrative – beginning, middle and end.
 Characters
 Locations
 Effects

12. Feedback
 Pitch to the class you best idea.
 Give feedback at the end on how to improve
the idea – class.
 Only an idea pitched can be made into a film
as a group.

13. Synopsis
 Decide on your final idea and begin
developing your synopsis or the final idea. You
must cover:
 Synopsis – You need to produce a document
of 150 words that identifies the genre of the
film you are making (or sub-genre if relevant)
and an overview of the narrative of the film,
this should also include information on the
scene you would produce.

14. Homework
 Complete the synopsis
 Synopsis – You need to produce a document
of 150 words that identifies the genre of the
film you are making (or sub-genre if relevant)
and an overview of the narrative of the film,
this should also include information on the
scene you would produce.