Networks: Planning Our Film

The first stage obviously was to be the planning of our film, at first we were a little unorganised in terms of distributing roles out amongst the group and we sort of floundered about trying to come up with a story where all our ideas fit together rather than choosing the most efficient idea, considering our deadline was drawing closer and we needed something to hand in. Eventually we assigned roles to direct, script write, edit, film and find music  amongst the group and we found we started moving somewhere. Each person was in charge of writing dialogue for their character and I was also tasked with creating a basic run-down of all the events in the film for Lucy to storyboard. Being the director meant I had to collaborate with everyone a lot of the time particularly Edrian and Lucy at the beginning while we were figuring out events and shot types. I also had to tell Tim exactly what sorts of music and audio we would need in the film so that he could begin either composing or sourcing what we needed.

Basically our film is set in a futuristic world just after a giant solar flare/geomagnetic storm has wiped out all electricity. The main focus is on the stories of 3 particular people affected by the loss of electricity and shows the effects that it had on their lives, shown through a number of interviews and dramatisations of events. Our 3 characters include: a facebook addict whom after the flare suffers major withdrawal symptoms and shows her recovery, an online dater that loses contact with his beloved partner that he struggles to talk to in real life, and a representation of the average citizen that relies upon the news and communication companies for information about the happenings of the world and to keep in contact with his sister who tragically dies in an earthquake.

We chose characters that had potential to be quite humorous to our audience and chose to film in the mockumentary style as it allowed us to portray a lot of character as well as the information we needed in a light hearted way whilst still leaving our message quite obvious to make sure it is not forgotten.