London to Brighton Research

The first 22 seconds of the film London to Brighton is a black background and has three sets of writing that fades in, the first being for 7 seconds which says 'UK Film Council Presents' the second being for 10 seconds saying 'A Steel Mill Pictures & Wellington Films Production' the last section of writing that fades up is 'London 3:07am' and that is held for 5 seconds. The purpose of this is that it suggests that the film is going to be slow paced but as it has not shown any of the characters yet means that we as the veiwers don't know what is going to happen and what to expect.

The first shot is of a women and child throw themselves into a bathroom, the shots are mostly all close ups as the scene is shot in a bathroom and the shots are restricted. The mirror on the wall helps make the room bigger, but also shows us the viewers the face of the girl that comes into the room after the woman.
The shots are edited with a series jump cuts, meaning that it is a conbination two shots that are similar so that the subject jumps from one part of the screen to another, the purpose of this is to speed up time and in London to Brighton's case it makes the opening fast paced as they have to get away as one of the characters says they need to get a train, and that they aren't safe where they are. You don't get the characters names, you don't get the relationship they are with each other, which keeps us as the veiwers guessing as to what the situation is and why it has happened.

In compariosn with our two minute opening, there is no dialouge and it consists of a lot of fade outs. The shooting style is similar to London to Brigton as the house scene is a small area and it has restrictions as to what camera angles we could have done, so we kept it to mid shots, close ups and also high and low angles. London to Brighton doesn't have any music at the start it is all their own sounds e.g. dialouge, doors slamming, cars etc. London to Brighton shows violence and the rough side of life, in our film it shows violence but it shows it from people with a higher class, so maybe middle class, as they have a house of their own and they are well dressed and so on. So London to Brighton is, as I said, about the rougher side of life and our film is about the harsh reality of what could happen to anyone.. abuse.

Whole Film Story

The opening of the film, is slow paced, no one is in any hurry. The scene when you see the father dead on the floor, we notice that the mother slowly reaches the body but before she leaves she gives one more look at him and gives him a look of disgust. This is because he has been abusing both her and Talulla for years and the mum made the decision to take care of things for both of them, so they can have a better life. She texted Talulla 'come home now please' because she had done what she had set out to done. She will then wait in the car for Talulla to get home and they will leave and hide from view so they can have a better life. This story is of the survival of a mother and daughter and the way they have to live in a way to never be caught by the police. They hide for years, change their names, they change everything about themselves and they are happily settling in to normal life again. 10 years later Talulla makes a huge mistake and decides to go back to visit the house where all the abuse had once been, and in a twist she didn't know the case had been reopened for investigation. The house is still there unlived in. She decides to look inside, look around the house remembering the horrific times her and her mother had to endure. She gets caught looking in the house, the police officer has a flash back of seeing her hair before after looking at a picture of the child of the father. Talulla is in trouble and is taken in for questioning, she doesn't tell them anything and sticks to her fake sorry throughout the whole questioning period. She has her one phone call and phones her mother, telling her what has happened. What will her mother do to help? she doesn't want her daughter to take the blame so she decides to turn up and give herself in giving her the life her daughter deserves.

Main Film Locations

We started the fliming at Hasitngs beach, we chose this area to film because it shows Talulla sitting down with no one about. It shows her sense of lonelyness, she is sitting there as if she wants to escape the events that are happening in her life. Also it does epthisise her lonlyness but it actually looks like she is waiting for something and when she gets a text from her mother, she is clearly detressed, does this mean she was just sitting there by choice or is it something different?

We decided to film the scenes with the mother and father at a house, so it shows where Talulla lives and it introduces the characters and the overall theme of the opening. The living room, where the scenes where shot, is a room with brown furniture and dim lighting, so the overall feel you get from watching the set scenes is a dark and grim feeling. As in the circumstances it is perfect as the mother has killed the father and the surroundings need the place to feel cold and unlived in.

Preliminary Task

With the preliminary task me and Alice decided on a simple passing of a Parkwood prospectus, we had me walking through the door and for me to meet Alice in a different room. I have noticed that in the preliminary video there is not sound, so we have somehow got rid of the audio while editing, so could be something to improve on. Another improvement that needs to be worked on is the cropping of the clips, because in some parts each clips runs a bit too long and doesn't look right.