Panning shot.

Opening with a high angled, wide panning shot seemed to be a common similarity popping up in several of the 20th Century film trailers Mel and I deconstructed.

The Amazing Sipderman- Downwards facing, high angled, night time shot above the city.

Kick Ass- Shots downwards, high angles panning shot of the high street below.

The Avengers- High angled shot across the skyscrapers of the city mid day.

Mel and I took inspiration from these films and decided that as it's the most common opening we wanted our first major establishing shot to be a high angled panning shot. Here are a couple of ideas we came up with to achieve our high angled shot and the problems we could encounter.

*As we live on an island with cliffs near the beach we would have access to walk along the cliff top and film out onto the horizon.

Problems

- This would create a good height but without getting close to the edge the height wouldn't be visible as you'd only see the cliff edge and the sky. We would need to be at the edge so that we could angle the camera downwards achieving the correct effect for the height.

-Health and Safety.

-Wrong mis en sin. Mel and I were thinking either a city scape, which is impractical due to the island we live on or either a countryside view as we are using another mis en sin for out characters house down a country track.

*From the window of a tall building (However the only one were able to gain access from was the school window from the tower block).

Problems

-Filming young children who may be within shot without there consent or parental consent.

-Any marks, dust or smears which may be on the window which we are filing through appearing on the camera.

-Height not being to the excessive extent that we wanted to achieve.

Then we had a break through which would allow Mel and I to acheive outstanding high angled shots through using a crane. Going up 100ft in the air using a crane would allow us to capture perfect high angled shots and also enable us to choose the appropriate setting. We were lucky enough that Mel's Step-Dad works with cranes and was able to arrange this facility, a time and place and also the safety precautions needed to undertake this task.

Mel and I both agreed that due to the style of camera and also the editing software available to us we were going to capture these shots in the day light because attempting to create a shot at night capturing the natural light of the buildings below would be practically impossible to see on the camera we are filming on because it's not industry standard. Because we're now entering the winter season it's getting darker and gloomier towards the end of the day we booked our crane filming in the early hours of the morning so that it would be much brighter and create a positive vibe we wanted at the beginning like the brightness we see in the trailer of "Kick Ass". We shot our crane scenes on Forest Road 7:30am, Mel also had the idea to check the weather was appropriate on Met check before hand so that the mis en sin would be correct for the atmosphere we wanted to create. I agreed with this and we came to an agreement this should be done for every outdoor shot we encounter over the project.

Crane

120ft Crane used to capture our high angles panning shot

The box attached to the crane which
Mel had to go up in and harnessed to

Now we started to begin filming we agreed only one of us should go up into the crane, this was also another safety precaution. As Mel is designated as the main camera operator and I as main director we sent Mel up in the crane (Also because as it's her Step-Dad controlling the crane he's still the responsible supervisor and if anything was to wrong it could effect legal issues). Mel and I discussed the type of shots we wanted to capture before she went up so we used our small amount of time in the crane to our benefit. Mel was then lifted 120ft into the air which Andy  (Mels Stepdad and the professionally trained supervisor with us) was operating. She was harnessed up, with the camera also secured tightly around her neck and was given a walkie-talkie so if there were any problems or she needed to contact me or Andy to discuss anything she was able to and visa versa.

I was really pleased with the shots Mel and I managed to capture in the crane and they look exactly as we discussed. The mis en sin is quite empty however shows clear countryside and hidden country roads within the trees which is perfect for the connection with other shots we plan to undertake down a country lane to the house of our lead character. There was some zooming to focus on different aspects of the shot however if these don't work it's easy to edit them out as we have a wide selection and over 2minuets of footage. The height is beyond anything we thought we were capable of achieving also we don't have to worry about the sound of the wind in these shots as we inteand on muting the clip sound so we can insert a backing track or narration over the top to make the trailer more interesting and grasping for the audience as it proves this is best.