Jelly Baby Activity

The jelly baby activity was done to widen our knowledge of film openings as well as teach us more about the positioning of characters, generic conventions, titles and shot types. The film brief we chose for our storyboard was the genre of science fiction, in which aliens invade the Earth.

Within our storyboard a main character- a male protagonist- is introduced and the setting around him is shown. We decided that the protagonist should be isolated and alone, driving in the middle of nowhere, as it complies to generic conventions of science-fiction as it is often in this scenario that something significant happens where most people are unaware. Various shots are used in the storyboard, such as wide shots, pans and midshots to clearly show the protagonist's actions, expressions and the setting around him. A key part of mise-en-scene that we decided would fit well to generic conventions would be the appearance of a UFO shown in the sky that the protagonist would notice- a key signifier into the genre of the film.

The main title of the film, 'Projection' is shown through editing and diegetic sound, as the radio, when turned on, says "Welcome to Projection Radio!" and from here, using a shot which shows the view of the protagonist's eyes on the road, the title is shown across the light from the car. We thought this would be a good way to show titling as opposed to just displaying the title in a normal format as it is creative and different to that of other films and would interest the viewer into watching further.

 
Overall, from doing the jelly baby activity we learnt more about the position of characters, the use of shots, generic conventions used within film openings and what a film opening should consist of as to not look like a movie trailer or a short film.

- Sian Hayler-Magenis