PLANNING: EQUIPMENT WHICH WILL BE USED

To film our film opening, we will be using a camera, tripod, editing suite.

PLANNING: LOCATION

Restaurants Layla and Cote

Our location recce was successful. After looking at a variety of different restaurants to see which one would be most suitable for the rest of our mise-en-scène in our opening scene, our two final choices were Layla and Cote. We felt that the location for filming was excellent as well as being in a convenient, safe place.

Interior shots

As well as taking photos from the outside of the restaurants, we also went and took some interior shots, to give us an idea of how we can create the same 'restaurant' effect when we film this scene in school.

PLANNING: REFINED STORYBOARD

On reflection, we decided that our narrative needed a focus that would tie it really clearly to its target audience, that is late teens and young adults, the sort of people who would enjoy films like The Inbetweeners, Bridget Jones's Diary and Angus Thongs And Perfect Snogging. 

For this reason we have decided to include an Australian gap year student (the same age as the target audience) who will be the narrative viewpoint and deliver the story.

We will use her voiceover to explain the events. 

Our revised treatment is below:

Waitress: gap year student who tell the story

Sous chef:  ex-convict, trainee chef

Main chef: Heston Blumenthal inspired chef, who is a perfectionist.

Waitresses- French waitress, find it hard to understand the English accent and is clumsy.

Extras: Hollie and Annie who are new to the area and are soap celebrities

Location: Local restaurant

Ideas: Chef chopping cumber, very articulate and fast, characters reference him to Heston Blumenthal. Clumsy waiter trips up with food gets food in celebrities’ hair. Waitress misunderstands the flirty customers food order, she become annoyed. Opening titles are edited onto culinary objects such as, a knife, a splat of sauce with the word edited in the pan, names on menus and the main title on a cumber which then gets cut up letter by letter.

TREATMENT:  Our story is told from the point of view from an Australian 18 year old girl who is here on a gap year. She gets things done and helps out being a waitress and organises bookings in the restaurant. She is very down to earth and capable because her parents run a restaurant in Sydney and she’s had a lot of experience in the restaurant business already. She is often surprised and exasperated by the incompetence of the staff, particularly the perfectionist chef who would really be happier in a science lab, the cockney sous chef who fancies himself as Jamie Oliver and spends all his time imagining what he’ll look like on screen and the empty headed fashionist French waitress who is only interested in chatty up men and her own looks. The narrative view point of the film opening is delivered through her voice over.

The film opening starts with an establishing shot outside a restaurant before moving into the interior. Australian girl Dani walks into the shot, checks the name and disappears into the restaurant.

Interior: Mid shot of Dani walking over to The Chef who is seated at a work table planning his menu for the day. The table is covered with all his results of his latest experiments and enthusiasms: green porridge, snails, test tubes, beetroot mergine. He gestures with a big beam on his face at his menus and tries to convince Dani (who looks sceptical).

Quick shot to show the kitchen where we see the sue chef cooking who appears rather untidy with his tattoos on show. The main chef, bosses the sue chef around and he becomes annoyed and mumbles about killing him. Like a mad Heston Blumenthal, pans are on fire, plates are perfected, combining weird ingredients together however he doesn’t seem to worry about the chaos he is causing. Meanwhile the sue chef comments scarcely ‘are you trying to be some Heston Blumenthal or summin?’. However the sue chef is like Jamie Oliver, with his ‘bish, bash bosh’ gestures.

Nervous to serve Hollie and Annie who are soap celebrities,  ‘Heston’ starts for the day ahead. The French waitress appears to be doing her makeup and pulling up her skirt and  slightly appears to be clumsy by dropping his apron when talking to the Aussie and trips over her feet when she walks away. The Aussie does a voice over saying (what a clumsy tart).  The flirty French waitress is asked to bring ‘Heston’ some floss however lost in translation she brings him some gloss. The celebrities Hollie and Annie arrive and everyone starts panicking.  The Heston type chef appears nervous and sweaty to which Annie and Hollie look in disgust. They sit down and order their starter which is cream and potato soup and find a hair in it which they complain about, the austrailain appears to have no effect that they are clebrties and accidently spills some water over the table (narrates over saying who are they pretentious idiots anyway). The flirty waitress gets annoyed when the sous chef gives the celebrities the attention and not her, so she pretends to choke. The aussie however helps her to unchoke but the flirty waitress then shrugs her off when the ex-convict doesn’t save her. The second course is misunderstood by the French waitress as Annie ordered stake however they get hake (the fish). Becoming annoyed they then order the bill but Hollie just wants a quick apple tart, this is then brought out by the clumsy waiter who then trips and splashes it all over the celebrities! The chef comes out in tears and the boss, just looks confused while the sue chef is laughing and the waiters are embarrassed.

PLANNING: INTRODUCING OUR FILM OPENING

I am working in a group with Esme and Jo to make a film opening.

After wanting to do a typical romance for our film opening, we decided to do something which hasn't been done much before and came up with a comedy based in a restaurant.

We all thought that our targeted audience will be more likely to watch our film opening if it includes humour and is easy to follow.

We included a character in it who is similar to the well-know, eccentric chef, Heston Blumenthal, along with other characters such as a fat girl and her mother, two celebrities, biker boys and a posh couple which add to the lighthearted comedy.

Finally, we all agreed to name the restaurant in our film opening 'Zest', as we felt it connects with the food in the restaurant and the fact it's based around the new and improved Heston Blumenthal's cooking ingredients.

RESEARCH RESTAURANT COMEDIES

I've been researching TV shows, comedies and cooking programmes which relate to our idea of our film opening. By researching this, it inspires us to get ideas from other cookery programmes to incorporate into our own opening.

RESEARCH POPULAR CHEFS

I've been researching popular, well-known chefs so I know what type of characters to include in our film opening.

‘You know you're a Jamie if you..’

• Make pork steaks and killer kedgeree
• Like pukka food
• Bish bash bosh

'You know you're a Gordon Ramsay if you..'

• Are boisterous in the kitchen
• Constantly swear
• Make beef wellington

RESEARCH: RESTAURANT FACADES

Above, are some thumbnails of a variety of restaurant facades we looked at before deciding on our final two restaurants, Layla and Cote. We felt that these restaurants didn't have the same atmosphere and appearance to match the same interior and general style as our school canteen.

RESEARCH: BFI DAY

Today we visited the British Film institute to learn about distribution and target audiences as well as to find out about what the BFI does and what their purpose is.

• They support UK distributors to help ensure that the best British and specialised films connect with a wide range of audiences across a range of platforms throughout the UK.
• They support sales companies who are premiering new UK films at key international film festivals and markets.
• And invest in skills across the film sector and support inward investment and film exports, helping the industry to remain competitive, especially on the global stage.

We got an insight on how the BFI first started, how it's developed and all the different roles and aspects throughout the industry.

RESEARCH: SOCIAL SATIRE

We looked at a variety of social satire, such as the daily telegraph and social sterotypes. And also the television comedy, Absolutely Fabulous. This shows specific social groups that could be potential characters that we'd want in our restaurant.