Love and Basketball opening scene analysis

At the beginning of this movie Monica(Kyla Pratt)and her family moves to a neighborhood in LA in the year of 1981 and just so happen move next door to a boy named Quincy. They are both 11 years old at the time and they both want to play for the NBA. Monica ends up playing basketball at the basketball court with Quincy and some of his friends and they tell her she cant play cause she's a girl. During the game Quincy gets mad because a girl beat him so he pushes her to the ground and makes her scar her face. The next day Quincy's mom comes over to give Monica's mom a "welcome to the neighborhood" cake. Monica and Quincy end up going to the kitchen and they start talking about basketball.The day after that he comes to pick her up for school on his bike. When Quincy tells her to get on the bike she says she dsont have to so they end up fighting.

Storyboard

Films we watched to get ideas

We watched these films to get ideas of the shots we should use and how to put our piece together. All three films cover the same genre of the film I am going to produce. These films are important for my research because it gives us a better view and understanding about the main sport, which is basketball, and how all the micro aspects are portrayed. All three films are successful Hollywood films which is the main reason I chose them. I want to get a similar Hollywood blockbuster feeling to my film and these three; two minutes opening of the films helps me create a number of ideas, so I can put it into my original style.

What we learnt from the preliminary task

What We Learnt

Camera

We decided to do camera shots in the order that we needed them so we stayed organized in where we were doing.

We were told before we started filming the task that while filming a shot to have the camera running a few seconds before the actors start and a few seconds after so that the final piece flowed better and we could edit the task easier.

During filming the task we0 decided to film each shot a couple of times so that we could choose which one we wanted to use during editing and see which one flowed better with the other shots we used.

Editing

We learnt how to use the editing keyboards so that our final piece flowed well. We were taught how to use final cut pro, which is the program used on the editing computers so we could edit our final piece.

We were told how to insert titles into our piece. We changed the colour, font, size and composition of the titles. We then had to decide how long each name appeared in the piece and when it appeared, which is either the beginning or the end.

What worked well and what could have been improved

Camera

We have decided that we could have used more shots in our piece e.g. when we did our shot reverse shot we could have included a close up.

When we did our birds eye view shot we had to do the shot hand held so the camera wasn’t still and shook whilst filming. We could have used the tripod for the birds eye view shot so the camera was held steady.

Editing

We could explored more of the fonts and colours for the titles then we could have found ones that fitted into our piece better. We could have also explored the effects we used more for the titles, if we did this then our piece might have flowed better than it did.

Shot Reverse Shot

In our piece we used an over the shoulder shot of one person which then cut to another over the shoulder shot of the other person. We did this so the conversation between the two people flowed well. Whilst filming the over shoulder shots we had to make sure we followed the 180 degree rule so the audience wouldn’t be confused when they viewed our piece.

Continuity

Our piece flowed well because we edited it well so the people in the shots were in the same place and they weren’t jumping from one place to another. For the majority of the piece the sound flowed well as we were careful about when we used dialogue and diegetic sound. There is only one time in the piece when the diegetic sound didn’t quite fit together and we could have spent more time on editing that part of the task so the sound flowed better.

Preliminary Task Shot List

Preliminary Task shot list

1) Long Shot- Person walking towards camera down corridor.

2) Cut Away- Close up on person’s foot whilst they carry on walking.

3) Medium Pan- Pan shot following person walking, from the side.

4) Close Up- On the door handle whilst the person is using the handle.

5) Medium Shot- Different person sat down at table.

6) Close Up- On the same person looking at the door.

7) Medium Shot- Of the first person walking into the room.

8) Birds Eye View- First person moving chair and sitting down.

9) Over The Shoulder- Over first person shoulder looking at the other person.

10) Shot Reverse Shot- Switches to over the second persons shoulder, looking at the first person.

11) Two Shot- Both people in the same shot looking at each other.

Preliminary Task