Media A2 Task- the day in the life of a pen

1. STORYBOARD-
THE DAY IN THE LIFE OF A PEN
By Chloe Norris

2. TASK
 The task was to choose a person or object we
would film for 1 minute based on the “day in the life
of….” and to create a brief story behind it. There
was only 2 of us working on this project so we
decided to do something simple that would not
involve other actors or a script or even a location.
We simply found an empty class room and followed
each instruction from our storyboard to create our
short film.

3. IMAGE 1
 The idea for the first scene in the
film was to create the illusion that it
was from the pens point of view.
 It was in a zipped bag so it was
completely dark inside, apart from
the auto light on the cam-corder
which worked in our favour as it
emphasised the illusion of the pens
point of view.
 We also emphasised the rustling
sounds of different objects from
inside the bag as we walked with it.

4. IMAGE 2
 This clip was to still create the
illusion that the camera is filming
from the pens point of view.
 The scene started with someone
unzipping the bag and the camera
showing a point of view/worm’s eye
view shot of the person taking the
camera out of the bag.
 Through editing the sound of the
zip was emphasised and all
background noise was cut out in
order to make it clear to the
audience the main object of the
film.

5. IMAGE 3
 This was a high angle point of view shot
where the camera was scrolling across
the page as if a pen, following a hand
that is writing the credits/title of the
short film across a lined piece of paper.
 The sound of the pen writing across the
page was emphasised as well just as
all the other scenes are and also fast
forwarded by x2 on the IMac.
 Although non-diegetic music was used
through this scene, a school bell, in
order to set the location of the scene
and display the regular convention of
where pens are mostly used for our age
group.

6. IMAGE 4
 The scene was based on a 360
degree angle in fast cuts, a high
angle facing forward shot was
used, behind the shoulder shot,
and a left facing extreme close up.
All the cuts were focused on the
pen being tapped on the page
repeatedly.
 Of course the tapping sound was
increased from 0 to 12 to make the
tune more emphasised to the
audience, as well as to overlap the
different levels and paces of the
tapping from each cut.

7. IMAGE 5
 This scene was an extreme close up
facing forward on a pen being
chewed, this was kept at normal time
and only lasted 4 seconds, but the
noise of the chewing was
emphasised.
 We did originally try a Racking focus
but with the type of equipment and
limited experience we had it seemed
impossible to do. However during one
scene that was not included we did
manage to succeed a shallow focus
on the pen as it laid on a piece of
paper.

8. IMAGE 6
 This final scene was to put the “pen”
back into the bag, and this is where we
reversed the camera back to being a
point of view in the eyes of a pen.
 Just after a non-diegetic noise of a
school bell was used, we picked up the
“pen” we put it facing up in the bag,
creating the point of view/worms eye
view and zipped it up turning the entire
scene into darkness. That is where we
ended the scene. Creating finality and
isolation that a pen may feel at the end
of each school day.