Warner Bros. Film Studio Tour Evaluation.

11/12/12
We went to the Warner Bros. Studio Tour in Leavesden, England. We went as part of our media course which is about film and moving image.
We took the bus from school at 10am and arrived at the Studios and 1:30pm. First we went to the gift shop until 3pm when we started the tour. First, we watched a short film from the three main actors Daniel Radliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint. We then started to tour the different sets on the film. Before the tour, we had a lesson about 'Script to Screen.' The tour lasted three hours and we all gained lots of knowledge and learned about different things to do with Harry Potter and the film industry.

The 'Script to Screen' lesson was very interesting and very benficial. The person who was giving the talk (Will) told us everything about the process of taking a film from the script to the screen. We learnt about the fact that a film idea can come from anywhere; Imagination, TV Series', real life experiences, historical events and in this case, books. We learnt that when pitching a film idea, the person with the idea must use 25 words or less to get their point across. The pitch for Harry Potter was "a boy who goes to wizard school." Once the pitch has been approved, the treatment is written. The producer of the film can hire a professional to do this as the treatment is only allowed to be half a page long so it has to be interesting straight away. After the treatment has been approved, the script can then be written. The script usually has names printed across the front to stop anyone stealing it. This idea was introduced by Stephen Spielberg. The lines for the actors are indented to show the difference between the stage directions and the lines. In the stage directions, the most important words are capitalised to show each department (lights, camera, makeup, costume etc.) what they need to do in each scene. The storyboard is then created. The storyboard is used to show what is going to happen in the scene and what camera angles are going to be used. The storyboard contains brief stage directions and the lines of the actors at that moment. The storyboard and the scene are not necessarily  the same. There will be some differences. The camera angles may not work so need to be changed and other characters and props may be added.

Next blog contains the top highlights of the Harry Potter Studio Tour...