FILM RESEARCH GROUP ASSIGMENTS

Worksheet 1

Group 1: Dress and make-up

1. Decide on appearance: hair, cosmetics or body-painting, jewellery (not metal).
2. Decide on clothing and footwear: animal skins, fibres, spinning, weaving.
3. Draw/paint/sketch of the characters, if possible.
4. Try to introduce some variety in appearance within Stone Age limitations.
5. Decide whether males/females, old/young, adults/children will have distinctive clothing and hairstyles or not.
6. Make list of requirements. The director is quite generous with money and facilities.
7. Give instructions for making everything necessary and prepare your report.

Worksheet 2

Group 2: Housing

 The director has put your crew in charge of designing the houses. Interesting shots of exteriors and interiors are required.

1. Design two houses.
2. Design the building of the new house for Femm and Mall.
3. Materials: only clay, stone, branches, skins, grasses, leaves, caves, etc.
4. Decide on one or two interiors: possessions on view, floor, furniture, partitions, decoration.
5. Plan for at least one fire - outside the building, usually.
6. Draw/paint/sketch a selection of your suggestions, if possible.
7. Make list of requirements. The director is quite generous with money and facilities.
8. Give instructions for making everything necessary and prepare your report.

Worksheet 3

Group 3: Food

The director wants to shoot two scenes in which some of the characters prepare food and eat together. One meal is in winter and the other, in summer, is the wedding feast of Femm and Mall.

1. You are in charge of designing the meals.
2. Design a selection of menus based on edible leaves, fruit, nuts, roots, grasses, young shoots, insects, snails, frogs, animals, fish, shellfish, seaweed, birds, eggs.
3. Keep the seasons in mind.
4. Describe one scene in which food is gathered and prepared.
5. Decide how liquids will be carried, keeping in mind the limitations of Stone Age materials.
6. Make a list of requirements. The director is quite generous with money and facilities.
7. Give instructions for making everything necessary and prepare your report.

Worksheet 4

Group 4: Activities

The director wants your crew to think up and design some activities for the actors to engage in, to convey the atmosphere of the time. You are asked to keep the following in mind: 

1. Materials: stone, wood, bone, shell, leather, hair, basketry, clay.
2. Carrying: possibly stick and hide bag, baskets, birch-bark containers, sledges, thongs.
3. Child care.
4. Actors might: gather, fish, hunt, butcher, preserve food, decorate, break, pound, pick, scrape, gather, carry, tie, farm, fence, till, weed, mind animals, etc. What implements would be used? Select about ten activities.
5. The director would like you to decide which actors would do which activities and whether this group would practise gender-segregation of work or not.
6. Make list of requirements. The director is quite generous with money and facilities.
7. Give instructions for making everything necessary and prepare your report.

Worksheet 5

Group 5: Art and music

The director wants your crew to make decisions about art and music.

1. You will decide on the design of lettering for the credits.
2. Femm and Mall are both artistic. They like to arrange things attractively and to decorate surfaces. You will decide on their designs, keeping to the limitations of Stone Age materials.
3. You will select music for the film.
4. Consider a theme tune and music to create atmosphere.
5. Coll and her father Mall love to play with sound. You are asked to design ways they can achieve musical effects, keeping to the limitations of Stone Age materials.
6. Make a list of requirements. The director is quite generous with money and facilities.
7. Give instructions for making everything necessary and prepare your report.

Worksheet 6

Group 6: Narrative

6a Dialogue

The director has a story line in mind but wants your crew to compose four short but convincing pieces of dialogue conveying the atmosphere of the time. The director suggests that you get into the characters and role play them to stimulate your imagination and achieve a convincing result.

1. Femm and Mall prepare a meal together in winter and discuss their new house.
2. Farr tells Coll not to mix with the farming boys.
3. Bann and Femm discuss the problem of rearing children.
4. Farr and Bann discuss their family and their life together.

Rehearse your dialogues and role play them when required.

6b Plot

The director has settled on the five main characters above but requires you to develop a story about them.

1. The director wants you to study the characters and to introduce appropriate cause(s) of tension between some of them.
2. This would develop into conflict (verbal or physical) and give rise to suspense. After a climax (or several climaxes) the problems would be resolved, happily or unhappily.
3. Try to involve all five main characters, at least to some extent.
4. Write out a summary of the plot or plots you have designed.