Anatomy of a film poster

Here is the first major step in my planning and research into the first (compulsary) ancillary task of the specification:




http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_poster

Production Completed

Today's session marked the completion of our editing process, we have officially finished creating 'AWAY'. I was particularly happy with the end product, much happier than I thought I would be, there was a diverse range of shots and techniques including: low/high angle, match on action, objective and subjective viewpoint, various transitions between scenes, diegetic and non diegetic music, sound effects, selective sound, sound bridging, over the shoulder shots - plenty of cinematographic work, editing, sound and mise en scene too. I am truly relieved to have the production process over, but truly excited to proceed into the next part of the portfolio - the ancillary tasks.

My next few blog posts will be dedicated to planning and researching into ancillary tasks. As we have now broke up for the Christmas holidays, I will not be able to access the facilities and software from my home computer for the actual creation of the radio trailer and poster, however I can showcase my ideas and research here until I get back to college.

Editing process

I and the rest of Clueless Productions are currently in the editing process of the production of 'AWAY'. So far we have cut all of our footage down to the length we want it so it can be pieced together perfectly. Using FinalCutPro we used the razor tool to trim all of our footage down, it is a pretty basic method of cutting but once you use the razor tool it introduces you to the basic function of the software.

After all of our footage was cut down, we began to identify which transitions worked best between the various scenes we had. When we pieced some scenes together we saw that because a lot of our footage is subjective and contains our stalker simply looking at things point blank, there is not a great deal of movement and it looks a little rigid. So we played around with short 'Cross fades' between scenes, so it is not a very obvious transition but is a nice and subtle way to lead scenes and shots from one to another.

No film looks great without sound, so we were slightly concerned when we watched our film back without any sound effects and non diegetic music. However through using Apple software 'Garageband' we found plenty of sounds that were excellently suited to our film. As a transition from the end of the office scene at the beginning of our film to the train track in which our stalker appears to board a train to his work placement 'away' from home, in filming a bird happened to pass across the shot, creating quite a nice shot. So we searched 'bird noises' into FinalCutPro and stumbled upon a favourite amongst the list 'swallow' I felt this was an angelic noise which fit great with the empty traintrack we had. To use sound as a transition, we decided to begin the sound of the bird tweeting as Sarah is exiting the office and continue it into the subsequent scene, as a use of sound bridging.

 

 



As we could not find a suitable automated train cue voiceover to play for the announcements whilst I was in the train station (on Garageband) we decided to get the zoombox out again and create some of our own recordings. So Sarah (Played by Izzy) who has a very clear and eloquent speaking voice took the part whilst I recorded her. Me and Evie devised a short script for her to read:

"Now standing is the 15:38 train to Manchester Airport, calling at Thornaby, York, Leeds and Huddersfield. Please be aware that passengers are entirely responsible for all baggage. Have a safe journey."

We thought that this piece of voice over could be played alongside our footage of the trains at the train station, but also of us walking on the bypass under the station, where we would reduce the volume of the voice over and put an echoed effect onto it, creating the impression that we have gone under ground and it can only be heard distantly.

We are making significant progress with out editing and will soon be coming to the end (20/12/13) of our entire production, we hope that with our dedication and effort we can produce an excellent end product.



 



 

Script update

In our final stages of filming, we found the opportunity to add some more speech. Once in the delivery I mentioned in the previous blog post, with a new addition to the cast: Evie's mum, and then with the flashback of Izzy tearing up the flowers in the most tense part of the film. These are only short pieces of speech but they are relevant and help to piece up the film:




Delivery Woman: "Flowers for Sarah Foster?"
Sarah: "Oh... Thank you."
Delivery Woman: "Thank you."




Sarah: "Eugh... Just leave me alone!"

05/12/13 - Filming (Final session)

Here is a glog showing the final stages of our filming process - the next two weeks before the production deadline will be dedicated solely to editing, unless some filming needs to be redone or added for effect, in this case the filming progress will be updated here.

Focus group

Here is some footage of a focus group I got together for some solid audience research before we filmed the final part of 'AWAY'. The general consensus was positive however they encouraged that we get some more interaction between the two characters to make their supposed relationship more evident, to avoid people realising the stalking early. They all said that they would view the film on websites such as YouTube and social networking sites, which gave us some exhibition ideas.

03/12/13 - Filming (Session eight)

Today after college I went round my friends house to capture a bit of footage that I realised could be included in our montage scene. As a voice over is used throughout our montage, containing the line "Every time I hear our song I think of you...", I thought it would be a good idea to go and film my friends record player in motion. With her consent, I took a variety of different shots of the record player so we could include various or simply pick the one we liked most. I thought that a record player was a good prop cause they are typically used in Romance films, so the illusion of a relationship is enhanced through props like this.

With the camera I took the shots:

• High angle shot

• Birds eye view shot

• Eye-level shot

• POV shot

Risk Assessment

Short film narrative & suspension of disbelief

As we will be shortly dedicating the rest of our time to editing the footage we have caught over the last few weeks, in today's lesson we analysed the technique in some of the short films that our former college students had produced. We analysed the films 'Orphanage' and 'Note to self' they were very different films that I believed had different focuses.

Orphanage- For some unknown reason the video of Orphanage from YouTube would not embed so I have hyperlinked the title 

 I thought 'Orphanage['s]' use of camera shots, movement and editing were particularly impressive considering it was an amateur production. I thought the camera technique was very professional, you could see they had used a wheeled tripod to avoid shaking and it truly paid off as I thought it looked like a legitimate film. This short had some excellent match cuts, particularly the ones of the diary, where we got three different perspectives. I also enjoyed seeing the transition between objective and subjective viewpoint when following the blonde character through the wreckage, it truly created the horror/thriller vibe. I do think that some things were left unexplained, or didn't make sense, but they were solely issues with the narrative whereas we were focusing on the techniques that had been used, to essentially avoid the mistakes that were made here into ours. 'Orphanage' showed that there were several continuity errors that could have been bettered if not totally avoided through editing, for instance this unexplained nose bleed that was not on the girls face, then suddenly appeared without cause. However, I do feel it has gave some inspiration for when me and the rest of Clueless Productions properly approach the editing process. Match cuts particularly have shown to be very effective if done correctly. I believe that this group used non-diegetic sound particularly effectively as a form of suspense in their film, it truly enhanced the atmosphere and ticked the conventions of a horror, I thought that both sound and location made it clear from the off-set of what genre this short would fall into.

Note to self



'Note to self' was my least favoured on the grounds of editing, cinematography, mise en scene and sound. Although I did find this story line ultimately more compelling, and containing less continuity errors/unexplained acts, there was a serious lack of professionalism in their technique that led it to be the more amateur and ultimately the worst of the two. Specifically the section with the note writing on the wall, it was long winded, could not be seen clearly on the screen and was (for me) the ultimate technical downfall of the short. I see how scenes like this that are pivotal to the film could be bettered through the use of a montage, or in comic cases a fast forward. Their use of non-diegetic sound effects were somewhat excruciating to watch, they were in irrelevant places and did not appear to support the situations that were occurring. They also appeared to have a true lack of camera shots and editing techniques, although all they used were relevant, they were unfortunately limited. However, there were positives to this film that I intend to carry through to our own editing process. I believe the use of the flash back being slightly distorted was great in conveying the enigmatic air that the film carried, it also introduced the theme of time in an effective way. However I did prefer 'Orphanage' based on the technicalities.

Filming delay

Although we did intend to film on 29/11/13 last Friday, me and the rest of the group faced several unavoidable issues that have unfortunately delayed the filming until this Thursday (05/12/13) which does leave us less time for editing. This is something we hope will not conflict with the time we have left and we truly intend to work hard on ensuring our film is to the same standard it would have been. In the meantime, we are going to focus on audience research work, editing anything we have not yet edited and focusing on planning and production for the two ancillary tasks I mentioned on the specification brief. Progress and research for these various things will be updated on the blog as they are done.

25/11/13 - Filming (Session seven)

What we did

In today's lesson we filmed for the final part of the montage in our film 'AWAY'. On our specification, we had to introduce the idea of technology in some way and as of yet we had not done so, so we decided that sending a text to Sarah fitted in will with the montage, and provided an opportunity to explore a variety of shot types and angles. As the most of our montage was set at a table, we decided to use a more casual location to fit in with the casual act of texting, by using the Media department sofas. So Adam sat down on the sofa and began texting, we used natural lighting to create the impression that it was a natural act, and we began filming. I stood with the camera behind Adam and took a variety of shots of the texting so we could either pick the shots we liked the most or piece some of them together.

Techniques we used

We began with an over the shoulder shot of Adam texting, where we could see the act, but not the screen. This was the first instance that we had not took a shot directly from Adam's perspective (POV shot) as we wanted to introduce a variety of angles into our piece. Then I took an extreme close up of Adam's fingers actually creating the text and then I also composed another extreme close up of Sarah's name on the phone so we were aware of who he was texting. We did not use a surname, simply 'Sarah' to convey the idea that she is his 'one and only'.

Risk assessment

23/11/13 - Filming (Session Six)

Here is a prezi displaying the filming trip I went on in my local town:

THE PREZI NAME IS JOSS BROWNE, THIS IS MY DAD'S SURNAME THAT I USED AS I HAD TO CREATE ANOTHER PREZI ACCOUNT BECAUSE MY OTHER ONE WAS FULL

21/11/13 - Filming (Session five)

Displayed below is a Prezi containing a video diary of the footage we had filmed that day and a short video clip recording some of the editing we carried out using 'Final Cut Pro':

19/11/13 - Filming (Session four)

In today's lesson we did not actually produce any camera footage for the production of our film, however we did record the voice-over for our letter. Me and the rest of the group had created a letter in the previous sessions to be read out over the montage section of our film. We decided that in order to get the greatest result we would go and see if there were any willing students in the Drama department of the college, where we found our speaker - Andrew Thompson. Andrew spoke through our letter to get a feel of it, and then we took two recordings of it and we were extremely pleased with how it came out:                                 

Me and the group used a piece of technological equipment we had not yet used in Media A-Level and we found it to be extremely effective. This device was known as a 'Zoom Box Audio Recorder', it was simple, quick and captured the speakers voice very clearly. When we had finished recording, we took down the speakers name so he could be included on the credits screen, and thanked him for helping us out. We then transferred the audio clip onto the Mac and opened up 'Garage Band'. As this was a 'love letter' or was at least supposed to appear this way, we decided to add some Echo and Reverb to the speech to create an almost glorified ambient feel. Strangely enough we found that the 'Gospel Choir' vocal effect worked particularly well for our letter, although we did alter the 'Master Echo' and 'Master Verb' to get the echo of the voice exactly how we wanted it. This was also one of our first experiences using the 'Garage Band' and I found it worked excellently for what we were hoping to achieve. Although the editing we carried out on the sound was arguably simple, it was enlightening nonetheless.

Risk Assessment

Although this was not technically a filming session, it did include working with various external members and using equipment so here is a short risk assessment assessing the various things we did:

Consent of actor

14/11/13 - Filming (Session three)

What we did

Me and the rest of 'Clueless Productions' dedicated today's lesson to filming our title sequence and editing the footage we got. Initially we had gave some thought to editing our title in, but after some speculation we decided that we would use our own writing for our film title, through taking the word 'AWAY' out of our letter. Last filming session we had not had time to give our letter a conclusion, so we decided to do that in today's lesson and include the word 'AWAY'. We set up our set as accurately as we could from the previous session to avoid continuity errors, and we began to film the letter writing again. Adam, the stalker of our piece, wrote the sentence 'It's just been so difficult being AWAY', we filmed this line being wrote and we then took the camera of the tripod, and filmed an extreme close up of the word 'AWAY' on the page. As our letter was going to be read over the montage scene we had decided on doing in planning of our film, we thought we could scrap the 'dissolve' idea we had considered in the previous session and merely begin with Adam writing the first line, which we would have in the film, then cut straight to the fast forwarded montage of the various gift sending, train riding etc. This would continue until the last line of the letter was read, in which we would revert back to the filming of the letter writing itself once more, revealing the film title 'AWAY'. Unintentionally we took the camera away from the lighted area after this was filmed, revealing a completely dark screen which we realised actually looked quite effective and was something we wanted to keep. This created a sense of realism as if the camera were the eyes of our narrator, looking away from the paper, but also provided a great opportunity to edited in our team name, 'By Clueless Productions' - following the shot of our film title. We then proceeded to the editing suite in which we selected the relevant parts of the footage for usage and cut the insignificant.

What techniques we used

We again set up the back lighting and aerial shots that we had used in the previous lesson, however this time we used two different shot types. When filming the film title, we used an extreme close up, hand holding the camera as opposed to securing it onto a tripod. There was not a great variety of technique used in today's filming session as we were merely concluding the previous session, the bulk of today was dedicated to editing - in which we were merely cutting.

Risk assessment

SAME RISK ASSESSMENT AS PREVIOUS SESSION AS IT WAS THE SAME LOCATION AND EQUIPMENT

12/11/13 - Filming (Session two)

We done basic editing to the scene we had filmed on the 7th in the previous lesson, not adding any effects or transitions at this stage, merely cutting the insignificant parts of the scene. In this scene, as Izzy was still on placement, we filmed the part of the montage that we could with her absence.

What we did

In this lesson we organised and began to film the stalker (who we have decided to cast as Adam, one of our team members) to write to letter to Sarah. This letter is significant for a number of reasons, it reveals the first big suggestion that they are a couple, and there will be a recorded voice over of the letter sounding over the entire montage. We plan to involve a little background music to this film, as non-diegetic sound tends to complement montages well, and we have to introduce TIME into our film in some way, as it is on the specification. We set up a table that looked homely, using a patterned Scarf from Evie (one of our team members) and a mug from the college staff room. These props created the idea of normality that is essential in conveying the idea this is a romantic letter, not a letter of pursuit or stalking. We devised a false address in the top corner and began 'My dearest Sarah'. Our camera was set up above the letter, on a tripod, with a light shining onto the letter. We plan to use dissolves to speed up the pace of the letter writing, revealing various parts of the letter as they are spoken on the voice over.

What techniques we used

We set up a lamp behind Adam so it was fairly dim, yet blatant, looking as if he truly did have a reading lamp above the letter. The use of back lighting creates both a sense of realism, but also an ambient glow on the letter, showing the intimate pretense. Our camera was on a tripod on the table in which Adam was writing, which is an Ariel angle, appearing almost as if it is Adam looking down at his work. In editing we plan to began a voice over of the letter the moment the pen touches the paper, we also plan to reveal our film title in the montage. For instance writing one page of the letter, tearing of the page and revealing the title 'AWAY' on the page underneath, moving the paper pad out the way to reveal 'By Clueless Productions' on the table. None of the editing ideas here are concrete but we certainly intend to include our production way and film title in a clever way into our film.

Risk assessment

7/11/13 - Filming (Session one)

What we did

In today's lesson we returned from our media trip and got straight onto filming the beginning of 'AWAY'. With staff permission we accessed the Media department office and began to film. Using hand held camera we filmed Sarah in the office typing away, with us (the stalker) opposite her, using a different computer. The main aim of this scene was to capture both a shot of the ring on Sarah's finger, and to show some form of connection between the two characters, to set up the facade of a love scene. We wanted to create the idea that the stalker was on a business trip so we had Sarah hand over the papers and wish him luck. However we know that he is not on a trip, it is merely suggested through Sarah's choice of language, setting up the idea of false perception from the offset. We ended the filming this session with Sarah vacating the office.

What techniques we used

We began this scene with an Eye-level shot between our two characters, creating the illusion of equality between the two, which is to be expected of a marriage or relationship. Half of Sarah's face was covered with the computer in front of her, used as a form of Blocking, representing the idea that they are attempting to maintain a professional relationship at work. We then used a jump cut to Sarah's hand, revealing an Extreme Close Up of Sarah's ring, trying to show that Sarah could be married to our narrator, all round creating the idea of love between the two. When Sarah leaves the office, we have a short pause of the stalker watching the door, in a kind of trance, revealing his fixation with Sarah, appearing merely as the love of a partner at this stage.

Risk assessment:

Production term plan

Over the next term me and my team will be beginning the production for our film and completing the ancillary tasks for the film. Along with the various lessons we have during the school week, some out of school time and free periods will also be dedicated to the production of our film 'AWAY'. Listed below is a plan of how it shall be carried out:

Week one

5/11/13 - 10/11/13: Research and Production of film poster (taking photograph of locket, assembling various titles and images together on Adobe PhotoShop) - Individual work

7/11/13: After returning from the media and film trip we will be dedicating 3 hours solely to filming to first scene of Sarah in the office, we are hoping to use one of the staff offices.

The majority of this term will be dedicated to filming and editing, however as 'AWAY' features many scenes at home, a lot of the filming will be done outside of college. Whereas all of the editing for the film will be done in lessons and free periods. In the week beginning 11th November, we will properly begin the filming and editing procedure.

Week two

11/11/13: As one of our team members are on placement this week, we are going to begin editing the piece of filming we did in the office.

12/11/13: We will begin filming the gift and text montages, as we do not need any particular venue for these, nor do we need the team member that is absent who plays Sarah. Any time that is left will be dedicated to editing these parts - we are going to follow a film and edit routine

14/11/13: Editing of the montage that is left to edit. As there are no other scenes we can film without the team member that is absent, we will proceed with our individual film posters for this lesson only.

Week three - seven

AS MUCH OF 'AWAY' REQUIRES FILMING IN HOUSES AND PARKS, WITH CHILD ACTORS IT WILL BE IMPOSSIBLE TO FILM THE VARIOUS SCENES IN THE SCHEDULED LESSONS. HOWEVER THE FOUR WEEKS FOLLOWING 18TH NOVEMBER WILL BE DEDICATED SOLELY TO EDITING AND PERFECTING OUR FILM. 

UPDATES WILL BE MADE ON OUR BLOG THROUGHOUT THIS TERM OF THE STAGES WE ARE AT IN THE PRODUCTION.

Pitch for 'AWAY'

In today's lesson we delivered a pitch for our short film concept. In this pitch we displayed the various ideas we would include in our film (synopsis), who we would target our film at, where we got this target audience information and the various ways we would distribute the film.

When we had finished our pitch, our audience gave critical feedback and responded to the questionnaire we presented to them, here is an example of that questionnaire:

Displayed here is the quantitative data we took from the questionnaire's:

Here is the powerpoint we used in our pitch:

Here is us delivering the pitch:

Slide one: 
Hello everybody we are clueless productions and we are here today to present our short film – ‘Away’. The meaning behind the team name was based around the idea that we were starting completely from scratch, we had no idea of where we were going with the project and we have progressed from being clueless, to what we hope is a very good film concept.

Slide two:

As our film is largely focused on suspense and anticipation, building up throughout the scenes, it was clear that ‘AWAY’ complied to the majority of the conventions of the thriller genre. However, as our film is largely focused around mental instability of our main character, it fits into the sub-genre ‘Psychological thriller’. Both ‘The Silence of the Lambs’ and ‘Maniac’ investigate the psychological unease of a character, however with ‘Maniac’ we see it directly from their perspective.

Slide three:

As we are amateurs to the film industry, we have decided that we want to distribute our short film by uploading it to an interactive, broadcasting site known as ‘Short of The Week’. Short of The Week allows all kind of film makers to upload their work for the general public to view, and at the end of the week one of these films is selected to be the short of the week.When we come to marketing our film, we are going to select the two ancillary tasks that we believe are most suited to our film. We will be producing the compulsory poster, which will be a great way to get the mystery around our concept across, nothing will be given away and it will all be left up to audience interpretation, just like our film. The radio trailer will also be useful, as we can portray the peaceful, harmonious bulk of the film through various conversations and music, then end with the baby crying and fire alarm going off, with the noise slowly fading, showing the sense of anticipation our entire film is based around.

Slide four:

From studying both demographics and psychographics we came to the conclusion that our main target audience would be Women of age 16-34, and people that like to experience and make new things. Demographics are a form of quantitative data that take into account age, gender, social class etc. From our research we found that women of 16-34 commonly have children, spending a lot of time watching childrens TV, like to wind down on a night and watch something enticing – which is nothing short of what our film ‘AWAY’ offers. Psychographics on the other hand are a form of qualitative data, that categorises people into 3 clear cut categories based on a VAL’S test. The type of audience we will market our film at are those of ‘Self Expression’, the bracket in which both experiences and makers fall under. It is people that like to make new things, experience new things and investigate or get an understanding of things they were not aware of before – I feel the psychological element of our film offers this to an audience.

Slide five:

In sub-urban England office worker Sarah, single mother of one, is living her average home life, when she is faced with a threatening situation. An anonymous colleague develops an uncontrollable obsession, following her every move. Sarah starts receiving cards, texts and various gifts that unbeknown to the viewer, become to first signs of stalking. Following a locket arriving at the house, containing a photograph of Sarah and her child, it becomes evident to her that she is in severe danger. As time progresses and the plot unfolds, we see Sarah and her child’s life put in jeopardy when the stalker makes regular visits to the family home. Appearing to the audience as merely part of the family, the stalker is actually watching his desired family through the house windows. Countless phone calls to the police prove unsuccessful, due to the lack of evidence tracing back to the stalker. Although the various texts and gifts appear to be the signs of a long distance relationship in play, in the closing scene we finally become aware that this is not any normal relationship. The scene reveals Sarah drugged an unconscious in bed, with her child crying hysterically, when the stalker is finally revealed, stood static at the end of the bed, watching the victim in a complete trance. I will now show you the animated story board me and my group created for our short film, which explains the various stages of the plot.

Slide eight:

Research showed that psychological thrillers tend to appeal more to women do to the fact that they tend to have an emotional or mental conflict (as opposed to a physical one) which appeals more to the female audience. Also because the victim tends to be female and women tend to be able to relate to the victim more than men.

Psychological Thrillers tend to appeal to an older audience as they typically contain some sort of mystery which may be confusing to younger audiences.They are also not suitable for very young audiences due to the fact that they may have scenes they will find disturbing.Therefore, we feel we have targeted the correct audience of 16-34 year old women.

Slide nine:

From watching other short films on ‘short of the week’ we have seen that other, successful short films with the genre of psychological thriller or similar genres often contain similar narrative themes to ours such as a lack of or very small amount of dialogue, a strong element of mystery and almost always a twist at the end.

Looking at similar short films also showed that psychological thriller is a fairly successful genre as they were very popular and highly rated, and had very strong and interesting plots.

We have chosen  to display our short film on ‘Short of the Week’, this seems to be a good choice as many short films gain popularity through this website, due to the fact that it highlights the most popular shorts on the sight and also because it is a site designed specifically for short films , so people viewing the site will be interested in watching short films.

Audience Research

Today me and my group created a simple questionnaire of some questions regarding short films, we handed out this questionnaire to our class as a form of audience research. From gathering our results, we have found that there was a general shared consensus on certain questions. We wanted to know that we were targeting our film at the right audience, from researching into demographics, we could infer that 16-34 year old women are our ideal market. As our class is made up of a range of 17-19 year old girls and boys we decided that our class would be an excellent representative to take our data from.

Although we initially hoped to create a radio trailer in oppose to a magazine review for one of our two ancillary tasks, 6 (two thirds) of our group would prefer a magazine review, as they understood that with thrillers they can often be difficult to understand. However, although we are not being ignorant and completely rejecting market research, we want our film to be completely ambiguous, if we created a double page spread magazine review, it would leave nothing up to audience interpretation, which was what we wanted our film to be based around.

One of the members of our target group, Emily, selected thriller as her favourite genre, and interestingly was one of the 3 in the group that wanted to see a radio trailer. We have taken Emily as the most secure guideline for some of the decision making that will take place, using audience research as a basis. Emily stated that she expected 'suspense' from a thriller, which we truly intend our film to offer. When we asked what type of characters would she like to see from a thriller film, she said 'A hidden character', which is nothing short of what our film offers. Everything is told from the stalkers perspective, he is hidden in the film for the most part, which adds to the conventional idea of suspense in a thriller.

Our audience research consolidated for us that we wanted to go ahead with our idea of a thriller as we believe it captures much of what an audience want to see. Here is some photographic evidence of the audience research we conducted:

'AWAY' Storyboard

Displayed below is a storyboard we 'Clueless Productions' created for our short film 'AWAY'. It contains an underlying tune, a audio voice over describing the various parts of the short film, and the pictures of how it would happen. This is all initial planning and various parts could change or develop in the process of producing the actual film.

 

Concept

This is a brief overview of the concept for our film 'AWAY'.

'AWAY' Mood Board

In today's task we were asked to create a mood board for our short film on PhotoShop, which should include the various aspects of film that we will consider when it comes to the actual production.

Here it is:

Short film planning - Time

Today we began looking at planning for our own short films. As our specification requires that we use 'Time' as a concept, we decided to brainstorm some ideas for how this could be included. To begin with we looked at films that include time as a concept, whether it be subtle, direct, shape the film entirely, or merely featured in one section of the film:

After we had brainstormed as many films we could think of that use time as a concept, we then went on to investigate how these films used time, as we listed the films we noticed the variety of different ways in which time can be used, giving us some insight into how we could include time into our short film.

In the initial planning of our own short film concept, we were thinking that possibly a flash forward/back or even a montage showing the difference in how things are at one time in the past to how they are now.

Film specification

The Brief:

Create a short film in it's entirety, lasting approximately five minutes, which may be live action or animated or a combination of both, together with two of the following options: A poster for the film and either a radio trailer or a film magazine review page featuring the film - 60 marks

 

Research & Planning Evidence:                                                                                                                                                 20 marks

Your blog must contain all evidence of research and planning conducted to produce the work.

 

Evaluation:                                                                                                                           20 marks

 

Using your blog you will produce an evaluation covering the following questions:

 

1.       In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

 

2.       How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

 

3.       What have you learned from your audience feedback?

 

4.       How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

 

 

Your instructions:

In groups of up to 4 people you must make a short film that is appropriate (and appeals successfully) to your chosen target audience. 

You have to decide who the audience will be (demographics) and how your film will be distributed and exhibited to that audience.

 

 

WHAT SHOULD THE FILM BE ABOUT?

§  Your film must have the theme of, or make reference to, TIME and also TECHNOLOGY.  It needs to feature a prop which is a box or a piece of jewellery.

§  You must make use of one or more narrative concepts to help to tell your story.

§  You must select a genre or hybrid for your film.  Follow Lacey’s schema of genre to ensure you follow some of the codes and conventions but you might also challenge some conventions to offer something new / refreshing to the audience.

 

 

GETTING STARTED

Brainstorm some ideas:  Creating a pot of creativity!!

§  List films that already use time as a concept

§  In what ways do they use time as a concept?

§  What technologies could you include?  (Think of some that may be relevant to your audience or to the narrative of your film).

§  How could the prop of a box or jewellery be used in your film?

§  What could happen in the film?  What is the conflict?

§  Who or what could the film be about?

§  When and where is your film set?

§  What genre is it?

§  How will mise-en-scene help to communicate meaning?

Write your answers on post it notes or present in poster form and photograph these.  You can then turn them into an animation and upload this onto your blog.

§  Think of an appropriate title for your film. 

§  Consider the rules of short film making and create your own list of rules for making a successful short film.

TECHNICAL INFORMATION:

§  You must use studio lighting for at least one scene.

§  Within your filming you must ensure you have used the following shots:

An extreme close up                      An extreme long shot                    A point of view shot (subjective  shot)

A mid shot                                          A low angle shot                              A high angle shot

§  You must use the following edits:

A cross cut                                          Shot reverse shot                            Matched cuts                   

A motivated cut

CREATING THE SOUNDTRACK / SCORE / MUSIC:

§  All sounds used must be copyright free. 

§  You can compose your own music / soundtracks / scores using the Garageband software.  This is very easy to do.

§  You can ask local / college bands to provide tracks. (Permission forms must be completed by the song writers / owners) or you can use copyright free music.

§  Remember, it is unlikely for films to have one song throughout the film, think of how to create an incidental score which heightens the mood of the actual film.

§  Also pay attention to other sounds – voice over, dialogue (must be clearly recorded and fully audible in the final mix), sound effects.

 

              Essential Planning and Research:

§  Who is your target audience and why?

§  What is the purpose of your film?

§  How could you get funding for this if it were a real product?

§  Where do you expect your film to be exhibited?

§  How will you distribute / market your film to target your specified audience?

§  Once you have selected a specific audience you must conduct audience research – questionnaires, online surveys, video focus groups to find out what they do / don’t like about short films.  Explore genre preferences, style preferences, where they access short films, what media they use most often, etc.

§  You must continue conducting audience research throughout the planning and production stages to ensure your audience like what you are producing.

 

Film Planning:

 

§  Write a synopsis for your film.

§  Split your film into scenes.

§  Produce a storyboard or step outline for your film.

§  Produce a locations list, props list, cast list.

§  Produce a filming schedule.

§  Conduct a recce check and complete risk assessment forms.

§  Complete permission forms of all actors in your film (to give consent to Internet exhibition.)

 

Before October half term you will be expected to present a pitch for your film idea. 

This will be filmed and can be added to your blog.  This will be treated as a professional pitch so you must dress suitably and prepare a presentation of some kind.  Think of The Apprentice or Dragon’s Den.

 

 

§  Filming will begin straight after October half term.

§  The filming needs to be completed by Christmas. 

§  Time will then be given to producing the ancillary tasks and completing the evaluation.

§  Attendance is monitored.  You will lose planning marks if you miss lessons.

§  All students must participate fully in the practical work.  You are being assessed at all times.

§  Aim to produce interesting, creative films.  Enjoy yourself and work professionally at all times.