Short Film

Short Film

Evaluation Q4

Q4: How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Evaluation Q3

Q3: What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Prezi Link

Evaluation Q2

Q2: How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

Powerpoint Link

Evaluation Q1

Q1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

After coming up with my initial ideas, and deciding on the genre that the film would be, I started doing research into thriller films, and their codes and conventions. After watching a few thrillers, I decided on five key tropes which I would follow for my own production; low-key lighting, tense music/ambience, twist at end, hidden/mysterious antagonist and a weak female protagonist saved by a strong male. I conformed with four out of five of these conventions, with the one that I changed being the gender roles.
All throughout the film, I use shadows to my advantage, with lots of low key lighting and close angles. This is typical of the genre. The aim of this is to restrict what the viewer sees in order to create a more tense atmosphere. If the viewer could see that the entire room is empty, it won't be scary, but if the room is dark and they can't see much of it, they are immediately more scared. Couple this together with the silence of the room, a tense atmosphere is created. The ambience I use was downloaded from YouTube and is described as 'silent room ambience'. I used this instead of complete silence because it creates a sense of building up to something, and that something could happen at any time.
To keep the narrative interesting, I use a surprise plot twist at the end, that most audiences have not expected. As mentioned above, this is common of the genre and is used a lot. For example, in Saw three, the 'live' feed that we have been watching all along is actually on a delay, but this is only revealed at the end. I am hoping that the twist I have created isn't predictable when you watch it the first time, but also makes sense when you watch it the second, as that would make it a successful twist.
Throughout the film, I only show the side of Ben's face (the antagonist) twice. This makes it so that the audience knows next to nothing about the character. Done in the wrong way, this can ruin the film, but I feel that I showed just enough so that it made sense whilst still giving him a mysterious atmosphere. This effect adds to the atmosphere, I feel. If the audience were shown Ben in a room full of light, and were told exactly where he was, it would relieve all tension in the film; something I tried hard to avoid.
The last convention is the only one that I challenged; the weak female antagonist being saved by a strong male. This is typical of many older films, not just thrillers, but is something being challenged more and more in modern cinema. Even though you could argue that as Daisy gets captured in the first place, she is a weak character, I would disagree. Daisy escapes without any help or guidance and comes out of the film a much stronger character than when she began. The real antagonist is also revealed to be a female (Daisy's Mother) which is challenging conventions even more. The vast majority of the time, the antagonist is a male, with the only real exclusions being femme-fetales in film-noirs.
My print products also stick to the conventions of the thriller genre - I use a lot of red to convey a sense of danger/urgency, and black as a literal way to indicate that the film will be quite dark. You can see that this is typical of the genre from posters such as The Game, Inception and Sin City, which all use red and black as primary colours. This stays consistent throughout both the poster and review page, whilst I also use red titles in the film.

Review Page

Link

Poster

Link

Shooting Script

Scenes

Scene One - Car

Scene Two - Establishing characters

Scene Three - The Kidnapping

Scene Four - The room

Scene Five - Ben office

Scene Six - Reactions (intercut)

Scene Seven - Phoning home

Scene Eight - Reunion

Scene Nine - One last call

Day	Scene(s)	Character(s)	Prop(s) and equipment	Location(s)
27/12/17	1, 3, 7, finalize titles	Ben, Daisy, Daisy’s Mother	Tripod, Samsung S7	Car, outside
28/12/17	2, 8, 9, edit	Ben, Daisy, Daisy’s Mother	Chain, envelope, old phone, phone, tripod, Samsung S7	Empty room, office, outside
29/12/17	4, 5, 6, edit	Ben, Daisy, Daisy’s Mother, Isaac	Phone, tripod, light, Samsung S7	Living room

Equipment List

Because I was making the film on a budget of £0, I had to be very conservative with the equipment used;

Camera - Samsung S7 Edge
I will be using this phone to film my footage because it has a highly detailed camera on it, capable of filming up to 4k footage - UHD. I won't film in 4k, due to concerns about file sizes and the processing power needed to actually edit. I will be filming in 1920 x 1080 and editing in 1020 x 800, to give the film a more cinematic feel.

Tripod & Attachments
The tripod I have chosen is quite simplistic, whilst allowing for a good height and also allows you to level out the shot before filming; something I will use in order to get level shots. As I will be shooting on the S7 Edge, I have purchased a tripod attachment which allows for the phone to be attached to the tripod; this attachment was quite cheap, but is easy to use and quite lightweight, meaning I can carry it with me when going to film in Hopwas. For handheld shots, I will still have the attachment on the phone, but will use it as a handle, of sorts, meaning that I can hold the phone without obstructing the camera.

Microphone 
The in-built microphone of my phone records lots of white noise and unwanted background noise and so I will be using an external microphone which records much clearer audio whilst also not recording the background noise. This is something we tried to do with an iPad for our AS level work, but didn't do well. This time round, I will have someone to hold the microphone just out of shot so it is as close to the actor as possible, ensuring good quality.

Clapperboard
Because of the external microphone, I will be using a clapperboard so that it is easy to sync up the recorded with the footage. After clapping the board, I will also read out the name of the shot and take, making it easier to tell which video goes with which audio clip in post production. 


Other props
I will need to bring a pillow/blanket or some other form of cushioning to the shoot when Daisy has been kidnapped. This will allow the actor to throw the phone she is using on the floor without damaging it. I will also need a blanket which I can place on the floor when Daisy wakes up. This is to prevent the actor lying on any broken glass or other potentially harmful objects. The blanket should be dark so that it's not too obvious on-screen. In order to make the table in the house messy, I will use random trash from around the house. This is not something that needs to be planned.

Shot lists / Lighting test

In my production, I will be employing two different styles of filming, one for inside the house and one for outside.

Inside

Inside the house, shots will be wide, with lots of space around the characters. This helps the viewer feel comfortable and relate to the characters more. To reflect this, the lighting will be bright and soft. In post-production, I will colour grade the shots inside to have an orange tinge to them to give them a more homely feel.

Outside 

Whilst outside the house, I will shoot in an entirely different way, almost completely opposite to inside the house. The shots will be close up and uncomfortable, in order to put the viewer on edge. This restricts the viewers eyesight, therefore adding an element of mystery. The lighting will be dark, and shadows will be exaggerated, along with the colour grading having a colder, blue tint. This is in stark contrast with the warm orange glow from inside the house. The effect of this will hopefully be that the viewer feels how Daisy is feeling, both when inside and out.  

Risk Assessment

Google Docs Link

Copyright Clearances

In my film, I plan to use mostly royalty-free assets, including music and sound effects, apart from my end credits song, which is going to be 'For the Damaged Coda' by Blonde Redhead, which is not royalty free, meaning that I had to send an email to the company who owns the rights for it in order to request permission to use it;

"I am writing to request permission to use the song “For the Damaged Coda” in a short film I am creating for my A-Level coursework. This is for educational use only and will not be distributed or used commercially."

This email covers everything that it needs to in a short and effective way and will be sent to Sony Records - reception.enquiries@sonymusic.com

Production Schedule

Pre-Production;

September;

 - Research and planning

 - Pitch

October;

 - Screenplay

 - Storyboard

 - Poster design

Production;

November;

 - Begin filming

December;

 - Continue filming

 - Create Poster

January

 - Finish filming

Post-production;

November;

 - Begin editing

December/January;

 - Finish editing

 - Film review page

I reached each one of these targets on time and stuck to the schedule well.

Location Scouting

One of the biggest issues I faced with this project was the location where Daisy was kept. It look me a long time to finally settle on a location, and when I eventually did, it was just a few days before filming.




Garage
My initial idea was to clear out my garage and film in there, but when it came to it, the garage was too dark/small to be able to film in. My test footage came out as grainy and you could hardly make out what was on screen. This, combined with the fact that I would have to spend an entire weekend clearing it out and refilling it again, meant that the location wouldn't be suitable.


After the garage, it took me a while to find another location to film in. I considered changing the plot so Daisy could be outside, on the street or even just locked inside a normal room. After all of these ideas failed, I came to the conclusion that I would have to find an abandoned building to film in. After doing some research, I found three small buildings in Hopwas Woods that were perfect for the film.


Hopwas Woods
When we visited these buildings in Hopwas Woods, it was about an hour walk away from the closest car park, which was a red flag immediately. I wouldn't be able to film at night here because of the long walk; it would be dangerous to do in the dark. This wasn't the be-all and end-all, however, because I realised I could film in the evening and colour grade the film to look like it was filmed later in the night. At the location, there were three buildings, the first had bricks missing from the wall, meaning that too much light was coming in, the second was filled with junk and the third was fine, and so I decided that we could film in this one.


The other locations featured in the film I already had planned out in my head months before filming. The house they are in is my own house, and the street Daisy is walking in when she gets kidnapped is a short drive away from my house.

Storyboards

Google Docs Link

Screenplay

Google Docs Link

Target Audience

Google Docs Link

Print Product Research

Google Docs Link

Audience Feedback

This feedback is from the pitch that I presented to the class;


Overall, people said that they would want to watch my film. They found the concept intriguing, but not necessarily too unique, which I can agree with. They thought it might be hard to shoot in lower lighting as I had proposed, but I reassured them that it would be filmed in the light and darkened in post-production, so that everything is visible.

Pitch

Google Slides Link

Slide two

This is a brief overview of my film's narrative. The film is set over the course of one night and is a mixed genre between mystery and thriller.

Slide three

This slide delves more into each individual character. There is Daisy, who is the protagonist, who is around 20 years old and lives at home without a job. Ben, the antagonist, who is essentially a middle aged psychopath. His full face is never revealed to the viewer to keep an element of mystery throughout the film.

Slide four

This slide goes through the different techniques I want to use in my film. The film will be dimly lit, have lots of close, uncomfortable shots, have minimal dialogue and not much music, to create an atmosphere. I will attempt to make the film appear dark through colour grading in post production. I have already tested this on some test footage and it came out well.

Slide five

This is a short sample of my screenplay so far. It is the scene where Daisy has just been kicked out and is walking around, looking for somewhere to go.

Slide six

These are all the locations I will be using. I will try to create a bar scene with green screen and lots of close up shots. I am aware that green-screen, if executed poorly, can look bad, and so I will be paying great attention to this scene in particular, making it look like a bar as much as possible. 

Slide seven

This is the audience profiling slide. I used Saw as a comparison as I feel it is similar to the type of film I am aiming for. YouGov suggested that the target audience was males between the ages of 25-39, but I will be aiming it towards males between the ages of 16-24, as I understand this age group more.

Slide Eight
This is just a simplified production schedule.