Reflection on Paper
The short film ‘Paper’ has been very enjoyable yet challenging to create. It has been one of my favourite modules and my knowledge has grown from creating this. I feel like I have put a significant amount of effort into this short film by taking on as many roles as possible and completing them well. I was script writer, director and editor as well as the other roles shared out between everyone in my group. I took onboard all feedback I was given in each role and applied it to see if it would improve our final piece whilst still staying in my role. I let others in my group help me out and made sure their comments were taken on board. Even though it was not an official role, in my A-Level piece I was an unofficial director and I had forgotten how much I enjoyed it. I like being able to do my ideas whilst taking on others ideas if I thought they are appropriate to the final piece. I have well-developed technical skills but there is always room for improvement and this module has done exactly that. I am more confident using the JVC-700, lighting equipment, tracking, learnt new effects on Final Cut Pro and practiced on Motion. This development will help my future pieces of media. I would say that I could have been a bit more independent whilst directing because I wanted to check if the others were happy with what was going on and if they had anything they would like to add to it which is a good and a bad thing I guess. It is a good thing because I was working well in a team and making sure they were happy whilst double checking all my shots were what we needed, but is a bad thing because I could have done it without checking with them.
My favourite shot in my short film is the tracking shot in the supermarket and the shot of Chris walking through the trees in the graveyard. I liked the effect of the tracking and because Chris was at the other side of the aisle, it made him look quite small and vulnerable. I am glad the effect smoothcam made this shot less shaky because I think the shaky shots take something away from the shot itself. I like the other shot mainly because of the colours. I like the colours around Chris with the ‘nature colours’ such as green, brown and yellow. Chris kind of looks like he blends in, but what he is carrying stands out because it is significant to the story and contrasts with what he is wearing. I like to think it of that what he is carrying represents Ellie, it is bright in contrast to him so signifies how he has lost his brightness since loosing her. I do think there are some beautiful shots, whilst editing, someone sitting next to me said ‘sorry but I could not help but notice, your film is shot really nicely.’ I also like how the poem is at significant parts of the short film then comes in at the end. The fade to black whilst the poem is still being read gives an eerie feel to it and leaves the audience with a sadness.
To improve my short film, I would play around with the sounds some more. I would record some more atmosphere sounds and possibly edit some of the sounds because they peak. Now and then whilst editing, the sound would stop and the earphones would make a loud white noise. I think this was because the sound was peaking, I solved this by turning it down but would still like some more time to perfect the sounds. There are a few shots where Chris was saying the script which we cut out but some still remained. This was the hardest bit to cover up and was done by using sound from a different scene and cutting up the visuals to try to stop the audience seeing Chris talking.
Overall I am happy with how the final piece has come together. My group and I worked well as a team and we mainly all fulfilled our roles. We are planning to distribute our video and I think we can be proud of what we have achieved and the hurdles we have overcome along the way.
Final editing session
Today was our final editing session before the hand in date. The main things I needed to do was sound and titles. I started off my listening to the recording of Brian reading the poem and was pleased by what I heard, his voice was extremely clear, emotive and good to listen to. I cut up the poem into segments of rhyme, because it lasted just over a minute and our film was just over three minutes. I watched the footage through and wrote down what parts I would defiantly want the poem. These places seemed to be the places where we wanted to see the emotion, such as when Chris is looking out the window and looking at the card for Ellie. Once I put the poem into the timeline, I felt like some of it was out-of-place. There was a piece of the poem in the supermarket that really did not fit because it was talking about his grief and her death but he did not look like he was grieving. Steve Dawkins gave us some feedback and said the audience is now told that she is dead far too early which makes the ending less ‘poignant’ and suggested putting most of the poem at the end of our short film. To test this out, I copy and pasted the cut up segments of the poem and positioned a few parts on the timeline where I felt a poem was needed such as the places I suggested earlier. I then locked and muted track on the timeline with the first attempt at the voice over and listened to see what I prefered. I instantly liked the new version better, there was only two verses in the beginning bit which I later changed to three, then there was the main poem as soon as he reached the graveyard scene. I faded to black as the last verse was said, it worked out as emotive and I am happy with how the poem fits the short film.
One thing I was not sure what to do about sound was the end line is ‘dearest Ellie, I miss you’, but Chris says ‘miss you Ellie’ in the graveyard scene. Firstly I cut out the last line of the poem and listened to Chris saying it, but it did not sound right being a different voice and it no longer rhyming so instead I tried to cut out Chris saying it but it jumped too much. My only option left was to use the close up of the card and flowers on the grave where Chris says ‘miss you Ellie.’ I personally prefered the shot without the close up but it works well with the sound.
I then added in the voicemail message but this was far too quite so Lydia and Laura went to re-record it on a Marantz. I imported the radio sounds in the scenes where Chris is in the house. Yesterday I had added in atmosphere sound and some of these did not sound right as I was listening through. Laura rented out a pair of headphones for me and Steve has a listen and picked up on a few sound issues then I picked up a few more when I listened. The first issue was there was talking in the first shot, it was very faint but it was because a family were walking up the path behind me. There was also a banging sound where the boom mic must have been moved so I found another atmosphere sound recorded at that point and put that over the top. This worked better than the sound before but because of the overlap of sounds, I thought this could be happening at various points without me being able to hear it so I muted each individual channel to check they were OK. I was having issues with the sound when Chris opens the cupboards. I needed to get rid of his voice because him talking now does not sound right with the voiceover. There seemed to be a lot of banging in the background and it took me a while to find another atmospheric sound to go over the top of it but I ended up taking it from a shot we took in the kitchen when we ran the whole scene through in one take. Another issue with the sound was in the sweet section in Tesco, compared to the rest of the scene it is really quiet because there are no freezers or fridges buzzing. I added this sound but it just sounded too noisy so instead I put an audio fade in so it was not a dramatic change. This worked better than having a jump in sound or having the loud fridge noise. Next I imported the answer phone message which sounded much better then the soundtrack Kayleigh had found for when the graveyard scene starts.
I had been playing around on motion and created bits of paper falling from the sky then one bit getting bigger. Matt put text on this big piece saying ‘Paper’. I did not like this piece of animation, the paper looked too jagged and the font did not look right on the piece of paper. I did like the original idea of floating paper and liked the font but the graphic as a whole did not suit the piece. Instead we decided to go for a more subtle title and write paper on the path in the graveyard. This suited the piece more because it is quite subtle and I liked it much better than the animation. After watching it through many time and practically knowing the poem of by heart, I exported our short film. The final Quicktime copy was over 800mb so we may have to cut the quality to put it on Vimeo.
This editing session went well and I have learnt new techniques such as different effects and more about sound. I have never paid that much attention to sound before, this is the most attention I have ever given to it. This has made me realise how my previous pieces could have been improved by the sound. I used a variety of soundscapes to make the sound believable but there are still a few glitches. I think the sound could have been improved further by more recordings of atmospheric sound. I am glad the sound came out loud rather than quiet because it is easier to turn sounds down than up but overall I am happy with the editing process today.
Editing
The tutors wanted to see our raw footage once we had completed our filming so we showed them our best shots according to the continuity forms. They said we have some nice shots with a variety of angles and a good basis for the story so to make a really rough edit. I set to work on this by firstly renaming most of the clips and putting the unsuitable clips into a separate folder. I then chose the best clips out of the ones we had taken and began placing the on the timeline. The tutors came down to see the clip but it had taken so long to rename our many clips, we did not have a very long video. I was given half an hour to rearrange all the clips into the rough order it will be in for the final project. This was quite rushed but I managed to do it on time, I actually liked doing it fast to meet the deadline because it made me concentrate harder on the task. It was a total of 6 minutes 45 seconds which is over double of what it needs to be. There were a few shots that cut really well together such as when Chris is looking at the flowers.
The tutors thought the sound might be better if we just had a monologue over the top. We were also unsure about the sound so took this on board. Matt and I are the designated editors and our short film was cut down to just over three minutes before presenting it to the class. The feedback we got was -
- Good atmosphere sounds in the graveyard
- Good tracking shots whilst in the supermarket
- There is a jump from one scene to the supermarket which needs filling with something, they suggested putting another shot of the long shot at the beginning with Chris walking down in between the trees because it was said that by the end of the video, they had forgotten about the shot at the beginning so maybe it needs to be repeated throughout.
- Need to sort out the pacing because it was slow in supermarket and fast afterwards
- We had Chris getting into the car, then getting out of the car in another location, this does not look right and needs to be changed. Perhaps the beginning shot in the middle of this?
- Needs more references to Ellie
- Have the end shot as Chris walking away from the grave
- Need more close-ups of Chris
- Get rid of the shot of him locking the door – too slow and not needed
- Get rid of the shot of Chris and the cashier exchanging money – too slow and not needed
- Need to sort grading
- Radio?
We have taken all these comments on board. Some of them we were intending to change anyway because it was a really rough cut, such as the grading and I knew some of the shots needed to be shortened to sort out the pacing. We are planning to recording a radio sound soon for the beginning part in the house as well as Ellie’s answer phone message to add more of her into the story. Matt and I have been working on editing on Final Cut Pro nearly every day so far, we now have a nearly finished piece. One of our main problems was the shot of Chris looking out the window in the kitchen. The light on the back wall was quite yellow and the colour coming through the window was blue. I tried many different effects such as colour corrector, but this did not work. I would get rid of the blue but then the yellow would have turned a strange colour. We needed to select just that area and change it. I went to ask our technician, Bex to help us out and she used an effect called 8 point garbage matte. To do this we had to duplicate the shot we wanted to change and put it above the shot we are going to edit. We applied the effect and changed the points so they just covered the area we wanted to change. We changed the settings in this space to make it how we wanted it to look. We done this on two different shots, the long shot of the window and the close up of him looking out the window. It looked so much better with even light colour after the edit. I decided to use the shot of him looking out the window instead of at the watch because it was not clear enough and just looked like he was looking in the sink. He looked like he was thinking more whilst looking out of the window.
Another problem we had was keeping the suspension of disbelief because we only had three minutes so had to cut out the less important shots such as the traveling shots. We had filmed these but most of them did not look right or were too long and boring when we put them in. An example of this is the car shots. We had the shot of him entering the car then a shot of him getting out the car. I put in a fade to black in the middle of them but it still looked strange so we got rid of the shot of him getting out the car and just kept the shot below.
Our feedback suggested putting the shot at the beginning in the middle because the audience forget they have seen it. I like the fact that the audience forget because they are reminded at the end. There are a few shots we had to cut down such as when he leaves the house because he stops and locks it instead of just slamming the door. I solved this by putting a fade to black just as the door swings towards him and having the sound of the door closing in the fade to black. We had to cut down the checkout scene but now that we are no longer having any speech in it, it is not needed as much.
Matt and I have been through the footage many times and been shaving off unnecessary shots such as we originally had a close up shot of Chris’ feet walking through some flowers, it was quite a pretty shot but he looks like he is killing all the flowers and does a strange turn at last-minute. This was where he was about to walk the wrong way which would not have fitted into the rest of the scene because of screen direction, so I pointed the way he was meant to but it was slightly too late so there was a sharp turn.
Matt and I worked together to grade our short film. We wanted it too look quite natural and not noticeably graded. The main effects we added onto our short was brightness and contrast and the three-way colour corrector. There was one shot where we could not get the focus on the camera correct but did not have any other useable shots so had to try to sharpen this up without it looking too obvious.
For the credits we are hoping to use Motion to create falling bits of paper til one bit gets blown towards the screen and has the word ‘Paper’ on. I have been playing around on Motion and managed to create bits of paper floating around but am trying to work out how to get ‘Paper’ written on the big piece of paper that covers the screen at the end. I find it quite difficult to use and had no idea where to start when I opened it, even after the tutorial on it. To make it easier for myself, I watched a few tutorials online which made it a bit clearer but I am going to have to practise on it quite a bit to get myself comfortable with using it.
One of the most useful effects we used was the image stabilisation tool. Matt and I applied this to all the unsteady shots with a good result. The only issue we found was in one of the tracking shots in Tesco, there is a slightly different movement of the camera but it is still much better than before. This is one of my favourite shots out of all the shots we took and it would have been a shame if it was really wobbly.
I had not come across this tool before and neither had Matt, so I researched into it and found this video to learn from.
For the monologue Kayleigh volunteered to write it, this is the first draft.
My eyes full of wonder, yet so lost
The wonder of this blank canvas
The visions still burn so brightly in mind
Just one last step, one last breath, one last touch
I hear your voice through the whisper of the wind
The crunching of leaves beneath my feet
Sometimes its nature just calling to me
Just one last step, one last breath, one last touch
The wonder of realisation is a beautiful thing
The loss of the loneliness I feel
You are not to be pitied in your peaceful slumber
No last step, no last breath, no last touch
Just blissful realisation.
I like this but I think it gives away he has lost his wife too quickly. I think it needs to be more like a love poem on their anniversary at the beginning before it starts talking about loss. There is a part referencing autumn but when we filmed it was not autumn and if it was a year ago it could not have been autumn then either. I also do not understand the relevance of the second verse about nature. Here is the second draft of the poem.
Blissful happiness when I see you smile
The glint in your eyes so bright
Sitting, talking, times going so fast
Rushing past in indecent haste
One year has passed since that crisp autumn day
The White dress of linen still hangs
I still see your smile, much larger than life
Ready for our next big adventure
I hear your voice through the whisper of the wind
The crunching of leaves beneath my feet
Sometimes its nature just calling to me
Just one last step, one last breath, one last touch
The wonder of realisation is a beautiful thing
The loss of the loneliness I feel
You are not to be pitied in your peaceful slumber
No last step, no last breath, no last touch
I like this one much better, I feel like it flows much more and the fact that she died is not right at the beginning. I still do not like the verse about nature, the only relevance it has it the ‘circle of life’ because she has died but he lives on. Lydia looked through the poem and had a few ideas on how to improve it.
The wonder of realisation is a beautiful thing
I hear your voice through the whisper of the wind
Sitting talking times going so fast
It seems so hard to forget the past
The white linen dress still hangs high
I find it so hard to say goodbye
The glint in your eyes so bright
Everything seems so perfectly right
Blissful happiness when I see your smile
A year has passed since that walk down the aisle
An empty house, an empty chair
A wifes love no longer there
You can remember her and only that she’s gone
Or you can cherish her memory and let it live on
You are not pitied in your peaceful slumber
No last step, no last breath, no last wonder
Your heart can be empty because you no longer see
But I feel your still with me finally free
As the sky calls you home you fly like a bird
My sweetheart, my love, don’t say another word
It’s hard to move on, its hard to cope
I wish for you back but can only hope
A gap in time even I cannot undo
Dearest Ellie I miss you
I think the poem has improved even more and I like the rhyming and flow it has when you read through it. It could do with a bit more time before reviling she has died but my main issue is in the edit in the graveyard Chris says ‘Miss you Ellie.’ I thought we were going to be able to lip sync thing but this will not be possible.
We asked Brian Mansi who is on our course and aspires to do voice overs in the future, to do the voice over for us. He agreed and it went very well, he wanted to edit it to change the base in his voice so has taken the clip of him speaking away to edit ready for our final editing session on Monday. Whist editing we have tried to follow the art and craft of editing drama shorts as taught in our lecture. Ken Dancyger says there are three levels of technique to editing, this is the technique, craft and art. The technique is knowing how to edit using the program so knowing how to piece together clips. The craft is being able to put two shots together to create a meaning that would not be there if you watched them separately. The art is taking the meaning to a new level such as emotions by putting two or more shots together. We were told to read this article and it held my attention the whole way through. I am interested in editing and am the head editor of the university TV group, Source TV. I love learning new aspects of editing and it is a career I am interested in. The article talks about Walter Murch’s fascination with editing and his point of view of how it all works. He talks about how the audience are programmed to understand the edit because of dreams. In dreams they cut from one scene to another and are cinematic. Editing is taking the language of dreams and making something from it. I really like this idea because dreams fascinate me, I can normally remember my dreams and if they are really interesting I write them down. The audience make their own assumptions in the edit, you do not need to guide them too much because they make the link themselves in between shots. We have done this in our short film by not showing the travelling shots in between scenes because the audience will just assume that we travelled there. It is quite clever really how the audience do not think ‘how did he get there’ they just assume he got there in a normal way. This is called continuity editing.
Ken Dancyger notes:
it is the practical challenge of the director and the editor to work with some number of shots to create a continuity that does not draw unnecessary attention to itself. If it does, the filmmaker and the editor have failed to present the narrative in the most effective possible manner. (1997a: 295)
Continuity editing normally had an establishing shot to orient the audience, the 30 degree rule where if you have two shots next to each other they must have moved 30 degrees, cutting on action and use of shot/reverse shot. Dancyger says there are nine basic techniques available to the editor. These are -
- Scene selection – Chosing the correct shot such as having an establishing shot first then moving to close-ups.
- Construction shot continuity – Creating a ‘seamless cut’ so there is no jump from one shot to another. The edit should match the action and the audience should not be able to see the edit.
- Ensuring adequate cover – This was my job as director to make sure we had enough shots from each scene to use in the edit. This includes a variety of shots such as close-ups and high angled shots.
- Matching the action – This is cutting in the middle of a movement to a different angle of the action such as Chris looking and touching the flowers to a close up of him touching the flowers. I think we have done this well in our shot film because the actions all match well.
- Maintaining screen direction – I spoke about this earlier, if the actor is walking to the left to right then it needs to be kept this way. We done this well because I was specific about keeping the screen direction correct. The only thing I had to change in the edit was in the supermarket because we put Chris picking up bananas in the middle of two tracking shots so he was facing the wrong way for screen direction. To solve this I used the effect called ‘flop’ which just acted like a mirror to turn this round. Although screen direction can be experimented with and come out well such as the video below.
- Matching tone – Keeping the colour and lighting the same throughout the short film. We have tried to do this by using the tools such as colour corrector.
- Matching the flow over a cut – This is deciding what is needed to be shown in the short film. For example, in our short film you do not see Chris putting his shoes on or brushing his teeth because it does not add to the story line, it would be unnecessary.
- Location change – This is similar to matching the flow over a cut but is about the transition between locations. I spoke about this earlier because we had issues on the car scenes because they looked strange next to each other. You do not need to show the whole travel, possibly part of it but in our short film we just showed leaving each location and one shot in a car.
- Scene change – Can be done by a cut or dissolve.
The grammar of the edit is linking two scenes together in certain ways. This can be done by moving the camera in the same manner from shot to shot. Tracking shots can be used and cut half way through then the tracking shot is continued in the next scene. Another way is having the character talking then being in a different scene in different clothes still talking, this cannot be applied to our short film because it is only based in a day so his clothes do not change. A prop can also be used to change the scene such as a close up on an object then another close up of the object then the camera is pulled back to show a different scene.
This lecture helped us edit our short film and now to create our fine-cut we need to add our narration and graphics for the titles. I have enjoyed editing with Matt, we take turns editing but are still there whilst the other is editing for suggestions and feedback on the edit. If there is anything we are unsure to do, the other will research it then instruct the other. I think we have all worked together well as a group, our main source of communication has been via the Facebook group.
We have set up our own blog at http://shortandsweetproductions.wordpress.com where all our group workings are kept and we divided the roles of blogging so we all do an equal amount. The only problem we have had with communication so far is Kayleigh being on placement, it is something none of us would turn down but it has been hard to communicate all of our ideas since we have been doing so much.
Filming
On Saturday the 5th we decided to start filming at 10am. We arrived at Lydia’s at 9am to set up before Chris arrived at 10am. The equipment had been mostly set up from the test shoot the day before so we only had to do a few tweaks so we were fairly organised and off to a good start! We had discussed yesterday that the dedo lights we had rented out worked best when aimed at the ceiling, but the weather was different today so we had to test everything again to see if it looked correct on the camera. Fortunately it all looked good so I checked the props were in the right position then before I knew it, Chris was knocking on the door! I answered and introduced myself then took him into the front room to introduce him to everyone else. We had asked him to wear clothes he thought was suitable to that role and it was good to see that he had. I would have picked out something similar for our character. We got him a drink then I talked through the scene we were going to do with him and asked if he had any questions. He was very laid back and happy to do what we asked as many times as we needed. Our first scene was in the kitchen, we had cooked a breakfast which I cut up to make it look like it has been eaten while we sat Chris down and made sure the focus was correct. We could only do the first shot a few times because of the continuity of the breakfast on the plate because he was having to gradually eat parts of it. This is something I think my group did well at, whenever we were setting up a shot we thought about the shot before and the continuity of it because this is something very hard to change in the editing process. We had a few problems with the focus with the JVC camera, unfortunately our camera man Matt had to work so we were unsure how to fix it but we carried on changing the back and front focus and eventually got it to focus right.
When it came to the scene in the kitchen where Daniel is looking through the cupboards, when he opened the cupboard a chopping board fell out! Luckily it did not hit him but it was still bad that it happened. I then went and opened all the cupboards and took out anything that might fall out again before closing them, checking again and then filmed that scene again. This has taught me to check everything before your actor arrives, even the small things you would not have thought of like going over all the actions they will be doing in detail. Whilst we were filming I thought of a few extra shots I would like, to give some more variety to the film, this was mainly more close-ups or just repeating a similar shot in a different way. For example, there is a shot of him walking over the kitchen sink and putting his plate in there. I asked him to stop and look out of the window for a bit before walking over to get the list off the fridge. It was then decided that there should be another shot of him looking at the watch and ring on the side of the sink. I then had a close-up of his face looking at each of these places. We will look at these in editing and choose which one we think is best and more suited to the film. We shot nearly every shot twice, Chris was very patient and willing to do as I asked! At one point, the lighting was slightly darker than I wanted, we are not allowed to get reflectors out at the loan shop and I remember a tutor telling me once that tin foil does a similar thing so I positioned the tin foil to cast light onto the part of the shot that was need.
Once we had finished all the shots we needed in the kitchen, we moved to the stairway. I wanted a high angle shot of Chris standing at the bottom of the stairs so we carried the equipment upstairs and set up. We ensured we did a white balance whenever we did a different shot and made sure the focus was correct. This shot made Chris look small and not having the power which is what I wanted, he had no control over the fact that his wife died and how he was shouting up to no one which makes him look vulnerable. We did a close up of him playing with his keys from this angle for variety. We then carried the equipment back downstairs to do a shot from behind him shouting up the stairs which we will hopefully cut between with the high angled shot. I wanted a shot of him walking out the door to go on the end of these two shots but we were having issues with the lighting because it was so bright outside so when Chris opened the door it was so overexposed. I suggested putting the ND filter on which looked better, it was still pretty bright but you could now actually see what was outside.
We then done a shot of Chris walking in through the door, I went outside with him so waited til I heard Laura telling me to go, then moved and told Chris to go. The first few had too much car noise in the background so once Laura said it was OK to go, I waited til there were no cars before telling Chris to go ahead. We then realised we had forgotten that he was meant to be holding the flowers and a bag of Tesco food so had to do it again but I am glad that someone picked up on it! The rest of the shots in the kitchen went well, we did some good close-ups then thought if we needed to do anything else and decided to do a wide shot of the kitchen for the whole first scene without stopping. I needed one more shot of Chris getting in the car, there was some children outside asking if we were making a film and you could see them in our shot in the reflection of the window but luckily they got called in unless we would have had to change the angle completely. On the first shot the car door did not close properly but the second shot was fine so it was lunch time! I decided to not film the part of the script when Chris is in the car doing a check to see if he has anything. I did not think we would use this in the film and it would have been an awkward shot to film because of all the street noise. If we filmed this we would have needed a shot of the car driving off and it could have been noticeable that it was not Chris driving.
After lunch we went to the graveyard to begin filming for this scene. We spent a while looking around for a quite new grave and ended up filming Chris walking down in between the graves and the trees whilst our driver, Lydia’s boyfriend Matt, looked around for a suitable grave. I felt like there was quite a bit of faffing around here, I was asking people to set up the camera then people were talking during a take. I think it was because we were in a location where we have not been before but after the first shot our group settled back into working hard to get all the shots we needed in good time. It was so pretty in between the trees so we had a shot of just the trees and also did a pan. I wanted come close-ups of Chris’ feet walking so had one shot of him walking out of some flowers then turning right, then another of his feet walking straight down the middle of the trees. I can interlink the last shot to the long shot of him walking. The only problem with this graveyard was the park with children playing in it, but this was only around one side of the church so we recorded some atmospheric sounds where it was quiet. It sounded good on the headphones because of the birds singing. When we found an appropriate grave, we tried to find a position where you could only see the back of the grave and Chris in front of it. This turned out to be quite difficult because it was next to a bush so Laura and Lydia ended up sitting under the bush with the camera whilst I held the branches out the way to get the shot we needed. I made sure we had a shot of the grass on its own then Chris putting the bag and flowers onto that patch of grass for more of a surprise ending. For the walk towards the graveyard, we needed a few shots of his feet and walking through a field so you cannot tell it is a graveyard he is walking towards. To do this we went to the corner of the graveyard where there was just a plain grass field and filmed a long shot of him walking. I had to think about screen direction when directing this to make sure it would follow on from the shot before and after it. I then wanted a close up of his feet walking away so did two of these shots. It then began to rain so we retreated to the cars to do one last shot of Chris getting out the car. I wanted this to look like it was being filmed from the passenger seat so we opened the passenger door and zoomed in til you could only see Chris in the car seat and not the passenger seat.
We luckily had permission from Tesco on the Saturday so we met at Lydia’s house to collect the equipment and be driven to Tesco. Lydia was on work experience with X factor so understandably could not attend todays filming. We arrived at Tesco for 4pm and while Matt waited with the drivers and equipment in the car, Laura and I went into Tescos to talk to the manager to check it was all OK still, which it was, so we brought in all the equipment. I went on a scout of the shop whilst Laura and Matt stayed with the equipment. I then went and done another scout but took Laura with me this time. This helped because when it came to filming I knew exactly where I wanted everything set up. We began setting up the tracking and checking the camera still had all the correct settings on. Chris Skinner then arrived so I briefed him then we started to film after I placed the flowers in the flower baskets. The first problem I thought we would have would be the lighting because I thought Tesco might turn the lights off but luckily only the fridge and freezer lights were turned off so the lighting was sufficient. I was holding the boom pole for the first shot then Kayleigh arrived and took over. I wanted a shot of the close up of the flowers to crosscut with the long shot. We then put down the tracking down and used it to move next to Chris picking up the bananas. The first attempt of this was quite wobbly because of the mats on the floor but we removed these and then tried to do it by hand without the poles on the bottom but this just moved quite dramatically towards Chris so I wanted a static shot just incase these did not look right. We then moved onto the tracking section of having Chris walk past one side of the aisle and the camera on the other side. We did each of these shots twice because they went wobbly in parts. I wanted a close up of Chris picking up food and even though the lights were off the lighting condition was good. We then went to the sweet section to do three different shots each with different speech in. This was because we needed a shot of him picking up something that reminded him of Ellie and saying something about it before calling her. I saw a sweet and thought it would be good to have a memory and asked Chris to say something along the lines of ‘ Ellie’s tongue went so blue after this!’ The next shot we needed was at the checkout with our extra, James Colley. He was wearing his Tesco uniform and knew how to work the til so we were quite lucky. This shot took a few attempts because of small mistakes but the final shot was good. I then wanted close-ups of the exchange of money, packing bags and Chris’ face for more variety in our shots. We then filmed an exit shot of Chris leaving the store with his shopping. Throughout all of these supermarket shots, we had extras walking around because the shop was closed therefore extremely empty. This is good because it signifies the emptiness in his life but we still needed a few people to appear in it. We were now finished filming! We had put £20 into the budget for taxi’s, props, food and £100 to give to our actor to cover any travel expenses, but needed a further £15 each. After we had packed everything away and signed out of Tesco, I gave Chris the £100 and many thanks!
Our filming has gone well, we worked together to cover group absences and got all the shots we needed. Our actor was good and we had good timings with time to spare at each location. I enjoyed being director and helped out in other roles such as camera, lighting and sound. Nothing went particularly wrong and were lucky the rain held off in the graveyard scene. I made sure all the shots written on the back of the script were completed plus more. I have learnt so much whilst filming this short film. I can now use the JVC-700 camera confidently and realised how much planning can help you when it comes to the filming. I have never been a director before, it was an enjoyable experience and something I would like to do again. I have also never worked with an actor before, I was unsure on what his mannerism would be like but he was very understanding and I would like to work with him again.
Locations
We have five locations needed for our short film. These are
Inside a car
In a kitchen
In a hallway
In a supermarket
And a graveyard
For the car location, we are planning to use Lydia’s boyfriends car but not actually have the actor drive it unless he has his own car that he has driven down in. This was our easiest location to sort out because we were lucky enough to be offered the use of the car. We wanted the house to look fairly modern with good lighting and to look very tidy with only a few carefully placed objects out to place to signify Ellie. We thought a show home would be quite good for this so we researched show homes in Coventry and found a housing company. We called them up quite a few times and were being passed around from one person to another. No one really knew who was in charge of this kind of thing but we eventually were told no because they are such a big company they only let people film when it benefits them like if it was a promotional video. They told us to look into smaller companies but could not suggest any particular ones. So we continued our search but the majority of the ones we found were big companies. We emailed persimmon, barrats, david wilson, taylorwimpey, redrow, bloor, bovis, keepmoat but the only company who replied was Bovis homes. We received a positive response but unfortunately the response was too late but I will remember this company for future references. We decided to use Lydia’s house because the kitchen is quite bright and modern and does not look like a student house. We did a test shoot with all the equipment to see if it was suitable and it worked well and looked good on camera. The lighting was even and bright and the kitchen had a good layout with the table in the corner which is what we needed. The only issue was the stairway, we were hoping for a bit where Daniel could put down the flowers out of view but there was not a place out of view so we just had to improvise.
We thought supermarket would be the hardest to get and in a way, we were right in the end. We called Tesco’s in the Ricoh arena but we were just being passed around and no-one had a definite answer. We knew a guy on our corse, James Colley worked in Cannon Park Tescos so asked him for help. He spoke to his manager who said it was fine but we had to get in contact with head office to send him a confirmation email for filming on the 6th March. We spoke to head office a few times and were given a particular name of whom we needed to speak to. We were told a confirmation email would be sent but it wasn’t so by now it was the 5th March. We tried calling them all day but the person we needed to speak to was out of the office. We decided to contact the branch manager again in Tesco and it turns out there had been miscommunication between the branch and head office. Both had agreed to the filming but did not know it! So once that was sorted out we were given the go ahead to film the next day.
Our final location is the graveyard. For this we knew we needed to contact the Parish Council. We wanted a church that was preferably next to a field so we can have shots of Daniel walking through the field towards the graveyard. We looked on Google to find churches nearby then looked at them on google maps. We picked out the two we liked the most and emailed them. We had a reply from St Nicholas Church asking for more information about the film but said it should be OK depending on the content. After telling them the content, they said we have permission to film and to let them know the dates.
When looking for locations and actors, perseverance is needed. Tescos was quite hard to get permission from, but we kept trying and managed get permission. During this process we looked at film locations which you had to pay quite a lot for even though they were just houses. I will continue to always reply to those who email me and will keep in touch with those I have contacted for future references. This process has reminded me of how much easier it is if you divide up tasks.
Actor issues
We originally looked for actors on the casting website ‘Mandy.’ We received approximately ten replies, of which 6 were suitable. We invited them for an audition and only two people replied, one said he could not make that particular date whilst the other said he was now on a paid job so will be unable to take part. When our planned audition day came, we had no one to audition! I was going to struggle being director with nothing to direct, but we still had a very keen guy who wanted another interview so we arranged a Skype interview when it was most convenient for him. We sent him the script and asked for his Skype details. We waited and waited then had to accept that he was not going to audition. This was quite disheartening for us all because we were excited about doing the interview then got let down by all those who applied on Mandy, but I knew my group would be able to find someone if we looked harder so that’s what we did. Instead of relying on just one website, we applied to as many as we could find! I signed us up to Gumtree, The Casting Website and Star Now. The hardest one to use was The Casting Website because you had to be a confirmed user by calling them up and talking to them. They were engaged for a while but I kept trying and eventually got through and signed onto the website. This one was different to all the other ones we had tried because you scrolled through the actors and chose what people you would like to invite to audition, so you can find those with the right ‘look’ for your film. I took a while scrolling through all the actors and emailed approximately 15 actors. We instantly had two replies saying they were interested so this was a good start! We emailed a variety of theatres such as
- Concordia Theatre
- The Loft
- Cubbington Players
- The Saints Amateur Drama Society
- Priory Theatre
- Ruby Theatre
We contacted drama tutors at the University to see if they had anyone suitable and had a few email addresses from our lecturer. After going on this actor rampage the group as a whole was more optimistic and we wanted to audition in the next few days to film at the next weekend.
Many of those we contacted did actually reply even if they were not interested or could not help us out. It is common curtsey and makes you look good if you always reply back so we made sure all emails were replied to, even if they were saying they could not help us out.
We had quite a few people interested in doing a Skype audition and arranged to do our interviews on the Thursday. We had two definite interviews set up for this by Wednesday and hoped for more replies but unfortunately we only had these two. We booked out a room in Ellen Terry and rented out speakers for our interview. We got there an hour early to set up everything and to ensure our Skype was working. We then added them as contacts, then arranged ourselves in front of the webcam so we could all be seen. I was placed at the front so I was closer to the microphone in the computer because I am the director so was leading the auditions. Our first person to audition was an actor called Chris Skinner, he is slightly younger than our original aim and was from the website, the casting website. The second person to audition was Richard Nicholls who was slightly older than our original aim and was from the Bedworth Theatre Company. Chris Skinner was perfect with his timing, I asked him to tell us a bit about himself then to start his monologue. This was well put together and he had good expressive facial expressions. We went over a part of the script and he did not say it word for word and put it in his own words instead. We liked this because it made it sound more smother and natural. Our second actor was also on time and had more questions than our first audition. These were about the film and what we want the audience to think from it. We liked how we wanted to know as much as possible about the film before going through the script. He had a different approach to how he said the script and it worked well. After these auditions we discussed our two actors to see who we all thought was more suitable for our short film. We decided Chris Skinner was more suitable so emailed them both to say thank you and let them know who got the part. We then emailed Chris about what he needed to do next and to arrange a date for filming with him. We were hoping to film the coming weekend and luckily, Chris was free and we had our actor!
Even though this was stressful at times, it was a good experience. I have learnt that you cannot advertise enough! If we had put more adverts in a variety of places to begin with, we could have found an actor sooner. We all assumed just Mandy would be enough and were encouraged by the responses we received so did not think we needed to advertise elsewhere. In the future, I will advertise as much as possible and will not expect everyone that replies saying they are interested to follow through. I will continue to always reply to those who email me and will keep in touch with those I have contacted for future references. This process has reminded me of how much easier it is if you divide up tasks. If I had just been searching for an actor on my own, it would have taken much longer, but with all the group looking, we worked together and posted our advert to a variety of places.
This was a good experience and I think myself and Matt stayed the calmest about the process. I have learnt that you cannot advertise enough for actors, if we had put more adverts in a variety of places to begin with, we could have found an actor sooner. We all assumed just Mandy would be enough and were encouraged by the responses we received so did not think we needed to advertise elsewhere. In the future, I will advertise as much as possible and will not expect everyone that replies saying they are interested to follow through. We also went to an agency, they wanted to be paid £250 a day but we had other options around us that meant we could keep the costs of our short film lower. If I had just been searching for an actor on my own, it would have taken much longer, but with all the group looking, we worked together and posted our advert to a variety of places.
Test shoot
On the 4th we decided to have a test shoot at Lydia’s house. The space between getting our actor and shooting was only three days so we had not pre-booked any equipment and all the good cameras had already been rented out. We called around quite a few people on Media Production to see if we could borrow one and luckily one person was just about to cancel his booking of the JVC-700. We had quite a bit of equipment so had some helpers carry it back to Lydia’s with us. We rented out the track for the supermarket scene, I had never used it before but luckily Laura had. We set up the lighting at Lydia’s to try to make it look as natural as possible. We tried the dedo lights in different places but it kept casting unusual shadows which would be obvious to the audience in the final piece. We decided it would work better if we aimed the light at the ceiling so it would bounce off. We then thought about props in the kitchen and wanted a few subtle items to signify a woman’s presence such as nail varnish, flowers and a watch. We placed these is a few different places til they looked right, then Matt gave us a top-up lesson in how to use the JVC-700 because unfortunately he had work on Saturday. Laura had printed off the script and colour coded most of them accorded to each scene, she then gave them to me to write what shots I had in mind for each part and finish the colour coding process. This ensured that we got all the shots we needed without worrying afterwards about if we had missed a shot. I was planning to do all the shots written on the back of the script plus anymore I thought of whilst filming. We had also gone prop shopping during the day, we had made a list after highlighting all the props in the script such as a plant for the window sill, food for the breakfast, flowers and food for the picnic. I was put in charge of money, we have all put in £20 for now but I think we will need to put in a bit more on Sunday but shall work it all out then.
Final script
INT. kitchen. day
DANIEL is sat at the table eating a cooked breakfast. Opposite him there is a card labeled ‘Ellie.’
Daniel is eating, he adjusts the card to make it straight, looks at it for a while, then continues eating while still looking at the card. He then nods.
daniel
I’ll give her her card later.
Daniel continues to eat until he pushed his chair out and puts the dishes in the sink. He walks to the fridge where a shopping list is under a fridge magnet. He takes the list, reads through it, then begins to open and close cupboards, editing the list as he goes.
daniel
Grapes? Green ones? (pause) I’ll write them on the list.
Daniel continues to look through cupboards
daniel
What about? Hmmm
Once Daniel has finished looking through the cupboards he grabs his wallet off the side.
INT. HALLWAY. DAY.
DANIEL walks into the hallway and shouts up the stairs.
daniel
Going now, see you in a bit beautiful
Daniel pauses at the bottom of the stairs and plays with the keys in his hand and sighs, then leaves locking the front door behind him.
INT. supermarket. Day.
DANIEL is walking through the super market reading the labels on the isles with a basket. He walks past one aisle then walks back down the aisle. Daniel stops in front of chocolate then pulls out his mobile phone.
ELLIE
Hey it’s Ellie here, I’m not available at the moment so leave me a message and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can! Byeee
Daniel hung up then picked up a snickers and headed towards an empty check out. On the way he stopped by the flowers and picked out some before putting all his things on the conveyor belt.
Daniel
Hi
Check-out person
Hey, these for a lady eh?
daniel
It’s mine and my wifes wedding anniversary today, thought I would treat her.
CHECK-OUT Person
Congratulations
daniel
Thank you
Daniel exits the shop after paying
INT. HALLWAY. DAY.
DANIEL unlocks the door and walks into the hallway holding the shopping bags and flowers.
DANIEL
Back!
DANIEL towards the kitchen door
INT. KITCHEN. DAY
DANIEL puts the bags down on the kitchen floor then gets the picnic basket out from under the table, he looks in it and the picnic blanket is already in it. He puts the card and food in the picnic basket and puts the flowers in a bag then walks out the door.
INT. HALLWAY. DAY.
DANIEL stands at the bottom of the stairs and puts the flowers down on the floor out of view
daniel
Time to leave!
Daniel smiles and watches someone come down the stairs
The camera goes down to see Daniel picking up the flowers so you do not see Ellie walk past.
EXT. Outside house. day.
DANIEL walks outside the house and puts the basket and flowers on the back seat of the car and gets in the front seat.
Int. car. day.
Daniel
I’ll do your check Ellie, keys, check, wallet, check, phone, check, blanket, check, basket, check, umbrella incase it rains, check. OK think we’re ready!
Daniel starts driving away
ext. field. day.
DANIEL gets out the car and gets the bag and flowers out. He walks off towards a field in the distance
ext. graveyard. day.
DANIEL is shown laying the flowers and card on a grave sitting on the blanket with the basket next to him on his own. He sets up the food.
daniel
Miss you Ellie.
First draft of script
INT. kitchen. day
DANIEL is sat at the table eating a cooked breakfast. Opposite him there is an plate with parts of food on that someone has finished with. There is also a card labelled ‘Ellie’ on the table next to the finished plate of food.
Daniel eats his dinner.
Daniel
ELLIE, you didn’t open your card!
Daniel continues eating then talks quieter with his mouth full of food.
daniel
Geuss she can open it later if she wants.
Daniel continues to eat until he pushed his chair out and puts the dishes in the sink. He then walks over to the fridge where a shopping list is under a fridge magnet. He takes the list, reads through it, then begins to open and close cupboards, editing the list as he goes.
daniel
Ellie shall I get grapes? Green ones of course, I know you hate pips? (pause) I’ll write them on the list.
Daniel continues to look through cupboards
daniel
What about? Oh no doesn’t matter.
Once Daniel has finished looking through the cupboards he grabs his wallet off the side.
INT. HALLWAY. DAY.
DANIEL walks into the hallway and shouts up the stairs.
daniel
Going now, see you in a bit beautiful, make sure your ready on time!
Daniel leaves locking the front door behind him.
INT. supermarket. Day.
DANIEL is walking through the super market reading the labels on the isles with a trolley with a few bits in already. He walks past one aisle then walks back down the aisle. Daniel stops in front of chocolate then pulls out his mobile phone.
daniel
Hey it’s only me, just walked past the chocolate aisle and I know how much you like chocolate! Want me to get you a snickers? Remember when I use to get them for you once a week? Yer I’ll get you one! Oh and can you get the picnic blanket out the cupboard please babe! See you in a bit!
Daniel hung up then picked up a snickers and headed towards an empty check out. On the way he stopped by the flowers and picked out some before putting all his things on the conveyor belt.
Daniel
Hi
Check-out lady
Hey, someones a lucky lady!
daniel
It’s mine and my wifes wedding anniversary today, thought I would treat her.
CHECK-OUT LADY
How sweet, I’m sure she’ll love them!
daniel
Hope so!
A silence sets in after a slight smile at each other as the Daniel waits to pay.
CHECK-OUT LADY
That’s £… please!
Daniel hands over the money
CHECK-OUT LADY
Thank you, here’s your change and receipt
daniel
Thanks, have a good day
INT. HALLWAY. DAY.
DANIEL unlocks the door and walks into the hallway holding the shopping bags and flowers.
DANIEL
Back! Hope your ready!
DANIEL towards the kitchen door
INT. KITCHEN. DAY
DANIEL puts the bags down on the kitchen floor then gets the picnic basket out from under the table, he looks in it and the picnic blanket is already in it. He puts certain foods in the picnic basket and puts the flowers in a bag to hide them, then walks out the door.
INT. HALLWAY. DAY.
DANIEL stands at the bottom of the stairs and puts the flowers down on the floor out of view
daniel
Come on, time to leave!
Daniel smiles and watches someone come down the stairs
daniel
Helloooo gorgeous! Let’s go, lady’s first
The camera goes down to see Daniel picking up the flowers so you do not see Ellie walk past.
EXT. Outside house. day.
DANIEL walks outside the house and puts the basket and flowers on the back seat of the car and gets in the front seat.
Int. car. day.
Daniel
I packed 3 packets of your favourite crisps!
Daniel starts driving away
daniel
Good job it’s not raining
ext. field. day.
DANIEL gets out the car and gets the bag and flowers out. He begins to walk away then turns round.
daniel
Don’t worry about your shoes, it’s quite dry on the ground! Come on
Daniel walks off into the distance
ext. graveyard. day.
DANIEL is shown laying the flowers on a grave sitting on the blanket with the basket next to him on his own.
Ideas
In the last week, we have finalised our idea, put an advert on Mandy and I have written the script. We have had a few meetings and have taken a step towards creating a good final product in each one. In our first feedback session with the rest of the group, we were told that our original idea may be a bit complicated. This was of a man who had recently suffered from a loss but still saw his wife. The audience would see it from his point of view so would be able to see his wife, but throughout the film she will begin to fade away til the end where the audience finds out that she has died. We were asked questions such as
- What is going to actually happen within the three minutes?
- How will you keep the audience interested?
- Sounds quite complicated for three minutes
- How will the person fade away?
We found it hard to answer these questions which made us realise our idea was not as well-rounded as we thought. Although this has taught me to think about the aspects of the short film we are creating in more detail and to question how it will work more. This will make sure we all have a clear idea of the story which will enable us to make the next step more easily and efficiently. We decided to have another group meeting to discuss our options and thought we should go back to the original idea of an imaginary friend. I think we had tried to complicated the idea to try to make it better but from this I have found the simple ideas can sometimes be the best ones. I thought it could be quite cute to have a child with an imaginary friend because this is the norm. It could be filmed beautifully with the child having a tea party with her imaginary friend. If we did do this it would be in the style of the video below which I saw a couple of weeks ago.
I love the variety of shots in this short film, there are over the shoulder shots, many close-ups and shots that show depth of field. The table must have taken a while to arrange but it looks so natural which helps with the suspension of disbelief. This is believing the audience believing what they are seeing, for example if there is a boom mic in shot then it will jeopardise the suspension of disbelief. I like the small things that signify a child such as when she puts the pipe on as a bracelet and when she just smiles at what she has created. The little girl is a good actress and that would be my main issue if we went ahead with this idea. I thought getting a good child actor would be difficult but I guess if you know where to look it would be easier. Someone in my group then had the idea of a child having an imaginary friend because there was no one at home but I thought this would be too much like a child abuse advert so we decided to flip it on its head and have a male adult with an imaginary friend. He will have this imaginary friend because he is lonely and the story will be about him setting up his birthday party but it ends up with it just being him. The audience will not realise that he will end up on his own with his imaginary friend til the end. I decided to research imaginary friends in children and adults because I personally do not know much about it and would be beneficial if we went ahead with this idea.
I read this article about how parents should re-act towards imaginary friends. I found it quite interesting to read, I have never had an imaginary friend so do not know much about them. This article says they do not necessarily mean the child is lonely, but use them to cope with different situations such as if they are scared of the dark, the imaginary friend will be too. They can be used to test out fears in this way and in emotive ways also. If the child has too many rules then the imaginary friend will be naughty because it is reflecting what the child wants to do. Children will interact with the imaginary friends for social skills and can be used to avoid getting in trouble by blaming the imaginary friend. Adults can sometimes be asked to interact by setting out a plate for them but they must not interfere with the story because it is their imagination that is creating the imaginary friend for a reason. If the child interacts with other people as usual and get real social experiences, the imaginary friend should gradually fade away.
I have found it hard to find anything about adult imaginary friends apart from on forums. I found a few religious references including the picture below.
There were comments on this site saying how God is like an imaginary friend because you cannot actually see him but can be taken offensively by saying religion is child like and suggesting he does not exist. There are various forums and I found one which is actually a script writer asking for experiences of an adult with an imaginary friend which is so similar to ours! Here is the link. Most of the people who responded said they had imaginary friends but did not know why whereas some said it is a coping mechanism. One reply said she has had a lot of trauma in her life, cannot trust anyone and has too much past baggage for a boyfriend, therefore she has an imaginary boyfriend as a coping mechanism. She talks about how he listens to her and responds how she would want a real boyfriend to respond. Others say they talk to themselves but not a particular imaginary friend. One recommended researching DID which stands for Dissociative Identity Disorder. The first thing that came up when I typed it into Google was this video about an ex american football player.
This disorder is also known as multiple personality disorder. Instead of an imaginary friend, you are the imaginary friend. It is when you have a different personality in different aspects of your life. According to this website, you react differently to different situations in terms of emotions, pulse and blood pressure. Some professionals to not think this disorder even exists. It is usually a reaction to childhood trauma. You can forget parts of your day and be somewhere and not remember how you got there. The other mental illness associated with imaginary friends is schizophrenia. This is seeing or hearing things which are not actually there, delusional beliefs, muddled thoughts based on these thoughts and hallucinations and changes in behavior. The most common misconceptions of schizophrenia is the person having a split personality, so are fine one minute and crazy the next. The other one is how it makes them violet; there have been studies to show that they do have a link but people abusing substances are far more violent. Below is a video about schizophrenia, it was so interesting learning about it from someone who has it.
Although this can be related to having imaginary friends, in our short film the person will not be mentally ill, but more having an imaginary friend as a coping mechanism or from being lonely.
Although, we decided this story wasn’t right either. So we decided to merge the two ideas together and make it seem like his wife is there as they prepare for a picnic for their anniversary but it ends up with him going to her grave. I really like this idea and want to write the script even though I have never wrote a script. I thought the script writing went well considering it was my first time doing any kind of script writing. I used the program CELTX and picked it up quickly, it was quite easy to use! I am quite happy with the first draft of the script and think it went well because we discussed the main ideas clearly before I started the script so I had a well-developed idea in my mind. I have now received feedback on the script. I need to cut off a few of the first and last words and make the directions more like someone speaking therefore less complicated. It has made me think about how we talk, we miss out many words and when it comes to scripting, it can sometimes sound strange in my head but sounds fine when I read it out loud. I changed the script then had another feedback session where the tutors said it might need toning down a bit. At the moment it seemed like Chris was going crazy by talking to someone who was not there. They thought we should either play it a bit more over the top to make it more mental and end the film with the beginning scene so it is like he is stuck in a circle of grief. Although as a group we like the end scene at the graveyard so I toned down the script to make it seem like he is talking to himself more. The only part he specifically talks to her is when he shouts up the stairs but I want to make it seem like he realises he has shouted up to no one. Steve Dawkins suggested researching other people’s grief further and possibly having him call her up at the shop but it is only the answer phone message so he just wants to hear her voice. I like this idea, I think it is quite real to the process of grieving.
‘Grief is like peeling an onion. It comes off one layer at a time and you cry a lot’
This phrase kept appearing whilst I was researching grief. It is quite an insightful phrase for the process of recovering from grief. I found this in a blog post, but the blog has recently been deleted. It shows a very personal side of grief for a husband.
Reading these personal encounters show how people do put up a wall to try to shield themselves from the pain grief causes. They take a while to come to terms with it which relates to our character because he is having a hard time letting go of his wife. I plan to use props to show this by having a very clean kitchen with only a few items out-of-place which are ladies items such as nail varnish.
I am currently in the process of reading these three books to help with my script writing now and for the future. They have been very interesting to read, especially the bottom book Good Scripts, Bad Scripts. This gives examples of films where the script was not well made and tells me why it was bad in a simple, understandable way. It then talks about the good script and what makes it good. By relating it to films I know, it is easier to understand and apply to my own script writing.
Our First Ideas
I have decided to work with Laura, Kayleigh, Lydia and Matt for the short film module. I have worked with them all before in different modules apart from Laura and I think we will work well together.
We had our first proper meeting on Monday to come up with our ideas for our short film. I personally had found it hard to focus on getting an idea because we could make a short film about literally anything. I watched quite a few short films for inspiration and I like quite liked the concept of ‘strangers’. Although I did not know what to do with strangers! We thought of having someone a character with a friend who ends up not being who they think they are, they have another side to them but this could be quite complicated. I showed my group a short similar to my idea and they liked the look of it. We thought of changing it into a horror and having a person change and kill someone but its a weak idea i think. I thought of doing something to do with how everyone was a stranger once, but again, it is not a full developed idea.
Laura thought of the idea of imaginary friends. This could work quite well I think!
Short films
I have been watching quite a few short films to learn about them and to get inspiration. At the moment I feel like I cannot concentrate on one idea because there are no limits! Could range from horror to romance and anything in-between. I have a few rough ideas but need to develop them in my mind. To do this I am going to create a spider diagram containing my ideas and what could become of them.
I found it hard to pick a favourite because I enjoyed them all! The ones that stood out to me, was bro and pockets. I think pockets stood out mainly because it was the only one I found funny out of them all. I liked the way it was filmed and there was a variety of close-ups as well as long shots. I like the representation of madness with the short film turning into black and white. I think this also represents how he now only has one aim and can see it clearly in black and white. It outlines his obsession and the writing on the walls reminds me of part of the film transformers 2! The word is imprinted on his brain so has written it all over the walls. I like how it shows the end before the beginning then goes back like a memory, it keeps the audience wondering what he has done and I personally thought it would be pick-pocketing but this idea was turned on its head for this short film! I think the main reason I liked it was because it was simple and different. It is these kinds of ideas that make me think ‘why didn’t I think of that?’ From watching this short film, I have learnt that flipping things on its head can work so well. In the future I am going to try to think of the many different angles I can get from a singular idea. Simple works well!
Bro by Chris Dundon is a touching short film about a teenager who is trying to cope with his brothers disability. It has some great shots in it, one of my favourite is when he is in the mirror getting out his brothers medication and his brother is standing behind him. The depth of field is played around with here to good effect. The variety of shots set the pacing really well and even though it is nearly twenty minutes long, my attention did not drift. These shots include point of view shots, over the shoulder shots, high and low angled shots, close-ups and long shots. The close-ups are usually to show emotion and the long shots showed his isolation and loneliness. It is an emotional piece and the camera angles help this greatly. Another of my favourite shots was when the boy and girl stand on the roof of the building. The depth of focus is also played around with here because the houses in the background are blurry. This shot signifies how he feels more powerful and free when he is with her. Everyone in this short film is a really good actor, they all have amazing facial expressions so you can almost tell what they are thinking. The only parts I did not like was on the first bus ride it was quite shaky, I know it was probably meant to be to an extent because they are on a bus but I felt like it was a bit too shaky. There was also a shot when him and his mother were hanging out clothes. This shot was incredibly blue compared to the rest of the film. I did enjoy watching this, it is done very visually, I would be able to understand it easily without speech.
Litter Picker by Ashley Horner is a story about a poet who is meant to be picking up litter, following someone who is doing his job voluntary. I like the sound in this short film, it starts off with just the poem as a voice over in the streets where it is quite noisy, it then goes to the poet by the side of a quite lake in his cleaning buggy writing the poem down in the notebook. There is then a transition in sound where he is now saying the words instead of a voice over. The transition is really smooth and works really well. I like how grading is used to represent what we should think of the voluntary cleaner. From the beginning til the second idea in the house, the audience is made to think the litter picker has a form of OCD which is why he is cleaning. The scene in the kitchen is extremely white and empty which backs this theory until the poem changes and he is turned into a hoarder. The grading then turns into a more brown colour which makes me think of the war-time. The tension is built really well when he walks up the stairs, the poem stops and all you can hear is his footsteps. I personally think the sound scape is the best part of this short film. On the other hand, I feel like the pacing at the beginning could be slower, it seems slightly rushed. When the poet is writing the poem down as he says it, it is going too fast for him to write it down. This is not because I want to see him write it all down, but I feel like it makes me realise that is cannot be real because he cannot write it down that quick so interrupts my suspension of disbelief.
My least favourite short film was probably the king of deptford creek. I have only chosen this one because I could not remember what it was about til I went back to find it. It was the one that stood out the least to me out of them all. I think this was because of the story, it did not particularly grab my attention and I expected a bit more at the end. Although when I watched it back, it was really good visually. There were many shots that I enjoyed such as right at the beginning there is the shot of the snail underwater and the lake. There is a shot of the detective getting a drink from a tap and this is just one of the examples that I like. The cinematography for this short film of impressive and I enjoyed watching the variety of good shots. From watching this, it has made me want to experiment more with camera shots.
Most of these short films all have the same thing in common – simplicity. They are all simple ideas that are made well into good short films. They all seem to have some kind of twist such as being a put-pocket instead of a pick-pocket. The thing that stands out the most is their characters, it shows good character development is needed. This is something we will have to make sure we do well. The actors are all very good so I aspire to find ourselves a good actor. They all have a variety of camera angles and good interesting soundscaping.
Short film production
I had my first short film production lecture, we spoke about what makes a good video -
Good script, good set, good cinematography, good camera shots/angles, attention to detail, structure of a piece, research, drafting and redrafting, planning, preparation, organisation, understanding audience and genre.
We talking about group work and were put in groups where we had to build a bridge to cross over a 90cm lake with paper that had to be 35cm tall. We were successful in making our bridge stand up right 
I will put a picture up soon. From this we thought about how well we worked together and what is important in a group. I figured out that me and my group can indeed build bridges. We divided out the roles which made it so much easier to do, I think we were the calmest group which helped because slowly and surely can make something better rather than rushing through it. We learnt how more effort gone into the planning will pay off in the final product but to take on new ideas rather than sticking to the original plan. The main reason our bridge worked was because David came up with a good structure change just as our planning time was ending and we took this on board and put it into our final bridge design. Reading and responding to the brief is also a big issue, we read it but did not read it very well so I have learnt to make sure that I do this more thoroughly.
We now have to make a nokia short for our first little project!
Short Film Lecture
In short films suspension of disbelief is needed. This means it needs to be well made and look realistic. If you see flaws in it then this will not work, for example, if you see the reflection of the camera or there are unrealistic locations used, then the suspension of disbelief will not work.
K – keep
I – it
S – simple
S – stupid
For short film production, the script needs to be in the correct layout and format which can be done using online websites wich as celtx. 1 page of script is equal to 1 minute on-screen and the process that short films need to go through is a verbal pitch, then an outline which will sum up the story. Then there is a treatment which shows what will happen scene by scene but with no scripting then the script is wrote then the re-write of the script.
Where do ideas come from?
They come from everywhere! Everything you see, hear, touch, feel can go towards creating an idea. An idea then develops into a story. Films are visual and you should be able to tell what the story is about without listening to the narrative. I am told to always think of what ifs? when creating a story.
Script writing
There is a beginning, middle and an end but not necessarily in that order.
When creating characters, think about who they are, where they are from, what has happened in their life to make them that character and give them a life with a convincing attitude. characters are always fully rounded when the audience is introduced to them.
TIP – classic reversal. Think of a character then turn it completely on its head! In the film, Alien, the character Ripley was originally written for a male character. This also works for story situations – set up something then reverse or subvert it.
When writing a script, the audience needs to be considered. Who would want to watch it and why? Try to make it appeal to as many people as possible. Rom-coms seem to have the lowest budget but highest income.
Kuleshov experiment – Delete the first and last words of a sentence on a script because people seem to miss out words when talking.
Structure – Do not take too long to set up a story, do not make the ending too long or confusing.
