Research and Planning

INTRO -Monday 11th  September

Anything in red is what I have come back too reevaluate.

I have realised that with thriller short films mise-en-scene plays a key role throughout;however there are similar traits within all of them for example: dark lighting, exotic/different locations and mostly taboo storylines that are out of the ordinary. Also I realised that many directors choose to go down the road of having a psychological narrative as in my opinion that is the most easiest to show.
Techniques that I picked out for a short film in particular was 'Last Call' which showed many reflections and edits of black and white. Furthermore, I also realised that in the opening scene the titles were placed horizontally on the road what I thought showed creativity and individuality.

In this particular short film there is a constant use of the camera horizontally turning round to create a disarming and eerie affect that I think was used purposely to enhance the sound effects of moving objects and the over exaggerated shadows to scare the audience only just in the opening. This short film in particular has a phobia theme recurring throughout it. The subtext is that there is chrostrophobia fears overpowering the main character its very difficult to portray the fear of this disease but the way in which the director has symbolised the fear as only being a layered theme it didn't overcome the true meaning of the film itself.

Thursday 14th September

POTENTIAL IDEAS

We decided to brainstorm 3 potential ideas that could possibly lead into our final. I realised that my group all wanted to commit to a harsh and dark storyline to be linked with a past narrative that has happened within society.Firstly one idea was a political storyline that was a representation of the battle between Donald trump and Hillary Clinton. Secondly the other storyline was a narrative about a kidnapping of a young child and the ending is left on a cliffhanger. Finally the last storyline was an idea of a failed celebrity in the eye of the public and the todays overpowering media ;As well as that the idea of making a deal with the devil was also another aspect we wanted to involve .Moreover, the third idea stood out to me the most, I loved the thought of how 'todays media is taking over society'. This sentence stood out to me the most out of everything as it could lead into so many different storylines.

IDEA 1:

This idea would include the ending left on a cliffhanger as we want our audience to be at the edge of their seats being upset that they couldn't find out the full storyline.

A similar narrative to this idea that influenced me to come up the idea was Prisoners (2013)which is a thriller drama based on a kidnapping that has an underlying story behind it that not everything is what it seems. We also wanted to base the location in America as its country is one of the highest rated kidnapping areas of the world.

IDEA 2:

This idea was a government related narrative that would be very controversial and a one sided point of view story from the Hillary Clinton email incident. We wanted the representation of the government to be negative and trying to symbolise the worlds separation, A theme of extremism would be an occuring sequence. A film that is very related to this narrative and influenced my storyline is  2081 (2010). The theme of government equalities is the main theme throughout this film.

IDEA 3:

This idea was our most strongest and idea that we wanted to follow through with. The way in which we came up with the idea was the whole concept of "fame" and the overpowering negatives to positives for example the non-privacy, drug taking and judgement. Any of these three things can push someone off the edge even not being in the eye of the public. This film is a symbolisation of how we think fame will eventually become a reality; our concept of the film is to try and show that the whole idea of "chasing" isn't worth the pain and neglect.

I furthered my research and infant found potential traits that could be add within our short film related to cults. The picture I see when I think of a cult is a group of people that are asynchronous to society and have an individual belief. The information I found helped me to understand that many are conceived through black magic and human sacrifice. The video that helped me the most was a youtuber named Shane Dawson that does many conspiracy theories including cults.

Some of the images I found were very disturbing and I realised that many involved the inequality of rights within women. The way in which I found this was by cults always having a male leader that dominates his followers. As a majority many women were photographed as appose to men.

To further me research I also thought I would show you the trailer of "27 club" as the films narrative is very similar and the same facts within it that we want to include. This film was first shown in 2009 and directed by Erica Dunton.
I realised that this film was low key trying to prove a point to how society is going to end if the idea of 'image' and 'fame' gets even more additive. Seeing fame as an addiction is very common in todays society due to everybody wanting everything at the click of a button.

Films and stories  that have influenced my short film

This scene is a representation of what influenced me the most. Emma Stone as an artist portrays a failed actress trying to make a break, however the she turns down a number of times leading her to give up. The way in which I saw similarities within our storyline was her characters neutral and simplistic gestures. As well as that her emotion and dedication is the opposite to how our protagonist is represented but I feel that Farrah would be jealous or intimidated if they were to battle an audition in the past. On the other hand our genres are completely different, however I feel that her character would work both ways in both genres, but our one being more dark and uncomfortable than the audience. The colours represented in this scene are very bright and multi-coloured whereas when we are to film we want to have shadows and dark eerie lighting that could symbolise Farrah's devastated and failed emotion.

Sunday 17th September 

LOCATIONS 

My first ideas:

Outside of lesson I decided to brainstorm ideas to where in which we could set our short film.The one that I found was most sucessful was our main characters home. After talking to one of my good friends she agreed to allow me to film in her home to represent a clean, expensive and modern enviroment that could portray a celebrities house.

After asking her for this favour I also realised that they're could be a very powerful shot/scene in the mirrored lift. I thought this could create a very powerful and eerie effect on the audience as it is very inclosing ad trapping to anyone that enters. Furthermore, the news report shots could be filmed outside the home which would represent and show that it is intact the celebrities home where she is found dead. We wanted the overall aspect to be a mysterious story that no one could explain. We wanted people to want to know the reasonings of her death if they were only to watch the news report and not the story behind the eye of the public.

16th of October 

We also got to decide from the help of becky that we will be showing the opening in her house as it is a working class house that could represent that our main character has lost all of her fame and money 

Thursday 9th November 

We also thought that the curtains would be a great aspect as it could show shadows and eerie effects to the audience as a lot of light will be covered and it would completely change the atmosphere to what we intended.

Tuesday 18th September 

NARRATIVE

In todays lesson we concentrated on the narrative, me and my group did two drafts where the first one was unrealistic as we did not have enough time to show the whole process and the second hopefully being the beginning of what we want to create successfully. I realised that it would be more powerful if we were to show the beginning of the news report at the start and then travelling to the initial story to finally leading back to the news report to show that time has gone by; even more so a metaphorical symbolisation of how quick our main character was lead to her death.

Friday 22nd September 

It was time to come to a decision!!!

In todays lesson we decided to try and overtake the over the top ideas that we had and try to realistically create a simple yet effective  narrative where we could show a powerful character being venerable in the face of the public threw society. Moreover speaking to sir we realised that the representation of voodoo was to hard.

 

Saturday 23rd September

As a group we all finally come up with the finished narrative that we wanted to fully commit to 100%. However we discussed it last lesson but I furthered it and created a flowchart of the storyline from beginning to end.

15th of October 
The narrative was extremely hard to figure out ,however one of my ideas I wanted to stick with was the representation of hell. The idea od being closed in and trapped is a fear of many peoples especially the personality of our main character. The prop that I wanted to talk about was the brick wall that is shown when she  tries to escape from the flat. I feel that this is a very powerful way to make audiences fear their phobias I including claustrophobia.

 Andrew Goodwin works with many celebrities and their music videos. Including Miley Cyrus and Lady Gaga .The audience identification and the myth 'singing to us', is a key part of his theory. The reason this links to my film is because about  85% of the film is only shown with a powerful and loud soundtrack that creates an amazing atmosphere without any dialogue needed.

      Monday 25th September

Treatment

This allowed us to come up with a treatment during lesson to allow us to see whether or not the storyline could work within our budget and possibilities.

 I realised  however that we didn't finish our treatment in there lesson, so after our hours lessons I asked my other students in the group-chat and Joe cleared the problem up by telling both me and becky the end of the storyline.

Monday 18th of October 

We finally finished our final treatment, however I wanted to show  it in a creative way. So I decided to symbolise a live news broadcast that the treatment had been leaked and I was stood outside of the studios. I also thought it would be powerful to bump into the director of the new production (Joe) as we could show a diverse and contrast of how the treatment can be perceived differently.

Tuesday 26th September

The Final Treatment

12th of November 2017

Props / costumes 

FAKE BLOOD 

This prop is going to be used in the news report where the dead body is being shown behind the news reporter, this is because we want to show a good dynamic of mine-en-scene and that the crime scene is very realistic.

ROSAMARY BEADS
The rosemary beads is a prop that makes my characters occupation a lot more realistic , as this is a key prop that is going to be used in the film itself.


CRUSIFIX
This is a prop used in the seance scene to show that my character is not afraid of the "devil".Furthermore it also brings a theme of religion into our film as it shows that he believes the he is a son of god.



BLACK CAPE
This prop was a clever idea to cover both the body and face of the antagonist, this is because we wanted to show that he is apart of the "unknown". The colour black also was a great choice as we wanted to symbolise "the darkness of hell".



BRICK WALLPAPER
This wallpaper was to represent that she is inclosed and trapped in hell. This created the theme of claustrophobia. We want the audience to identify it through her facial expression and body language.

WHITE CONTACTS
This prop was very extreme but we knew we could show it off in the right way.This shot is to be shown in the seance scene to represent that the medium has been taken over by the devil.

Wednesday 27th September

Character research

We have three main characters that will be viewed the protagonist(famous actress), the antagonist ( a symbolisation of the devil) and finally a representation of a sidekick ( the friend that happens to be a medium). I in fact decided that I would research famous actors/ actresses that have influenced our characters traits and personalities. I realised that individually I received a lot of influence from the television series named American Horror Story as the way in which they work is by retelling stories of the past. The way in which I researched my characters was by evaluating the representation and their initial intentions.

THE DEVIL

THE MEDIUM

 THE FAMOUS ACTRESS

Thursday 28th September 

The roles of the short film 

Today we also decided the roles to what in which each student of our group would be in charge of. I got put the role of all 3 aspects production designer, cameraman and finally part editor.The reason I chose these roles was because last year they included the same roles. As some people would like to change and try a new role I wanted to take this opportunity to further my experience by retaking the same role as before. However as last year I found my title quite stable however I wanted to challenge myself so as well as being the cameraman and editor I also took on the role of being the production manager . I feel that I'm going to be able to successfully justify and become the roles that I have chosen without any mistakes or problems between the group as I feel that we have a great dynamic and equality with the 3 of us.

Friday 29th September 

Genre 

We researched the traits and techniques that the genre of fiction typically use:

I  researched different types of sub-genres of horror fiction  that could be a successful subtext for our short film.

Im sure as you can tell by now I love a good brainstorm!!

DANIEL CHANDLER 

The theorist Daniel Chandler once quoted that "genre is defined by the conventions" which sounds simplistic but is intact the most accurate quote found with genre. If conventions aren't stereotypical to the genre of the film (for example if the horror genre didn't consist of dark lighting , shadows, eerie settings etc ) it would confuse audiences and wouldn't be thought of that specific genre in society. The reason this links with our short film is due to our decision to include specific codes and conventions to make our atmosphere tragic and fearful. Especially my character due to his split personality in the possession scene.

Saturday 4th November 

Potential shot list 

EXTREME CLOSE UP 

This shot could be used in the beginning where the audience are shown an eye opening of the main protagonist as it defines her key characteristics and also lets the audience infer that she has woken up from a distressing incident.

MEDIUM SHOT

 This shot could be used for various occasions throughout our film as it shows a naturalistic atmosphere between the actors and the audience creating a normative relationship between the two.

OVER THE SHOULDER SHOT 

This shot is used in almost every production as it allows the audience to see the characters point of view and what they are seeing themselves. I think we can use this shot affectively in the third scene between the main character and the medium, this will allow us to show a relationship.

HIGH ANGLE SHOT 

This shot can be shown in the scene between Farrah and the Devil as It could symbolise the difference in power and his superior authority against her.

LOW ANGLE SHOT 

 This shot could be shown within the car scene as it could be a powerful yet interesting way to show the control and travel of the car itself. However it could also be shown in a completely different scene like the seance to show her fear and terror from the devil.

BIRDS EYE VIEW 

This shot is gonna be difficult to show due to our circumstances but I thought it could be a great way to show a long take of a birds eye view shot  within the scene of the seance as it will create a incredible and diverse atmosphere through the props of candles and naturalistic shadows.

MEDIUM TWO SHOT 

 This shot will be used in all duologue scenes as it can represent the relationship between two characters and it can create what type of atmosphere the scene is. This shot in particular will probably be used within the greeting of the medium where Farrah opens the door.

ESTABLISHING/WIDE SHOT 
This shot is a great way to show the audience the location and tie of day to what in which the scene is set.This would be great in the scene of the crossroads as it could show Farrah's vulnerability and metaphoric isolation.

Saturday 30th September 

Audience Research 
For my secondary research I decided to search for two different types of theorists that could relate to our genre and the way in which the audience should feel whist watching our short film.

The two theorists that I researched I felt was the most relatable to the audience we are attracting. The reason for this was because it comes from fear of the mass media which gives the media more power. I infact realised that  the hypodermic needle theory was a theme that is shown throughout our film.

Sunday 1st October 

Character profiles 
I thought a creative way for you to identify the character profile was buy having to highlight the words to be able to see their characteristics and  information as only the titles are visible.

Name: Farrah Lake 

Age: 23

Height:

Eye Colour: Blonde

Appearance: Tracksuit/leggins at the beginning/changes to the last scene brown hair.

Nationality: British

Personality: Depressed, unhappy, weak

Background: Famous failed actress

Family: Mum pushed her into her fame, from always auditioning etc, ignored her family throughout her fame as she thought she didn't need them.

Values: Doesn't have any as she is careless and confines in nothing except drugs and alcohol.

CHANGING OUR MAIN CHARACTER 

Name: Elijah Newman
Age:  28
Eye Colour: Brown
Height: 
Appearance: Wearing all black from top to bottom, brown long hair pulled back.
Nationality: British
Personality: Hippie, spiritual, quirky, friendly and approachable 
Background: Being able to talk to the after life creating a living out of it (Medium)
Family: He doesn't follow their rules as in his families opinion it is not a real job.
Values: Honest and truthful 

Name: Devil

Age: immortal 

Eye Colour: Black

Height:

Appearance: Wearing all black, represented as a human(diskise)

Personality: Cold hearted, dark, horrible, disgusting, arrogant, rude

Background: the controller of the after life

Values: His powers 

Wednesday 18th of October 
Out of lesson my whole group and I created live character profiles to represent how the 3 main characters understand and explain there realisations to the traits that each character portrays.

Monday 2nd October 

Location & Props

In todays lesson we looked at potential ideas for location and props and as my role is involved with both of those topics most of the deciding was up to my judgement to what I felt fit best.

In todays lesson we also evaluated and finalised our characters costumes throughout each scene so that we could also show the difference between abstract and naturalism through our costumes.

Friday 13th October 

Target audience 

In todays lesson me and my group decided that we would create a video of asking two groups of males and females to our former students that do not take media studies. The reason we chose this age category was because we wanted to be able to identify whether or not our instincts of psychographics was right; this is that we found out:

As we wanted a variety of age groups we also created a questionnaire that we asked over 20 people including , children, teenagers and adults. The reason we did this was because we wanted to show that our film is being attracted to a mass audience that includes all types of different people.

14th of October 

This was some of our results ...

As you can see we saw that from the results the majority of the population of 20+ people that we asked helped us finalise and understand our target audience more clearly. However the results of deciding between a climax and a resolved narrative is near enough 50/50 so it is decision that we purely have to make within production lion of our film or even try the storyline both ways to see which one in fact is more effective on both us as a production company and the audience we are targeting.

13th of October 

Storyboard 

I wanted to make  my storyboard creative. So I decided to go out of my comfort zone and try to draw the shots and hand write the text boxes. I am not a talented person when it comes to drawing, however I thought that it would be unique and individual. The way in which I decided to do it was the idea of comic books as i wanted it to be colourful and bright. It was difficult to complete as it is early stages and me and my group only have rough ideas for our shots and how we are going to film. This is my own input and ideas of shots to how I think the film should be filmed. 

Friday 20th October 

BBFC RATINGS 

Our decision was hard to make but as a team we decided that our film would be targeting an audience of a 15+. The reason for this is because I feel that our film in unsuitable for younger ages due to the certain images and circumstances that our film portrays; especially within the end of the film. We had a debate that the film could be a 12A however we felt not many children would be interested in the narrative. As well as that due to the reasoning of having to be accompanied by an adult because of our circumstances it is very unlikely and possible that we could make that happen.

Wednesday 1st november 

Furthermore to further my research I thought about media strategy to how and which I could advertise our project  if we had a higher budget and I realised the best way to do so would be threw independent cinemas. The trailer would be shown only through and before films that had related genres. I realised this from going to the cinema the other day and it gave me the idea and I wish it was in my power to pursue it.


Further research

Psychographics 

Looking at the psychographics of film I have realised that our film is attracting only a certain group of the table as we want to concentrate and only attract a certain niche audience. The group that I think fits with our project best are explorers. The reason for this is because overall we want to be able to find audiences that are seeking a journey and wanting to watch something that is like no other film. 

The word "adventure" proved to me that this is the right group that we should attract as overall we want our audience to not expect the storyline and start an adventure with the characters in the film.Furthermore as this group is associated with seeking a discovery and trying new brands. I think this is the perfect viewers for faceless productions as they are going to be prepared and open minded to see a film that is different and un-stereotypical.

Sunday 5th of November 

Script 
In our lesson on Friday after Joe finished the script me and Becky read over the extract to make sure it made sense and to get a further opinion on what could be added however we acc couldn't find any mistakes and found the script interesting and entertaining.

However to second my script research I annotated key elements and details that I thought could help identify and analyse Joes work to fully appreciate the time and effort he has made.

Tuesday 7th November 

Deciding our production name 

The way in which we have edited the photograph in the video was by using an app that creates fonts and certain individual filters that can be created for an image or logo. Our decision was to have a dark, catastrophic and antique looking filter that creates a sense of creativity and a thrilling atmosphere to the audience.

22nd ,28th ,30th of November 

Filming 

We decided to create a behind the scenes vlog to show  our projection and the work and effort the we had gone to, to create this film. The vlog involves discussions, ideas and decisions between the group that has resulted in our final film. 

1st and 2nd of december 

I created a trailer! to help with my interpretation on our films target audience.
So... I decided to create a trailer, however in the video I asked 3 different people there thoughts, feelings and reactions to the video itself. To make this helpful I asked 3 different people of different ages, interests and genders so I could really find out some good information to help us attract our target audience.

I found that it was very hard to attract the older audience as they are very particular with modern film. This was not a shock to me as I had found this  hard with my film last year. Realised that unless your target audience is singarly attracting the older viewers it is almost impossible to make an impact on their interest within the film.

Friday 19th January 

A Draft of our film 

The quality of the movie is intact terrible because of the black quick cuts that has glitched our movie however, we sorted the problem and showed the film to an audience to get some final feedback to what in which we could change about our project to make it more detailed and clean.The way in which we did this was by getting a number of students that take media studies at a- level so that we could have a professional opinion.