Draft 1 for Christmas Deadline - 18th December 2017

Short Film 

This is not the finished production. I still need to add scenes 7-12. I still need to mix the sound properly (add more foley, ambient and non-diegetic sound).

Poster

Double-Page Spread of a film review magazine

I need to finish this.

Changing Saturation

In scene 6, I decided to change the saturation as the colour orange was very prominent due to the wooden doors and the character's hair. I lowered the saturation in Premier Pro to make it look more natural. 

Scene 1 - Scene 6 Draft 1

I still need to add non-diegetic sound.

 

Scene 1 - Scene 3 Draft 1

As you can see, while editing my timeline in Adobe Premier Pro is starting to get a lot of different layers and elements. This is due to me mixing sound and visuals from a lot of different clips and allows smooth, continuous editing.

SCENE 3

Also, in my script and storyboard, in this scene 3 (the flashback shown at the end of this clip) Gen finds a pot of boiling water which Henry had left. However, at the filming location the stove that I wanted to use didn't work so we had to improvise and decided to have the water in the sink overflowing instead. I think this had the same effect as the boiling pan would've as it showed Henry forgetting something which even people without dementia do, showing this as the start of his condition and leading to his memory getting worse in later scenes. 

STORYBOARD FOR SCENE 3

Evidence of Filming

Evaluation of Day Two of Filming - Saturday 9th Decemeber

What Went Well 

• We arrived on time
• We were very organised and had all of the correct equipment and set it up quickly 
• All cast and crew were very professional 
• We got multiple takes of each scene and from different angles 
• We were ahead of schedule which meant we got scenes which we were going to film the following day done then, meaning we didn't have to travel back to the location on Sunday 10th - saving time and money. 

Issues 

• We had to change the script slightly in some areas as what I had written seemed unnatural or didn't fit. This was due to the fact that I had finished the script at short notice however what we did was good and made the narrative make more sense.
• The light filters I ordered did not arrive in time for filming so some of the footage is quite orange. However I am going to correct this the best I can by color grading in Premiere Pro, which I have been watching YouTube tutorials on how to do. 

Manipulating Sound For Scene 11

In scene 11, Emily walks down the drive listening to music. 

I need to put the music in in post-production and make it sound as if it is coming from the headphones. I found a tutorial on Youtube about manipulating sound in Audacity and had my first attempt.

UPDATE (FEBRUARY 2018)

When editing scene 11, I found that I preferred the music from scene 10 continuing into scene 11 as it links scene 10 (in the past) to scene 11 (the more recent past of the narrative). Therefore, I have not used this manipulated sound. However, it was a good skill to learn. 

Scene 1 Draft 2

Changes made from previous draft:

• I have added an extra cut to a more close-up shot of the character Gen's face.

Editing Scene 1

Here, you can see that I am holding the camera on an angle. Consequently it looks like the car in the background is on a hill, when it is not. This is a problem with filming handheld, because unlike a tripod it is hard to maintain a straight angle all the time. However it can be corrected in post-production, and I prefer filming handheld because I think it adds to the realism of the text and looks more authentic. 

In Premier Pro, I changed the scale and position of the clip. In order to get the right angle I had to scale so that the footage fit the frame.

Edited

The car and the gate look to be on more of a straight line now. 

Scene 1 Draft 1

This draft is the incomplete scene. I still need to add ambient sound as there is gaps in the sound e.g. at the beginning with the shot of the 'for sale' sign. Also, uploading the video to YouTube has decreased the quality of the video so I need to experiment with exporting settings to see what looks best. 

As you can see, this first draft differs from my storyboard in a few ways. This is because I had over-estimated how long the scene would be because the actors delivered the lines in a different (and better!) way than I had imagined it. For example, in my storyboard I had planned to have a pull focus from the side, like the test shot below. However, I did not film this because I did not feel it was needed and too many cuts would over complicate the scene. Instead, I have zoomed in the original clip to the character Emily's face at one point to make it so that it isn't all one shot. 

Storyboard for Scene 1

Accident Report - Sunday 3rd December

Evaluation of Day One of Filming - Sunday 3rd December

What Went Well 

• We arrived on time
• We were very organised and had all of the correct equipment and set it up quickly 
• All cast and crew were very professional 
• We got multiple takes of each scene and from different angles 

Issues 

• I found that I had over-complicated my scenes by including too many different shots, which would mean too many different shots in scenes. For example, I had planned for multiple different shots in scene 1, however when it came to it the scene was very short and only needed three different angles. 
• We had to change the script slightly in some areas e.g. in scene 2, we had planned for a pan to boil over, however this wasn't possible because the stove did not work. Instead, we changed this to having a tap run and overflow the sink instead. This error was down to poor communication between me and the property owner as I did not check with them whether the stove worked before writing it into my script. 
• Angela had been learning her lines from an earlier draft of the script she had to learn new lines very quickly (she handled this professionally).
• We had to change some of the camera angles I had planned because the there wasn't enough room in the house, e.g. in the conservatory I wanted Henry to stand up and walk out at the end however the table was a lot wider than I thought it was which meant that John would not have been able to walk past without it looking strange. 
• Even though doing multiple takes was good, this lead to cast being and crew being stood in small rooms for prolonged periods of time. One of the cast members became unwell and fainted in between scenes. Luckily she was ok and it just meant that we brought forward our dinner break to give everyone a rest, and we picked up filming after we had eaten. We still managed to keep to time and get everything filmed before it got dark and we lost the natural light, this taught me that it is ok to not completely stick to the shooting schedule because health and safety is more important. Thankfully we had a trained first aider on site and and they were able to help make sure that Melissa was ok. From this, I am reconsidering our shooting schedule for next weekend and may move some of the scenes around to give us more breaks. 

Call Sheets

Location and Talent Release Forms

I got the cast and owner of the property to sign these on the day of filming to say that I had their consent to film and use the footage. 

Lighting Research

Media Theory: Realism

Google Mock-Ups - Double-Page Spread

Digital Drafts - Double-Page Spread

Hand Drawn Drafts - Double Page Spread

Google Mock Ups - Poster

Digital Drafts - Poster

Hand Drawn Drafts - Poster

Final Script

Developing Scenes 6, 7, 8 and 10

I made changes to some of my scenes. 



I wrote scenes 7 and 8

Equipment for Filming

Even though my storyboard shows that I have planned out each shot for each scene, I am going to take all of the equipment below to each filming day incase I changed my mind for any of the shots. These changes could be due to a certain framing not look right or not working, or just wanting to try something different and experiment more. for example, I had originally planned to have the slider however because I have it booked out for all three filming days I am going to make sure I make good use of it to get some really cinematic shots. As all my filming is taking place at one location and the house belongs to a relative, I am able to leave props and equipment there and don't have to transport it to and from location on all three days which is fortunate. 

Costume List

Costume is very important in my film for distinguishing between the past and the present of the narrative. If the costume changes are not well thought out, planned and obvious, then it will just look like really bad continuity and the narrative therefore won't make sense.

This is the document I sent to the cast outlining my ideas. 

Scene	Gen (Angela)	Emily (Melissa)	Henry (John)
1 OUTSIDE	Casual - jeans and winter coat, winter accessories (scarf, gloves)	Casual - jeans and winter coat, winter accessories
2 KITCHEN	same as previous	same as previous TAKE COAT OFF??
3 KITCHEN  FLASHBACK	t shirt and cardigan, jeans (can be the same jeans as before if you don’t want to change) Make hair different in some way SUNGLASSES	START OF FLASHBACK - same clothes as previous DURING FLASHBACK (younger Emily) - SUMMER - dress/pink top (more younger looking style) END OF FLASHBACK - same clothes as previous
4 LIVING ROOM		same clothes as previous
5 LIVING ROOM FLASHBACK		FLASHBACK – different top, jeans, cardigan/hoodie AFTER FLASHACK – same as scene 4	Trousers/jeans, shirt, jumper, glasses
6 BATHROOM		Same as previous	Pyjamas/dressing gown
7 BEDROOM		Same as previous
8 BEDROOM FLASHBACK		FLASHBACK – Jumper/long sleeved top, jeans, different hairstyle AFTER FLASHBACK – same as scene 7	Different jumper
9 CONSERVATORY	Different top (unless coat is zipped up in scene 1 and 2 and the top isn’t visible)	Different jumper/cardigan combination (it’s Autumn now)	Different jumper Watch
10 CONSERVATORY	Same as previous	Same as previous	Same as previous
11 OUTSIDE		Different winter coat (if possible) Hat, gloves, scarf Phone, earphones
12 THROUGHOUT HOUSE		Same as previous
13
14
15

I then separated the costume list into sections for each day to make it easier for the cast so they can look at it and know what they need each day straight away without having to refer back to the shooting schedule to see what scenes they are filming on the day. 

Prop List

Music For My Short Film

A convention of short films is to have a non-diegetic soundtrack which is separate from the dialogue and ambient sound. This creates atmosphere and adds to the scene e.g. music in a horror film would build tension, in my case, music in a drama compliments what is happening on screen, for example if there is a sad scene then the music will reflect this. (However, most of the time in drama the only noise there is is diegetic to create realism, non-diegetic sound is only used at certain points in the drama).

I have decided that for my short film I want to use classical music as this genre tends to have no singing and therefore this will not interfere with the dialogue from the characters. I think this will be quite professional and cinematic. 

Dementia is a taboo subject and one that is quite sad and hard to talk about. The narrative of my short film depicts a family's struggle through this and coming to terms with it. Therefore the music in my film will create quite a sad atmosphere. 

Here are some of the ideas I have had so far. When it comes to editing my film, I will see which works best.









'I Am' by Carly Paradis: https://open.spotify.com/track/738MQEj6IKYRPYCdc136Zr







There are some good royalty free tracks on https://www.bensound.com/

 

Revised Shooting Schedule

I made a few minor changes to my shooting schedule ahead of filming. On my previous schedule I had not included timings and breaks. 

I found it is hard to put a time to how long it will take to film a scene because they all vary in length and the number of shots.

Also, because of the time of year I have to take into account that it starts getting dark early, around 4pm, this is why the filming days start quite early and are not very long because if I carried on filming when it was dark, even the shots inside would be low quality because there would be no natural light coming in from outside.

Research and Planning - November Assessment, Question 1A

Creativity - November Assessment, Question 1A

WHAT WERE YOUR INFLUENCES?

I like how in this shot from 'Liar' (ITV), the transition from past to present is a jump cut and almost seamless. I wanted to incorporate these 'blink or you'll miss it' type editing techniques into my short film as I think they reinforce the idea that the narrative is from Emily's perspective as she walks around the house seeing the memories, because they show a quick transition between different time periods which are dramatic and could disorientate the audience slightly, putting them in the position of Emily. 

This opening shot from 'The Bill' (BBC) is all done in one shot. This is done by having the camera in front of the characters and it tracks backwards and moves around the characters following their movements and making sure they are always still in the frame. This, along with the 'Casualty' (BBC) one shot episode inspired what I wanted to do in the ending scene of my film with Emily running back through the house because these kinds of camera movements make the audience feel as if they are immersed in the narrative, which creates realism and keeps the audience engaged. 

Digital Technology - November Assessment, Question 1A

WHAT TECHNOLOGY HAVE YOU USED?

• Camera, 
• SD Card
• Card reader
• Blogger
• Computer
• Photoshop
• Microsoft Publisher
• Prezi
• Microsoft PowerPoint
• Emaze
• Canva
• Social media
• Google Drive
• Google Survey
• Slideshare
• YouTube
• Premier Pro
• Windows Movie Maker

HOW HAVE YOU USED DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY?

• To take photos/videos
• To store footage
• To transfer footage
• To upload my work
• To manipulate images
• To edit footage
• To present my work in unique ways
• To ask for audience feedback
• To upload good quality video footage to go on my blog