Permission for Filming

In this post me and Charlie have E-mailed our head of year, Mr Jacob, to ask if we are able to use the Innovation Center to shoot our short film. This is crucial because if we do not have permission to shoot our short film in the Innovation Center then we would have to think of another location to shoot, that probably wouldn't be as fitting for our short film's plot, and we would also have to go back out to do more location recces and more risk assessments which would massively set us back in the production of our short film.

Here is the E-mail that we sent to Mr Jacob: 

Two hours after sending the E-mail, me and Charlie got a reply from Mr Jacob:

This is fantastic news for the production of our short film because we now will not have any setbacks due to locations for filming and not only this, but we can use the Innovation Center free of charge! This means that we will not be spending any of our budget on the location of shooting our film and we can now go ahead and book the Innovation Center to start filming through Mrs Garrod.

Script

Here is the script for my short film now called "Room". As you can see I have written the script by following conventions such as including slug-lines and the choice of font. 

After the completion of this post, I now here an idea of what each character will say and how the plot will unfold, although I am open to changes to the script once filming begins because I am aware that improvisation is sometimes the key to a good comedy and also a good film.

Storyboards

In this post I created the storyboards so that I can get a visual look and the plot of my short film "Room". 

After completing this post, I now have an understanding if how my short film could look. Obviously this will not be exactly how my short film will turn out because I am aware that improvisation is sometimes the best form of comedy so I am open to change however I think that I is helpful to have this storyboard as a rough plan so that I have a sense of direction when it comes to filming.

Audition and Casting Process

We knew that it was crucial to pick the right cast for our short film so with this in mind, I held an auditioning process in which I advertised the roles in the school newspaper and when I had enough replies, I sat down with the applicants and held an interview. Asking them questions such as "What do you think that you could bring to the role?" I was extremely impressed with all of the applicants however I knew that I could only cast four of them and myself to take part in the film. I thought long and hard about each applicant before I decided on who to cast for our film. These are the picture of the applicants that I finally decided to cast in our film:

Caleb Prouse

Richard Montague

Dave Jones 

Amber Mason

Lawrence Dobson

 Joshua Coombe (Myself)

After the final casting, I explained to each actor what their role would be and then I gave each of them the script that I had written so that they could look over their lines and learn them before we started filming. I also encouraged them to improvise whilst filming due to the fact that it is a dark comedy and that most of the time, improvisation is the key to what makes a comedy a successful one due to natural humor. 

   

Short Film Synopsis

In this post I have written a synopsis for our short film. This gives the reader of the synopsis a general idea of what the short film is about without revealing too much information about the film plot.

Set in a typical college, a group of friends decide not to attend their lessons. A narrator talks us through the situation, to the students surprise, they are able to hear the mysterious voice of the narrator and they start to question their friendship as the narrator begins to expose secrets about the students to the rest of the group.

After completing this post I now understand that one of the next things that I should do before progressing is try to give our short film a title. I now understand this because I now have a main plot and synopsis and me and Charlie will soon be starting to storyboard and write a script however we do not yet even have a title for the film that we are storyboarding and script writing for.  

Music

In this post me and Charlie set to work to think of music that we could feature in our short film. We both have very different ideas about what type of music to use so we decided to take to Spotify to individually make a list of artists that we liked that we thought could have a possibility of letting us use their music.

Charlie set to work to find some very small artists that he thought would have a very high possibility of letting us use their music. He mainly looked for artists with around 10,000 monthly listeners or less. Charlie did extremely well to make the following list:

All in all Charlie managed to find 31 artists that all had around 10,000 monthly listeners on Spotify, However I set to work on finding some of my own favorite artists that had no more than 500,000 monthly listeners. This is a considerable amount more monthly listeners than the artists that Charlie had chosen however I have chosen artist that I personally really like so I think that i would have a better knowledge of what song from one of these artists would best suit a scene. 

After completing this post me and Charlie now have some ideas about what music we could inquire about using in our short film. We still have to decide upon what songs from these artists we can use however we have some ideas about the narrator in the short film controlling music somehow and playing songs that fit the theme of the scene.  

Main Plot

In this post I have bullet pointed the main ideas that I have for the plot of my short film and then me and Charlie have sat down and edited it to expand on the ideas that I have bullet pointed so that we could have a good understanding of our plot before we move onto storyboarding and script writing.

   Unedited                                                                 Edited                 

After completing this post, I have now expanded on my first ideas about the plot of my short film. This has resulted in me gaining a good knowledge of our plot and now we have everything that we need to start storyboarding and script writing. We also have left plenty of room for changes if we think that some idea might work better than others but we still have the backbone of our plot regardless of any changes that we make. On top of this, both me and Charlie know exactly what our plot is so that there is now no confusion when it comes to thinking up ideas and changing ideas. One of the things that we have changed straight away is that we have extended the ending of our short film so that we can end our short film in a way that feels more complete. This post has given both me and Charlie more confidence that we will produce a good short film due to the fact that we are now very excited about the plot of our film. 

Theoretical Research

In this post, I have researched two different theories: Laura Mulvey's male gaze theory and also Tsyvetan Todorov's narrative theory. I researched these two theories because I thought that they were very interesting and I am looking to either apply them or intentionally not apply them to my short film.

Tsyvetan Todorov's Narrative Theory  

I think that I will be applying this theory to my short film. This is because I know that a good narrative needs structure and this is the most famous and successful structure to follow. We, as an audience, are so used to seeing this structure media texts that we could write a narrative ourselves and our narrative would follow this structure without us even realising. By using this structure, I think that I will have a short film with a strong narrative. This should help to make my short film a success.

Laura Mulvey's Male Gaze Theory

I think that I will intentionally not include male gaze in my short film because I see it as unnecessary. I have a lot of faith that my script writing will be funny enough for me not to need to include male gaze. I strongly believe that my short film will be a success without the inclusion of male gaze. Also I want for my short film to appeal to a large female audience which I believe not including male gaze will do.

Location Recce

In this post I have visited some locations that I am thinking about filming my short film. I have done this because I think that it is important to get an idea of where I am going to shoot my short film before I start my storyboarding or script writing because then I can produce my storyboard with my location in mind and this will prevent numerous issues when it comes to filming.

Location 1: Innovation Center

Side 1

The Innovation Center is made up of two separate rooms that are joined together. On this side of the Innovation Center we can see that there is a large, circular, table in the middle of the room. Also this room has a very bright colour scheme that might be nice to play around with to portray certain characters moods in our short film.

As you can see from this picture, there are two large windows at the far side of the room which let in an awful lot of natural light however there is not a very nice reflection of this light from the white wall of the hut that is just outside of the window so I believe that it might be better to close the blinds, when filming, and find an alternative source of light for this room.

This picture gives you a good feel for the size of this particular section of the Innovation Center. As you can see, this room is surprisingly large and you can comfortably fit 20 people around the table in the middle of the room and still have a respectful amount of room around the outside of the table. A negative of having all of this space is that it does create an echo in the room which is not great for filming our short film. Also from this picture you can see how the two sections of the innovation center are joined. 

Side 2

In this picture, you can see the other section of the Innovation Center. As you can see, the bright colour scheme is continued into this side of the Innovation Center and the room is filled with these equally bright chairs that could serve as good props for our short film. 

This picture shows that this side of the Innovation Center is also quite large which again creates and echo in the room. Also you can see, in this picture, how you can access side 1 of the Innovation Center from side 2.

From this picture you can see that side 2 also has large windows that let in a lot of natural light however, there is a chicken coup just outside of the window that don't really want to be able to see in my short film so, again, it might be a good idea to close the blinds and find an alternative light source.

This picture shows the corridor that is located just outside side 2 of the Innovation Center. As you can see, the corridor is quite narrow which I think will make it quite interesting to shoot some scenes in however, there are some sections of the corridor that have very high ceilings which creates a huge echo in the corridor. 

This is a picture of the same corridor, outside side 2 of the Innovation Center, but from the other end of the corridor. As you can see in this picture, The corridor is extremely long and again I think that this makes it a very interesting location to shoot some scenes in. 

This is a picture of the corridor located just outside side 1 of the Innovation Center. As you can see this would also be a good place to shoot some scenes for my short film. The ceilings here are very high which creates a huge echo also. As well as this there is a big glass door at the far end which lets in a lot of natural light.

Checklist

Risk Assessment

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Location 2: MU3

This location is a music room which might make it quite interesting to film in due to the amount of musical equipment that might be possible to use as props. Also this room is very large in size however, due to the amount of objects in the room, there is not much of an echo. Also there is a stage in the room which might be interesting to play around with whilst filming.

This room also has some wooden step that are used as seating to watch acts that are playing on the stage. I believe that this would make filming here more interesting because, other than using it for characters to sit on, it could make filming high angle shots easier.

Checklist

Risk Assessment

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After completing this post, and a lot of decision making, I have decided that I think that it would be better to shoot our short film in the Innovation Center. I have made this decision because I think that there is a lot more options, shooting wise, in the Innovation Center and I think that shooting my short film in the Innovation Center will be slightly more interesting due to the colour scheme, the fact that it has two sections and also the fact that there is a large corridor that would be good to shoot in as well. Above this, I think that it would be a more suitable location to shoot my film due to the the main plot of my short film.

Audience Research

In this post I have produced a questionnaire to gain information about my audience. I needed to know if the people taking my questionnaire had ever even seen a short film before. Also I need to know if the people taking my questionnaire liked things like black comedy because I plan on using black comedy in my short film.

Here is a link to my questionnaire:  

https://docs.google.com/a/tavistockcollege.org/forms/d/1Tl-ngbJj1_ozAv3AVZd35mPSLi3cBIBsP5tj_SezIYo/edit

The Results
Here are the results that I have recorded from my questionnaire for just 5 responses. I think that some of the results are quite interesting.

After completing this post I now have a huge knowledge and understanding of my audience. From question 1 I found it quite interesting that 80% of the people that took my questionnaire were male. I thought that this was interesting due to some of the answers that I received for the later questions. I also found it a relief, from question 3, that absolutely everyone that took my questionnaire had previously seen a short film before. This was a relief because I now know that short films are popular and I also have the evidence to back that up. question 4 allowed me to gain an understanding at how often short films are watched which I was quite underwhelmed with because short films are not watched as often as I thought considering that they are popular and everyone had said that they have watched short films before. I was surprised yet relived with the results of question 6 because, according to my results, comedy is the most popular movie genre due to the fact that is received 40% of all the votes that I collected for this question. This is good news because the main genre of my short film is comedy which suggests that my short film could prove to be quite popular. question 7 also back up my predictions for my short film because 60% of all the responses that I received stated that they watch comedy films often. More good news that I received from my results is the fact that 60% of the people that took my questionnaire said that they liked black comedy which was a relief because I had big plans for implementing black comedy into my short film as a main theme. One thing that I did not expect was the results of question 9. most of the responses said that improvised comedy and sit-down comedy were the most popular styles of comedy. This was highly beneficial because it gave me new information that I will work on to add into my project to make it a better and more popular short film.              

Audience Targeting

In this post I have produced a mind map about my target audience. I have done this so that i can gain a better knowledge of my target audience and I know exactly what my audience is like even down to what they do in their free time.

Now that I have completed this mind map, I have learned many things. I have learned what type of comedy my audience like, which is important because I am considering having aspects of comedy in my short film, and I have also learned what type of media texts they consume most often. Films like "Step Brothers" and "Without a Paddle" are the most commonly watched films and programmes like "The Inbetweeners" are the most commonly watched due to the fact that my target audience have a lot of Brit Humor.  

Institutional Research

In this post I have researched independent films, how they are funded and where they are exhibited. This will teach me how I can make a decent short film with a minimal budget and what I should do with my short film after the production of my film is complete. This should hopefully get my film noticed.

Now that I have completed this post I now know a lot about independent films and I have learned a lot just by completing this post. One of the extremely useful things that I have learned from my research is how independent films get funding. I know know how I can apply for funding myself for my own projects and where the money comes from. Also i know have learned what to do with my finished film and where to exhibit it. Many independent films are exhibited in film festivals however I think that going down the route of YouTube and Vimeo will be the better method of exhibiting my short film.