PRIMARY RESEARCH
For our first lesson being introduced to our theme 'secrets' we was asked to research up some things for primary research that revolved around secrets. I immediately researched up some art work because they have a more likely chance to have a hidden meaning/message behind it. I found 3 images of artwork from google that looked like it was telling a story that was a secret. For each one I wrote what I thought was the hidden message behind it and tried to think of several secrets that the picture could be illustrating. I then researched some logo's and found out that some have hidden meanings behind why it is a company's logo for example I found out that within the Coca Cola logo there is a Denmark flag that I have never seen before and there has to be a reason why that is secretly there, I assume that the company was founded in Denmark. I also researched about games, tv shows and films that involved secrets. This primary research in general taught me that there can be secrets in everything even when you're not expecting it as I had no idea some logo's have hidden secrets behind them.
TERMINOLOGY
We then spent a lesson going over what Marissa would be expecting to see and not see in our final short film. That we was not aloud to have any form of violence, swearing, weapons or drugs involved. That 1 or 2 actors have to be displayed in the short film preferably 2. We was introduced to some new terminology. We was taught what a hybrid genre is which is where a short film or film is instead of just one specific genre is multiple genres. We was taught that a linear and non linear structure is which is a way that the story is told. A linear short film would be a where the story is told from the start. So it starts from the beginning, then follows through to the middle and then to the end. Non linear is where there is no sequence within the film so it could show a part from the middle of the film to start of the story and then could go onto the beginning of the story which is commonly used to show flash backs with the past. We was told what a realist film would be and that is where the story line could happen in reality and is not a non fiction. We then looked into single strand and multi-strand which is where a story is seen from different peoples perspectives and then a single strand would be from just one persons.
INSPIRATION
We was asked to research independently on looking for inspiration by watching some sort films on the BBC Network. We was asked to take note of if it was linear or not, realist, multi strand or single strand to give us an idea of what we would want to take into mind for creating our own short film.
We continued to watch some more short films over time to give us more insight for inspiration and we was then asked to brainstorm or think about an idea for our secret short film. I wrote down an idea about pretending to be someone you're not which could include a person having some sort of secret hobby, passion or lifestyle that they may find embarrassing or they may be ashamed of it. As the short film would play out a friend would find out by witnessing the talent and instead of being judge mental is happy and supportive so that in the end the outcome of the secret is positive and the person with the passion is now not afraid of people knowing and is no longer a secret anymore.
SECONDARY RESEARCH
We was then asked to create a survey in class to gather secondary research within the class. We created an online survey on survey monkey to get percentages of what to include in the short film based on what the audience wants. I found out what genre would be most suited for the class, how long the audience prefer to watch a short film for and what specific about the genre that the person liked about it.
PROPOSAL
I then wrote my first proper individual proposal for my idea on secrets which included the correct terminology of what I wanted to include in my idea if we was to take it up as a group. My short film proposal idea is to include 2 actors at the most and will be told from a multi strand point of view as my idea will include 2 story's with each of the actors but with the same story line, so the same message is being given off in both of the actors scenario's. My story line will follow in a linear way as my idea for a story line will not include any sort of flash back's and when I did a survey, the majority of the class said they preferred it in a linear way. This will not include any voice overs or narrative structures as I am aiming to tell the story by only actions and facial expressions. My idea will include a open ending so that it leaves the audience wondering what would happen if the clip was longer. My idea for the short story is to have two friends that both act normal and casual together when they are in each others company and act as if they know everything about each other but then the secret behind my story line is that they both have secret identity's when they aren't among-st each other. For the starting scene I was thinking of having some sort of angle of the shot where the two actors look happy with each other and then they leave each other and go somewhere else. I then was thinking of doing a shot where you can see a actor typing a message on a phone saying " what you doing tonight " from one of the actors and then moving the shot to the other actor of them receiving it and then replying with "nothing" and then the person replying in the same shot with "same". My idea then was too then take separate shots of both actors leaving and going to do some sort of passion that they are both hiding from each other almost like them both having a secret identity. Another shot of them both separate doing there passion and then as they finish there passion I was thinking of cutting that shot of with an effect of dimming out the shot some how and then the final shot of them back together the next day going back to how they was not having a clue about what they was doing last night. I like the idea that I have made my idea a realist structure so that people can maybe relate to it as it could happen. For the content I was thinking of including the effect of cross cutting to show the two actors doing different things but at the same time so that the story is told in a multi strand structure. I then thought I could include a split screen aswell if I wanted to show them both at the same time just so that both of the actors story's get across at the same time. I was also thinking of using a black and white theme when the actors are both together so that it conveys they aren't secretly happy as they are both hiding secrets from one and other and then when they split of the color kicks in to show them both being happy and to convey a positive sort of mood to the short film and then end the short clip with how it started with the black and white effect to show that this is a repetitive cycle. For the soundtrack I was thinking of using music in my short film. Using different types of music tones to convey the positive times of both actors and negative times of them. I will be using non diegetic sounds as the music being played cannot be physically seen and I haven't really thought about including any sound effects. I then thought about who the audience is aimed at. It would be rated 12A as it will not be including any swearing, violence, weapons, drugs or anything that would not normally be included in a 12A.
FINAL PROPOSAL
We was then put into our secret short film production groups. I was put with Eden Crampton and Emma Liou and we shared our ideas together. Eden wasn't sure about an idea and mine and Emma's proposal's were pretty similar and we then thought we would just combined them together. As the lessons went on we came up with a brand new proposal between us and we had our hearts set on it and we was so confident with our idea that we had even already planned out what shots, what acting scenes we was going to be acting out, what style of which we was telling the story, who it would be aimed at and what role each one of us was doing. We knew that we was going to make the genre of our short film into the drama genre, we knew it was going to be a realist film, it was going to tell the story in a linear way, that the film is going to be shown as a multi strand as it will show both my side and Emma's side of the perspective. Our final idea was about transgender and we named our production 'It's Ok to be different' .
PRE PRODUCTION STORYBOARD
We came up with the idea of Emma and myself walking out of college together and just for this scene we would be using 3 different angles of shot. The third angle would then include me leaving Emma and then it would then go up to a close up of Emma's facial expressions watching me walk off. The scene would then see Emma back into a wide shot and then would have Emma walking back into the college and then walking through a set of doors that would open into a toilet. In the toilet,Emma would come across a bag with boyish clothing inside and then the shot would be capturing her looking into the mirror as a girl and then she would put her head down as in to wash her make up away and we would use a movement shot that would move downwards as she does to wash her face and then as the camera comes back up it would show Emma's reflection to be a male. Before this mirror scene it would cross edit into me walking back into college as I would have forgot my bag and then back to Emma where the mirror scene would start. After the mirror scene it would go back to me getting even closer to where Emma is. It would then cross back to Emma about to leave the toilets and would then cross back to me walking right near the door as we shoot Emma opening the door. The scenes would then clash and I would then find out Emma is a transgender and I would look shocked but then smile and the camera angle would then be shot from behind me and seeing Emma smile and we was then thinking of inputting a voice over saying 'Its ok to be different' to leave the short film ending in a positive way and leaving the short film closed and not opened so that the audience are wanting to know more information.PRE PRODUCTION STORYBOARD
PRE PRODUCTION SHEETS
REECE: For our location REECE we had to fill it in 3 times as we used 3 main locations. I went out with Eden and assessed them all and gave Emma the information back and the pictures of location. We had to go and write about the girls bathroom, the back of college and the walk path out of the back of college. We got a picture of our exact filming spaces and got all the information needed as we filled in every single box and we got more information for if the filming area we wanted was out of bounds where we would go instead.
CALL SHEET: This was filled in to an extent. We filled in all information aside from our phone numbers that would be needed. We didn't film outside of college so I dont think that information would be needed if anybody would be wanting to see us. Our locations were not far from the media classroom and we could be easily found.
HEALTH AND SAFETY: We have all signed this sheet by hand and on blogger in case it would be needed if lost.
ACTION PLAN: All of our actions that we took have been noted in this action plan. We have written 7 actions down that we took at the time or what we would be needing to take. Some of them did change due to things that had happened but nothing that bad we couldn't get around. We was all responsible for filming and finishing our brainstorm which was completed successfully. I was responsible for editing and location REECE which then Eden helped me with. Eden was in charge with getting us a snapback of Ben and bringing in an SD card and Emma was in charge of bringing in a hoodie. After we filmed I went back to the action plan and filled in the rest and wrote about the changes we experienced and what we then had to do because of it.
MATERIALS REPORT: I filled in all of this quickly, wrote every piece of material used, if it would be copyrighted, the music and the still images whether those would be copyrighted or not.
RELEASE FORM: I signed this to agree with that I won't be doing anything I shouldn't be doing.
FILMING
When it came to filming we all knew what we was doing and where we was doing it. We all felt very confident with what we needed to get. The first week of filming went wrong as OFSTED were in and Mark Epton made us go out together as a whole group and took us to other people's locations. He made us film a clip for our short film but we didn't want to do it as we would have not gone with our storyboard and we wanted to stick to it. We ended up filming a clip we didn't need and as a group decided to wait till next week. When the next week came, Eden in advance had booked out us a camera and we was ready to go out. We came across some issues but we could deal with it. Eden's SD card wouldn't work but I used mine as I had it on me. Emma forgot a boy style hoodie but I had brought in mine just incase she did forget anyway. We didn't have use to a hat as Eden had forgot to ask Ben and Ben was late into college and went out straight away to film with his group but we then borrowed one of the level 3 students. We stuck to our roles and I think it was the right choice having the roles we did, it worked out better than we thought. Eden and I both directed and filmed scenes but mostly camera work was filmed by Eden. Me and Emma stuck to acting. Then I was editing the scenes we had filmed later on. We used varieties of different shots and we all did different techniques than what we did previously.
PRE PRODUCTION IDEAS FOR EDITING
We knew we wanted to include a cross fade effect, we wanted to add in fade transitions during the cross fade effect was taking place to build up suspense. We knew we wanted a happy tone style of music to use and we wanted to use a suspense style of music during the cross fade effect also. We wanted to add in a epilogue to say what roles we had done to give credits and to state that we had used non copyrighted music and also give credits to what we used.
EDITING
I started with making a skeleton edit with all the footage, with using the In and Out buttons and dragging them all together. Between each change of scene I had inserted a dip to black or dip to white just for effect as it looks good as the scenes change. I have inserted after the last scene of footage a dip to black to fade it out into the epilogue which works so well. I have then faded out the epilogue as well to give it a smooth finish rather than a sudden stop. With the sound track side of things I had to cut down the music of what I wanted to include by using the In and Out button's. When the scene comes to a change I have inserted a sound effect of a disk scratching so that the audience know that even though the music is still playing the same, the story is about to change. With the music at this point I inserted a constant power to it to fade the music out a little as the sound effect then plays and I then inserted a constant gain to get it pumped up again. As it comes to the end of the music playing I faded it out to have a smooth finish with constant power again so that then the suspense music will start playing. As the suspense music continues to play I altered the volume so I could then insert a voice over that Emma had done so that the audience have a sense of whats going off. I then just altered where I had put the music and other voice overs in. I didn't really use any advanced editing after that. The last thing I included was the epilogue which I watched a tutorial on Youtube for it and I followed the steps and created one for our short film for the ending. I dragged the sceneline button to the end of the video clip so that the view pane screen in the main program window was black. I clicked “Title,” “New Title” in the menu toolbar at the top of the program window and I then added on text and the rolling effect to make the credits go upwards.
Youtube Link : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSuHqqE6mTY
