Evaluation Question 2

Shot List

1.       Close up – zoom out: Leightons face sleeping, zoom out to see others sleeping

2.       Mid close up of left side of bed: Shows Leighton waking up looking at surroundings

3.       Long shot of centre of bed: Shows him sitting up waking Jasmine

4.       Close up of Jasmine’s forehead – rising into shot

5.       Two shot of Leighton and Jasmine: “What is that on your head?”

6.       Long shot – end of bed: Jasmine rubs forehead

7.       Over shoulder shot: Jasmine looking at reflection in mirror

8.       Two shot: Jasmine and Leighton conversation about day before

9.       Long shot: three characters walking down the road towards camera

10.   Mid shot: pills land in Leightons hand

11.   Pan: Across the road of them all running

12.   Extreme long shot: run into alley way

13.   Mid shot: conversation in alley way

14.   Two shot: conversation in bedroom

15.   Longshot: running up and down road

16.   Worms-eye: Three characters run towards camera

17.   Mid shot: “should I shoot her”

18.   Over shoulder: Woman walking towards group

19.   Long shot: Woman falls down

20.   Mid shot: Trio run away

21.   Mid shot from left/Over-shoulder (Jasmine): Leighton and Jasmine arguing

22.   Mid shot in  front: Jasmine and Leighton arguing

23.   Long shot (2): rave scene

24.   Mid shot: Trio dancing

25.   Long shot: Bedroom

26.   Close up: Leighton’s face

27.   Longshot: Elliot waking up

28.   Close up: Elliot sitting up

29.   Long shot: Discussion of reality

30.   Mid shot: 2 taking pills in alley way

31.   Longshot: running up and down road Elliot sitting out

32.   Longshot: conversation on bed

33.   Over shoulder: On main road woman walking towards L and J

34.   Pan: Following Elliot as she helps lady

35.   Longshot Left: conversation between three on bed

36.   Longshot: Entering classroom - interupting study period

37.   Longshot: conversation on bed

38.   Longshot: Jasmine walking across classroom

39.   Longshot Left: conversation between three on bed- Elliot Handed pills

40.   Close up: Elliot looking at pills

41.   Extreme Longshot: Elliot running J and L sitting on wall watching

Location Reece

A recce is an essential part of the preparation and research processes to meet potential contributors, assess locations and research stories.

For our short film we’ve decided to shoot in four locations. In order for our story line to be realistic and relatable we’ve decided to set the ‘waking up’ scene in a bedroom. This bedroom belongs to a member of our group so therefore no issue will occur regarding it’s availability and permission. The next two scene’s is located outside the house we are planning to shoot in and the main road at the end of the residential street. In the borough in which the residential road and main road is located, no permission is required to film. However, on the day it can potentially rain making filming impossible in such conditions. If this problem occurs on the day, we will relocate to the hallways of our school building in which slight alteration is needed to our story line.  Our final location is set in one of the drama studios in our school. We wrote the shooting schedule according to practicality and availability of each location, therefore the usage of this room is after school hours. Having spoken to the head of the drama department, informing her of the time and number of people she has granted us permission to use the space. The drama studio has no furniture (desks and chairs) therefore making the ‘rave scene’ more realistic. Overall, the locations we have opted for are practical as well as correlating well with our story lie.

Poster

Mood Board

This is the mood board that we created for our film in our research phase.

The Morning After the Day Before (Film)

Evaluation Question 4

By having new media technologies, it has benefited many of today’s most successful film producers when producing and editing their film. It also allows them to meet the high expectations of their target audience, as they try to recreate the similar effect that was planned. Fortunately, we were also able to achieve the correct effect we wanted in our film when wanting to make it as real as possible with the correct use of new media technologies.

When researching for our film we decided to use Google as our source of information on different short films. We also used to it to research about different films posters from current movies to give us ideas on how to create our own posters. It was used to research about different stories about drug use, which we could develop into our film. Not only that but also researching different fonts and titles that we could use in our film as well. Researching different film reviews based on independent films helped us write our own based on our independent film. We then used YouTube to search other short films that independent directors created, but also placed a platform for others to view it.

When planning our film we had to use a digital camera to take shots of different potential locations. This was helpful as when we wanted to make decisions on what location we wanted to use and we didn’t actually have to go back to the original location. We also created a call sheet on Microsoft Word which helped us keep in contact with not only our actor and production team but also our teacher, so if we were having difficulties we could easily contact her. In order to make shooting easier, we decided to create a shooting schedule on Microsoft Word, which allowed us to shoot our film much faster and efficiently

During the construction stage of our film, we were given Canon XCAI camera to shoot our short film with. This gave us an advantage as we were given professional cameras to film with, which ensured our shots would come out in high quality when editing. As we already learnt the basic types of camera shots in AS, we decided to make sure that we used new camera shots within our A2 work. This allowed us to challenge ourselves and develop our work compared to what we had produced in AS. Creating different angles of the same shot was incredibly difficult as we had to make sure that there was continuity throughout the scene. This allowed our audience to see the scene from different perspectives and interesting angles. However to ensure we had the right angles when filming, we had to make sure that the spirit level was balanced and the camera was secure at all times. When choosing the shots, we decided to take into consideration how our characters would be represented through theses shots. For example, the first very shot was a close-up of Leighton’s face. This emphasizes his confused facial expressions as he’s just woke up. The shot then begins to zoom out which shows how the character begins to take his surroundings in. The shot presents the thought process of the character when he wakes up.

For editing we had to use Adobe Premiere. In AS, we had already learnt how to cut in between our footage and place them in chronological order, so when repeating the process in A2 it was done much faster and more sufficiently. The advantage of filming a scene from different angles, allowed us to have more shots to choose from but also more safety shots. In order to illustrate a new scene, we had to edit fades into the end of the scene which created a more efficient transition between the scenes. To do this, we had to select the clip and used the effect controls to place the fade onto the end of the scene. However, we felt that some scenes worked much better with other scene by just cutting them straight after the scene. At the end of certain scenes we decided they would work well with a sound effect. This emphasized the effect of the flashback that we wanted to create. Towards the end of editing we found different ways to present our titles through research, but we needed to make sure that it was placed on the footage in a creative way. Therefore we decided to make our titles change at the same time the beat did in the outro music. In order to save our footage on a reliable source of hard drive, we were give a Lacie. A Lacie is a new portable external hardrive that keeps all the editing we did on Adobe Premiere on it.

When creating our posters we were instructed to use Photoshop. Using Photoshop as the software to create our posters, gave us the opportunity to make them seem as if they were done by professionals. It allowed us to become experimental with our film poster as it allowed us to use different filters. Not only that, we were also able to give our poster more a comedic effect by using a cartoony font. We were also able to resize images and use a lasso tool to get rid of any background on the image that wasn’t needed our poster.

When creating our evaluation questions we used mostly Microsoft word but also Prezi as a creative way to present our work. It was different to a Microsoft document as it was a more unique way to present our evaluation questions. We also interviewed our characters and their experience during the production of the film and if they were pleased with the end results of the film. To edit this we used Windows Movie Maker, which was just as effective as Adobe Premiere.

Overall there is a large variety of new media technologies that were used throughout the making of our film and the different stages within the project.

Evaluation Question 3

Once our film was complete we wanted to know what our audience thought of it and whether they had any constructive criticism. We asked a wide range of people so that our feedback would be varied. Our main focus was to ask our target audience what they thought of the film so we knew whether or not they enjoyed and at least that way the constructive criticism that they give will help us better our film for their enjoyment.

One of the things that we learnt from our audience feedback is that the message that we tried to portray was well presented to the audience as the short film was “entertaining” and “engaging” but it wasn’t strong enough because of the nature of the narrative. As we decided to base our story line on the use of drugs we didn’t want it to be a dramatic storyline so we opted to use comedy. The feedback that we received suggests to us that the comedy aspect takes away the seriousness of the message because were trying to communicate that doing drugs is bad for you. Our aim was to include comedy so it would be entertaining and use characters that are subject to facing the pressure of their peers to do drugs to make it relatable. From this we learnt that we should have made the message more prominent to put across that we do not condone drugs but other than that it we were successful in making it a comedic film.

Another thing that we have learnt from our audience feedback is that camera shots are very important - helps maintain interest in the film. If we used shots that didn’t flow well together our audience would lose interest in the film/feel disorientated. Therefore, shots hold importance because it helps the audience to understand the film but it is mainly down to the way we edit them together. The selection process is key as we had to evaluate every shot individually and then again in relation to the shots that came before and after. Even once our film was complete we decided to swap some of the shots because we were not satisfied with the way that the film looked. We received feedback we from our technical teacher, who has had lots of experience making short films. He gave us some advice on how to make the rave scene look better because in its current state it was repetitive. We therefore swapped some of the shots for ones that displayed variation.

Our audience told us that the title of our film was really effective as it gave them enough insight into the movie to make them watch it. However, it is a really long title and the abbreviated version is not easy to say (TMATDB). If we were to title our film again we would put more thought into a shorter, punchier title so it would be easier for our audience to remember because we know some people had difficulty trying to say the title when giving us feedback.

We also had some suggestions to improve the quality of our voice over. We had difficulty filming outside because we didn’t have an external microphone to pick up the dialogue and block out the wind. Therefore we had to rerecord the voice overs with precision to ensure that it matched the original dialogue in the scene. If we were to do this project again we would mostly likely request an external microphone for use, film on a less windy day or shoot scenes indoors if possible.

Evaluation Question 1

Character Evaluations

5 things we have learnt

1.    Planning is important

From doing this task we learnt that planning in advance is really important because brainstorming ideas inspired us to create the idea that we finally settled on. Our narrative is a combination of ideas that we further developed to make the story that we are trying to portray flow. We also had to plan the shots that we would take so that when we came to editing we had a variety to choose from; to pick the ones that work best together.

2.    Editing Techniques

In our A2 post-production we have learnt new techniques and skills that we didn’t know about before. An example of this would be when we increased the speed of some of the clips. We didn’t know how to do this at AS level and even though it’s a simple task it contributed so much to our film giving it a more comedic vibe. In comparison to our AS level work we use lots more audio mixing in the editing process to emphasize the action throughout the film. We included voice overs so the dialogue could be hear clearly. It was a difficult task because we had to ensure that the voiceover was in sync with the original dialogue.

3.    Using time efficiently

Throughout filming we discovered the importance of using time efficiently. We had two days to film all of our footage including safety shots just in case anything was out of focus or something was wrong with the audio. The first day of filming we underestimated how long it would take to shoot certain frames so we ran over time and had to continue the rest of the shoots the next day on top of the ones that were already scheduled.

4.    Casting

Once our story had been finalised we needed to find the right people to convey the personalities of the characters. Luckily, our narrative is quite relatable so we had friends who were similar to the roles we needed them to play. Most of them have also done drama for their a-levels as well as outside of school giving us an advantage because we had actors who have had professional training so they could carry out the role.

5.    Marketing and Adverting

We have learnt how to market our product by creating a film poster, a film review and conducting character interviews. By creating a film poster we were able to successfully advertise our product to our target audience. We used other films that were similar to ours as inspiration and guidance so that it followed the codes and conventions of a real media product. We used our audience feedback to help us construct our film review so that the information we put in is in accordance with what people actually think. Our character reviews will help the audience to understand what the characters are like and hopefully make them want to watch our short film. 

Treatment/Pitch/Tagline: Draft 2

Tagline:

What happened last night?

Pitch:

Have you ever had a hangover so bad you don't quite remember what happened the night before? Imagine taking a pill that makes life ten thousand time better in your mind and barely remembering what happens... 

Treatment:

What actually happened last night? Is the question that crosses both of their minds as they wake up in a bed surrounded by pills, tissue and random house ornaments. Elliot sleeping still and peacefully beside them is not awoken by Leighton's frantic gestures in hope of waking them up. As Jasmin wakes up Leighton notices the marking on Jasmin's face. She jumps up to look at herself in the mirror in hope of remeber what happened the day before but to not avail. Together, Leighton and Jasmine begin to ‘try’ and get the story straight. “The pill! ” this takes them to a flashback of what they think happened the night before. As they are casually walking down the side of the road a pot of suspicious pills fly from a window, into their hand. Elliot, Leighton and Jasmine all appear to take the pills. And this is where it all began.

FlashBack

After discovering the pills, the three friends decide to run to the alley way at the end of the road, where they decided to take the pills. After taking them, everything seems to become blurry and the world around them begins to spin. A few minutes later, adrenaline begins to run through their veins and all three begin to run up and down the road. A lady walks past them carrying heavy grocery bags. Suddenly a gun appears in Leighton's hand, he begins to aim the gun at the lady’s arm. He pulls the trigger and the bullet hits the woman on her arm as she drops the grocery bags in pain. Shocked by the sudden action, all three begin to run down the road, to get away from the situation as far as possible.

FlashBack Ends

They hit a mind block as they can't recall what happens next. Jasmin's mind is jogged when she remembers that she still has a random persons mobile number on her forehead. "I dont know, so we were running and we ended up.. at the rave?" 

Flashback

All three find themselves walking through their school corridor, they begin to hear faint music coming from a door that is slightly open. As their curiosity gets to them, they begin to walk towards the door as they music begins to become louder and louder. As they open the door they all peek into to find a massive party going on with strobe lights all over the place and sweaty bodies stuffed in the room. As they walk in they begin to start dancing along to the music. Jasmin spots a boy who she’s intrigued by, she begins to walk over to him. Both suddenly make eye contact. Jasmin wants his number so she motions him to write his number on her forehead with a marker that he finds lying around. The rest of the night begins to move in slow motion and the sight becomes blurry.

Flashback Ends

“And that’s what happens.” says Jasmin.
Leighton disagrees a she believes that she begins to make up the story. Next thing you know they erupt into an argument only to find Elliot laughing the background. Leighton questions Elliot in hope that she didn't hear the part where he confessed to murder. 

At that moment Elliot sits up and begins to retell the events of the previous day. Elliot disagrees with the whole story and tells them the truth.

She never actually took the pills so she witnessed the whole thing. Once the others had been filled in on the antics that happened the day before Jasmin dares Elliot to take the pills..

Treatment/Pitch/Tagline: Draft 1

Tagline:

What happened last night?

Pitch:

Have you ever had a hangover so bad you don't quite remember what happened the night before? Imagine taking a pill that makes life ten thousand time better in your mind and barely remembering what happens... 

Treatment:

What actually happened last night? Is the question that crosses both of their minds as they wake up in a bed surrounded by pills, tissue and random house ornaments. Leighton sleeping still and peacefully beside them is not awoken by their frantic gestures. Elliot and Jasmine begin to ‘try’ and get the story straight. “So it all started when...” this takes them to a flashback of what they think happened the night before. As they are casually walking down the side of the road a pot of suspicious pills fly from a window, into their hand. Elliot, Leighton and Jasmine all appear to take the pills. And this is where it all began.

FlashBack

After discovering the pills, the three friends decide to run to the alley way at the end of the road, where they decided to take the pills. After taking them, everything seems to become blurry and the world around them begins to spin. A few minutes later, adrenaline begins to run through their veins and all three begin to run up and down the road. A lady walks past them carrying heavy grocery bags. Suddenly a gun appears in Elliot’s hand, she begins to aim the gun at the lady’s arm. She pulls the trigger and the bullet hits the woman on her arm as she drops the grocery bags in pain. Shocked by the sudden action, all three begin to run down the road, to get away from the situation as far as possible.

FlashBack Ends

Jasmine interrupts Elliot’s story as she begins to disagree with what happened. “What really happened was…” as Jasmine begins to recall last night’s events.

Flashback

All three find themselves walking through their school corridor, they begin to hear faint music coming from a door that is slightly open. As their curiosity gets to them, they begin to walk towards the door as they music begins to become louder and louder. As they open the door they all peek into to find a massive party going on with strobe lights all over the place and sweaty bodies stuffed in the room. As they walk in they begin to start dancing along to the music. Elliot spots a boy who she’s intrigued by, she begins to walk over to him. Both suddenly make eye contact. Elliot wants his number so she motions him to write his number on her forehead with a marker that he finds lying around. The rest of the night begins to move in slow motion and the sight becomes blurry.

Flashback Ends

“And that’s why you’ve woke up with a number on your head” says Jasmin.

Once they left the party they made their way home and fell asleep straight away upstairs on the bed.

At that moment Leighton wakes up and the girls begin to retell the events of the previous day. Leighton disagrees with the whole story and tells them the truth.

He never actually took the pills so he witnessed the whole thing. Once the others had been filled in on the antics the day before Jasmin dares Elliot to take the pills.

Props & Costumes

Location:

- Teri's Bedroom
- Drama Production Room (For party)
- Longbridge Road

Props:

- Strobe Lights: Stewart

- Disco Ball: Teri

- Smoke Machine: Teri
- Marker Pen: Mina

Costume (All Provided by each Character):

Elliot (Teri Jacobs)
- Black Jeans
- Black Hoodie
- Black Trainers

Leighton (Tommy Oldroyd)
- Jeans
- Black T-shirt

- White Trainers

Jasmin (Harriette Clarke)

- Casual top

- Blue Jeans
- White Trainers

Boy (Rahul Kumar)

- Smart Shirt

- Black Trousers
- Black Shoes

Potential Soundtracks

THE DECISION
The soundtrack we plan to use in our short film are parallel to the action. Examples of this in real media products is ‘Casino Royale Movie- Parkour Chase’. In this particular clip they had used a cinematic orchestra correlating to the classy, sophisticated and wealthy theme which Casino Royale conveys. This also is consistent throughout the film. The soundtrack varies in pitch and tempo in order to make the scene as climatic as possible; at the parts in which tension is built the music would increase in speed, pitch and tempo. This creates a sense of anticipation and suspense, making the film more enjoyable to watch for the audience. Our first scene we will include music is the outdoor scene. In the process of research we have found 2 potential pieces that may correlate well with our action.  

OTHER OPTIONS

-          Option one correlates too our action as its jolly, comedic, modern and light-hearted.  There is no climatic suggestive tones, similar to our scene where are characters are running up and down the road.

http://www.bensound.com/royalty-free-music/track/funny-song

-          The second piece of music is upbeat, fast paced and also light-hearted. These will be parallel to the imagery in our story line in the rave scene where all our characters are recklessly dancing.

http://www.bensound.com/royalty-free-music/track/energy

We included non-diegetic sound effects, such as the ‘Whoosh’ in order to signify the transition between past and present tense. This was effective due to the consistency in its usage. 

Film Ideas

ONE

Our first idea was a young girl sitting at a bus stop when suddenly an older male passes behind her looking at her phone as she reads a suspicious message. The message suggest that she should follow three simple instructions in order to discover something beyond her own imagination. She then proceeds to get on a bus as the older male follows closely behind her sitting uncomfortably close. Alarmingly she receives the second instruction quickly cutting to the male behind rapidly typing on his phone. This is when the audience begins to notice that he is the one that is sending these unnerving messages. As she approaches her stop she gets off the bus and continues on her journey. The male conveniently gets off the same bus stop and stalks the young girl as she becomes closer and closer to her destination. Suddenly, she receives the final message telling her to abruptly turn around as she continues to ignore the instructions. As she turns around, to her surprise she sees her boyfriend. She runs into his arms as they intimately embrace one another.

TWO

Our second idea was inspired by The Babadook. A young girl reads a book and all of a sudden strange occurrences begin to happen in her household. As she is living by herself she is terrified as to where she can stay. A strange figure appears in the corner of her room as she lays asleep at night. The eerie presence is so strong it wakes her up in fright. As she wakes to explore her surroundings, she doesn’t see anything unsettling so returns to her bed contemplating if it’s a dream or reality. The morning after her nightmare she calls all the people she knows to come and stay with her. Yet, no one was available. She remains alone. The night falls, the curtains are drawn. She creeps into her bedroom observing every corner she turns, she tries to rest her eyes leaving on every light. BOOM, a loud noise wakes her up in sweat. Her eyes abruptly open, her mind still frazzled from sleep deprivation. What she sees is not only surprising to her, but is surprising to the figure she sees. We didn’t continue to develop this idea.

Font

Below are the potential fonts that we considered using in our short film. We considered qualities like the look, feel and connotations of the text. We wanted something that would help market our film for what it was, light-hearted entertainment targeted at teens aged 13 to 18.

The first one was unsuitable because it reminded us of time and our film has nothing to do with time therefore if we used this font for our film it would be misleading as it doesn’t have any correspondence to the narrative of our film.

This font was considered because of its boldness however it we decided not to use it because we felt it would be better suited for an action film or something with adventure.

We used the next two fonts for our credits as they were very different to normal fonts. As a combination the two felt they wold replicate the narrative of our film due to the effect of the drugs; being normal a one point then completely different the next. The thinner font would be used as our credit titles and the thicker fonts would be used as the name of the person responsible for that role.

For the title of our film we decided to use a font with lots of characteristic which would emphasise and correspond with the name of our film. This font was our favourite because it was bold as well as legible so it would stand out against the background that we later make a decision on. 

Codes & Conventions

In order to make a successful comedy short film we wanted to follow the codes and conventions of a comedy film, especially a British comedy as our actors are all British. Due to the size of influence that the American films have on British cinema there are some overlaps with the types of codes and conventions that are portrayed. For example if it is a teen comedy it is often set in a high school while British comedies use the equivalent a secondary school like the ‘Inbetweeners'. We aim to challenge the idea that teen comedies revolve around adolescent sexual adventure and conflicts with authority. Our film aims to challenge this by giving the audience a look into their social lives and the activities that they get up to giving them an insight into their lives making it relatable to young people of the same age.

Comedy films can be split into two categories a comedian-led film that is focused on gags and sketches. This would not be ideal for our film as it would be difficult to portray a storyline that would be easy to follow and short enough to fit into five minutes. The other kind of category would be situation comedy where the jokes are based on the situation and the narrative which how feel would be easier for us to adapt into our short film. For a situation comedy characters are often placed in a strange situation, in which they are uncomfortable because they don’t know how to act or react. We have developed this idea using the traits of our characters to allow them to represent the outgoing personalities of typical teenagers. In teen comedies it is typical for them to be set in high schools in our film we will follow this stereotype to a small extent because while one of the scenes is filmed in a school setting it is because our actors are young students so it is not unusual for them to be there at that time of the day. Sometimes the two categories of comedies can overlap but the ‘pure’ comedy aspect of a film is highly rare so most films become something called reality hybrids such as comedy-horror or comedy-thriller.

Another example of other typical comedic situations of a British sitcom include situations involving ‘social comedy’ a very strong British comedy genre where the humour come from the confusion caused by a clash in cultures found in different social classes.

Humour is created in several ways but the most common in film making is humour by exaggeration this can be easily created from the recognition of stereotypes and challenging them. When the storylines are realistic it is much easier to create humour because it abnormal things become noticeable. As domestic places are much more relatable character comedy can be easily portrayed so we adapted this concept into our film because character comedy is when the humour is in the interactions between one or two of the characters who have strong personalities, not the visual or verbal gags. Many successful television ‘situation comedies’ have a strong central character. In the UK it is often a man who is treated badly by the world, but then deludes himself into thinking that he is important, attractive or clever like ‘Del Boy’ from Only Fools and Horses.

Call Sheet

Our call sheet was designed to help us organise a way to keep all of the contact details that we need for the production in one place. We made the decision to include things like their email and their contact number in case they didn’t show up on time. Everyone on the list had a copy of this sheet so they knew where we would be filming at different times.

Production: MADB	Production Group: Infusion Pictures
Date: October 2015	Locations: School, House, Alley Way, Road
Filming Time: 9:00am	Wrap Time: 3:00pm

Actor	Character	Call Time	Location
Terencia Jacobs	Elliot	9:00am	School (1:30pm) House(9:00am) Alley Way (11:00am) Main Road(12:00am)
Tommy Oldroyd	Leighton	9:00am	School (1:30pm) House(9:00am) Alley Way (11:00am) Main Road(12:00am)
Harriette Clarke	Jasmin	9:00am	School (1:30pm) House(9:00am) Alley Way (11:00am) Main Road(12:00am)
Lemar Jack Rahul Moe Maisie	5-7 Extra’s	1:30pm	School

Supporting Staff	Contact Details
Mrs Khan	khana@barkingabbeyschool.co.uk
Stuart Cohen	cohens@barkingabbeyschool.co.uk

Review

Please refer to Evaluation Question 2 for a clearer version of the Review.