Evidence of filming

 

This image captures one of the producers (Olivia), showing Peter (main actor), what to do in the next scene. This part of the film was filmed in my house in the kitchen.

Here is an example of the preparation of a close-up shot that we were also filming that day. 

Filming Day 4

16/12/2013

Filming Day 4

Location: This scene was taken at Stewart Park in Marton. Within the short film this scene takes place at the very end scene.

What we did:

This scene was used to show Kate walking home from the park and Peter being there to meet her unexpectedly. He then takes her off into a secluded part of the park where she becomes scared. At the end however, he presents her with a watch to surprise her. 

An over the shoulder shot in this scene shows Kate on her mobile, receiving a text message from Peter asking where she is. She replies saying that she is just walking home through the park and will be home soon. 

We then filmed an extreme long shot of Kate walking towards a park bench where Peter is sat. She asks 'what are you doing here?'

Medium close up shot of Peter sitting on the bench looking up at the camera. He says, 'I'm waiting for you'.

Long shot. Peter- 'I need to show you something'. He then grabs Kate's arm and drags her off to the side. 

Wide angle long shot of Peter dragging Kate into the middle of a wooded area. 

Medium shot from behind Peters back. We see Kate stood behind. Kate- 'what's going on why've you brought me here?'

Close up shot of Peter- 'I've got something I need to give you'.

Medium shot from behind Peters back we see Kate behind. She steps backwards and has a worried facial expression. 

Extreme close up shot of a Michael Kors box in Peters hands. He slowly removes the lid and reveals a brand new watch to his girlfriend. Camera zooms in on the watch to see the hands ticking

(We removed this scene and re-shot the ending of the film in order to strengthen the narrative and genre). 

Filming Day 3

9/12/2013

Filming Day 3

Location: This scene was taken back at the house. Within the short film this scene takes place on a different day to the last day we filmed.

What we did:

This scene was used to show Peter coming home, making sure that Kate wasn’t in, and taking a suspicious looking parcel upstairs and hiding it under the bed.

The first shot in this scene shows Peter coming through the front door of the house and checking that nobody is in:

Peter: is anyone in?

He then pulls a package out from his jacket and walks towards and past the camera. The camera was placed on a tripod and placed in the middle of the hall way which gave Peter us plenty of room to film his actions, and for him to get past the camera. We then moved the camera over slightly to face the stairs. We used a mid-shot here where Peter walks up the stairs, continuously looking around him to make sure that nobody is in.

The next part of this scene sees Peter sitting on the floor of the bedroom where he is checking his parcel and looking inside the bag.

We will then cut through editing, to this clip… In this clip we placed the camera as far back as we could so that we could get the front door and the staircase into the shot. We see Kate open the door looking confused and shouting:

Kate: hello (2) is anyone in?

The actress then walks towards the camera, turning on the light switch as she gets further into the house. This gives the idea that it is later on and she comes back to the house after Peter does. She then continues to walks around the corner making a ‘U’ turn and walks up the stairs. We also see her looking confused as she wonders why he is home.

The camera will then cut again to Peter in the bedroom and as he hears a door slam (front door as Kate walks into the house), he quickly gathers the parcel and shoves it under the bed. This furthermore gives the idea of suspicious behaviour.

We will next be filming on the 16^th of December.

Filming Day 2

2/12/2013

Filming Day 2

Location: This scene takes place in a shop therefore we travelled to a nearby village called Stokesley where my sister works at a hair dressing salon. We used this location because we had use of the counter and the front door without giving away that it was in fact a hair dressers.

What we did:

This scene consisted of just a few short clips to focus on the boy (Peter)’s actions. We used methods such as match on action to follow him. The first shot in this scene was a wide angle long shot. It was taken outside the shop on the high street where Peter walks towards the camera. We used a prop which was a mobile phone which is seen in a previous scene. He uses this whilst walking down the street to add to the idea that he is keeping a secret.

The next shot was a mid-shot. We placed the camera on a tripod behind the counter and watched Peter enter the shop through the front door. We then used match on action. This consisted of a close up where we placed the camera on the floor. The shot saw the door open and Peter’s feet walk forwards through it and stop just before the camera, which would be the counter.

The next shot was a birds eye view shot taken from above the counter. To achieve this we use high chair that we stood on and positioned the camera to face down over the upcoming action. This shot showed Peter slamming money (another prop we used), down onto the counter.

The clip after this is a simple mid shot returning behind the counter, which watches Peter leave through the front door. The entire scene leaves us wondering what Peter has got from the shop because we do not see him being given a package, we just see his back turned and leaving the shop. This method is used to add tension to the scene and leaves the audience in suspense.

 

Location: Outside Kates house.

The first clip that was filmed within this location is a long shot from a side view that sees Peter coming out of the house, locking the front door and walking past the camera which suggests he is leaving.

After this we again used a long shot taken at the top of the drive way. The camera is pointing towards a car at first. We then see Peter walk into the shot and use the car keys to unlock the car. We can see this because the lights flash.

After this we placed the camera behind the car using a long shot which turns to a wide angle shot. At the beginning of this clip there is a tight frame but as the car drives forwards and down the street the framing becomes looser as it travels into the distance.

During editing, this scene will be placed just before the shop scene so that we get an idea of what day it is and what is happening. This also tells us how he got to the shop which helps the narrative flow a little better.

We will be filming again on the 9th December

Filming Day 1

25/11/2013
Scene 1- 

Location: When filming the first scene we visited Kates house and focused on scenes within the kitchen. 

What we did: 

For the first scene we took various different shots such as  extreme close ups, mid shots and long shots. In which we used various techniques such as match on action and selective focus. The first scene is primarily used to establish characters and introduce the foundations of the story line.
The first thing to happen in this scene is Peter (male actor)'s phone receives a text saying 'Your package is ready to be collected'.
The first action shot taking place in the kitchen takes place in the morning. A medium-long shot is used where Peter walks into the scene, picks up the kettle and fills it with water and then turns it on to boil. We also filmed a close up shot of the kettle filling with water which we will edit into the clip creating match on action.
We then cut to a point where we used an over the shoulder shot of the male opening and reading the text to start an idea that he may be hiding something or acting suspiciously.
Whilst in the kitchen we placed the camera inside of the fridge which showed Peter opening the fridge to get the milk.
After this we filmed a short clip of Kate walking down the stairs in which we used a tilting motion partnered with a close up of her feet walking down the stairs, this was used to maintain the mysterious aspects. This will be cut into the scene at various points to create tension.
From here we filmed a point of view shot from Peters (male actor) perspective to show Kate (female actor) walking into the kitchen with the first piece of dialogue:
Peter: morning
Kate: you where in late last night
Peter: was I?
Kate: yeah, anyway im going to have to go to work now I've slept in see you later
Peter: see you later
This scene adds to the suspicion and tension initially started by the text at the start of the scene and the clip of Kate walking down the stairs. 
The next shot is a long shot taken in the hall way where we see Kate (actress), leave the house through the front door, to work.
Kate: bye
Peter: see you tonight

Scene 2-
 In the second scene we shot a clip which showed Kate leaving house to go to work. For this we used a long shot to capture the actions. After this we filmed a point of view shot taken from Peters point of view which gives the idea of a stalker because he is watching her. We then used an over the shoulder shot to establish the idea that the previous shot was in fact taken from Peters point of view.  This was  also used to establish the ideas surrounding mystery and the themes of thriller. 

Scene 3-

We then filmed a short clip of Peter sat in the living room, which showed him looking at a picture of him and Kate, this scene was used to convey the ideas of our short film to the audience, to allow them a better understanding of upcoming events. It creates the idea of obsessive behaviour of the male towards his girlfriend. This shot was taken because we had access to the location at that point, but will probably be included in a separate scene.

We are next filming on Monday 2nd December.

Risk assessment for filming

Feedback from audience questionnaire

Filming Schedule

Film Planning

Mango productions logo

Here is an example of a drafted logo for our short film production team, 'Mango Productions'.

Questionnaire data

Our Pitch

Genre Research

The genre for our short film will be Thriller/ Romance. We therefore conducted research to find out what common features were for each genre. We looked at features such as sound, lighting and camera shots in typical thriller and romance films. We will use the results that we found in order to give inspiration as to what to include in our film. 

Common features Thriller-

Dark/ low key lighting
Non diegetic and diegetic sound e.g. music or footsteps
Drama
Point of view shots

Common features Romance-

Soft lighting

Close up camera shots

Dialogue between two protagonists

Inspiration for short film

Questionnaire for audience feedback

Storyboard ideas- photographs

Storyboard photographs (shop scene)

Storyboard

 Scene 1-
1) Close up shows a calendar with each day crossed off and the '18th' circled.
2) A couple are sat at the kitchen table eating breakfast together and chatting.
3) We see the girl leaving the house shouting 'bye' to her boyfriend.
4) From behind, we see the boy watching his girlfriend as she leaves the house, and watches her walking down the street.

 Scene 2-

 1) The boy goes upstairs whilst his girlfriend is out of the house and cuts out lots of pictures of her which is quite strange and makes him appear obsessive.
2) The '14th' is crossed off the calendar.
3) Again, we see the girl leave the house before she goes to work.
4) The boy watches his girlfriend walking down the street again and it appears that he is becoming obsessed or that he is watching her for a certain reason.

Scene 3-
1) From behind the counter, we see the boy come through a shop door.
2) Close up of his feet walking towards the camera (possibly slow motion).
3) Another close up shot features the boy placing money on the counter (no dialogue).
4) The camera focuses on the shop door as it slams shut behind the boy.

Scene 4-
1) When the boy returns home we see him walk up his drive and into the house. He checks that his girlfriend is not back from work before he continues up the stairs.
2) Suspiciously we see the boy hiding something under the bed.
3) He hears his girlfriend come back from work downstairs as he hears the front door slam.
4) The '16th' is crossed off the calendar.

Scene 5-
1) The boyfriend is walking through the woods, (dark, ery atmosphere).
2) He meets his girlfriend outside of her work, which is unusual. He has been waiting for her.
3) He takes her hand and leads her back to the woods, where he had been previously.
4) Camera could spin looking up at the sky with the trees overcast which gives a sense of urgency and panic from the girl.

Scene 6-
1) With the camera positioned behind the boy, we can see that he is holding something behind his back and in the background the girls face is filled with panic.
2) The twist at the end is that the reason he has been suspicious, hiding things and counting down the days is that he has been waiting to give his girlfriend a gift. (This could be a small box, a necklace or even an engagement ring).

Narrative Task

Review 'A Favour' and 'Spring Clean'

Video clip- Virgin shorts review

Review

'A Favour' and 'Spring Clean'
Task: For this task I was asked to watch two 'Virgin shorts'. I had to look out for components I felt were successful within each film and the areas that could be improved, whilst explaining the narrative. 
(Virgin.co.uk)

A Favour: An encounter in a car park questions the assumptions of characters and audience alike.

What I liked- The story followed the two men from when they were at home with the family at breakfast getting ready for the day ahead. 

It was quite simply done using cross cuts. The twist at the end of the story was quite simple yet very effective. I liked that we do not have any hint as to what is happening in the film and we are unaware of the true narrative right up until the end of the clip. The sense of drama is added to by the twist at the end.

Area of improvement- Something that could be improved upon would be that they could have cut out the car/ traffic noises in the background as it was very distracting and meant you could not clearly hear what the characters were saying.

http://www.virginmediashorts.co.uk/film/4122/a-favour#.UlUXRHPAquM

Spring Clean: Tells the story of a man whose drab existence in his dreadful flat is about as exciting as the same dreary tie he wears to work every day. But one morning, eating his toast alone, he spills jam on that tie. Little does he know but that lump of sticky preserve is about to change his life forever.
What I liked- I liked the concept of this film. Using editing and a wide range of camera shots, the film became more interesting. It was a comedy I think because the man whilst 'spring cleaning' uses his cleaning spray to make the things he needs to clean up disappear. He then takes full advantage of this and makes a list of all the things he would like to disappear and goes out with his spray and makes them disappear. The funny part comes at the end when he finds all of the items and people he made disappear in his cupboard. 
I liked the use of sound in this clip because it worked well with the narrative. For example when the character 'zapped' each item, we would hear a 'zapping' sound, much like ones commonly used in sci-fi films. 
Area of improvement- If I could identify one area for improvement I would say possibly the acting could be improved on. To me it seemed a little forced as he used a lot of statued facial expressions to show his emotion. Which seemed a little forced. 

http://www.virginmediashorts.co.uk/film/5175/spring-clean#.UlUXp3PAquM

Ideas for short film

Here are some productions that I like the look of. First is a Christmas Advertisement for John Lewis. Second we have a short film about somebody with multiple-personality disorder. This means he has several personalities of which he has taken from different people he has met in the past. The twist at the end when we think he is getting better is that he is actually faking it by pretending to be normal. We think that the phycologist is helping him recover but we actually soon realise there is no therapist in the room and that it is just another personality that he has took on.

Birthday party photos

The story:
Two twin babies are born , but one sadly did not survive.
Each birthday, one twin puts out a candle on a birthday cake to remember her sister.
When the girl turns 15, we see her birthday cake and candles, and the ghost of her twin sister in the background, as she should have been there.
The last photograph shows the girl on her birthday, alone as she is celebrating without her sister. She is reading the card that her an her sister were given on the day of their birth.

I'm Here

I'm Here

Genre
I think this short film enters a few categories in terms of genre. I think that it is definitely a romance because throughout we see the two robots connecting for example when the male robot (sheldon) offers his arm to the girl robot, it shows that he is doing it because he loves her. However I also believe that in some ways it could be classed as a tragedy because at the end of the piece, the male robot  is left with no body parts. The genre could also be categorised as a science fiction film because it was set in a futuristic world with robots.
The use of camera shots such as close ups alongside the use of sad music emphasised the tragic storyline. 

Short Film Posters

Blog task 5

THE HANG OVER PART III

Rotten Tomatoes Review:   
Average Rating: 4/10
Who gave it a 'thumbs up' -36
Who gave it a 'thumbs down' -148
Overall 47% of those who reviewed it liked it

‘ Less a comedy than an angrily dark action thriller, The Hangover Part III diverges from the series’ rote formula but offers nothing compelling in its space.’

Critics Review:

This final installment in the party-boy franchise... wisely drops the narrative gimmick of alcohol-induced amnesia that made the first movie so unusual and the second its pallid copy.

 

Audience Review:

Awful, unfunny, boring, tired, should never have been made. Number 2 was bad enough, but this is f'ing awful! The things that made the first one good and the second amusing in places are all missing. Hopefully this will be the end.

 

IMDB Review:                                  

Your rating:

Ratings: 6.1/10 from 50,821 users   Metascore: 30/100

Reviews: 175 user | 249 critic | 37 from Metacritic.com

My perception- Due to my research it appears the audience in each production of The Hangover were expecting it to get funnier each time. Different people have separate interpretations of what is ‘funny’ so some people enjoyed the movie whilst others did not.

Genre- The genre of this film is comedy and I think although many people left negative comments, it met their expectations in the sense of genre. The film included areas found in comedy films such as humor and over-exaggeration. 

Chris Anderson and Longtail Theory

Chris Anderson 

In statistics, a long tail of some distributions of numbers is the portion of the distribution having a large number of occurrences far from the "head" or central part of the distribution.

There are three different ways that Long Tail Theory can be categorised into.
1) What is the size of the Long Tail
2) How does the availability of so many niche products change the shape of demand?
3) What tools and techniques drive the shift and which are most effective?

When consumers are offered infinite choice, the true shape of demand is revealed. And it turns out to be less hit-centric than we thought. People gravitate towards niches because they satisfy narrow interests better, and in one aspect of our life or another we all have some narrow interest (whether we think of it that way or not).

 

The shift from hits to niches is a rich seam, manifest in all sorts of surprising places. This blog is where I'm going to collect everything I can about it.

Blog task 4 - The outsider

Film Festivals

A film festival is an organised event that celebrates the creation of films. Usually a specific location is used to present an aray of films ranging from comedy to sci-fi. These festivals are extremely popular events and date back to 1932. The first ever film festival was held in Venice where Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde were awarded for 'favourite actor' by audience referendum.

Film festivals now are annually held all over the world in places such as Berlin, Edinburgh and Melbourne. Cannes Film Festival is one of the most popular festivals in modern times. This previews lots of new films of lots of different genres from all over the globe. 

Also, there are film festivals which are specific to short films. These are typically held in smaller venues than that of the usual film festivals. They too, are held annually to present and exhibit 'short films of the year'. The most popular short film festival is held in Europe and is called the 'Short film Rain Dance festival'. It was voted the best short film festival in the world. Film festivals such as this, offer opportunities for film makers hoping for a career in the industry. People already 'big' in the industry typically attend the festivals searching for new talent. Those who make it into getting their film screened at a festival stand a good chance of getting people interested in your work and can often be the starting point of a successful career.

Blog Task 3

Blog task 2

Blog task 2 from katexyoung

Short film I like

The Anti-Social Network

Firstly, I liked the title of this film. 'The Anti-Social Network', is a play on words because it is about social networks such as the use of mobiles, Facebook, Twitter ect. The film highlights the idea that the use of this technology leaves people extremely anti-social. This therefore, is how they came up with the title for the film. The entire short follows a man and suggests that his life is an 'anti-social network' because everything that he does relates to networking.
The genre is comedy because it uses a lot of irony and humour throughout, to get the extent of the problem across.
It is an interesting short, because it can relate to the majority of people as social networks are becoming ever-increasingly popular. Lots of the ideas used within the short are relevant to every day life which adds to the humour. It kept me inticed regardless to the lack of speech, because it was not needed.
Through the use of social networking sites we can express our thoughts, our feelings and our impressions of others. We can upload pictures, let people know where we are and what we are doing. Via Facebook we are able to 'check in' wherever we are and 'like' status' and images so this concept is used throughout the film to show the extent of this.

Blog task 1: What makes a good short film?

A2 Advanced Portfolio

Kate Young
I am a student at Prior Pursglove College and I am currently studying for my A-Levels. This is my second year of studying Media therefore I am familiar with the process of blogging and other various forms to display my work. This year my coursework will be based on creating a short film in a small group. Also blog tasks to display my planning will take place throughout the year. Research and evaluation skills are crucial within this project. The work that I will carry out will be displayed on this blog.
You can watch short films via the internet in places such as YouTube and the Virgin website. As well as this being an existing interest of mine I can use this to help my research into short films. This will include audience research and ideas as to what makes a good short film. I am looking forward to further advancing my portfolio and gaining the best grade achievable for my A-Level Media studies.