location recci at the park

When we went on our location recce to the park we found some major issues that we knew would affect our filming. Due to weather conditions we decided that we could not film in the park because:

1. It is now winter and therefore the location is wet and muddy making it harder for us to move around and film. If for example we film the first part of the script and then one of the actors step into a muddy puddle by accident it would be hard for us to continue filming because this would affect the continuity. The audience would wonder how he got his leg muddy and how it wasn’t like that in the first place. This would then mean that we would have to film again and find a reason for why his leg is muddy. The benches were also wet, making it harder for the Aldo, Nabil and Sarah to sit and talk as if nothing was going on.
2. Lighting was also a big issue because when we went out on a location recce and filmed a scene from the script we saw from looking back on the camera that the lighting in the scene was much darker and subtle than on real life. This is a serious issue because when filming a comedy the lighting has to be bright and clear representing the humorous and funny side to life. Having dark lighting would make the film seem more of a drama and horror rather than a comedy. It can have a major affect on our audience because if they can’t see the scene clear enough, it would not only irritate them but it would make them feel more distanced from the action, realising it is not real and they would find the scene more depressing rather than funny.
3. Mise-en-scéne is also a major concern because when we were on our location recce we found that the surrounding of the park seemed very gloomy and dull. All the flowers had completely disappeared and the leaves of the trees had also gone, only showing the bare branches. This gives out the idea that we are filming a horror film rather than a comedy, thus changing our genre. The surrounding of a comedy film is very warm and bright, usually consisting of bright furniture or nature such as trees and flowers blossoming. 
4. Finally we found that the wind was also our main problem because it makes a loud noise and therefore it can disrupt the dialogue of the characters, making it hard for the audience to understand them. Secondly the force of the wind would make it harder for us to keep a steady shot when filming and so as a result the film would consist of shaky scenes breaking the connection the audience feel with the characters, making them realise the film is not realistic. In addition the force of the wind would make it hard for the characters to stay still and not make sure that they fall down or prevent their clothing from being blown away. This issue would apply to Lilly also because we wanted Lilly to keep her hair out in order for her to swish it about as this follows the conventions of other comedy and romantic films like Shallow Hal and various Indian films; where a beautiful girl comes out swishing her hair, emphasizing her beauty and perfection. However because of the wind we knew that her hair would be covering her face and therefore her facial expressions which is something that the audience must see in order to connect with her character.    

We decided to look at the weather forecast in order to see if there would be a change in the weather and if there was a day where there would be a clear sky with some sun then we would decide to film on that day. This is a print screen of the weather forecast that I took and we immediately knew that filming outside would be an issue because the weather is getting much colder with a lot of snow and rain and therefore there was no point for us waiting to see if there was going to be a sunny day, so we decided to film on a different location which didn’t involve being outside.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/44069123/Location-Recci-The-Park

Silva

Chosen Characters

After the audition we believed to have a very good view on who our actors were for our film and which ones were most suitable for the roles needed. The auditions were very helpful in giving us a clear idea of some changes we could do in order to improve our film. Such as having both of the children being a part of the film as it added an exellcent comic effect. For the role of Nabil, before performing the auditions we had a vague idea of which actor we were going to use , unfortantly our views changed at the auditions stage as Sajan seemed to perform the role of the ideal "geek" in a very good comic way which was exactly what we were looking for. This was useful as it relates to our stimulus of creating a comedy film.

Sajan Shah
   

  At the beginning we had analysed all the characters and had reached a decision that we would have both of the children in our film because they created an excellent comic effect together. Also, due to the fact that we wanted Sarah, Aldo and Nabil to be some sort related we discussed that Robert fit this perfect image. This was because Robert and Aldo looked very similar. However, we came to a conclusion that we had to think about our audience in more depth and how we did not want to exclude any race as we wanted to attrack a wide audience. So therefore we wanted to have our main protagonist who plays Nabil to be of a different race.

Rachel Evans

                                      

 Also after auditioning to see which acter we can use to take upon the role of Lilly we concluded that Rachel was the ideal sterotypical beautiful girl with very long brown hair and stunning blue eyes. Which we believed followed the codes and conventions of a typical comedy film.

Antigona

Auditions

We held our Auditions in the drama room in our school; Canons High school. We had also filmed each person auditioning for their roles. We had each actor act out Nabil's character with Aldo (the little boy) first and then Seura (the little girl) to see which kid added humour to the scene and would be best for the role. However we could not choose between the kids and decided to involve both of them to add to the comic effect of two children ordering Nabil (a young adult) around. Consequently, we had to change the lines of the script a little and try and split the lines between the two kids. We did this very carefully and tried to think which line would suit each kid, for example we thought Aldo should say 'Hot chick' because it added to the comif effect even more, where a little boy already feels emotions for girls and judges their appearance.

In the end, we decided to choose Sajan out of all the other characters because he was not only a drama student and already had good acting skills that he would be able to portray in the film but the fact that there was something about his acting that was very exaggerated and therefore added to the comic genre.

However, due to the fact that we had a technical difficulty we could not export the videos we took at the auditions in the computer.

Silva and Antigona

Characters

As we had decided our films main genre is going to be Comedy, we have to develop and follow the codes and convention which are needed in Comedy films. Therefore, our main point was to start of by choosing the suitable actors in order to achieve that effect we want for our film, as the actors we choose were one main aspect in order for our film to be a sucsess. So we had to choose the suitable actor for our main protagonist Nabil, Lilly and either a little girl or a little boy as Nabil's friend. The following are the actors who were willing to audition for us in order to choose the character we were looking for.

Robert              

                                 Plays role as: Nabil

                                 Age: 18
                                 Weight: 59 Kg

                                 Description:
                                 Light Brown Hair, Blue eyes, Tall

                                 Nationality: White British 

                                 
                                 

Sajan Shah

                                Plays role as: Nabil

                                Age: 18
                                Weight: 62 Kg

                                Description:
                                Black Hair, Dark brown eyes, 

                                Nationality: African

Rachel Evans       

                                Plays role as: Lilly Marsh
                                Age: 18
                                Weight: 45Kg
                                Description:
                                Light brown Hair, blue eyes 

                                Nationality: White British

Seura Beshi

         

                               Plays role as: Sarah

                               Age: 10

                               Weight: 27kg

                               Description:

                               Medium light brown hair, Hazel eyes

                               Nationality: White British

Ben

                              Plays role as: Aldo

                              Age: 9

                              Weight: 26kg

                              Description:

                              Short Blonde hair, Brown eyes

                              Nationality: White British

Antigona

Power Presentation

http://www.scribd.com/doc/43966322


Silva

Research

Research

Aim:  To see which age group is most popular with watching short films and their favourite genre.

Back- Up Research- secondary research:

We researched short films on two main websites; You-tube and BBC Website. We found that BBC website shows that the most favoured genre was drama (111) followed by animation (73) then followed by comedy (70). However, when we researched short films in You-tube we gathered that the main genre was comedy. This was due to the fact that You-tubes main target audience people aged from 14-25 while BBC’s main target audience is from 25 and over. As a result this shows that the comedy genre is favoured more by the younger age group.

Methodology:

We decided to go to Leicester square and give out our questionnaire to ten people and then interview four people of different age groups to gather more in-depth information. We chose Leicester Square because we thought that this location would be ideal to achieve a wider range of audiences.

 

Quantitative Questionnaire:

Are you male or female?  (Circle answer)    Female         Male                  

What is your age?

What is your preferred genre?

Comedy     Horror    Drama     Animation      Action       Adventure     Thriller

State the name and genre of your favourite short film.

What did you enjoy about this film?

State the main type of films you watch? (Circle Answer)

Mainstream cinema films             independent cinema films               short films

How regularly do you watch short films? (Circle Answer)

All the time     regularly     sometimes     hardly       never

Where you aware about the film festival during last week and have you ever attended one before?

Semi- Structured Interviews:

We decided to choose this method because we believe that this method allows in depth information to be gathered. This will also allow us to understand reasons to why there may be a difference in the genre of short films watched from different age groups.

We intended to interview a wide range of different age groups; we want to begin by interviewing two individuals from seventeen to twenty five as initially they were our target audience. However, we want to develop our research so that it involves people from the age group of twenty six to forty. The reason to why we want to include the older generation is to be compare them with the younger age group and see wich group are more aware of short films. Furthermore we wanted to see not only if our target audience would watch our short comedy film but to also see if the older age group would  watch our short film and if so then we know our film will be succesful with a wider age group. 

It’s a semi-structured interview so therefore it’s going to consist of very few closed ended questions and many open ended questions as we want to develop an in-depth conversation with the individuals in order to gather more information for our research.

These are some samples of the questions which we may ask:

 1 – What age group do you belong to?

2- Do you watch short films if yes, state what you enjoy most about them, if no state the reasons to why it does not interest you?

3- What is your favoured genre in terms of short films?

If no, state your preferred genre in a feature length film.

4- Would you watch short films if more comedy was involved?

These are the videos of the two different age-groups that both Me and Antigona interviewed in Leicester Square:

1)

Sex- Male

Age- 28

2)

 

Sex- Female

Age- 36

3)

Sex- Female

Age- 19

4)

Sex- Female

Age- 20

Questionnaire on short comedy films

After we did research on YouTube about short films we found that comedy was the most favoured genre, whereas in the BFI we found that it was drama; which is a genre mainly associated with an older age group. Therefore in order to back-up our studies we carried out a questionnaire; asking 10 students in our sixth form questions about short films. We wanted to be sure that the younger generation would be interested in watching short films if more comedy was involved.

How old are you?

What is your gender?     Male      female

Do you watch short films? If no, please give reason    Yes             No    

State the main type of films you watch?

Mainstream Cinema        Independent cinema films        Short films

Would you watch short films if there was more comedy involved?       Yes         No

Due to research we found that:

·         6 out of 10 students do not watch short films

·         4 out of 10 students watch short films

·         2 out of ten students would not watch short films, even if more comedy was involved

·         8 out of 10 students would watch short films if more comedy was involved.

We asked the students who replied ‘No’ to watching short films and asked them why they didn’t watch them. These are some of the replies;

·         “There’s no advertisement for short films, so I’ve never heard them.”

·         “Because their way too short, so there’s no point of even watching them.”

·         “They’re too short and they don’t have enough detail, so I don’t understand them.”

From this we found that our short film will be successful with the younger generation, as long as there is comedy involved. Some of them also said that they don’t have enough detail in them to understand and so in our script we will include information in the dialogue that tells the audience the relationship between the characters.

Silva and Antigona

BFI Research

We contacted the BFI for further information about our research into short films and permission to carry out research in the BFI. These are snapshots of what we wrote to them.  

Couple of days later; we recieved a message from the BFI with some vague information. Therefore this still did not answer our question to whether comedy films are popular within short films. This is the message that we recieved by them; informing us on which webpages we can look into to find more information.

However, even though this did give us little details we decided that we would attend the short film festival which was going to happen from Wednesday 13th of October to 28th of October. We believed that this would be the best time as it would allow us to gather very valuable results. Our main intention was to conduct our research at the festival as it would allow us to gather in depth information by people who do watch short films and would of answered our question 'if younger adults watch more comedy short films as against older adults'. However, due to personal issues this meant that we could not attend the festival during these specific dates. So, we decided to make some changes to our research which would still allow us to gain some information. Instead we gave out a questionnaire to ten students in our sixth form to see if they watch short films. We then  decided to go to Leicester Square where we can obtain more information about short films. We produced questionnaires which we will give out to young people as well as older people. Also, to make our research stronger we also decided we would conduct interviewers in order to back up our results for the questionnaires. This would also allow us to show differences or similarities within the different age groups.

Antigona and Silva

First Draft Of Story Board

After we produced our script  this indicated to us the process of how our storyboard could be layed out. We decided to make a rough draft of our storyboard to develop an idea of how our film could be like. After we designed our storyboard we looked at the changes we could do in order to improve our film. Most of the changes that we did do to the storyboard was the main idea of our film. We also made sure that the shot's were correct and if the shot's used create the effect that we wanted it to. Sound/ music and dialogue were other aspects which we had to think about whilst designing the storyboard. This is the copy of our storyboard which we intend to use as a template, in order to guide us through the changes we need to do when we design our final storyboard.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/41851851

Silva and Antigona

Script

http://prezi.com/5goqvauvcbkw/script/

Antigona and Silva

 

Title Names

How to approach a girl

We like this idea because it gives the audience a better view of what our film is about and this therefore allows them the choice to either want to watch the film or not.  If the title however is too vague and it doesn’t give a hint on the storyline then the audience will not know if they want to watch it or not because they don’t know what the film is about.  In addition, when watching the film they will have a thorough understanding of the storyline, thus not feeling distanced from the events. On the contrary we decided not to use this title as it limits our audience.  The title suggests that it’s about how a boy would approach a girl and therefore our main audience would be males rather than females. Males would feel more connected with the character because they are able to relate with his situation.  Another disadvantage would be that it may be stereotypical to some women because the title involves all of them in general, therefore summing up how all women should be approached by men and what works on them. This as a result could be quite offensive to women, thus limiting our audience and causing a stir between gender differences.

Silva

Three Simple Rules 

In the beginning this was our main chosen title, we thought that this would be appropriate for our film as it fits in with the script. When the young girl teaches the boy three simple rules that all men should have in order to be able to approach a girl. Also, it’s a very catchy and short title that doesn’t need much reading to it. However, similar to the first title, we thought that after a while that this title was not suitable for our film because it is shows a stereotypical view towards women because it narrows down the rules to approaching them. It could be insulting because it suggests that approaching a girl is very easy and the word ‘simple’ emphasizes this. Also the fact that is it only three rules makes it sound even more exaggerated. 

Antigona  

A loser like you

Finally, we thought that this title piece was more appropriate for our title film because it has a better relationship towards the comedy genre and the audience are also more aware of it. It sounds much more comic by including the word ‘loser’. Also we deliberately included the word ‘you’ as it makes them question the title because it is directed right at them. Even though this may seem as a disadvantage, we believe this title piece is much more attention-grabbing because the audience are included in the title sequence. This title is also quoted from seura’s line in the script, therefore when the audience are watching it they see the connection towards the title and the film. Due to the connection being made, the audience are able to focus on this line and therefore link it with the main character; Nabil.

Silva and Antigona

Genre Research

Before deciding to go further with our story idea, we decided to research into the comedy genre first in order for us to be more aware of what we need to include and avoid in our film in order for it to become a success.  We found that the main purpose of a comedy film is to amuse the audience and make them laugh. This genre deals with ridiculous and absurd aspects of human behaviour, where they are meant to make the audience feel good by providing them with laughter and a means of escape from life’s difficulties and hardship. They make things sound easier than they really are and therefore making us feel positive and more light-hearted. Comedies usually tend to end with happy-ending to leave the audience feeling positive in the end. They tend to be quite offensive in terms of racism and gender. Finally when doing this research we found that we had been successful in understanding the comedy genre through our final initial idea; where Sarah is in control of the teenage boy (her babysitter) and teaches him how to approach a girl. By the way she controls him, she makes him seem less experienced with girls and therefore desperate enough to ask a 10 year old girl for advice. The idea is ridiculous, embarrassing and humorous for the audience to watch, thus creating that comic effect.  In order for our film to have a happy ending we will make sure that Nabil and Lilly end up together in the end. This is because every comedy film has an ending that leaves the audience feeling positive and this is what we want to achieve at the end of our film.

Before writing our script we looked through a few rules that have to be met when writing a comedy short film: these are

Before writing our script we looked through a few rules that have to be met when writing a comedy short film: these are

·         Don’t overuse the same joke

·         Go into the storyline as well as the jokes. Don’t try and write jokes every second as the audience will then lose their connection with the character and the plot.

·         Comedy films are heavily based on hyperbole jokes, where the characters are over the top and their actions are obvious.

·         Make sure your jokes are delivered at an appropriate time and moment. Jokes are not funny when they are used in an inappropriate scene. 

·         Make sure you find your own comedy script funny and show it to your friends and family just to be sure.

       We will take these rules into account when writing our comedy script in order for it to be a success in making the audience laugh.

Audiences Into Short Films

Short films are products which do not have high profits, however others argue that in today’s era short films are more ideal and have attracted more audiences than before. Short films are now seen to be more ideal as they capture more attention as they have easier access such as the internet, mobile phones and now they are even shown on TV. Short films are categorised into sub- categories they fall into; Animated, Documentary, Experimental, Live action, Musical short, Sponsors and specific information on Travel.  It has been argued that during the century short films have adapted a particular audience’s in their middle ages. Therefore, due to the fact that our research shows that most short films audiences are middle aged, our product wants to attract a new generation. This is the reason why we wanted to focus on the genre comedy.  We believed that young people aged from sixteen to early twenties are more likely to enjoy watching comedy films has it may be suitable to their personality. In my research I also found that in many cases the type of category that the film is influences the audience. For example, a famous short film producer Pixar tested animation technique; these short films were to attract audiences from the ages of eighteen as it has a certification of eighteen.

Initial Ideas

Our genre for our first idea was to focus on Action. A fifteen year old boy, walking home from school with his elder sister, sees a gang of three who are looking for trouble. Stevie is petrified as they approach them and demand their valuable possessions. His sister Jordan refuses and threatens them to go away before she does something that she’ll regret.  The gang hysterically laugh at her and lightly push her saying ‘what are you going to do little girl’. The girl firmly grabs the leader of the gang’s shoulders and kicks him with her knee.  The gang are shocked at her fighting skills and try to defend their leader by kicking her back. She defends herself and beats them up all. The gang are all left injured, while they walk home.

We decided not to use this idea as we thought that in the end it sounded impractical by the way a seventeen year old girl beats up all the boys in the gang. It challenged codes and conventions to an extreme extent; we did not achieve to create a typical gang view from the way they are usually portrayed in an Action movie.

Our genre for our second idea focuses on thriller. It touches upon real life situations where the main protagonist Skills is schizophrenic and lives in a care home and faces serious harassment from the staff.  He is an isolated figure, who is left traumatized and therefore goes through difficult obstacles in his life, such as facing discrimination towards his culture and skin colour.

We decided not to use this idea because we are familiar with this particular genre due to our AS portfolio, where we created a similar storyline where our main protagonist was also schizophrenic, therefore we wanted to explore new ideas and try something new.

For our final idea we decided to do a comedy, as we thought of it to be an exciting challenge. Our main protagonist is an eighteen year old boy who struggles with women issues. He is considered not to be very sociable with others in college. He is very successful in his second year at A-levels, where he managed to achieve four A’s at his first year.  Throughout his adolescent years, he has been madly in love with Lillie but has not been able to admit his feeling to her. The plot begins with him taking Sarah (which he babysits frequently) to her football training and notices Lille from a distance. He becomes nervous and she notices the change in his behaviour and shatter his dreams by reminding him that ‘it’s never going to happen’. She later feels sorry for him and gives him advice on how to approach a lady. She begins to  demonstrate the ‘3 simple rules’ which every man should be familiar with.  

Silva and Antigona

Research Into Short Films

What is a short film?

A short film in North America is defined to generally last between 20 and 40 minutes which tend to have its focus point on its characters, whereas in Europe, the description short films durations are no shorter than one minute and shorter than 15 minutes and tend to focus on drama and its main plot.  

Depending on the story of the short film, many of them have a purpose. For instance; the short films that I have been analysing, most of them focused on real life situations. An example is “Deep skin”, this short film focuses on deeper problems of society. It concentrates on how a young boy suffers from the mental disorder; schizophrenia. Due to his illness, family problems and friends, he faces many issues; he is a witness of discrimination and racism towards the members that he lives with. I enjoyed watching this short movie, as it made its address very clear for the audience to understand it, it had a flowing sequence which made it very effective.

I also watched another short film which was different to this situation. “Different” was the second short film I watched, this one gives the audience a clear understanding of what it could be by the title. This short film has a similar sequence to the first one, it begins by introducing the main character; the middle of it introduces the problem and by the end it’s either resolved or not.

The final short film that we analysed was ‘The Black Hole’. This film was categorised as a comedy, therefore its main purpose was to entertain us. The duration of the film was shorter than the others, it lasted only three minutes. It followed a similar pattern as the other films, where it began with the introduction of the main character, followed by the problem and the solving of the issue at the end.

Short films in the media business industry are very popular and their market is growing, and festivals are in constant need for successful and entertaining short films. Through the process of my thorough research in to short films, I have gathered valid points of what could make our short film a success. A key feature which is needed for film is the length. It’s important to keep it simple because if you try to put to much information, it will stress your audience rather than entertain them, this is why a short film will only last up to one or more minutes.

Second point was to pick your focus point and make it as precise as possible. In my research, I found out that all short films have a particular pattern that they follow. For example; they need to have a balance of each point in the story. You need a circular pattern, since everything will happen rapidly. This creates a better flow and continuity to the story as the audience could understand the plot better. I also noticed that the particular short films that I watched did not have heavy drama, the middle part of every short film was where most of the action took place but I thought that it wasn’t a massive contrast between the beginning and the end.

Research and Planning

The ancillary tasks we decided to do for the short film are a radio trailer and a poster. We thought that a radio trailer is more suitable for the product, as it would be accessible to a wider population. We thought of factors which could have a positive influence in advertising our media products, these factors were costs, accessibility and our target audience. Our target audience will be between 17 to 25 years. We thought that this age group is more likely to have access to a radio, whether it being in a car, at work or even at home. The other reason was because a radio is free; therefore people are willing to listen to a radio rather than buying a magazine. We also chose to do a poster for our product as we thought of it to be somewhat exciting and challenging, as a poster would allow us to express the story and meaning about our film. We will use symbolic props and use of brighter colours which will represent our genre. A poster is more eye-catching and therefore would allow the audience to have a better interpretation of the film. The positive outcome of a poster rather than a magazine is that it is more attention grabbing and does not have any direct reading. A film magazine however requires audiences to put effort and time into reading it. Also, we thought it would be best not to do a film magazine as it has a limited audience. People aged over 25 are usually the main target audience for reading magazines and this would therefore limit our younger audience, as it is aged between 17-25 years.

Antigona

Research and Planning

Research and planning

The task we have chosen to do is a short film instead of a documentary. The reason we chose to do this was because for our AS media portfolio; we had to do a two minute opening sequence of a movie. This has therefore widened our knowledge of what it takes to make a successful short film. We are prepared due to previous experiences of our two minute sequence and as a result we are able to avoid any mistakes being made for our contemporary film. Two particular issues that we faced in our previous sequence were framing and continuity. To overcome this problem, we did thorough research by analysing various short films and notice what we were doing wrong. As a result; our understanding and skills are broadened of how a media product is produced. 

Silva and Antigona