Filming - Charlotte

We managed to complete half of our film rushes on Thursday, which took longer than we expected! Unfortunately because of the rainy, windy weather, we were unable to shoot any of our outside scenes, and because of the drama exam performances this week none of our actors are available to shoot - we are now planning to complete our filming in half term, hopefully the weather will be a little brighter so we can film outside.

We used Joshes room to film which turned out really well - the room was very well lit naturally, which meant we only needed to use one of the lights that we had, which meant me and Josh could both concentrate on creating the shots we needed. With only two of us, we thought the filming would be more challenging as we both had more tasks to accomplish - however having only two of us there worked out fine! We both shared filming, directing and lighting duties which was good as we both had a go at everything rather than having our own individual responsibilities.

Despite the difficulties, filming was actually very successful - we got a lot of footage, with a lot of choice for each shot, to make things easier when we come to editing. We used one of the HD cameras which produced a really high quality image, and we were able to manually adjust the focus to create really interesting shots. We had a lot of fun filming some of the funnier scenes, and sometimes we had problems with giggling whilst filming which we had to learn how to control!

Overall I think this was a successful day of filming, and now we have a lot of footage to start editing before we film the other sections of the film, so hopefully we can get it all done in time!

Props - Josh

As we are implementing social realism in our film, most - if not all - of the props can be found in my house, where we are doing the majority of our filming:

• Milk and cereal
• TV remote
• Snacks/crisps etc.
• Cigarette
• Shaving foam and razor
• Towel
• Card, glitter, pens and glue
• Aftershave
• Vodka
• Bunch of flowers

Lighting - field scene - Charlotte

With the way the weather is at the moment, we will be very lucky indeed to get any sunshine on our day of filming (Thursday). We have decided that if we get no such luck we shall edit the film post production to give the effect of a warm, sunny day, changing the hue of the film to orange/pink tones to give the illusion of a summers day. This will undoubtedly look quite strange and surreal but this is actually the effect we want to achieve with this sequence, as it is a dream sequence and is not reality. We will use gels and lights on the day of filming to also try and make the lighting as high key as possible, to achieve the dreamy, ethereal effect we want to achieve.

G325 exam question 1b prep - Charlotte and Josh

• Our short film will be of a hybrid genre - the dream sequences are experimental, whilst the reality sequences are social realism - we feel this will make our film fit more with the conventions of a short film, as short films use genre very flexibly, unlike mainstream films - this is because there is less time to establish genre, and plot is more important as you need to tell a full story in a short time.
• Our film follows a conventional narrative structure - we start at the beginning of the protagonists day, and then view the events that occur in chronological order, following the character throughout - our plot has an establishing beginning, followed by a montage sequence which then builds up the tension and pace to emphasise the final climax of our film.
• Our target audience will be 15-25 year olds, mainly due to the romance between our young protagonists and the medium through which our film will be distributed - YouTube. The website is frequented by this age group, so much so that some even label them as the 'YouTube generation'!
• We are only using two characters in our film - of our own age - and so are representing teenagers/young adults. The girl embodies contemporary femininity as she is in a position of power: the boy is infatuated with her and pursues her, whereas she is oblivious to his desires and so not affected by them. Traditional representations might depict her as subservient to men.

Short Film Promotion

•  In class we have looked at a few sites designed to promote short films: Virgin Media Shorts, BBC Film Network and Future Shorts. 
• All of them offer a range of films varying in genre, length, subject matter and even their purpose; for example, this is a music video designed to promote the song 'Kill Your Co-Workers' by Flying Lotus.
• This highlights the flexibility of the form, and its ability to tell a story in a short amount of time, which is of course what we are trying to accomplish.

Preparing for filming - Charlotte and Josh

Animatic! - Charlotte and Josh

Storyboard Images - Josh

Charlotte used the following images - and one video clip - to help her when storyboarding the first dream sequence in our film, in which a female character walks through a field.