Candidate Declaration - I confirm that the attached portfolio is all my own work* and does not include any work completed by anyone other than myself.
Task 1 - Analysis:
When it comes to elements of a short film, these five are some of the most essential aspects:
- A Captivating Story,
- Great Visuals,
- Good Sound Design,
- Strong Leading Characters,
- Effective Editing.
A Captivating Story is incredibly important in a short film as it's the main job for a story. It needs to be interesting to the point where the viewers are on the edge of their seats, they're constantly involved in thinking about what will happen, it needs to keep their attention. If a story is boring, the film will be boring it's quite simple.
Great Visuals are very important in a short film as they tend to stand out from the rest of the different aspects. Like the story, the visuals need to be interesting and entertaining to it appeals to the audience. If the scene is shot badly and breaks the 180 degree rule, the viewers will pick up on that and it will mess with their perception of the story - if it's not filmed great.
Good Sound Design is possibly one of the most important things in any film really, you can have the best cinematography but if the audio is really bad, that immediately brings down the rest of the film. You need to make sure the sound is great so it'll help convey the story, if the audio has a lot of static within in for example, the audience will definitely pick up on that and it will be an unpleasant watch.
Strong Leading Characters is crucial to a short film as they are what progresses the story and ultimately, what the audience are going to attach themselves to when watching the film back. With characters, they need to have a good story to tell otherwise a 10 minute video of them just talking randomly won't be appealing. As well as having good strong characters, they should also have certain quirks about them that make them memorable.
Finally, Effective Editing is a must when it comes to short films as this is the final chance to piece together the story you want to tell, the final stage in making the film look great. If a short film is poorly edited, it won't do very well at all - this can mean the clips not aligning up correctly or the colouring being way off. Similar to Sound Design, you can't have a good short film if it's lacking great editing.
I am going to fulfil all of these elements by doing a lot of research into each aspect and looking through references to make sure I follow all of them closely. Looking into the story, I am going to look through other short films and see what makes them so interesting, then I will take inspiration to make sure mine is up to a good standard. With great visuals, I am going to pay homage to a few of my favourite movies and try to incorporate some of their shots into mine. In order to fulfil great visuals also, I will be referring to the shot list at all times and ensuring that the story is interesting enough to keep the viewers intrigued. I will also draft up a few characters with compelling stories to tell in order to advance the effect they have on the plot. Then at the end, I am going to try edit it all together smoothly and make sure that every clip lines up exactly, so it all flows together and doesn't look choppy.
Task 2 - Research:
3 Sentence Story -
1. The feeling
of being observed loomed through the darkened attic, the boy’s eyes peered
around frantically.
2. All that could be seen were old bags tied filled with memories,
the half-opened hatch and an original painting.
3. Oh and the blood-red eyes buried
between the bags; staring straight at him.
Short Film Ideas (1/3, 'Regenerate')
The situation is that the boy is just looking through the attic of the house he recently moved into and feels quite unsettled, without realising there is something else in the same room, portraying the same emotions as him.
The story is going to elevate to the main character seeing the character and running for help, when no one truly believes that there is something there he resorts to his own matters and tries to save his family from potential harm.
Focusing in on the character, he is a not very social person, he is a playfully minded/unserious boy who suffers from mild hallucinations (hence everyone not believing him when he claims something is there). This massively contradicts with the fact there is something in that room with him and if he were to spot it and call for help - nobody would believe him.
The story is going to be set in an old house that was built around between 7100 and 6000 BC, this is because from my research I have concluded that during that time period when people passed away they were actually buried underneath their homes. This is crucial to the story as it has intention, the 'blood-red eyes' belong to an entity that was buried in the house around 2000 years ago; a young boy to be exact - same as the main character.
This is going to progress as the main character sees the entity and begins running for help, when no one believes that there is something there he resorts to his own matters. It becomes more obvious that something is really off with this potential entity and in the end - the entity is a mirror image of the little boy, trying to find peace and make his way to the next life.
For this story, I would make the main location the attic as that is the room where we're first introduced to the other character, following on from that I would also have a strict colour scheme of dark colours to produce a feeling of uncertainty (mainly browns, greys, dark green). At some point I want the main character to be face-to-face with the entity so the audience can see the similarities. For this scene I would have a strong glowing light surrounding them as I want all the attention on them. I think a bright green strobe could be a good closing to this project.
Here are some references to pieces of media I have took inspiration from:
('The Haunting Of Hill House', 'The Fall Of The House Of Usher', 'The Devil In Me')
Idea 2 (2/3, 'FOMO.')
The situation is that there is a group of teenagers in a foster home, when one of them wants to try sneak out and live a little the other retaliate but end up going with and they document their night out with one of their cameras - the vibe for this story is feel-good/adventurous.
As the night goes on, the teenagers eventually leave the town completely and get on a random train to a city they've never been to before. The whole idea is revolved around the thrill of risk as well as FOMO; which will be portrayed through the characters in various ways.
Focusing in on the characters, there are 5 teenagers in total who all live in a foster home with one another - while they aren't siblings by blood (apart from two) they have learned to love each other like they would.
There are two sisters and three brothers in total, Julia (15), Amber (16), Dylan (15), Eric (17) and Chris (17). Each teenager has a fear of something in which they would overcome throughout the night (being dangerous, responsible, courageous etc). I want each character to show signs of conquering what they're afraid of throughout the story until the end where they feel accomplished with the night.
The story is going to be set in a sort of small house towards sunset/night, they will be travelling to locations like the train station (+ actually on the train), through a big city, a dock as well as on a boat. As the story progresses there is going to be a problem in the big city where they think they've gone too far - this will be the turning point.
Some might argue and try to go home and some would want to stay which causes a divide between them but as they hash it out and realise they're together no matter what, they all decide to continue on without looking back.
I want the story to end with them at a dock before they get on a boat and go off into the distance as the sun rises; I feel like that is a beautiful ending which highlights the idea of togetherness as well as the bond that blooms between the teenagers.
For this story, I would use the colour theory and pin point a certain colour to a specific teenager based on their fear and what colour I feel that issue would radiate. I want a chunk of the short film to actually be filmed as if it were a vlog - as mentioned before, one of the teenagers is going to be documenting the night on a vlogging camera so it would give the film a homey vibe. Sort of like as if the audience watching the short film were actually watching a real vlog. I would make the big city the main location as that's where the turning point happens and where the issues start to pour in; as well as this I want the ending location to be on the boat. Linking back to colours, I want the start of the film to be quite dull colours (dark ones, like the night) and as the story progresses they get brighter which amplifies the teenager's opening up more to their true personalities and feeling euphoric once they're taken the risk.
Here are some references to pieces of media I have took inspiration from:
('Man Of Medan', 'Outerbanks', 'Bodies Bodies Bodies')
Idea 3 (3/3, 'Cut.')
The situation is that a group of aspiring filmmakers want the world to know their names and become recognised, together they work to fake a series of 'hauntings' in which they document them and post them online. When someone calls them and offers them a large sum of money if they document the ghosts in their home, they're quick to accept - only they can't fake what is actually there. The title is word play as when you film something, you say 'Cut' to stop recording.
Focusing in on the characters, the group has close age ranges from teenagers to young adults, some are mature for their ages and others are pretty naïve. There are two boys and three girls in the group (similar to the group from 'FOMO.'). As the story progresses so do the character's personalities and emotions, they are pushed to their limit and how they react at their max could ruin friendships.
The story itself is going to have very few locations as it's relatively set inside a house, there is going to be:
- Hang-Out Space,
- The House,
- Wooded Area (Or Closed Off Area).
I want the characters to move around a lot, they only get invited to the house because of all the fake documentaries they have created. I would like to include a mini montage of them filming in other locations and posting online.
The film is only going to be around 10-15 minutes long and so it's crucial that the scenes all fit within the time limit. I'm hoping for the lead up to the actual house it should only be around 4 minutes, this gives the rest of the time to the group setting up cameras and recording/the rest of the plot.
The plot is going to change drastically at a fast pace (moving from A to B pretty quickly). As the film goes on some of the group member start disappearing and getting picked off one by one until there's only a single person left. I want the film to end on a cliff-hanger so potentially looking at the last person there seeing everyone gone, them escaping the house, maybe even them being in on it the whole time and it was just to get more views for themselves.
I would implement dark colours throughout the set it make it look eerie-like, unsettling. I would mainly use the colour red as it's the shade of blood and has a huge correlation with danger, which is what the group walks into. I also want to go with a rustic look on the main house so colours like greys, dark pastels, browns etc. are a must.
Here are some references to pieces of media I have taken inspiration from:
('The Devil In Me', 'Totally Killer', 'The Blair Witch Project')
Inciting Incident:
An Inciting Incident is the sequence in a film that escalates the plot, a google definition is: 'the event that sets the main character or characters on the journey that will occupy them throughout the narrative.'
A movie that I'm going to reference for the inciting incident is La La Land. Mia and Sebastian get together and try pursue their passions but as the story progresses, Sebastian gets so clouded with changing his dream juts to make it (the incident) that it causes the two to argue which results in them leaving each other. It ends with the pair reuniting while they're both highly successful in their fields of work.
I'm going to be using Idea 2 ('FOMO.') for this example of using the inciting incident structure. At the start of the story, the group of teenagers are at home with some being bored out of their minds - they want to do something but they're not sure what. As the plot goes on one of them decides to sneak out and live a little and surely they convince everyone to do so, so they all leave together. The incident occurs when they're out in the big city and some of them feel they've gone too far and start feeling homesick, when they say to the others they want to go back it turns into an argument with the other group protesting to stay. They go off their separate ways. The ending of it all concludes with them reuniting and deciding they want to leave the city and never look back, including leaving home too; they get on a boat and go wherever the wind takes them.
The incident within this plot is to elevate the story and show that even when they're at their highest they could still come crashing down. No matter what happens, they all have each other's backs which can be seen when they decide to go out together and leave no one behind. Going more in depth, I want this incident to be quite sudden so just as the audience thinks everything is fine- they're hit with a quick turning point. Not only will this elevate the mood in the film but the reactions from viewers, thus elevating the film completely.
While most of the foster kids aren't blood related there are two of them that came from the same family, although they all claim to feel the same towards everyone mutually - the blood-related brother and sister undeniably have a stronger bond. When the sister feels as though they've travelled too far from home and wants to turn back, the brother is quick to want to honour her request and take her back home - but the rest of the group wants to keep going. This creates a lot of tension which results in the sister running away from the shouting, her brother runs after her but loses her quickly - she's alone in the big city at night. The rest of the group want to carry on exploring and vlogging, when they start poking fun at the sister running off the brother is determined to find her and in a fit of rage runs off with the camera. After a while the brother finally finds the sister but they both become lost in a place that is not familiar to them at all, using the video footage they retrace their steps to find the rest of the group searching for them which results in a heartfelt moment. The story then comes to an end with them finding an old dock and stealing one of the boats, driving off into the sunset - together.
Adding onto the inciting incident. I have drafted up a script for one of the scenes in the story which can be viewed below via link:
The climax in a story is the conclusion of the film that cam
be intense, powerful, effective.
'(Inciting Incident) - Rising Action – Climax (Turning Point)
– Falling Action'
Exposition (Beginning) – Resolution (End)
'Ready Or Not' is a thrilling rollercoaster about a woman who
marries into a rich family, unaware that on their wedding night she must play a
‘child’s game’ – but with a gruesome twist. The climax of this movie is when the
main character thinks she has finally escaped and begins running out of the
house into the woods.
At this point she had killed two people so you’d think
this is the end; however before she can leave she is then stopped and brought
back to the house. After this scene, she is then strapped down as everyone begins
a ritual to sacrifice her.
https://youtu.be/MIpBm03gXiM?si=JkX6dPi81STe5Cbt
Side Note:
On the 22nd of March 2024, Grayson and I presented our green light pitch for Eris' Story (which has now been renamed to 'Lost Souls'). We got a lot of positive feedback from the greenlight pitch, it was well presented and we had gotten all of the information that we needed; it was pitched it really well. The only thing we got asked about was locations about some of the scenes which was an easy fix.
Here is what Grayson has wrote for the research aspect as we both worked on research together:
'Lost Souls Planning:
I have been given the roles of first AD, camera operator, sound recorder and I have split the role of editor. In order to prepare for these roles, I have read through my production diaries from other projects to refresh my mind on what the roles entail. I know my responsibilities and I am prepared to fulfil them.
Task 3 - Planning/Task 4 - Production:
This is a link to the google drive folder that contains all of the planning and documents for FMP:
On this link is all of my planning and also an up-to-date diary of everything that has happened since the project started (filming, editing, documents, scripts, scheduling etc). Everything that would usually be documented on blogger from this point onwards is documented on the link.
Editing:
For most of the editing process, I have documented it in the Production Diary which can be viewed above on the google drive link. However, this is my personal problems that I had to overcome.
To start off with, editing was actually pretty okay and ran smooth apart from the odd problem here and there. The clips from when we were recording weren't in order so it took me and my partner a little bit of time to reorganise it all before we even began editing; it only knocked off 10 minutes so it wasn't a huge delay.
A reoccurring problem that kept popping up when editing was that the whole software kept crashing and shutting down a few minutes later after it freezes on a 'not responding page'. This was incredibly annoying and infuriating as neither me or my partner could actually get any editing done due to this issue, instead we were updating any old documents and adding to the blog until it worked. On the second day of editing the software was actually responding really well and I managed to edit scenes 6 and 9.
Because there were still filming days left while editing, some of the scenes were out of order on Premiere as I had started with scene 6 (scene 1-5 hadn't been filmed at that point). Editing a single scene roughly took around 30 minutes to an hour depending on how long the length of it is, this wasn't a problem though as me and my partner were moving at a good pace with the work.
On the third day of filming, I had repeated the same process but also I had to mess around with colourings for one of the scenes as it did not match with anything in the shot. As you can see from the photo below, I adjusted the white to black ratios and enhanced the shadows to lower the colours:
After this, I went back to editing the scenes. Grayson had took over after a little while and I went straight to the Production Diary. Closing into the third day of filming, we had ran into a MAJOR problem.
On the third day, the hard drive we were using had broke without us realising and it didn't let me access the Premiere Pro file which meant I couldn't use go onto the edit and view it. At this point scenes 4-9 had been edited (5 scenes total) and not me or my partner had access to it. When the hard drive was taken down to be looked at we were told they couldn't recover. This was a setback as we didn't have anything but luckily for us Grayson still had all the clips saved on his SD card. I then uploaded them all onto my hard drive instead but this meant I had to restart editing all over again. Filming had wrapped so editing was now the main priority by this point. Grayson began editing the first 4 scenes to which I took over and reedited scenes 4-9 which were saved on the now-broken hard drive.
A problem that I ran into which I talked about on the Production Diary involved music which was a key element to the short film. The college computers have tight access on certain websites which you can/cannot access and unfortunately online video downloaders were restricted; this meant that we couldn't download any music for the short film. To overcome this, I downloaded the videos from my phone and sent them through teams, to which I then downloaded it from teams onto my hard drive - then imported into Premiere Pro.
Focusing on the last two days of editing, all that was needed to do was title cards, credits and colour grading. My teacher helped walk me through what to do for colouring and I began adjusting the settings on certain scenes so they were matched the overall vibe of the short film. I used these settings for most scenes:
The title card and credits were the last thing I did as they both involved text, I first worked on credits as it needed a lot more detail than the intro. I wrote out everything I was going to include on a separate word document to make sure everything was spelt correctly, then I copy and pasted it onto the project file and adjusted minor things like the font, text size etc. Once that was complete, I made them roll down and messed around with the timings so it wasn't going by too fast or too slow; I also extended the music on the final scene so it stretched over the credits then I faded it out. Focusing on the title card, I added in 'Lost Souls' as a layer the split it up and changed the colour of the text so it doesn't look bland. I repeated this but made the text hollow before fading it off screen. With that done, the edit was complete.
I asked my tutor to look over the finished product and the only thing that needed changing after being assessed was the audio levels, in which Grayson fixed. The final product is done with one day left before the deadline.
Task 5 - Evaluation:
Everything relating to the documents, filming and editing were all done at a good pace so that me or Grayson weren't far behind in anything and we had a comfortable amount of time before the deadline. A lot of hours went into planning for the film which you can view on the google drive link in the 'Lost Souls Planning' section. I split the documents work load so neither one of us were doing everything and it was all equal; out of all the documents I feel that the shot list took me the longest but I do believe it worth it in the end. For most of the practical documents (risk assessments, location recces etc.) almost all of them were done in the same day as creating them because we filmed near the college, apart from the locations away such as the house. A main delay with locations was that Grayson had written to an office complex to ask about available spaces and we had to wait a little while for a reply. They had gotten back to us although they were only free for use in June, which was a month past our deadline.
A lot of things went well when looking at everything overall, for example we were one of the first groups to be able to fill out scheduling cards, this meant we could use the actors before other groups book them out. We also were able to quickly find a new place to film when the office space wasn't available. Focusing in on pre-production, the areas outside to film where next to the college so me and Grayson were able to leave and go out to look for health hazards and fully write up a risk assessment/location recce. On one of the days, me and Grayson left college and went into Stockton town to look for props and set dressing - we weren't able to find much so we then tried Middlesbrough town the next day. The next time we were in college. we were able to go into the green screen room and set dress it with the props and set dressing although a problem occurred which I will explain in the next paragraph. When filming at the house, on the last day we managed to fit in a lot of the scenes we were meant to film the next week over due to a problem, which was good because at that point it was looking like we'd have to cut out some scenes which luckily we didn't have to.
Looking into what didn't go well and could've improved, there are quite a few things. A lot of the problems mainly fell onto the actors being careless when it came to filming and being mindful of the film, a few hours of the film had been lost due to actors not showing up on time or if they did they were very unprepared and we had to give breaks while they composed themselves. The actors' tutor also had cut one of the filming days because the actors hadn't told their tutor when they were filming, this reflected badly on the crew as we had to rush and fit in two days worth of filming on one. Another thing, the actors didn't show up in the correct costumes which meant there was no consistency throughout the short film, when Grayson had mentioned that they should've shown up in the correct costume they simply just said 'it's fine'. When on set, they also kept messing around which further pushed back our filming time. Looking into set dressing, me and my partner had decorated the green screen room to film the next day (we had told our tutor in advance) but another group hadn't looked at the scheduling cards and went in on the morning; then took down all of all settings to put up theirs. Due to this, we had to wait for the group to finish filming then redress the set - this inconvenience cost us around 3 hours of filming time. A major problem while filming outside of the college was that the equipment (more specifically the light batteries and tripods) were broken so for most of the production we had to go handheld and without proper lighting. When we were filming some scenes, the lights died halfway through and they kept cutting out so we had to redo scenes more than two times; before we decided to just stop trying the lights. We had taken a broken light battery without realising as well as taking a broken tripod without knowing. For the next time I do a project and film, I will know to set standards with the actors to make sure they know their lines and costumes, what time to arrive definitely etc. I will also take into consideration about casting them next time as I know they aren't as reliable. Another thing I could improve next time when filming is making sure that I test out all of the equipment before taking them off-site, to try and avoid the problem I ran into with the light batteries not working and the tripod not working either. Filming took approximately 4 days whereas editing was about 7.
Looking back on the final edit of the film, I wish we did some scenes differently especially with the bad lighting. I also wish we did some of the house scenes different as we broke the 180 degree rule during the kitchen scene but didn't have enough time to go back and redo it. If you look closely in the film, when Eris is speaking she's looking the completely opposite way to Hunter, we tried fixing it in editing but it didn't work out. Apart from that, I'm happy with the rest of the shots.
Specific Targets Paragraph:
I had previously stated that for my targets, I would like to get more experiencing on directing, camera operating and set dressing and with this production I was able to complete two of those things. I was the main camera operator which was stressful at times but I'm glad it was because without that stress I wouldn't fully get the experience of working even when it's hard. I managed to get a few good shots for the short film and the rest were just shots from a corner. With set dressing, this was properly my first time set dressing and even going out to buy props and decorations. I feel like I could do with a lot more work on it but now I have a basic knowledge of it and I know for the future to improve on it. This project also made me set out some more targets for the future. I'd like to achieve:
- Being a Director,
- Work on Set Design,
- Work on Costumes,
- More work on Editing.
With that, I'm thankful to be apart of this project and I'd love to work more in those areas in the near future.
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