Refilming Plan

While we were at the beginning of our editing process we realised that there were some shots that did not work when edited together with other shots. So over the course of filming we made a list of shots that we as a group would be best to re-film as we continued our filming process. We think it is a good idea to have started editing while still in the middle of filming as this allows us to correct any mistakes made while at the same time allowing to keep on track to make the deadline for our short film to be produced.

Behind the scenes

Our filming process was  a little behind schedule due to casting issues, but we found a great replacement the next day. Our own group member Katie volunteered to do the acting, which all believed would be best mas she has been involved in the planning process and shall know how we want our short film to look. After sorting out casting, we hired a studio space in the college's gallery in the media building, set up equipment and got to work.

We decided also that we would show exclusive behind the scenes, in order to show how we are creating our student film.
 

We also decided to create a set diary, were we wanted to explain how we were working on set, explain our ideas and give an idea of how the process was going for us.

Typeface

Our group have started to decide our designs for the auxiliary tasks such as the poster and the double page spread. These are the narrowed down choices for the masthead of our film, as we think that these best suit our film genre of a psychological-horror-thriller.
1. We added a shadow to this text to help give the idea of a double personality to our main character. We also used italic font as this can suggest that things are not straight forward in the narrative.
2. Similar to number 1 we added a shadow to give the idea of a double personality, but this time we did use just a plain font as that can suggest that our main character is very blank and it's her two personalities that create who she is.
3. This bold tests conveys the idea of a that there is much to tell or learn about the character and the style of font represents a strange personality that is that of the main character.
4. This type of font is used in many films that tell the story or give an clue as to the twisted moment or subject that is coming the audiences way.

Audience Research

Gathering 5 eager film watchers that expressed an interest in films with a psychological thriller genre. We gave them a summary of our short films synopsis and followed onto show them our typeface designs and asked them to decide which typeface would be best used for both our opening film title and for our individual film posters.

All 5 participants seemed to agree that number 4 would be best used. Briefly explaining that it would make the film seem creepy and help suggest the idea that our character is different and is not who they really are.

Update

The group has decided to create video updates of where we are in our project process and what we have planned to move on to next.

Schedule for Production Process

Now that we have completed the research and planning process, we are now moving onto the production stage of the project. In this stage we shall be preparing, filming and editing our short film. In order to keep the process organised the group conducted a schedule this would allow us to know what the next step in the process was, in order to avoid confusion and the potential of missing the set deadline to have this stage complete.

Schedule

Week of:

Nov 4th-Preparation (costume, props and set up plan)
             -Storyboard
             -Blog tasks (complete and update)
Nov 11th-Last preparations
               -Begin filming-Nov 13th-Filming begins
                                       -14th-Review-Decide if re filming is needed
Nov 18th-Either:-Re filming-20th Nov
                           -Editing-context
Nov 25th-Editing-Finish context
                            -Start sound
Dec 2nd-Editing-Sound and Filters
                           -Auxiliary Tasks-Film poster, double page spread and radio trailer (individual work)
Dec 9th-Finish auxiliary tasks
             -Editing-Credits and titles
Dec 16th-Make any final changes
               -Ready for exhibition

We also conducted a list of tools and necessities we needed for filming our short film and elements we needed to remember to apply filming in order for our film to have the right technical codes and conventions.

Costume

-Doll style dress
-Black colour scheme-representation of blank personality that was controlled by a negative influence

Props

-Mirrors
-Televisions
-Doll house

Tools

-Camera
-Set lighting
-Filters-red
-Tripod
-Track

Technical Skills

-Framing
-Lighting
-Angles
-Mise-en-scene
-Editing
-Camerawork
-Acting
-Themes and Narrative styles
-Sound

Mise-en-scene Features

-Body language
-Decor
-Props
-Lighting
-Costume
-Setting

Animated Storyboard

This is our animated story of our story film Reflection. This presents the key cinematography and camera techniques we are going to use when filming our short film. The group as a whole contributed, presenting ideas for shots that would have purpose because in a short film you only have a certain amount of time to tell the story and you can't waste a single shot. We believe that our proposed shots each have a purpose and shall both narrative and symbolic codes that shall be easy for the target audience to understand, allowing them to enjoy the film to its full potential.

DISCLAIMER
The music used in this presentation was a music download belonging to a group member.
ALL RIGHTS to the song go to right owners.

Research and Planning Process

The first stage of the project was the research and planning. After being given an introduction to the project we first worked as individuals to explore the elements and conventions that made short films live up to expectations, by exploring successful short films, their filmmakers and their audiences. The following task was to how short films were marketed in the distribution process. The next piece of research was film genre, followed by exploring the narrative ideas of Todorov and Propp. We were then set the task of creating a birthday party scene and applying a genre to it by using every element we had researched, we then did an audience research to see if we had applied the correct elements that audiences were able to recognise the genre. Then explored more ideas such as anti-narrative and the shark-bite narrative. Gathering all this knowledge in groups we watched then reviewed short films which we believed lived up to short film conventions and those we believed didn't.

After the research we then went into our own choice of groups to who we would create our short films with. With all of our newly gained knowledge and after being given a pitch by our course leader on the process we needed to take and the elements, codes and conventions we needed to include, we created group spider diagrams of those elements we would want and need to consider when creating our short film.

After our group started to think of ideas for our short film. Thinking of possible story lines, titles and the rules we would and should follow to help our short film live up to the expectations of present short films successes.We created a power point of all of our ideas and presented it to our course leader and the other groups in a special pitch presentation. Along with our presentation we created questionnaires for the other groups to answer questions on what they thought about our ideas. These allowed us to know what they thought about our ideas, narrative and if our short film would appeal to them because age-wise they are our groups target audience.

We handed out one per group, although it would have been better to create one each to get a clearer idea of individual thoughts, we unfortunately could not print out enough for one each. The feedback we did get showed that the target audience we aimed for was positive as they stated that they would be interested in viewing our short film, also our idea was original, which is important as every short filmmaker would want their short film to standout and not be compared or a repeat of an idea that has been done many times before. The only negative feedback we received was that our narrative was too complex and that we need to simplify it, this type of feedback was important when it came to other tasks such as creating our animated story board.

The pitch presentation was the conclusion in the research and planning process, the next stage is the production process.

Ideas for Short Film PowerPoint Pitch

After exploring, then combining our group ideas together, we conducted a power point that concluded our final ideas. This introduces us as a production team and explains our project. Such as our chosen team name, film title, chosen audience, synopsis, distribution and exhibition ideas. This PowerPoint was also used to pitch our idea, as we went into greater detail of our ideas and our findings when we had concluded the research and planning stage of our project.

Team Kane: Reflection by KatieMitchellMedia