2. WEEK 1 DEVELOPMENT
As of the first week I have been given two tasks:
• The first task that I have been given is to research 3 or more people that are related to what I'm creating for my final major project. Since I am
crating a short film for this I chose 5 different film directors, through researching the life and beliefs of these people I can develop an
understanding of how they came to be and how they got inspiration for their work. Through my first director of Wes craven, who I chose
because I am doing a horror/ slasher film and he is renowned for nightmare on elm street, Friday the 13th and scream I was able to see how
he came up with the ideas for each of these films and how he went about creating them such as props and special affects, these are techniques
that I can use in my own film. The second director that I chose to study was James Wan from this I could see his progression from making a
film with no budget in one room (saw) to making a billion dollar box office film (Aquaman) his life is fascinating and I found it to be useful
research towards my film.
• The second task was the proposal, here I was given different sections to fill out for the short film that I am going to create, the first part was a
short film title. The title that I came up with was “Run” its short and simple like ‘Scream’ by Wes Craven at this point my title is subject to
change, I don’t think that I will keep it but I need more time to think of a title better fitting to my short film. I then moved on to the area of
work which is a short film. The next part of the proposal was the rational which I feel happy about,, I spoke about previous work iv done and
how I will use what I have learnt from those previous projects in my current project. The most important part was the project concept, I feel I
explained my project concept well but there are definelty improvements I need to make and this lies with the structure I went with, I talked
about the project as a whole where as I feel to improve I should have broken down the project concept into parts for example characters, plot
and props etc.… explaining exactly how ambitious my project is, I will definelty go back and do this as son as I can. The next part of the
proposal is the “how I intend to evaluate” this is where I explain how I will review my product at the end and make changes based upon the
feedback I receive.
I feel good about my proposal, I feel that it is set out well and contains good analytics as to what I'm going to create. I definelty feel I have enough
knowledge to succeed. I need to focus more research and primary and I need to start secondary research. Its important that I get interviews and
surveys from people as I would like to analyse my audience. I have done more than the approximation of work required, so I feel that I have
produced enough work and to a good standard. I can improve my research by going even more in-depth with the analysis of the film directors but
currently I don’t have the time. For the proposal I would structure my answers a little better.
3. WEEK 2 DEVELOPMENT
In the second week I started the main research PowerPoint, I designed a structure to follow when creating this PowerPoint so I had slides
sections ready, I feel that this was helpful as it meant that I was organised and ready to start. The sections that I had for this PowerPoint where:
Audience profile
Existing products
Existing product summary's
Props and costumes
From these sections I completed, audience profile, four existing products with summary's on each and props and costumes in the first week, this
is the best that I could do as I have put lots of detail into these sections so that I could cover my bases. A problem I had on the similar existing
products was I started looking at a full film which was to long to study and the length of film made it to different from my short film to talk about,
I solved this by deleting this and re making the similar exiting products aimed at specific scenes from films related to my product and short in
length. I felt that it was best to go for products with a similar style to what I was doing, as I'm taking various different aspects and putting them
into one film even little details that are similar in my film to others would be a big help to look at. I chose to look at the watchmen intro, my intro
is heavily inspired by the way this intro is done, the way the camera moves slowly and smoothly with the slow motion aspects. This was a big help
for me, as I feel looking in depth into how they have created this affect shows me what I need to do to get somewhat of a similar result. On these
existing products I also found it extremely helpful to look at the colour schemes of these existing products, how they have managed to contrast
clothing with darkness for example or title colours with a already colourful scene.
Locations
Surveys
Interviews
Bibliography
4. WEEK 3 DEVELOPMENT
In this week I finished off my main research PowerPoint, this meant that I had to:
• Find locations for the different areas I need to film
• Creating, getting responses and analysing findings on the survey
• Having interviews with people about my what they expect from my type of films and analysing the findings
• Completing the bibliography of the different sources I have read, set up in the style of the Harvard reference
When finding the locations although I needed something that fit the setting that I wanted in my head it was also very important that it was close
and easy to get to, not just for me but for potential cast and crew, as I would be filming the same scene on multiple days I needed to make sure it
would be somewhere of easy access that people could get to without to much trouble. The risk of the cast and crew not being able to make it one
of the days on the schedule is to much of a risk. Looking around the local area I found locations that fit where I needed for filming. I felt that they
where great choices because they matched all requirements, I did however have some bad look finding a location by a river this is because for the
scene I'm doing I need it to be dark and as it will be summer when I'm filming the sundown isn’t set till about half 9 each night and most of the
locations that I found for filming where public areas that closed early on. I was however able to find a location that was a walking lane but beside
it a large field with a river further down, it was slightly out of the way but still within good distance for people to get to. For the surveys I came up
with 10 questions that where relevant to my film, the idea I had was to ask them what ideas they preferred from a selection for my film, I was
contemplating different ideas for my film but the survey helped get responses from people to see what others thought sounded better. After
analysing the responses I was able to see what people would prefer and what choice would best entertain them, but I made sure to stick along the
lines of my original premise. When conducting the interviews it gave me a chance to have an discussion with people to run my ideas for my film
by them and see what they thought. a problem that I had however was one of the interviewees decided to answer with joke answers instead of
helpful ones so I removed them and found someone else to interview and this was much more helpful. When completing the bibliography I had a
problem with the internet not allowing me access to sources I used, I was able to resolve this however by switching from Firefox to chrome. After
this I was able to collect the sources I had used and set them up into a Harvard reference.
5. WEEK 4 DEVELOPMENT
In this week I started a problem solving PowerPoint, in this PowerPoint I was to look at issues and problems that could go wrong with either my
written, software edited, saved and filmed work. This would come up with contingency plans in case any of these issues happened to me at any
point in my work. To start with I set my PowerPoint out by moving different problems into different areas, these areas were:
• Mind map practical and technical
• Mind map theoretical
• Camera problems
• Equipment problems
• Props and costume problems
I have been given two weeks to complete this work and so far at the end of this week I have completed: mind maps for practical and technical and
theory, the camera, equipment, props and costumes, filming outside and unwanted noise problems. I completed these within the time, I had
problems thinking of potential problems, thinking of things that could go wrong in each of these areas without sounding far fetched, but it
became more clear when I started thinking about what has gone wrong in these areas in the past to me on other projects and how I could have
fixed it at the time had I had more time. For the mind maps I first created a simplistic map for practical and technical problems and a simplistic
mind map for theoretical problems and after filming out enough ideas I created another mind map for each, looking more in-depth at these issue
and from this I was able to select the problems that I felt where most likely to happen so I could give a much more in depth look on how I could fic
the issues in the areas. I feel this was the best way to go about it, looking at the multiple problems that could happen in each area meant that I
was better prepared for each.
• Filming outside problems
• Unwanted Noise Problems
• Solutions and alternatives
summary
• Health and Safety
• Cost and time
• Research for Practical
• Experiments one, two and three
• Experiments summary
6. WEEK 5 DEVELOPMENT
In this week I continued with the problem solving PowerPoint, this week however I had bigger parts to complete such as my experiments,
this meant that these would be more time consuming. To start with I had problems with time management, I had given myself insufficient
time due to underestimating how long the first part of the PowerPoint would take to complete. By the end of the week however I was able
to complete it but it took a huge push and filled me with stress. This week I completed the final parts which were:
• Solutions and alternatives summary
• Health and safety
• Cost and time
• Research for practical
• Experiments one, two, thee and the experiments summary
Within the first day of the week I had completed the summary, it was fairly simple I discussed what had helped me the most from the
problems and which ones I felt would be more useful to me. In the second day I completed health and safety and made a start on cost and
time. on the third day I booked out equipment for filming and finished the cost and time, the reason that It took so long to complete cost
and time is because I needed to research all the props, costumes and times that I would be filming and starting filming, looking at this
meant I could see how much money I needed and when I would need it for, I found this extremely helpful because it meant I could prepare
so that I wouldn’t run into any financial problems and if I couldn’t get the money required in time I looked at cheaper alternatives that would
change my film slightly but would be there if need be. On the fourth day I completed research for practical and started experiment one, this
is where I took a few people and went to practice some shots that I would be using in my film to make sure I could do the shots and to see if
I needed work on them. On the sixth day I created a soundtrack on garage band the experiment was the second on the list and gave me an
opportunity to practice on garage band and if I had problems come up with ways to solve them. The final day I went out with an audio
recorder to collect sound affects and put them together to create a sound affect story, I found these really useful because it gave me
practice in all practical areas that I will be working in on my final product.
7. WEEK 6 DEVELOPMENT
In this week I had a task and I gave myself an additional one, my main task was to start planning the part of planning I started with was creating a
scene script, a full in-depth explanation of what my story plan is, what its about and what it is going to include. My own personal task of the week
was to go back to an earlier piece of work and improve upon it, this was the contextual research.
For my scene script planning it was clear that I needed there to come up with an in detailed plan of what the story was and what I wanted from
every scene as an initial idea. I started with an explanation of the general idea, this was an intro to a big film, this intro would introduce the
characters, show the story they have been put into. The genre of the film is a horror/ thriller and slasher. My first idea was to have an opening
scene, this would be a fast paced opening, the reason that I felt this best is because it would be fun to watch and fun to make, it would follow a
victim been chased and cornered by a killer, the fast paced opening is intended to pull the audience in. from this scene I would move in on the
main premise of the film an artistic title sequence to set up the movie, after researching different products it is clear that title sequences when
done right can be something special, the opening to baby driver or the opening to watchmen as an example, the films both open up with a fast
paced sequenced. Baby driver opens with a car chase that is fast paced introducing the movie and then it moves into its credits title sequence
where the main character is walking for coffee with earphones in as the camera follows with the song lyrics on different parts of the street as he
passes and the credits. Watchmen opens a fight scene between the comedian and an assassin and then moves into the intro an artistic title
sequence that’s shows the history of the world of the watchmen while showing off the cast and crew. I felt that this was something to take heavy
inspiration from in my plan and so I followed the structure. In my film I decided to go with seven prior victims telling the story of their rime
scenes and introducing the detective as a character the same time. I was able to complete the final story plan within half the week and so I spent
the rest adding to the contextual research.
In the contextual research I decided to go back an improve it, the extra work I put in was genre theory, after progressing through to the planning
stages I felt that this was missing, I looked at horror theory, slasher theory and horror theory, I'm glad that I did because it prepared me for
writing the shots lists and planning because it showed me what makes these genres stand out and the best parts of the genres to take from.
8. WEEK 7 DEVELOPMENT
In this week I started the planning PowerPoints which is in straight connection to my scene script preparation. In this PowerPoint I had to look
into numerous aspects to prepare for my actual filming of the project. This PowerPoint was split into two parts, these are general planning and
pre production. The first part of the planning document includes:
• Locations
• Finance
• Time
• Personnel
• Meetings
I have been given two weeks in total to complete these tasks and so far I have kept time management well, I completed the locations, and finance
on the first day, I had made it less time consuming on the finance and locations as I had already looked at possibility's for each in problem solving
and so in the planning it was simply certifying which I was definitely going to use. On the second day I completed the time, personnel and
meetings, I had a few problems with the meetings as some of the people that I intended to cast had a tricky schedule, it meant that on some days
where I had some people I didn’t have them and vice versa this gave me limited days to film on production but still sufficient after negotiations.
On the third and fourth day I completed equipment production and post and story boards. The storyboards took some time to make, I used the
decided locations from prior in the documents to design scenes around of what they would look like when finished with written descriptions of
what was happening in each scene in case the drawings weren't enough. The equipment took some time also as I needed to purchase some of the
equipment that I needed and book out the rest, this week I have purchased studio lights and a fog machine I did so because I felt them important
to my film. On sixth and seventh day I completed materials, supply and camera. For the materials I ordered a selection of chosen masks that are
needed for the story of my short film a problem I had ordering them is that some where to be delivered in a months time so I had to pay extra for
faster delivery, just to ensure they got to me on time.
• Equipment production and post
• Story boards
• Materials
• Supply
• Camera
• Sound
• Rush log
• Audio levels
• Management
• Colour schemes
• Fonts
• Style sheets
• Image style
• Layout plans
• Titles plans
9. WEEK 8 DEVELOPMENT
In this week I was finishing off the rest of the planning PowerPoint, I found myself at a struggle with the deadline for this piece, I had spent lots of
time trying to get it exactly as I wanted it and it had set me behind on a few of the tasks, I was however able to push myself through the stress and
complete all but two of the parts to the planning. What I did get done this week was:
• Sound
• Rush log
• Audio levels
• Management
• Colour schemes
To start with I completed the sound and rush logs, the rush logs for the sound I went over exactly what the scenes I was shooting was and exactly
what sound affects I would need for each of these scenes, I also had the problem of soundtrack, from my experiments I had issues using garage
band but I would also need vocals for the title sequence, this issue had me stressed quite a bit I came to the conclusion that I would have either
find someone to create a song, do a cover of a song that fit or use royalty free music. In the second and third day I completed audio levels and
management, this included me going back to my research to see what other products had done for audio levels and balance for the audio set up, it
was clear that on the chase scene the sound affects should be more of a focus than the soundtrack but on the title sequence the soundtrack should
be higher than the sound affects. On the fourth and fifth day I planned out my colour schemes and fonts, I decided that the best colour to go with
on the grading was a primary blue and secondary purple, this the contrasted with the colour scheme of the titles in the title sequence which is a
yellow with dark shadow. These compliment each other really well and create something that I really like, I also decided to use the same colour
schemes on the poser. For the fonts I decided that a bold more chunky font was best fitting for the for the title cards as they stood out more. I had
to go ack to research again to look at similar existing products and see how the set up the titles, this showed that they should be in all caps and
bold with a bigger letter size for the company names and a smaller letter size for the ‘presents’ and ‘staring’. On the sixth and seventh day I
created a style sheet and image style for the poster and possibility of title cards.
• Fonts
• Style sheets
• Image style
10. WEEK 9 DEVELOPMENT
In this week I finished off the planning PowerPoint, created documents for the cast and crew with information regarding where to be on the days
of filming and what there tasks will be and created a shot list for the film to follow exact so that I would have a range of shots that each
complimented the film. The final parts of the planning PowerPoint that I complete were:
• Layout plans
• Title plans
I finished off the layout plans and title plans within the first day of the week, for the layout plans I designed on paper what I wanted the poster to
look like, I felt it was the best way to visually display what I intend the poster to look like in my mind. For the title plans I applied the yellow
colour I had chosen the week before to bold fonts until I found a font that best fit the colour and looked the best on a blue and purple background.
The next part of the week was the documents to cast and crew, I opened up a word document and set up a simplistic sheet for the cast and crew
to easily understand, it meant they couldn’t claim they didn’t know to come and it gave me documented evidence that I had given instructions to
them. To do this I went back into planning and found the days that we decided to film and applied them to the documents, I found this to be
extremely useful.
The final part of the week I spent making an in-depth shot list, this I set up into a table so it was simple for me to read and see what needed to be
where, I chose to have two Colom's the first was ‘shots’ and then ‘where they will be used’ this is so that I can say what the shot should be and
then next to it where I intend it to be, how I want it to play out, at which and for what duration. After researching other shot lists and templates
and looking back at my other units and what template I used on them it became apparent to me that I should make my own, this is because I felt
the others where to spread out but not broken down enough, where as my design works better for me which is exactly what I need when I am
filming on the days.
After I had finished these tasks in the week I felt it best to go back through my other PowerPoints like problem solving and make sure that there
wasn’t any improvements that I could see that could be applied before production. I decided that an improvement I could make was the look and
design to make the PowerPoints more visually pleasing I changed how they where set up and then went through my work looking for spelling and
grammar errors and fixed all that I could see. I will go back through again towards the end however to double check and make sure.
12. WEEK 10 DEVELOPMENT
In my first week of production I started by booking out equipment, I had planned to film at the weekend by the end of the week on the
Saturday, the first part that I am filming is going to be the chase scene. I organised for 5 people come and help with the filming and had
given them all tasks. The 5 people who agreed to help me with the filming on the chase scene where: Jake Greenwood, Connor Wiffen,
Tahmid Ahmed, Jack Hickman and Tom Eastwood, I gave each of them roles some where cast and some where crew. The two cast members
where Jake and Connor I felt confident I had chosen the right people for this, Jake showed good acting in facial expressions, Connor was the
perfect build for a tall intimidating serial killer. I put tom in charge of the fog machine and explained to him how the controls for the fog
machine works and that I would give a hand signal when I want it on and that the different fingers I held up meant which button to press on
the fog controls. I felt comfortable with this because I could technically control it while working on the camera. I provided the two actors
with documents on what I wanted them to act out but I also prompted them before each shot to make sure that they knew exactly what I
wanted, after multiple takes we finally able to get all the shots I needed, we shot other 2 hours off footage for an estimated 50 to 1 minute
chase scene. This will give me a lot to do in the next week when editing through the chase scene.
A problem that came up when film the chase scene was the fog machine, when the fog exited the machine it wouldn’t spread in the
direction I wanted due to the wind, my solution to this problem was getting a extension lead to the plug so I could keep moving the fog
directly to where the I was shooting this way it made it onto the camera before It blew off in a different direction.
I gave Jack Hickman charge of the studio lights that I ordered for this chase scene inperticular, the lights where to help add better lighting to
reduce visual noise, the problem came about when setting up the studio lights it turned out that one of the bulbs sent to me was faulty, this
meant I could on use one of the lights, my way around this was using the UV light attachment on the camera to provide extra light, I then
moved the studio light every scene to be positioned directly behind the camera to light up as much of the scene as I can, I positioned the
light high up and aimed it down at the scene. I did however have to keep adjusting the light which took time for every shot, as it was a
chase scene the locations changed quickly and this is why I'm extremely thankful I had extension leads.
I have left myself with the focus for next week on the editing, during the week before filming I set out a plan on what to work on for the
chase scene, this was soundtrack, colour grading, shot cuts, transitions and sound affects.
13. WEEK 11 DEVELOPMENT
In this week my focus was editing the chase scene I had recorded the week before, I felt it would be best if I set myself individual tasks for
the editing with things that I should get done on different days, I felt this was the best idea because in previous units my time managements
on the product has been a problem, spending to much time on one part gives me less on others and this means the quality of my
productions have been inconsistent in the past. This time I set my self a structure.
On the first and second day I focused on the recorded scenes with no audio, cutting in so the shots where timed and fit together. I had
problem with a few of the shots I had taken, as I filmed at night visual noise made its way into a few of the shots, I did my best to remove it
but the camera I was using (Canon 600D) had trouble no mater what I changed the shutter speed, aperture or ISO to in the end I was able
to get it to point were there was a lot less visual noise. There was still noise however when editing, my solution to this was taking it into
adobe after affects, I was able to remove 40% of the noise in some of the shots and up to 80% of visual noise in others, I then moved it
back into my premiere file, this was a very useful solution,
On the fourth and fifth day I worked on the audio to the chase scene, I moved the files off the audio recorder and into a new bin on premier
pro, I decided to first work on the most present sound affects, these where running sound affects and heavy breathing sound affects. It
turned out that the breathing sound affect I recorded didn't have the sound that I wanted and it didn't fit, my solution to this was I called the
actor in to watch the scenes and do multiple recordings of breathing in sync with the film timings, this proved to be affective and fit the film
really well.
On the sixth and seventh day I worked on the soundtrack to the chase scene, the soundtrack needed to set a tone and style for the film, I
wanted a comic, detective horror style to my slasher film and so I worked on mashing up common track styles form each, this proved to be
effective as it created an interesting suspenseful tune. A problem I had was that the balance between the instruments weren't quite what I
wanted, the violin was higher than the piano on some parts and this didn't fit the scene it was correlating with wanted, I was able to fix this
by turning down the EQ on the violin with a marker at the points it was to loud and then raising it at points where it should have been higher.
This meant I could create suspense with the piano when I needed to and I could have the piano as the soundtrack when the shot didn't
need suspense.
After finishing the week of productions I feel confident with the work that I have produced, it still needs a bit of work in the following weeks
but it’s a good start, something I need to do in the following week is colour grading as that is an important part of adding in my personal look
to the film. I also feel that the scene needs something more, something unique to it which is something that I need to think about for next
week, a way to add in something more.
14. WEEK 12 DEVELOPMENT
At the start of this week booked out equipment for the weekend to film an extra scene to my film that I had unplanned, after further review
on the length of my film it was going to be below 4 minutes long, this was a problem for me because I don’t feel comfortable with something
below four minutes, my solution to this was writing two new scenes that I added into planning. The two scenes that I came up with had two
different styles, the first idea I came up with was a scene of the killer using blood to paint the time stamp and dressing up the body, this
scene would be shot from the perspective of the killer, this gives something else to film in my production. The second scene that I created
was the home owner finding the corpse from the chase scene, this will also serve as a good transition into the intro scene.
On the first day of this week my focus was around colour grading the chase scene, my original intension was to colour grade it a blue on
purple, the experiments and research showed that these worked as a colour grade on the right temperature but as I came to my footage I
found that the colours didn’t give the look I wanted of my film. I solved this problem by going with different colours, I decided to go with a
orange and yellow colour grade, this fit the film better and brightened it up making it look more natural, I was surprised that these colours
worked the way they did on night shots but I'm happy that it looks the way it does.
The second day of this week I spent going through chase scene and cutting shots down that where to long since it was finished I wanted to
make sure that everything was right and that the chase scene had a good flow to it. I looked at each shot I had done on the final chase
scene and saw if it needed cutting, I wanted to make the scene as smooth and straight to the point as possible without dragging it out.
The third day I went out to film the ‘discovering the dead body’ scene I arranged for three people to show up for this scene so I could have
someone hold the audio and someone in control of the studio lights. The issue with this is that there was only one person that was able to
make it on the day, in my problem solving my solution was having people on backup but unfortunately I was unable to find anyone that could
make it as a backup before. This meant that in this scene that I shot was all controlled by myself, I had to do things differently, I recorded the
scene on the camera with the one actor I had, every shot I had to re position the lights.
On the fourth to the seventh day of the week I edited through this scene, I didn’t feel happy with it, it didn’t turn out how I had expected. The
problems I had was that some of the shots where darker than other but they where in the same location, this is because the studio light kept
shifting with no holding it on filming, in these days I was able to use some shots but I spent the last day preparing for re shoots and
arranging for people to come and help on a day they could definitely make this time.
15. WEEK 13 DEVELOPMENT
During this week I had planned to shoot two scenes on different days and edit through them, the first part I needed to shoot was the re
shoots from the scenes in the week prior and the second scene was the killer dressing up the dead body killed in the chase scene. I had
planned to do the reshoots on the first day, edit on the second and third day and then shoot the ‘dress up dead body’ scene on the fourth
day to edit through on the firth, sixth and seventh day.
On the first day I went out and did the reshoots to the scene, this time the people I needed turned up to help and I decided to shoot the
entire segment again, I felt that I could get it all better now that I had the people that I needed, the only potential problem I had during the
reshoot was that I only had the location to shoot in for a limited time, but I was able to get all the shots I wanted done before that time
came and overall the shots went really well.
On the second day I spent my time shifting through the scenes, making sure that each shot followed on smoothly and transitioned correctly,
I found that the when comparing the new footage to the old footage it looked a lot better which is why I'm glad I decided to reshoot the
whole segment had I not then it wouldn’t of matched in quality.
On the third day I applied audio to this scene and colour graded it, I went with the same colour grade as I had for the chase scene however
in this scene I turned down the temperature on the grade, this is because in the chase scene its night and darker where as this scene was
shot in the day and it was bright, my tweaks made the scenes look a lot more natural and help removed a lot of noise from the shots.
On the fourth day I was going to shoot the dressing up body scene, I had planned to do this with just me and the cast member, as it was
mostly close ups I was going to use the UV light saving me having to set up a studio light. However due to unforeseen circumstances the
cast member couldn’t come to film and when I tried to re arrange for a different date they claimed that they was busy on schedule until I
would have finished with my filming all together. I could not find someone else to play the role as it’s a direct follow on from the chase
scene set only seconds after, I needed this actor as he portrayed the character previously means I need that specific build and clothing for
continuity.
On the fifth to seventh day because I didn’t have the footage I had planned to edit, I spent these days going through my other two scenes
making sure that I had everything right and there was nothing else that needed adding. I also spent the last day planning how to design the
poster for my short films and decided that I would use on of the crime scene images from the titles as a poster cover.
