Research & Planning

The Beginning....11TH SEPTEMBER

Today we began the making of our short film...as part of our media coursework, we are creating a 5 minute short film on a genre of our choice in groups of 3 or 4, I was in a group of 3 with Tommy and Joe. We were put into our groups where we firstly looked at other blogs for inspirations and how we could gain higher marks to make the blogs the best we can, this enabled me to see what I need to include on my blog. 

A few key things that I noticed were:
- Pictures & Videos  
- Highlight key areas that you want to stand out
- Add comments in different colours 
- Create a story, so that everything flows

All the above are what stood out to me in the blogs and is what I will be aiming to include in my blog to make it more creative instead of just loads of writing as I'm sure you'd get bored because I know I would.

Individually, we then researched short films on YouTube for some inspiration and to see what other people have created. For each short film I watched, I noted down what I liked and what didn't work for me, therefore I was able to get some ideas of shots for example, to include in out short film. Below, I have added the clips so that you can see what I picked out from each one I watched.

Research on Short Films:

The first short film that I watched was called 'Choice', which I have added it below as well as 2 other short films that I have watched so that you can give your opinion and see whether you pulled out what I liked. As I watched them, I have filmed some strengths and weaknesses for each one.

The next short film that I watched is called 'Blue' which is about her boyfriend controlling her life and not letting her leave his side as he doesn't trust her. I have added a video of the strengths and weaknesses that I picked out below. 

The last short film I watched was called 'Exposed', where I filmed the strengths and weaknesses that I picked out from the short film.

14TH SEPTEMBER - 3 PLANNED IDEA'S

As a group, we planned 3 potential ideas for our short film which I have added below. For each idea we noted down some locations, characters, props, some potential shots and the narrative. Our 3 ideas were a female teenager being kidnapped but he is kept unknown throughout the film, a celebrity in today's society to see what life is like behind the eye as its not all as it seems and lastly a politician in the eye of the public who makes out she is part of a extremist. After we had brainstormed the 3 ideas, we then discussed and decided on what idea we would like to film and what one we liked the most. 

As a group we decided on Idea 1, we had a suitable location to film as with one of the ideas it would of been quite hard, so we had to make sure that we had a location that we could reach easily. Additionally, this idea is quite a relatable subject and one that the audience can connect with as we all know how the media portrays some celebrities, so they will be able to understand the storyline more, especially as social media is used so much these days. Furthermore, we liked the idea of 'eye shot in every different situation' meaning that the camera zooms into her eyes throughout the film so the audience can clearly identify her issues with being in the public eye. For this idea, we involved a devil as Tommy suggested the idea of a conspiracy but it also helps show what else pushes her over the edge of being a celebrity.

GENRE: HORROR FICTION

When discussing our idea, Tommy was inspired through the outfits of Lady Gaga as our protagonist was a famous singer but she has lost her fame. He came out with the idea of her to wear out-going and strange outfits as Lady Gaga does which you can see from the picture. We wanted to portray our protagonist different from the usual.

However, when I was researching on Amazon and the internet for costumes like these, they all looked quite tacky and cheap; nothing stood out for me and as we are on a tight budget we couldn't spent a lot of the costume, therefore we decided that we wouldn't progress with this idea as it wouldn't of met the standard that we wanted it to be.

27 Club:

Here is the trailer from the film 'The 27 Club'  which links well with our protagonist as she has lost her fame as a famous singer and is left with nothing, therefore leading her to drown herself in alcohol and the use of drugs. When discussing this as a group, Joe has heard about the 27 club and after the lesson I researched more about it to see who was involved and the film itself. It has a narrative about a male protagonist named Tom who had too much fame and too many drugs, leading him to a tragic death. The 27 club did actually give us some inspiration in the fact that all these celebrities died on their 27th Birthday, for example Amy Winehouse and Jimi Hendrix, mainly due to drug overdose, and we did actually decide to include some of those news reports from the past celebrities who have died on their 27th to make it clearer to the audience what is going on, however until I researched this I didn't realise their was an actual film similar to it. In addition, it gave us inspiration as our protagonist experiences the same thing as these celebrities and it actually gave us a way of ending our short film of showing her ending her life and then a news report similar to when they announced the deaths of the celebrities part of the '27 club'.

We didn't chose idea 2 as we felt that its quite an original idea and has been done before, therefore we wanted to do something a bit different. I thought that the audience wouldn't be as engaged compared to idea 1 and last year I did a opening on a mental illness and it was quite hard to film and make it clear for the audience, therefore this put me off the idea even more. 

18TH SEPTEMBER - CLEAR NARRATIVE

As we have sorted out our final idea and narrative, as a group we then roughly wrote down a draft of what is going to happen in our short film, we knew this wasn't a final, I just noted it down whilst we were talking about it but as you can see below I re-wrote it in a clearer way so that you can see an idea of how we wanted our short film to go.

I then decided to annotate the draft myself in red pen so that you can identify the changes that we made to our narrative as after the writing the first draft we then discussed changes where it was suggested about starting and ending the film with the key news footage.

Here is our final narrative so far.....

These are the changes that we made to our idea after discussing it when we had finished the first draft of our narrative, this enables you to clearly see the improvements we made. 

Research on a Similar Narrative - Ghost Rider 

After we had done some developments to our idea and from our first ever idea, I did some research on a film similar to our narrative called 'Ghost Rider' which is about a character called Johnny Blaze who sold his soul years ago to save his life of a loved one. He becomes a famous motorcyclist, who risks his life he all the shows he does. However, Mephistopheles proposes Johnny to release his contract if he become the "Ghost Rider" and defeat his evil son Blackheart, who wants to possess one thousand evil souls and transform hell on earth.

From the mind-map above, you can see we had an idea of the protagonist falling in love, however she pushes him away but when me and Joe were discussing this we had an idea that he found out what was going on with the devil and he was going to risk his life for her. Our idea developed through the inspiration of this as in 'Ghost Rider' he knew he had to get rid of the devil to get the girl he loved back so in our narrative our protagonists boyfriend was going to get rid of the devil for her. In this trailer, where they showed the signed contract, I really liked where the blood dripped as it represented that their will be a life ended if he doesn't get rid of the devil. 

Secondary Research on Horror fiction

For our short film as you can see our genre is Horror Fiction, therefore I have done some secondary research on the genre so that you can find out more about it. I will also research and brainstorm some other genres which I will add further down my blog.

Sub-genres of Horror:

Action Horror - combining the intrusion of an evil force, event, or supernatural personage of horror movies with the gunfights and frenetic chases of the action genre. An example of action horror is the film 'Dracula untold', from this you can see the chase sequences and the fighting amongst the characters which shows its sub-genre and it brings in the horror through the main character turning into a Dracula. We decided that this would be quite hard to film with limited locations and props to make it look like an action horror and make it effective for the audience.

Body Horror - Which the horror is principally derived from the unnatural graphic transformation, degeneration or destruction of the physical body. As we are restricted to what we can film and this sub-genre especially I felt it would be quite hard to target an audience suitable as it doesn't come across as a very appealing sub-genre therefore it may only have a very limited audience and also it would be very difficult to film with limited time and locations. 

Comedy Horror - combines elements of comedy and horror fiction. It almost always inevitably crosses over with black comedy. An example is the film 'Scary Movie'. This sub-genre didn't appeal to me, and we felt that this would be almost impossible to film and make it engaging enough for the audience to want to watch as we would have to made it funny for our audience as otherwise it wouldn't really be classed as a comedy and they would get bored. 

Drama Horror - a film that focuses on imperiled characters dealing with realistic emotional struggles, often involving dysfunctional family relations, in a horror setting. An example is the recent film 'IT' which portrays families emotions through children disappearing in their town.  In a way our film links to this sub-genre in the sense that our main character Farrah Lake is struggling with loosing her fame as an actress, therefore her emotions lead her to alcohol. She has lost everything.

Gothic Horror - Is a genre or mode of literature and film that combines fiction and horror, death, and at times romance. Due to being limited to what we can film, we decided that this would be hard to film to make it clear to the audience of the sub-genre and make it effective throughout as it can be quite gruesome. 

Psychological Horror - Is a sub-genre of horror and psychological fiction that relies on mental, emotional and psychological states to frighten, or unsettle readers or viewers. An example for this sub-genre is the film 'Babadook', this film is quite unpleasant and shows the emotional and psychological emotions of the main character. Even though this genre would be suitable for us to film, as a group we felt that this sub-genre is used quite a lot, and we wanted to do something different to the usual, so this wasn't an option right from the start. 

As you can see I have added some examples for some of the sub-genres, therefore it enables you to see the different types of horrors and sub-genres within.

22ND SEPTEMBER - DEVELOPMENT 

We are changing our idea again...

In this lesson, me and Joe discussed our idea, where we decided that our idea was too much and also too difficult to film for the time we have. Also, personally I felt a few of the shots that I had written down in the final narrative were actually unnecessary, for example the scene in the forest where she goes to the Witch, it didn't really need to be shown there in our short film so we firstly cut them out and then overall we decided that the idea was too much. So as you can see below I have created a brainstorm or our developed and possible idea, it does include some elements from the previous narrative but with also quite a few changes. As Tommy wasn't in for this lesson we need to discuss this with him and come to a final narrative next lesson.

25TH SEPTEMBER....WE HAVE GOT OUR NARRATIVE!

We have finally finished our final idea.....what a relief.

Draft 1: Treatment 
In this lesson we also completed a draft of our treatment which allows you to understand how we plan to show our short film and the story behind what is going to happen in it, I have added it below so that you can have a read.

Here is some Theorists Research on Genre, Audience and Narrative, that I have found out. I didn't do much of this last year so this time I'm going to research more into it.

Genre Research - Steve Neale'sTheory:

From researching this theorist, I can now see that genre is a key element when making a film as you must made sure you use the correct conventions to match the genre so that us as an audience understand more clearly and can identify when watching the film and also it enables audiences to know whether they'd be interested in the film through the genre. Furthermore, the distributors can also identify through research what audience they can target through the genre as specific people like specific genres. Additionally, our genre is a horror, so therefore we have included conventions to show that to the audience, as we are including a devil in our film.

Audience Research

I looked at two theories for Audience Research and these were the 'Hypodermic Needle Theory' and the 'Two-Step Flow Theory'.

Narrative Theory - Claude Levi-Strauss

This theory is based around the binary opposites and that the binary opposites are the central climax of a narrative structure. Levi-Strauss was more interested in what the message was at the heart of the story that was significant for the audience. What important social message is being communicated and what value's are being communicated. He said that to understand the theme of a story you need to look at the conflict within it.

Here is a video to summarise his theory:

29TH SEPTEMBER - CHARACTER PROFILES 

Today's lesson, I have created our character profiles for our film, it gives you a little insight into our characters and some of the traits they are portraying in our film. 

Name: Farrah Lake
Age: 23
Height:
Eye Colour: Brown
Appearance: Tracksuit/leggings at the beginning/changes to in the last scene, brown hair
Nationality: British
Personality: Depressed, unhappy, weak
Background: Famous Actress
Family: Mum could have pushed her into fame, alienated her family as when she was famous she thought she didn't need them.
Values: Doesn't have any as she doesn't care anymore 

Due to circumstances we had to change our actor, therefore we have chosen someone else to play the role in our film and here she is.

Name: Elijah Neman
Age: 28
Eye Colour: Green
Height: 
Appearance: Wearing all black, brown hair
Nationality: British
Personality: Hippie, spiritual, friendly, approachable
Background: Medium
Family: Disappointed in him as its not a proper job, he doesn't follow their paths
Values: Honest, truthful

Name: Devil

Age: N/A
Eye Colour: Black

Height: 5ft 11
Appearance: wearing all black
Nationality: British
Personality: unfriendly, dark, cold hearted
Background: N/A
Values:  

We created a video on what characters our actors will be playing in our film and how there character will be portrayed throughout, therefore it gives you an insight into them.

CHARACTER RESEARCH

We have now finalised our idea and our characters, so I am now going to do some character research on our characters. 

For our protagonist Farrah Lake who plays a vulnerable character due to loosing her fame which leads her to alcohol and drugs, I therefore researched female characters who play similar roles to this. One film I found is called 'House of Sand and Fog' (2003), where the female character called Kathy (Jennifer Connelly)  is out to claim her repossessed house from the new owners of an Iranian family, and therefore she is left homeless, causing her huge amounts of stress, leading her to wanting to give up. 

These are a few images from the film which I think really show her character within the film, as you can see she doesn't bother with her appearance and from her facial expressions it portrays how distressed and emotional she is. In addition, these close up/medium shots are used to show the audience her emotions and this is exactly what we want to show with our protagonist at the start of our short film when she has nothing.

Protagonist: Kathy Nicolo 

For our next character of the 'Devil' who plays the villan in our film, however our protagonist goes to him for help to gain back her fame, I already had a film in mind for this due to the research I have previously for similar narratives, which is 'Ghost Rider' (2008). 

I have added a clip of the scene with the Mephistopheles and a male character, so that you can see the character that he plays and the conventions of him. I have also added a few pictures to show the appearance of the devil, as you can see he is wearing all black, which is what our costume will be for the devil in our film. The close up of his eyes shows the evil side and the way his eyes change colour makes him different from everyone else, as for our film we had the idea that the devil would wear contacts so that he wasn't just normal.

Devil

OUR ROLES

In addition, in today's lesson me and Joe also did a draft for our roles for making the film and as Tommy wasn't in we made sure we checked with him after.

Director - Joe
Cameraman - Tommy
Editing - Me (Becky) and Tommy
Music - Joe
Production Designer - Tommy
Location Manager - Me (Becky)

MONDAY 2ND OCTOBER - LOCATIONS, PROPS & COSTUME

Today we finalised out locations, props and costume. Me and Joe brainstormed the locations and props for each scene in the film so that we could make sure we had a clear location for each scene and as we have a budget for our film we needed to list the props that we need and calculate the cost, so we had to make sure we didn't miss anything out. 

We then listed the costumes for each character in the scenes....

As you can see from the picture in scene 1 to scene 4 we decided to dress the protagonist in a tracksuit or leggings to portray that she has nothing left and that the tracksuit is all she has due to her character of losing her fame, and also I suggested having her hair up in a mess. We then changed her costume in the last scene as this is when we are showing that she gets her fame back so we are dressing her in something more glamorous and expensive, so we had the idea of a satin night gown but we haven't finalised that as we need to see if we can get a costume like that. Additionally, for the medium which is only in scene 2 we have chosen a costume of all black and maybe with some jewellery of a necklace with a cross on for example to show to the audience the spirituality of his character. Lastly, our final character of the Devil we had two ideas which involve either wearing all black but that clashes with the medium or a navy suit with red tie to portray the devil as red represents evil.

Possible Locations

As we have sorted locations, next I researched some possible location ideas to show you where we would like to film but these are off Google so it won't be the exact ones. Most of our film will be shown at her home but we also have a few other scenes where she goes to the devil. 

The scene where Farrah goes to see the devil, our idea was to meet at an abandoned cross road but discussing this we realised in Loughton/Essex it will be very hard to find an empty cross road that would suit our film perfectly, therefore we came to the conclusion that we needed to think of somewhere else which I will show further down. But here is a couple I found for where we would of preferred to film at.

In addition, I have done some research on films that have scenes at the crossroads as that is a location that we have for our film. Here are two different films, the first one is called X-files where crossroads have been used to portray that they need to find someone and they cant decide what way to go as their is 2 options but he goes straight over. Our film doesn't actually link to this scenario, however I quite liked how empty and deserted the cross roads are as it portrays mysteriousness, therefore it gave me some inspiration for ours. In our film, we plan to also film when its deserted, to show that no one is around to help our main character and due to it being filmed when its darker this should be easier for us to film.

This is the second film that I looked out which is called 'Cast Away', where he doesn't know what way he wants to go, which in a way is similar to the first trailer I added, however people are around at these crossroads. However, in this trailer I did like the shot and camera positioning when he was standing right in the middle of the road looking around as it made us wonder what he was thinking and where he was going to go.

The location where we have decided to film instead is...High Beech/Waltham Abbey as when it gets dark this would be the perfect location when Farrah goes to meet the Devil especially where the gates are and as its in the middle of the forest its quite enclosed and a quiet road where they wouldn't be found. Additionally, as we want to film it at night so when its dark, its not a busy road therefore we shouldn't be disrupted when filming

Another possible location that I quite liked from Google, was the mattress in the middle of the floor in an empty room that literally had nothing in, this links quite well with our film in the fact that the famous actress has nothing left so this would be perfect and make her character very clear to the audience. Obviously this is a bit extreme as we are portraying her to have a bit more than just a mattress but this is just an idea. However, for our film unfortunately we won't be able to use this idea, so instead we will just have a room with just the basics to show that she can't afford anything more. I will show this location further in the blog. 

In scene 5, this is where we are showing Farrah bringing back that fame that she had and living a much more luxury life, therefore as you can see from this picture it would be a perfect location, but obviously the bedroom won't be exactly like this but I just wanted to give you an idea of what sort of bedroom we would like. 

9TH OCTOBER - WHERE ARE WE FILMING?

We have now finalised all the locations that we are filming at as we had to make sure we had the right locations to fit what we wanted to show and the best place to create an atmosphere and effectiveness for the audience. Our 3 locations are my house, on way to high beech and Christie's house. 

Scene 1-3: Living Room

Within my house, we are just filming in the living room where we will show how Farrah isn't coping with life after she has lost her fame, below is the pictures of where will be filming.

However, as we are portraying her as having nothing left when we come to film these scenes, I will remove some of the props in these pictures to show she only has the bare minimum, therefore it will be more her character clearer to the audience. Additionally, we will most likely making the lighting in the room quite dim aswell but when we come to filming we can trial that out.

Scene 4: Forest

As you can see from the pictures I added just above on my blog of the forest, here is where we have decided to film when Farrah goes to the devil as at night time this will suit us perfectly, as the forest will create this spooky era which we want.

Scene 5: Modern House

For the last scene we are filming at Christie's house to show that difference in lifestyle as from the pictures I have added below, you can see that it is very modern and exactly what a celebrities place would be designed like, therefore it was the perfect location. Also, as this is where we are showing that she gets her fame back we needed to make sure that the audience can see that clear difference.

Potential Shot List

After sorting our narrative and final locations, I then created a potential shot list for our short film which we can discuss as a group and once we have completed our script later on in my research and planning we can then discuss final shot lists, here are some of my ideas.

Birds Eye View
We are very limited to using this shot due to what we are filming and being able to have the camera above the character, therefore it is just an possible shot if we find a way to use it as will look good seeing everything from above especially in the Seance scene.

This is a birds eye view shot in the film 'Maze Runner, as you can see from this shot, it portrays the danger of going through the maze and it shows what is happening from above as in this the characters know not to enter.

Medium Shot
We can use a media shot for a variety of shots in our film, but an idea that I had where we could possibly use it is when Farrah goes to open the door to her friend, leading to their conversation as you her whole figure doesn't need to be shown in the scene.

Extreme Close Up
This could be used when Farrah wakes up and the camera zooms out from her eye, showing the state of her character and through the zoom you see the state of her life and surroundings. This enables the audience to see how she is living and that she just lounges about.

Here is a extreme close up form the film 'Fault in our Stars', even though this shot doesn't show a lot it is actually an effective shot to use as it shows emotions through her eyes especially due to the storyline of this film. However, we aren't necessarily using it in that context as we are using this shot for when Farrah wakes up which shows the emotional state that she is in. 

Close Up
This could be used when Farrah is looking back at old photos and a tear-drop falls on the photo, this also enables us to see her facial expressions as through using a close up it means the audience have a clearer understanding of how the character is feeling and it shows the focus of the shot. 

Over the Shoulder 
. In addition, this shot can be used when Farrah is talking to her friend (the medium) about her situation. It enables the audience to focus on the character in the shot, but in reality a shot reverse shot may be better for this scene but when we come to discuss I will suggest both.

As you can see from this over the shoulder shot, the camera focuses on this character, therefore it enables the audience to do so aswell, therefore he is the focus point, and through this you see their facial expressions which show the audience there emotions.

Low Angle

This angle could be used when Farrah is at the forest and the camera is low whilst she is walking towards the devil, which could portray her fear of going to the devil and you could also have the car headlights on to be even more effective.

Here is the 'Maze Runner' trailer for you to watch where you can see the variety of shots used in this trailer and why they used those shots to show that specific scene. The low angle shot in this trailer was used a few times mainly when characters were trapped in that cage, and that the others characters in the film looked down at them.

 

Establishing/Wide Shot
For our film, we could use this shot when showing the location of the forest and the surroundings so the trees for instance, and our car in the centre as due to this shot being shown in the dark, no-one will be around and it works well for our film. This shot sets the scene and therefore, shows the location to the audience.

Shutter Island Trailer

I have used this trailer as inspiration to create our potential shot list as through watching this it gave me ideas of what shots we can use for our film. 

This is an establishing shot used at the start of the film 'Shutter Island', this shot really stood out to be when I watched the film and this gave me inspiration for our film which is why we have decided to include an establishing shot as it sets the scene and shows the audience the location.

Treatment - Film News

In today's lesson, we created a video for our treatment, as we wanted to make it more creative instead of just reading it off the sheet, so we came up with the idea of it being on a news channel called 'Film News' where the treatment had been leaked. In addition, we created this video before we had finished it as we didn't need to read it all as it would be way too long. 

9TH OCTOBER - COMPLETED TREATMENT 

In today's lesson, me and Joe each annotated our drafted treatment where we thought of changes and ways to improve it, as we knew that a few parts needed to be changed especially the ending and through reading the drafted version, we noticed that a few parts were missing, so here is my annotated version.

A treatment is a key part for the creation of a film, so here is our final one for you to read, so that you have a clear idea of the flow of our film.  

12TH OCTOBER - WHAT IS OUR TARGET AUDIENCE?

As I knew our next stage was to look at what audience we are targeting, I had come to the lesson with a list of questions that we could ask people to find out for who we would target. So today we began the research into our target audience. We went and asked a group of both male and females the following questions and here is the video of their responses.

Questionnaires

Here are a few examples of the questionnaires so that you have an idea on how people answered and what they said. 

After looking back at peoples responses, we made a tally chart so that we could have a clearer view of what people said and we didn't have to keep going through what each person said, which makes it so much easier. We made a tally for the key questions to help us figure out our audience and whether we are aiming to target the correct one.

Results 

In addition, I then decided to put these results into pie charts or bar charts which enabled me to see overall what everyone said for each question and the difference between the two genders in whether we are going to target both as that was what we had planned to do. In addition, as you can see we asked the majority under 19 and 6 who are 19 and above, so that we didn't just have all students, this enabled us to identify whether we would target that audience or not, as from previous discussions we hadn't planned to. Here are our results:

This graph is asking what is your favourite genre of film is and it shows that comedy (31%), romantic (22%) and comedy (17%) make up the three largest portion of the pie chart. Suggesting that in our genre horror is still one of the favourites. These results however skewed, this is because we gave the questionnaires to 15 females in 8 males in total, and stereo-typically speaking, romantic is a female genre, therefore if we gave our questionnaire to more males it may have changed our results. 

Furthermore, this graph shows that it is mainly under 19 who watch the most horror films per year, therefore this shows that targeting 15-25 year olds would be the correct audience as they watch the majority of horror film, but you also for over 19, all of them have at least watched one horror so thats why we expanded the audience to 25 but we didn't want to go over that as stereotypically horror films aren't for older adults, therefore this shows we have targeted the correct audience.

This next graph shows whether the sample are fans of the horror genre, which might pick up some of the people that are fans but it's not their favourite genre. As evident in this graph, the blue section being 'yes', there are many more people that say yes than no in all four sections. This is promising as most are fans of horror and therefore, it's clearly still a popular genre and therefore they would hopefully be interested in watching our film.

In addition, the block question which shows their psychographics. We decided not to showcase the demographic question, as again our results wouldn't be right as we interviewed 17 people 18 and under but only 6 people over the age of 18, therefore the majority. We chose films that I fought reflected the values and traits of the different psychographics. This graph shows that the two most popular blocks are block A and block B which was expected and these are main-streamers and apirers. Both of which are usually young people. This shows that our target demographic are these two. This ties directly in with our narrative, in regards to her aim is get famous again, which is an aspirer's trait. The Block's psychographics were: Block A: Mainstreamers, Block B: Aspirers, Block C: Resigned, Block D: Explorers, Block E: Strugglers and Block F: Reformers. I have added the table below so that you can see the selection of different audiences and what one we have chosen out of them all.

This graph shows that half of the people in the younger bracket who answered the questionnaire had watched a horror film last, showing that the genre is alive in this age group and that if we targeted this audience they would most likely come and watch our film in the cinema. Most of them, said that 'IT' was the last film that they watched, which has been a huge success at the box office. This works well for us, as it revives interest in our genre, hopefully making more consumers have interest in our film.

In addition, this is the adult chart which showed that two thirds of people last saw a horror, we didn't actually expect this because through my research I found that horror has become more of a younger person's genre. This has made me realise that we should expand our target audience age span maybe to 25. But the only problem with this data is that it is only based off of a sample of 5 people, which therefore might not be a large enough sample and isn't very accurate.

This graph shows whether people will be interested in our narrative, as you can see the majority of females rated it quite highly, showing that they would be interested and none of them go below 5 out of 10. However, males rated the narrative between 0 only to 7. This might be because we didn't interview enough males or an anomaly, as personally I think if we asked more males then the results would have been different but from this I don't think we should exclusively aim our film at females.

In addition, this is the adult version which actually shows that males over the age of 19 are interested in our narrative, whereas women score it quite low, so we should expand our audience to over 19 to get more of a male audience not just female.

After analysing these results, we have decided that we should target the ages of 15-25, as it gives us a wide range of people to target and when discussing our audience we thought 12 is too young due to some of the images and things that occur within the film, therefore we thought 15 was the better age to start at. 

In addition, as our results proved that both genders would be interested in our narrative, we decided to target both and also, by doing this it has enabled us to target a wider audience. 

DEMOGRAPHICS

As another part of target audience I have also looked at demographics, I will add the table below so you can see the different options and I will explain why our film links to what type of audience. As our film is a horror, it does attract a wide audience however it isn't for everyone due to the content of some of the horrors. For our film, I would say we wouldn't attract upper middle class due to them having professional jobs so they would most likely prefer to watch more sophisticated films and casual workers, e.g pensioners as stereotypically it wouldn't be the type of film that they would want to watch. In addition, I would say from our research we attract more of the younger audience, so for our film we would target more, working and lower middle class workers as I think they would fit the genre more and enjoy watching horrors. As the older seemed to prefer more drama/ romantic films so from our previous results and this we are aiming at our film at 15-25.

15TH OCTOBER - CERTIFICATE RATING

As we have chosen our target audience, now its time to look at certificate ratings and which one we are going to chose for our film. Our film is quite hard to rate as we don't have a clear reason that determines the BBFC standard as we don't have discrimination, violence, nudity or language, however we previously spoke about our main character taking drugs, but we aren't showing that in the film. We are deciding between 12A or 15, therefore I am going to look at the BBFC standard for both and also with our target audience, we will come to a conclusion on what age rating we think is best.

Here are the BBFC Standards for 12A:

Discrimination: Discriminatory language or behaviour must not be endorsed by the work as a whole. Aggressive discriminatory language or behaviour is unlikely to be acceptable unless clearly condemned.

Drugs: Misuse of drugs must be infrequent and should not be glamorised or give instructional detail.

Imitable behaviour: No promotion of potentially dangerous behaviour which children are likely to copy. No glamorisation of realistic or easily accessible weapons such as knives. No endorsement of anti-social behaviour.

Language: There may be moderate language. Strong language may be permitted, depending on the manner in which it is used, who is using the language, its frequency within the work as a whole and any special contextual justification.

Nudity: There may be nudity, but in a sexual context it must be brief and discreet.

Sex: Sexual activity may be briefly and discreetly portrayed. Moderate sex references are permitted, but frequent crude references are unlikely to be acceptable.

Threat:There may be moderate physical and psychological threat and horror sequences. Although some scenes may be disturbing, the overall tone should not be. Horror sequences should not be frequent or sustained.

Violence: There may be moderate violence but it should not dwell on detail. There should be no emphasis on injuries or blood, but occasional gory moments may be permitted if justified by the context. Sexual violence may only be implied or briefly and discreetly indicated, and its depiction must be justified by context.

Research into 12A Films

Furthermore, I have done some research into films that are rated age 12A so that it gives you an idea of what traits the film includes and what stereo-typically makes it a 12A. The first film that I looked at was 'Star Wars:The Last Jedi' which was released in 2017, it was rated a 12A as it only contains moderate violence, therefore meaning it is suitable for younger children. From the trailer, you can see its appropriate to children age 12 as its nothing too aggressive or anything that would frighten that age group. When researching the film on the BBFC website, it stated that its 'moderate violence includes gunfights, aerial dogfights between spaceships, and use of lightsabers and other hand-held weapons. Blood and injury detail is limited and brief.', therefore the violence ins't strong to have to be rated 15.

Here are the BBFC Standards for 15:

Discrimination: The work as a whole must not endorse discriminatory language or behaviour, although there may be racist, homophobic or other discriminatory themes and language.

Drugs: Drug taking may be shown but the work as a whole must not promote or encourage drug misuse (for example, through instructional detail). The misuse of easily accessible and highly dangerous substances (for example, aerosols or solvents) is unlikely to be acceptable.

Imitable behavior: Dangerous behavior (for example, hanging, suicide and self-harming) should not dwell on detail which could be copied. Whether the depiction of easily accessible weapons is acceptable will depend on factors such as realism, context and setting.

Language: There may be strong language. Very strong language may be permitted, depending on the manner in which it is used, who is using the language, its frequency within the work as a whole and any special contextual justification.

Nudity: There are no constraints on nudity in a non-sexual or educational context. There may be nudity in a sexual context but usually without strong detail.

Sex: Sexual activity may be portrayed, but usually without strong detail. There may be strong verbal references to sexual behaviour, but the strongest references are unlikely to be acceptable unless justified by context. Works whose primary purpose is sexual arousal or stimulation are unlikely to be acceptable.

Threat: There may be strong threat and horror. A sustained focus on sadistic or sexual threat is unlikely to be acceptable.

Violence: Violence may be strong but should not dwell on the infliction of pain or injury. The strongest gory images are unlikely to be acceptable. Strong sadistic violence is also unlikely to be acceptable. There may be detailed verbal references to sexual violence but the depiction of sexual violence must be discreet and justified by context.

After looking at both of these age ratings we have decided that our age rating with be 15 as we decided that 12A would be too young due to the circumstances of what happens in our film and some of the images shown of Farrah, therefore we thought the best option would be 15. Also, if you go and see a 12A film you need to be accompanied by an adult, therefore this may not work for our type of film as the parents may not want to see it.

Research into 15 Films

In addition, I have done some research into films that are rated age 15 so that it gives you an idea of what the film includes and what stereo-typically makes it a 15. The first film that I looked at was the horror 'IT', which was released 2017 and was a huge hit. As you can see from the trailer and from my research into this film I found out it contains strong horror and violence throughout which isn't appropriate to any one below the age 15, as from the BBFC, a 12A only has moderate violence. It also includes strong language which in a 12A is limited, therefore that is how you can differentiate and shows why has been made a 15.

The second film that I researched into was 'Paranormal Activity 4' which was released in 2012 and was also rated a 15, which was due to including strong horror and threat, therefore its not suitable to anyone younger due to the content of the film. From my research into why BBFC rates it that, it stated that 'scenes include a character who finds themself locked in a garage as it fills with poisonous fumes, a person's neck being broken, with accompanying sound of breaking bones, and a character being chased by a demonic figure', therefore showing that its too much for children aged 12.

30TH OCTOBER - SCRIPT

Today we finalised our script, Joe had started the script so me and Tommy firstly red over what he had done to make sure it made sense and then we carried on. We did have quite a lot of dialogue in our short film in some scenes so we had to work out exactly what the characters were going to say which did take some time, but here is the final one for you to read.

Props & Costumes

For our short film, we have a budget of £50 which we can spend on costumes and props that we need, therefore we have chosen a selection of props and costumes for our film, below I have added pictures of them for you to have a look. 

Prop 1: Fake Blood

When our character Farrah dies, we are showing a news report with a reporter at the scene of where it happened, so this prop will be used when Farrah is laying in the background and the blood will be all around here showing her death. 

Prop 2: Nails

For our next prop, which isn't a definite yet as when we are filming we are going to trial with them as we aren't sure how it will look when filming this particular scene. But if it does work then the long fake nails will be worn by the devil and used when we are at the crossroads to cut her hand.

Prop 3: Brick Wallpaper

We are using this brick wallpaper when we are filming at Christie's house to show that our main character Farrah Lake is trapped in her house.

Prop 4: Christian Brown Wooden Cross 

This wooden cross will be worn by medium to show his character and religion, making it clearer to the audience as both our characters the devil and medium are wearing all black, so we are adding props to make them look different. 

Prop 5: Vodka Bottle 

We are using this prop when we are filming at Farrah's 'working class' home when we are showing she has turned into a alcoholic and that loosing her fame has completely ruined her and that she doesn't know what to do with her life anymore. The vodka bottle represents to the audience that she is an alcoholic and shows the state that she is in, she depends on this to get through her day. 

Prop 6: Photo Frame

We are using the photo frame at the start of our film when Farrah is looking back at old pictures of her when she had won an award, and in our film she gets emotional through looking back at it as she wishes she still had her fame and money, therefore leading her to want to re-gain here fame. 

Prop 7: Candles 
In our film, we are using the candles when filming at Farrah's 'working class home' when the medium comes and in the Seance scene, to show his character and religion, also we feel like they will make the scene. 

Prop 8: Contacts 

These contacts will be worn by the devil as it is a stereotypical prop that they wear, therefore our character will be wearing them, but not for all the scenes.

Costume 1: Black Cape

The devil will be wearing this cape to portray his character and make it clearer to the audience who he is and stereotypically that is what devils do wear in films and also it is another way to differentiate the medium and the devil.

Here are the costumes that our characters are wearing....

COMPLETED SHOT LIST

As we have completed our script, we can finalise our shot list, so at the beginning of our lesson we had already got some potential shots for our film as before the lesson me and Joe separately went over parts of the script and added some ideas for shots that we could use. So, in this lesson, we listed every shot that we were filming right from the beginning to the end of the film, but not in detail. Therefore, I went away and typed up each shot and what is in that shot so that it is clearer for when we create our storyboard and then with filming. 

STORYBOARD

As we have finished out shot list, I have now created a storyboard for our film, as we made a few changes it isn't exactly the same, but I have added it below. As you can see I cant draw.... I have done many drafts but finally managed to complete it, it gives you an idea of the shots and helps us when we come to film.

EQUIPMENT

Below I have added pictures of equipment that we will be using for filming. We will be using a good quality camera of the canon 700d when filming our short film. 

This is the shoulder mount that we will use as it will be useful for when we film shots when we are moving with the camera as it will give a much steadier shot.

Below is the tripod that will be using for filming, this will enable us to have steady shots so that the camera isn't shaky and also it will help us when filming long takes to make sure the camera stays in the same position especially in conversations. 

18TH NOVEMBER - TITLE 

We have come up with some ideas for the title of our film, so that we have a few to choose from, the list below is a couple of ideas that we had. The first one was 'Man of Sin', however after discussing it as a group we felt this was irrelevant to our film and quite boring, as personally I wouldn't be interested in a film called that. Our next idea was 'LIVED' as its devil backwards, so we was going to have DEVIL in a refection or even a picture of the devil to make it relevant to out film, as no-one would understand what our film is about from the title LIVED, so we decided that it wouldn't work. In addition, the next idea that we had was from the word DEVIL, we would remove the letter D creating EVIL and turn it into two words, so the two ideas that we suggested were 'Dream Evil' and 'Desire Evil'. 

We decided that out film would be called 'Desire Evil' created from the word Devil, we decided that this would best fit our film as it is a re-occuring theme that our main actress portrays as she wants to gain her fame back and throughout we see her showing this. In addition, due to us having a devil in the film it obviously isn't straight and turns evil, therefore thats why we wanted to use that word in our title. 

As we have decided on our title of our film, therefore I decided that I am going to do some research on some potential fonts on what our title could look like and how our audience would see it. The first one that I looked at was this one blood which I thought would suit out film well as it looks like there is blood dripping off of the letters and as an actress is killed in our film it would work. Also, the letters are very bold which would stand out to the audience. I think this title would also work well if it was red as that would be even more effective as the colour red represents death and evil.

This is the second font that stood out to me as i think it works well with the genre of our film of being a horror from the way lines come off the letters and it looks quite spooky, especially as someone dies in our film, this font works. In addition, due to us having a devil in our film the spookiness and effect on the title,. shows this to the audience making it more appealing.

This is the last one that I found, which I am not that keen on I prefer the other two fonts to this one, however I did like how the lines all come off each letter and join together symbolizes roots from a tree and implying it being a spooky location. As we do have some scenes in the forest so it does link well and the character of the devil but you don't see there identity. 

20TH NOVEMBER - PRODUCTION LOGO

Next, I started looking at production logos, where I did my own research and looked at what independent film productions there are and what names they had used. I have selected a few and added them below so you can see some of them. 

In today lesson, we decided on our production logo called 'Faceless Productions', we were inspired through this drawing that I have added below. Before we decided on our final one, I firstly listed some ideas on other names for our production name so that we had a variety to choose from. A few other ideas for our production name was 'Watergate Productions' and 'Anonymous Studios', however I didn't think these we as catchy as the original idea of 'Faceless Productions".

We then added this effect to it, so that it was darker and more effective, therefore this will be our final production logo.

Filming - Behind the Scenes 

Day 1: 22/11/17

Today we have started filming, at my house but we didn't have all the props for example the photo frame which Issie holding the oscar award, therefore we couldn't film that scene so we could only film parts of it. Whilst filming I took some behind the scenes pictures so you can see some of the set up and how we filmed some shots. 

 

Editing Day 1: 24/11/17 

Me and Joe today started editing of film, by putting the footage so far onto Final Cut Pro and making sure the shots were fine through doing this we realised that we need to re-film a couple of the shots as you couldn't see the character, this was when Farrah looks at the camera from hearing Elijah talking to her through the door and she smirks, however you can't see this and it is essential, therefore when we go to film at mine again we will re-film this. 

27/11/17 - Photo

In this lesson, we re-took the photo of our new main actress holding the oscar so that we have it ready for when we need to film this scene. We took this photo in the drama studio with the spotlight on her to show her fame.

Filming Day 2: 28/11/17

Today we filmed scenes 9&10 which is the final scenes at Christie's House which were very successful and therefore we managed to get that whole section done. 

Filming Day 3: 30/11/17

We were filming scenes 1,2,3&4 today which was of the séance at my house, but we had to wait for it to get dark before we could start filming. However, we did have a couple of other shots to film which was with Farrah looking back at the old photo of her holding the Oscar to show her previous fame and we also had to re-film the scene where Farrah smiles at the camera when she hears her friend, therefore we managed to get that done before filming the séance. This was a very successful evening of filming as we managed to complete many scenes. 

Editing Day 2: 15/12/17
In today's lesson, me and Tommy carried on with the editing where I firstly made sure all the footage that we had filmed was on there and went through all the clips making sure they started and finished where we wanted them to so that the shots flowed. As our film will mainly be in black and white, Tommy therefore added that effect throughout the film, however as we filmed the séance film when it was dark the black and white effect did go a bit fuzzy, therefore we had to change the colour of them shots to make the characters clearer as you couldn't really see them at first. In addition, when me and Tommy watched the footage so far we were unsure whether it was very clear to the audience what we were showing, therefore once we have filmed the last scene it should hopefully make a lot more sense. 

Editing Day 3: 18/12/17
We began the lesson by showing Joe what we had edited from last lesson, and then we carried on with the editing. We trialled out a few ideas from Joe with the séance scene where he wanted to cut out a line and add a shot in between but it dint work and looked weird, therefore we scrapped that. However, it meant I had to delete the scenes and re-add them, but we sorted it in the end. We also added the production logo to the front of the film and sorted put what credits we were going to put on there. 

Filming Day 4: 19/12/17

Today should hopefully be the last day that we film, lets wait and see. We firstly filmed a couple of shots at my house where Farrah hears voices and runs out the door and gets in her car trying to escape from the noise. Then we drove to the forest where we filmed the next scene where she goes to meet the devil, signs the contract and she ends up dead. 

Editing Day 4: 8/01/18

In todays lesson, we added the rest of the footage from where Farrah goes to the forest, killed by the Devil and shots of the car to our film. We added what we needed and cropped them to fit the film and added a black and white effect to those shots as our whole film is in black and white. All that is left to do to our film, is the music and some dialogue of voices that Farrah hears when she is at home. 

12/01/18

In todays lesson, we carried on with editing and filmed the dialogue of the voices and we also re-filmed the dialogue of the news report to make it longer to fit with where we wanted it placed in the film, as the original one wasn't longer enough. We watched the film through repeatedly making sure that there was nothing else left to correct or change and the only part left was the music to be added which Joe is going to create himself. 

Editing Day 5: 16/01/18

We had planned for this to be the final day of editing, as Joe had created the music, we began by watching the film with the music and the music made the film so much better. Once we had watched it through, we showed our peers where they gave some constructive feedback and we had a few things to change which was a couple of the shots we needed to make lighter as the character wasn't that clear and make a change with the music at the end to create more of a build up. In addition, once this was done all was left was to add the title.

 

19/01/18 DRAFT OF OUR FINAL FILM - DESIRE EVIL

Here is our draft for our final film, we are going to get some audience feedback on our film to see what areas they liked and where we can improve. 

I have finally completed all my researching and planning and it consists of:

• Shot Lists
• Drafting 
• Scripting
• Storyboards 
• Locations 
• Character Profiles
• Props