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Deadline on 13th December.

You will develop a critical and aesthetic strategy for the adaptation of a short film script.

Based on a 10-15 minute short film.

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A practical representation of your response.

Choose one that lasts 3-5 minutes long.

Test shots, Trailer, Filmed scene.

A proof of concept is a smaller sample of what an eventual (often larger) project might look like.

Test Shot,

not just photos, a visual storyboard. Focus on attention to detail and think about subtext and metaphor.

Trailer.

Emphasis is on editing and format (i.e. conventions). This one has a focus on editing.

Filmed scene.

Emphasis on performance of actors. Emphasis on rehearsal process and character work.

Choose if you want to focus on performance.

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Paperwork for my proof of concept, which, depending on your POC may include, consent forms, floor plans, storyboard, shot list, budget, risk assessment, filming permits, shooting schedule.

Performance and production design (quality and depth of
characters/performances and/or quality and detail of production design elements).

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A padlet production log containing an ongoing critical reflection on the roles and decision making process.

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Technical response to the task (quality of camerawork, sound recording,
editing).

Creative response to the task (originality of idea, effective communication of
meaning and subtext).

Performance and production design (quality and depth of
characters/performances and/or quality and detail of production design
elements).

Professionalism, attendance, presentation of your assessment, time management and communication skills.

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The amount of shots don't matter if i can focus on the context going on throughout the shot. Its not a photo but a moving image. I can talk about the ideas I cant fit in time in my padlet. Quality on camerawork is extremely necessary and to provide evidence i have directed the DOP of what to film.

Reflect on the final piece of the test shots.

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A promoting tool.

Demonstrates scenes and general plots and moods of a piece of media in a hope to gain interest.

Uses not a lot of dialogue and lets the scene do the talking.

The trailer needs to represent itself to the audience it feels will have the best response to it.

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Run an audition to put in my padlet to. show the process i go through.

3-5 minutes film that focuses on one scene.

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9 principles for directing actors by Cohn 2021.

1. The story rules everything: “All direction to the actors…must serve the needs of the story”

2. The director must understand every character’s intention in every scene

3. Everything comes from action: “Everything – from what to tell the actors, to show to stage a scene, to costume choices – stems from the actions being pursued by the actors within the imaginary circumstances of the scene. Everything.”

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Trust is a big thing needed between the director and actor.

Director should be considerate to the actor and what they are asking their actors to go through.

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Narrative is based on cause and effect of the actors story.

Its important that the director makes sure that the choices the actors make represent with the conflict happening in the scene.

3 step process.

What is the character literally doing.

What is the essence of what the character is doing in this scene (The playable action)

What is the action i'm playing in this scene like to me?

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I have had this idea for a while now about a film called The Exchange Student. Its a film that I could make work with the brief we have been set out. My initial ideas are between a trailer and a scene. For the trailer I would have to use multiple locations to show it is a trailer but for the scene I would want to be an impressive setting to support the scene itself. The film itself is about the exchange program that we have here at salford. The film sets itself around a guy named Sam in uni who is struggling with his homelife as he still lives at home when he thought he would be more independent right now. One of his teachers suggests going on the exchange program and he does, once in Texas he decides thats the time to reinvent himself but it doesn't get off to the best start so he spends the rest of the film trying to take back control of his life.

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For my trailer idea I am thinking of using 3 different locations, A home where we see the main actor Sam living with his mother, an office where Sam is having a 1 on 1 meeting with Carly, his tutor who is convincing him to join the exchange program and then a scene of Sam on an airplane showing his commitment, the difficulties behind this would be multiple forms of risk assessments and film release forms for all the different locations which would not be as prominent if I did just a single scene.

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For my scene Idea I am thinking of doing a scene on an airplane, there is a simulator hre in Manchester of a 747 so I have sent an email asking if it would be possible to do a scene there as both my trailer idea and the scene I would want to use an airplane, for the scene I would have Sam be rethinking his decision of leaving and he confides in an air hostess who tells him about how she travelled the world and it was the best decision she made.

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I got an email over the weekend explaining they couldn't have filming in the plane, simultaneously over the weekend I was reading this book called The Forgotten Legion by Ben Kane. In this book there is a passage about a theory that in 53BC when the Romans lost a battle to the Parthians they were captured and moved to the Eastern Side of Parthias borders and then in a chinese texbook there is mention of an army that used the same formations as the Romans and there is a town in Modern day china where the inhabitants have green eyes, hooked noses and blonde hair which are all mediterranean features. This theory got me thinking about a film similar to Uncharted and Tomb Raider

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Im deciding to do a scene for this idea as I have a really good idea in mind, this film is going to be about a young girl named Ema, the name comes from one of the first women to help the Knights Templars. Ema has a rough relationship with her father as he always is quick to dismiss her as a historian/archaeologist. In the scene we are introduced to Geoffrey, named after one of the prominent members of the Knights Templars. The scene focuses on Geoffrey who we realise in the scene is Emas dads best friend is trying to recruit Ema with the theory of the 10,000 Legionnaires. He reveals that it was never her dads choice to exclude her but he is actually part of the Knights Templars and they don't allow women to join so her dad kept her away so she would not try to join. Geoffrey believes if he can find these Legions with Emas help he can convince the order to re-allow women into the order.

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As this is a theory with some historic relevancy I want to take the time to research how plausible this theory is and where I will need to add elements of fiction for my film.

Firstly the Knights Templars. I found out that in Friday 13 October 1307 the Knights Templars members in France were arrested, tortured and then burnt at the stake which is where the superstition of Friday the 13th being unlucky comes from. A couple years later in 1312 the Knights Templars was disbanded by Pope Clement V as it was described as an act of heresy. There is no evidence of their survival so the implementation of them in my film is purely fiction to add the the mystery element as well as historical element of my film.

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The battle of Carrhae was a real event and is the start point of the theory of my film. In 53 BC the roman republic went to battle with the Parthian empire near modern day Harran, Turkey. The Romans Lost under the command of Marcus Crassus, he was a member of the first triumvirate of Rome alongside Julius Caesar and Gnaeus Pompey. The death of Crassus put the Roman Republic on the path of becoming the empire. The roman losses were in the 20-30 thousands with 10,000 legionaries captured by the Parthians. The 10,000 roman prisoners are recorded to have been sent to Merv, a town in modern day Iran and on the border of Parthias North Eastern flank to defend them.

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When reading online sources about the battle of Carrhae there is references to the battle of ZhiZhi, this was a battle that took place roughly 20 years later near china. This is also the battle referenced in the book the Forgotten legions. In this battle the historian Ban Gu mentions a 'fishscale formation' which is theorised to be either a phallanx or a testudo. For the Phallanx, a greek style of fighting, to exist would mean that forces from Alexandrias Empire would have been around fighting for over 100 years longer than any known recording. This leads historians to believe that this could have been the roman forces, who were rumoured to have married women in the area from their time there.

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This is a county in modern day western china. The Historian H, DUBS, a professor from Oxford University in the 1940s wrote a hypothesis about the Romans being settled there, the descendents of Liqian are born with Green eyes, Blonde hair and hooked noses. DNA testing has been done and no conclusive evidence has been found so I will have to stretch the truth on this part of my film again for the mystery elements but there is still some historians that believe this theory.

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As I got this idea for the film late into the module I decided to skip auditions. I cast someone who is on this course and my friends dad who I envisioned the character of Geoffrey around.

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An email i sent to the actor playing Geoffrey

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I used the website CELTX to write my script, I have used this website in the past and I find it extremely helpful as it sets everything out to a professional standard. I sent this script off early and re-worked it a lot with Howard as he said some of the lines were just not written in a way that a 49 year old man might say something. As Howard had never acted before I made sure to give him a lot of direction and help to make him feel comfortable and keep him onboard so re-working the script was not a problem for me one bit.

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I got all my ethics and actor consent forms signed and sorted so that I could film on Monday the 2nd of December. Thankfully since I was filming at my house I could get the film release form sorted straight away. I sent a message in the house groupchat to my flatmates a week before filming to let them know of the schedule and to let any concerns be voiced, thankfully they were all ok with it and filming went ahead.

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I had a few problems with the initial pre production. Unfortunately the person I had contacted about being my DOP had to cancel with less than 24 hours notice and same for the person doing sound so I had to change the equipment I had hired out so that I could do it all by myself, this means the audio during filming isn't at its best. I am lucky as I chose to do the scene where the focus of my work is on the actors. As Howard has never acted before I put a lot of my focus and attention on him, thankfully Aoife was a very professional actress and so did not mind that I had to focus on Howard and his scenes. I feel like during the edit you can notice where acting really clicked for Howard, I was able to show him some of his scenes and I talked about the energy I was wanting, I was also able to give him some acting tips, If I had time I would go back and film those scenes again but as I was doing everything behind the scenes by myself I didn't have time for a full reshoot.

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As I previously mentioned thee DOP and Sound Director both quit on me with less than 24 hours to go. This very much threw a spanner in the works as I was not prepared to be doing cinematography and the only preparation I had done for it was a shot list and story board, I used these religiously during the filming to help me stay on schedule. The call sheets were sent out on Friday the 29 of November allowing the actors to confirm that they could make their way to the film site for 1pm which they both did.

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One of the story boards I resorted to using. I never saw the point in story boards much as I prefer just writing the shots on the script.

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Unfortunately due to an error on my side when I booked out the equipment I didn't realise I had to book out the Camera batteries so the ones I were given had less than full charge, as you can imagine the camera died with about 4 scenes left to film which was around half an hour of footage, luckily both my actors were free on Thursday the 5th of December so I hastily organised another call sheet and reorganised the other paperwork. This quick problem solving showed my initiative as a director and producer by being able to organise everything in such short notice.

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As I was filming in a shared kitchen and was filming on different days I made sure to take a video of how the kitchen was set up so that on Thursday I could get it as close as possible to avoid an obvious continuity error.

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For Thursday I had gone over the footage and had a discussion with Howard about one of the lines I wanted to reshoot, it was an important line in the scene and during the scene on day one of filming we had had a break and I was able to give Howard soe pointers so it was very obvious during the scene where his acting picked up the pace. I decided this was the scene I wanted to reshoot but decided that at first I would film the parts I was missing so at the very least I had a film I could put together that would be within the time frame and make sense.

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I am not a brilliant editor and also as well I was missing the Director of photography, a lot of the editing was made more difficult by decisions done on the day of filming. For example for Howarrds scene where he says a lot of lines it would have been a lot easier to do a whole run through and cut it in post but as Howard is not a professional actor I decided as Director to cut after every line he did and do it that way. I feel that as Director this was a necessary choice as it allowed Howard to relax during filming and to focus on the lines however during editing I noticed that he moves positions a bit during takes, If I had had someone available to be in charge of continuity other than me I believe this could have been noticed.

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This was a project I was really passionate about, for me this course has reassesed my opinions on direccting and prodducing. I definitely lean more towards the role of Director. I find that as I want to be an actor it is easier for me to be what is referred to as a 'actors director'. I see a film as an art work that is meant to have symbolism and meaning in everything as personally I don't feel that love for filmmaking when I am doing producing like paperwork. Whilst I respect the role of a producer immensely and have a new found understanding for the role this course has helped me know that I want to go down the route of a director more than a producer.