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An issue I encountered when Exporting was that when I changed it to a higher quality the audio kept disappearing and not saving, so I put the video and premier pro and the audio was magically there, so I just exported it from there

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For the opening scene it made no sense for Loren to have a full face of makeup on as she would have just woken up, so for the opening she is barefaced and then for the rest she has makeup on.

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Being a producer for the first time was a lot more enjoyable than I expected, and has definitely steered me more towards taking the directing and producing module next year and it also helped us save time finding actors and work around their schedules, as the majority of my role is done so I can do it.

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Initially I didn't know that we could use published songs for our montage so I had chosen copyright free music, but when I found out we could, Immediately decided on piano renditions of songs with very powerful lyrics that would relate to the context of the scenes.

For the happy montage I wanted "About you" By the 1975 and "Northern Attitude" By Noah Kahan. The reason I chose "About you" as I feel like it really enraptures Jacks feelings, the opening verse states;

"I know a place

It's somewhere I go when I need to remember your face

We get married in our heads
Something to do while we try to recall how we met"

Which really works for Jack as he is envisioning his life with Loren and it's all in his head.

My reasoning for "Northern Attitude" is because of the chorus;

"If I get too close
And I'm not how you hoped
Forgive my northern attitude
Oh, I was raised out in the cold"

This relates to Loren because she has been through failed relationships and blames herself and her self destructive behaviour and she is scared that if Jack gets too close he is going to see she is "Not how (he) hoped".

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Like every other filming project we had issues such as:

Phone going off

line fluffs

some angles didn't work like we wanted them too so we didn't do them

The only major issue was actually after filming, we used aperture lights to help light Matts face in the flat scenes, but it came out looking a bit more red than I would've liked.

The clouds and weather were being bipolar so we had to rush across the park to get the right sky background for the scenes we wanted

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Jack- Matthew Jones

Loren- Niamh Horan

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Producer- Niamh Horan

Camera- Freya Conway

Director- Lola Galano

Sound- Laurence Ryan

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Logline:

In an unrequited love story we experience the drastically different viewpoints of two teens and their envisions of what life together would be like.

Synopsis:

Our story follows the lives of two young adults at university who have been close friends since college and are living in the same flat together. The story begins with both teens in the kitchen and our main character has been building up the courage to confess his feelings in a way that does not come on too strong. He makes a comment in passing conversation to try and touch on the subject gently because if this goes wrong the friendship will never be the same. After the comment we are thrown into the minds of each individual as they imagine what life would be like if they were together. Each individual pictures this life in completely diverse ways to one another. In the mind of our main character, we see an incredibly positive outlook on what they could be such as dates and cooking together, we see very warm imagery, the classic love story playing in his mind. However, in the mind of our other character this potential relationship is something she knows will not work out, her images are direct contrasts to his, where he sees life and potential, she only sees disappointment and heartbreak, and she does not want to jeopardise their friendship for something she is sure will fail. To conclude our story, we are directed back into the present situation of the individuals and a moment of silence is shared in this situation as our female lead is yet to answer the question, much to our main characters anticipation.

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After our introduction to the module, I feel that what I'm potentially going to enjoy most is the creative aspects such as brainstorming ideas for our short film, deciding on the genre and style we want to go for and eventually writing the script. However, I sense that the things I'm going to find difficult about this process are the same reasons I'm excited, as all of this is still fairly new to me and I'm still in the learning stage of it all.

Initially, I and my group were more focused on the production roles, but we quickly realised that we couldn't do anything until we had had the Producer and Director introduction sessions, so we focused more on the creative aspects, successfully deciding on our Genre (Romance) and how we wanted to incorporate it (Through a love-triangle). During a brainstorm, I thought more about the love triangle idea and there was no plot that was coming to mind, so upon researching different themes related to love the idea of 'unrequited love' really stood out to me, a story of a one-sided love seemed to have so much potential, so I wrote up a few pitches to share with my group and thankfully they loved the idea. Also having my pitch already pre-written helped with the synopsis writing and logline.

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The main focus of this week was the development of our story through our characters and really analysing what each of them are like as a person. We did this by creating basic character descriptions and creating something of a given circumstance for them, such as why they are at home that day. Moving on from that we looked at the basics of a script and it's formatting, as I want to be the producer for our crew this is something I will really need to make a focus point for my learning. To actually create a screenplay the software 'Fade In' is used so I will be watching the tutorial on Blackboard on how to use it so I will be ready and prepared for when I write the script.

During the induction to the roles of producer and director I'm now fully set on being the producer for the production of our short film. The role mainly concludes organisation and a lot of creative aspects which fits very well to me as a person. Amongst the information we now have access to all of the creative paperwork that is needed in order for us to film safely and legally.

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Having decided our production roles and now officially having a script written, the next step was the preparation before filming, including the production documents (risk assessments, location release form ect). In class we looked at style choices an visual styles from different directors and how we would communicate them, which I think was really important because it made us think about our approach to our own film. Technicality wise we looked at potential problems that could occur during filming, such as technical issues and external issues (e.g a car alarm going off during a shoot). The 'Treatment package' was a topic as well as we drafted one in class to be worked on outside of class.

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Pre-production materials were the main focus of this week, in groups we discussed each production role and we decided on our filming dates (Feb 21st, 22nd and 26th) We have encountered an issue with filming at the Art gallery, as we have been told we would only be allowed an hour to film and there's the issue of the public getting into shot meaning they'd have to sign a release form. To avoid this issue we will be as efficient as possible, we have our shot list prepared by our camera-woman, Freya, so when we do come to shoot it, it will be a quick process. We will also pick areas of the gallery that are quiet and make sure that the shots are mainly close, as to eliminate the risk of people getting in the shot that aren't meant to be. In lesson we were given tasks based on our production roles, as producer my jobs were too; Break down the script, secure locations/costumes/props, cast actors and work out a shoot schedule.

Locations= secured and paperwork completed.

Costumes= Discussed with the actors that costume will be provided by them and will need to reflect their characters personalities as given in the character description.

Props=Kettle, and cups of tea for the flat, phones for the montage, cigarette.

Actors= Jack, played by Matthew Jones. Loren, played by Niamh Horan.

Shoot Schedule= (Dates are listed above) For the order, the Flat scenes should be shot in one day, then the Montage will take up the other 2 (or more if circumstances change)

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This week was dedicated to reviewing our practical research and prepping to film.

Important-

. keep a log sheet

. record with camera mic so you can sync your audio

. use clapperboard to help sync audio

. record room tone for at least the duration of your scene

. camera rolling check

. sound rolling check

. scene number, shot number

. clap

. action

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For the development of our story, we need to identify; the story type, underlying themes and where the story falls commercially (genre).

Story type-

Looking at the seven basic plot points and consulting Blake Snyders ten basic plots it seems that 'tragedy' seems like the most fitting description for our short film.

Conflict type-

'Human vs self' is seen in our story as Jack is fighting with himself about asking Loren out and being scared as he doesn't want to ruin the friendship, and Loren is at war with herself because she knows it wouldn't work because she's too damaged and doesn't want to hurt him.

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The theme is the film's central, unifying concept. We want our audience to find some relation to what we are showing so they tune in more to what they are watching and feel a sense of familiarity.

The subject we'll be touching on is unrequited love, alongside exploring the themes of longing, friendship, and a general optimistic vs pessimistic outlooks.

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ACT 1- Beginning= Our two characters talking in their flat

ACT 2- Middle= How they would each imagine life together

ACT 3- End= Returning back to the present moment

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What are they wearing?

Jack- casual wear/ lounge wear

Loren- casual wear/ lounge wear

It's a weekend and after a busy week of seminars and lectures so they're just having a very relaxed Saturday afternoon.

Where are they going?

Neither characters are planning on going anywhere outside of the flat.

How do they carry themselves?

Jack- Holds himself with a nice posture, shows he's confident

Loren- More of a relaxed and reserved demeanour

What do they want?

Jack- Want's to ask Loren out

Loren- Want's to relax in her room and do nothing

Why do they want it?

Jack- He needs to just get his feelings out so he stops overthinking it all and putting off asking her out

Loren- She enjoys lazy-days so is seizing the opportunity to have one.

What is their struggle?

Jack- He is so outgoing and confident it's really interesting to see how nervous he gets.

Loren- She goes from quite relaxed, to relatively tensed up when she catches on to what Jack is getting at.

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Jack-

A 19-year-old, loving and excitable boy who has found himself living in the same flat as his college friend Loren whom he has had a crush on for a while but hasn't had the courage to ask her out on a date in fear of ruining the friendship.

Loren-

A 19-year-old caring but reserved girl who has sworn off relationships as a result of trauma created by a past partner. On some level, she does care for Jack in a non-platonic way but due to a promise made to herself, she doesn't let herself act on it.

What is important to them?

Both characters cherish their friendship with one another. Are they integral to the main plot or are they more of a supporting character?

The story focuses equally on the two characters making them both essential to the plot

What is special about them?

Jack has a very positive outlook on life whereas Loren is the opposite, they're both different in their own respects and that's what makes them special.

How do you want the reader/audience to connect and react to them?

I want my audience to connect with my characters on a deep emotional level as I feel like relationship trauma and one-sided love is something universal and the majority of people will be able to relate to the situation on some level as well as the character's personality. Since at the end of the day, they are just ordinary people like the rest of us.

How do they interact with the world and what does that say about them as a person?

As stated previously, the characters have very classic pessimist vs optimist viewpoints. So Jack has a very outgoing attitude and positive outlook, somewhat of a 'Golden retriever' whereas Loren is a 'black cat' in the sense that her positive attitude is limited to people close to her, her general outlook on life isn't the brightest.

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Deciding on a genre is a major thing initially as it essentially sets the tone for the feeling our short film is going to give our audiences. We feel it's best to stick with one main genre rather than trying to embed sub-genres, to prevent over complication and straying from the effectiveness of simplicity in a short film.

As a collective we decided to go with the much beloved romance genre.

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This was a particularly easy project to budget as we had access to peoples clothing and free filming locations, so we didn't really have to budget anything

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Casual wear for the flat scenes, perhaps some loungewear or pyjamas. For the date montage I think them both being tidied up and dressed nice in a casual way would work.

In Jacks montage both are dressed very brightly to reflect his view point, then for Lorens it's more of a contrast, they both wear darker colours in her version of things. We want their attire to be symbolic of their attitudes towards this potential relationship

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Our filming locations will be:

-Peel Park (The Crescent, Salford M5 4WU)

-Salford museum and art gallery (Crescent, Salford M5 4WU)

-Peel Park Quarter (Campus Living Villages, University Road, Salford M5 4NJ)

For the flat we have been given permission by the occupants to film, under certain conditions we can film in the Gallery, and because of technical issues with applying for the rights to film in the public space, we just have to make sure we have the appropriate documents with us, and make sure that the crew doesn't cause issues. Since we will only be using a camera and no sound or lighting and a crew of around 3, we meet the legal requirements to film.

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The story boards were so helpful in aiding us in visualising what we wanted before we filmed the scenes, and gave us an idea of what would work and what might not

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The mood board is important as we can look at scenes from films and just images in general, and take the emotions they make us feel, and we can incorporate that into our acting and filming

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Salford Public Liability form

Actor agreement/consent

Shooting Schedule

Location release form

Call sheet

Budgeting

Script breakdown

Shot list

Risk assessment

Continuity Log sheet

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Tracking your shots and their quality is important for continuity reasons, and for post-production editing when deciding what shot's you want to use for the final take, instead of looking through them all you already know which ones are of a usable quality.

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Responsibilities-

Organising work flow

Resourcing (securing locations, release forms, health and safety checks, financing, equipment, etc.)

Budgeting

Scheduling

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Camera:

-Tripod

-Panasonic 180 camera with battery

Lights:

-2 apertures

-LED GO 1200 (x2)

Sound:

-Boom pole

-Shotgun mic

-H8

-XLR cable

-Headphones

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Risk assessments are a necessity as they reduce the likelihood of accidents as it raises awareness to minimise lists

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Our initial plan for our filming was to have it spread across 3 days, but we were surprisingly more efficient than expected, nailing all of our filming in a swift six and a half hours. I solely put this down to the pure hard-work and dedication from our production crew, everything was planned out and organised, so once we were set up we were able to jump straight into it. However, just because we were efficient doesn't mean that things didn't go wrong, we had issues with some shots that we wanted to do and didn't work, we had to experiment with lighting, line fluffs and phones going off (as seen in our blooper reel). Another major issue was the weather, as we hadn't expected rain but of course the British weather had other plans and we had to wait it out, while we did that we filmed in the Art Gallery on campus and by the time that was done the weather was co-operating, giving us a mixture of sun and stormy clouds (which was useful for our contrasting Montage).

Our tutor watched the very basic edited version of our filming to get an idea of our shots and how well we had worked, to our relief they were good enough and we didn't have to do any reshoots which saved us time and allowed us to not have to worry about anything else but editing and working on our padlets.

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The inspiration behind my idea to do a complete montage of the shots rather than split them up with a transferal back to the original shot, which is what I had originally planned, even when writing the script, was taken from the 2009 Disney-pixar film "UP". The montage follows their relationship from childhood to death and with no words and just music, it evokes feelings that words wouldn't of been able too, and I wanted to mimic that effect, but with obviously different scenes. There was a few ways I considered when editing, my initial thought was too have a close up of Jacks face then play the happy scenes, then revert back to Lorens face before the sad edits, then I considered playing a happy scene then a sad one to show the contrast between their thought process of how a relationship between them would be like. In the end I decided against breaking up the scenes, I wanted it to flow from the positives to the negatives, taking the audience on this "what if" journey of the couple and their potential life together, showing the positives of what could be, and the negativity of Lorens mindset.

I came across a few issues when it came to the music I wanted to play over the scenes, I struggled to come to a decision, as it was easier to just have one piece of music and then just make the transition match up to a slight transition in the music, but in the end I decided on using two pieces of music as that is more effective when showing the contrast between the two.

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Instead of using Adobe Premier, I opted for VideoProc Vlogger, I found the layout easier to navigate and saw that it could help me create my vision quicker and more effective in comparison to when I used Adobe for my last project.

Unlike last assessment I found that using the camera mic as well as the boom mic made it much easier to sync sound.

I knew I wanted more close up shots instead of a wide view, so I cropped the visuals of the video to be more zoomed in to give it more of a cinematic feel.

I used black fade outs to transition into the Montage, but I found that it seems that I'm cutting the film off, so I used a linear blur for a transition, I also used a grey one to transition from the good to the bad to show that middle ground, and it also blended the scenes into each other.

For the audio I muted all of them except for 2, I wanted to show the contrast between the laughter and the arguing, to make them more impactful as they are the only ones you can hear over the music.

I felt that the flat scenes looked a bit too well lit, making it look more studio like, than natural like which is what I wanted. To combat this I lowered the lighting exposure to make it more darker, creating this feeling of motivated lighting from the lights shown in the shot.

For the Montague I used a bright filter for Jacks imagination and heightened the exposure and saturation to create a more vibrant look, so for Lorens I put all of those scenes at a -44 saturation and then fiddled with the exposure to match the different lighting from the different locations, making those scenes significantly more dull and lifeless. I really wanted the colours to reflect the different thought process of the two.

For the music I knew I wanted some piano, but I needed to find two pieces of music that I could seamlessly transition into each other, I eventually found 2 pieces that would more or less sound like they blended into each other if I faded in/out of the audios, I did have to enlarge the audio files too see the sound waves more clearly in order to find a point in the 2nd piece of music that would fit into the first piece without seeming too much of a drastic change and too blocky.

Initially I wanted to have the Montague carry on into each other but upon reflection, adding the confused look of Loren and then going into her scenes showed the story more clearly, and I could still carry on the music

For the speed of the shots, I changed some of the shots such as the laughing and dancing to a 1/2 linear speed to slow it down, allowing the scenes to be enjoyed mores when the more negative scenes came on. For those scenes I kept it the same speed, to create that feeling off "this is quite depressing I want it to be over faster" which is Lorens thought process essentially, there's also fewer scenes showing she doesn't want to think about it for too long.