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13.01.25 Workshop 1: An introduction to the module 

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13.01.25 Workshop 1: An introduction to the module 

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In our first lesson an introduction to the module we learned about the key aspects of the module which would lead us to being successful in creating our own pieces.

With this in mind we were introduced to the assessment criteria and the importance of new roles in a crew which are.. the producer and the director - each role is unique however the producer and the directors role introduces new opportunities to guide the crew to new aspiring ideas, locations and meeting the next steps to create a successful short film.

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In production skills, I thoroughly enjoyed learning about the techniques used to create short films and the equipment which brings an idea to life onscreen. I successfully put this knowledge to the test through my role in the crew of the lighting operator shared with my crew, as we were a trio; being the sound operator. Within these roles I was allowed to express my thought process with my crew about how we wanted to create our storytelling of scream. I felt as though I was successful at portraying this in my group as I understood the techniques needed to create visual imagery and challenged myself to step outside my comfort zone and try and create harsh and soft lighting to create an ambient atmosphere through different lighting effects.

However, I found it particularly difficult to hold the boompole high enough to be out of the shot increasing the challenge to create 3 separate shots of the scene. This lead me to try a different technique and hold it with my left leg firm behind my right and leaning my arms on an angle to exentuate my posture to hold my position during takes.

As for what I'm looking forward to In this module, I'm looking forward to meeting other classmates and creating our own piece from simple building blocks sharing ideas and different aspirations. I'm also looking forward to our 2 new crew members: the producer and the director leading to new paths and feeling professional creating short films as a big crew.

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In this workshop we looked at the importance of a short films structure and how it can create cause and effect.

A short film should include..

Keeping it short

A steady pace

3 act structure

Focus on visuals and atmosphere

Quickly introduce characters

Minimilize dialogue|characters

Exclude subplot

And this can lead to the succession through techniques which can lead to an analytical approach through the use of explaining and examining the morals and issues which succumb to the protagonist to take action and make difficult decisions. This can be created through the use of the positioning of the audience by implying subtly on which character we sympathize with and why. Through the use of story development to keep the narrative in the audience's mindseye, the most important thing about a narrative is the use of characters, structure and logistics and answering the questions which an active spectator would ask themselves i.e why are they important and how do they react to the world? Are they supporting a character or are they apart of the main plot?

This gives the audience a vivid image if the visual and subtle information is shown giving the audience a smaller picture of the character to allow their imagination to create a bigger image of how and why the character is being portrayed in a certain way.

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20.01.25 workshop 3: Screenwriting development 

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20.01.25 workshop 3: Screenwriting development 

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In this workshop we looked at developing our character's description to accumulate how we'd begin to put together a draft of our screenplay. We began by scribbling down some ideas of what a stern and a prestigious businessman would wear and look like.. we came up with the idea of placing the actor in a navy blue suit - tailored to show his status. We also described his age and his appearance as a middle aged man who has tidy facial hair, good posture and we thought about why David is arragont and we came up with the solution that he's working towards a promotion in the stock markets business however, this leads him to be neglectful towards his wife and children due to his dedication to his job, resulting in David showing a lot to show for, for his children. Furthermore, this alludes to David's misfortune later on.

As for his wife, we looked at what stereotypes we could allude to the audience through her costume and appearance and we succumbed to the idea that she is a primary school teacher who works hard for her children as they're her priority. We added the idea that Deb is a primary school teacher due to her bubbly personality and because of her devotion to her children. Deb is also middle aged but younger than David who has long blonde hair and eye bags alluding to the idea of how David enters womanhood and as a result of this Deb shows the hardwork through her subtle facial features showing the audience how tired she is yet showing her love and happiness for her children.

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David, a stern businessman, wakes up one morning and finds himself in an alternate universe where stereotypical gender roles have been swapped. After a condescending goodbye, his wife leaves for work wearing a grey suit like the ones David would usually wear. She has left him alone with three feral children to get ready for school, a household to run, and a part time job. Throughout the day, he is constantly distracted by phone calls from his wife and his children’s school while experiencing funny stomach cramps. Once he finishes work, he sets about doing various household chores. He stops to make dinner before picking the children up from school but there is no food in the cupboards. He leaves to go to the shops. Later, he’s making dinner when his wife comes home from work. They realise that he has forgotten to pick the children up from school. She patronisingly offers to pick them up for him. Later, he is putting his children’s drawings away and accidentally gets glitter on his face. He goes to bed, exhausted. The next morning, his wife, wearing a robe, greets him with his morning coffee. Thinking he is back in the real world, he offers to get the children ready for school. David notices that he is still experiencing cramps. He goes to the bathroom and notices that he has a period. He looks up and notices that he still has glitter on his face from the previous day. He gets up and screams, realising that he is stuck in this new reality.

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Deb's classroom aesthetic

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31.01.25 Workshop 4: Sound Design and Edit 

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31.01.25 Workshop 4: Sound Design and Edit 

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In this workshop we took notes on the importance of sound recording and how it's effective within the final editing stages. During the workshop I successfully understood the crucial points to keep in mind whilst filming.

IMPORTANCE OF SOUND EDITING-

Good sound editing is invincible - the audience needs to lose themselves in the narrative world.

Bad sound editing draws attention to the process of filmmaking and disrupts audience's viewing.

Being able to tell were audio tracks cut in and out during the editing process enhancing how the audience's view key moments in a film.

Typical problems when EDITING-

Weather - wind/rain

External noise - noise outside filming environment i.e car alarms, nature.

Internal noise - noise inside filming environment - white noise, talking.

Types of sounds - voice

- music

- sound effects

Poor recording of these sounds will alternately affect the viewers expectations. You need to be efficient recording onset during the production process or adding in post after filming.

'Until you get it to the right length it's like a woman who's on a diet who wants to get into a dress to go to an event. She keeps losing weight and finally the dress just fits perfectly.' (Thelma Schoonmaker)

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Inspo for short film: 'I Am Not An Easy Man'

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Inspo for short film: 'I Am Not An Easy Man'

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During the individual researching process, I was inspired by a film Evie suggested to me, a french narrative following a man whose about money, power and male dominance and later his world turns upside down as he hits his head and wakes up to women running a man's career and attitudes resulting in him being severely unhappy with his circumstances. However, by the end of the narrative he enjoys his new life and wakes up in an ambulance with a male dominating world once again and yearns for his partner he met in his altered reality, Sybille. After his change in behavior and attitude towards women, he sets out to see her again and meets during a protest of women's rights driving them both to fight for change as Sybille understands the life of a woman as they're dressed in mini skirts and dresses composed to Sybille in a suit in Damien's world.

By reviewing this, this led me to feel inspired towards our story - with the use of the mood board this led to the decision for David to have a comical yet plain costume but a very influential impact on the story as the basic costume allows an active viewer to merge themselves into David's emotions and new profound lifestyle, feeling sympathy for his circumstances, leading David to be in Damien's situation and Sybille being in Deb's position.

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During my time away from the lesson, our group gathered on a call and played around with what images we'd like to create in our film using lighting,camera and sound work. As my role being the director, I took the opportunity to create a moodboard surrounding the dreamlike state David would be in for our short film. By using different coloured images and different aesthetical photos it allows me and my group to understand what theme will be shown in a particular scene through colour. This was successful as this lead to my next task in creating a shot list using my marked up script to determine when the mood will change and how it'll be shown within the shot. For example, in the opening shot of our piece, we're showing an extreme close up of David's eyes waking up and sunlight warming his tired eyes. We're alluding to the audience in this moment that everything is normal until he sees Debra in his suit and this introduces the lukewarm colours showing his reality slowly transitioning into David's 'nightmare'.

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By using a range of different colours to express David's emotions and the dreamlike state he's withheld in we've experimented with the use of warm and washed tones of yellow and orange vs harsh blue and grey for example a moment we can see this is, the use of warm tones when David feels like things are coming to an end i.e when he's sat in his office doing what used to be Deb's planning for her lessons vs the washed out blue tones and the vibrant reds exaggerating David's stress in the situations such as picking up shopping and getting a message from Debs to pick up red wine for when she gets back, it throws David into a pit of despair as we soon realize this is David's new profound life successfully ensuring the audience sympathizes with David.

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Taking photos of the set for a floorplan; to create a prop list to make it look homley :)

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Taking photos of the set for a floorplan; to create a prop list to make it look homley :)

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Week 5 Finalising props list / consent forms / script 

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Week 5 Finalising props list / consent forms / script 

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During this workshop we began to finalize dates of filming and when everyone was available we came to the conclusion a reliable schedule was needed and which scenes we'd choose to film on the dates where our actors are available. We decided a rehearsal was needed on our first filming day to make sure everyone in the crew understands the vision we're creating and how our message will be portrayed to the audience. We managed to also finalize our prop list and discovered plenty of props we can bring from home to make our set homley and inviting.

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DAY 1

In this shooting day we wanted to get an early start and made a schedule before shooting to come onset for 10am allowing time for us to set up and familiarize ourselves with the equipment.

We then began to look at scenes we wanted completed by 2pm this consisted of completing scene 1 and half of scene 2.

We decided to look at Deb's scenes first and to shoot them as we knew what we wanted within those scenes. This consisted of a 2 shot between Gemma and Chris but we did this separately shooting Gemma's lines and nicely light the tone of the scene which made her look stern and harsh. After Gemma's scenes we looked at Chris' first moments in the bedroom, waking up to his knowledge to find his wife leaving to his job leaving him in charge of looking after the children and taking control of Deb's job.

This was successful as the rehearsal and the shoot went smoothly. This resulted in our next plan for the rest of the day after 12pm and a 15 minute break, was to then shoot all the bedroom scenes and David sat at his desk using multiple camera angles such as a medium close, mid shot and extreme close ups making the scenes nerving and uncomfortable. We also had a range of lighting options to choose from using warm orange tones to imply 'David's perfect day' in contrast to the harsh bright filter when David realizes his new routine.

We had a lot of fun during shooting resulting in a successful scene 3 shoot, ending the day packing the equipment down and taking photos of the set to ensure if a shot needs retaking after reviewing. Throughout takes we ensured it was well rehearsed before a take to ensure everyone understands their role and how the scene would take place.

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DAY 1 FILMING 25/02/25

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DAY 2

Second day of filming we looked at scene 4-9 we set our time slot for filming and rehearsals longer than day 1 to ensure everyone was comfortable in their roles and feel professional in setting up our set and different scenes also. Our slot for day 2 was 11-6pm giving us plenty of time to review the footage a day before shooting to ensure everything ran smoothly. My role as Director, I reviewed the footage and captured a couple things I wanted to reshoot because of shakiness of handheld footage. This was an easy fix as it was a couple moments of David waking up and a couple moments when David is sat at the desk which could've run smoother.

After reshooting a couple pieces we began looking at scene 4 onwards and focused on setting up the kitchen to make it look like a house and not look like an accomodation. After setting up we looked at a close up shot of David entering the kitchen in a hurry and making the kid's breakfast. My creative decision in this moment was to look at making the scene frantic and nerve wracking this was a successful task as we looked at continuity editing of the shot using close ups of the toast going in the toaster and a midshot of David realising the workload he's been left to do making the audience feel sympathy for him using comedy and Chris' wonderful facial expressions of disgust and frustration.

However, I had to change a couple angles and we, as a crew, couldn't find a car from our classmates to use to imply David drops the kids off at school. We then took a 10 minute break for me and Isobel Cox to look at a different situation we can place David in and we made the decision to use the hallway to suggest David is running late to take the kids to school as he swings open the door, leaving the apron on and running out into the hallway. This was a successful moment for us as we improvised a scene to keep the continuity of the narrative.

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After this we took a moment to reset the scene (scene 7) for an evening atmosphere, we did this by using the warm, dimly lit orange tones to imply that David is realising how important his children are as he was always at his job and never had time for them. We wanted to leave some drawings on the table in this moment to signify the warmth he feels making David a likeable character in contrast to Deb's character whose in David's reality and shows a lack of warmth and affection. We originally was going to have a takeaway and use the boxes to show that David still hasn't shopped, falling behind in his chores. Instead we crumbled up cookie crumbs and sprinkled pepper onto both plates and making the scene about David cleaning up the kitchen and implying the children have gone to bed by a calm atmosphere resulting in David winding down for the night after his hectic morning using softer facial expressions and a slow pace in cleaning to exaggerate to the audience he's adjusted to his new 'reality.' Throughout this scene we used a medium shot to ensure we caught the plates and glasses being moved and the kitchen's homely aesthetic, as well as David's body language and a slow steady pace of the scene.

After shooting this scene we then moved onto the last 2 scenes, scene 8 and 9 resulting back into a quick shift in action as David's cramps worsen and his horrified realization of his 'womanhood'.

Scene 8 was more claustrophobic to film to begin with as it was a tight fitting space into the bathroom to David's horror of glitter rubbed into his beard and his period. We came up with a solution to have the camera on a tripod at an over the shoulder angle so we could see David's reactions in the mirror and a smooth shift into a handheld angle at a midshot to David's frightful panic sat on the toilet.

In conclusion to our 2 day shoot we successfully captured David's different emotions to his new surroundings using multiple camera angles to manipulate the pace of the continuation of scenes to make the scenes comical and to make the viewer feel sympathy for his new profound lifestyle. With the use of 3 lighting sources we were able to create warm earthy tones similar to my moodboard inspiration but also the cold, isolating cool blue tones to distinguish David's emotions but the reality of the narrative without David being unaware of his circumstances.

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After reviewing our footage the first workshop back after filming, we decided some scenes needed to be redone as they were not as still or because the lighting made the footage too dim or too bright. We took this time to scan over scenes from the bedroom, kitchen; hallway and noticed we could do things differently. We started with a quick hallway runthrough to familiarize camera positioning, lighting positioning and a quick redo of camera focusing - we then began to film and it was a successful run. We then began by renewing any bedroom shots which was a quick 5 minute reshoot refocusing shots and reshooting angles which weren't centered. Finally we looked at kitchen scenes and noticed a clipboard inshot of the washing basket with the school jumper after we re-looked at it we then decided to reshoot David picking it up for continuity purposes and if we decided to use that in the edit. After we were happy with the results we marked up the script with any changes and packed down. This was a successful turnout as we scanned over footage in our lesson and noted on our shooting script what we needed to redo and we found that it was 3 scenes throughout the film that needed tidying up.

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During the editing process, I think overall it was a successful process however it had it's complications. During my rough cut I found it difficult to understand how to input footage and to also use the sound recording and sync it up. During the workshops given us to edit I took the time to make sure the footage was in the correct order and to then look at implementing the audio footage. During this process I found it easier to split my time up to make sure the camera footage was colour saturated and synced to each scene to give it's continuity effect using time frames to also imply a day in David's life. Overall, I'm happy with the final product and the way it turned out using different music and sound effects to give the audience an inner perspective into David's new reality.