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.

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.

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

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

ACT 3- End= Returning back to the present moment

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

• Organising work flow

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

• Budgeting

• Scheduling

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

-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.

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)

-Tripod

-Panasonic 180 camera with battery

Lights:

-2 apertures

-LED GO 1200 (x2)

Sound:

-Boom pole

-Shotgun mic

-H8

-XLR cable

-Headphones

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

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.

• 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.

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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.

Camera- Freya Conway

Director- Lola Galano

Sound- Laurence Ryan

Loren- Niamh Horan

• 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

  
  

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".