- Shotgun Microphone
- Light Box
- Tripod
- Condenser Microphone
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- GoPro Camera
- Shotgun Microphone - Light Box - Tripod - Condenser Microphone
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Director This role varies tremendously from project-to-project, but, in general terms, a Director has creative control over the project from when he/she comes on board until the project is completed.
Producer This is a hard role to define because there are so many different aspects to being a producer and each Producer is different (especially when it comes to making a short film). But, put simply, a Producer is where the buck stops on money, organisation, the team and rights. Line Producer - ensures that the film comes in on time and on budget. Director of Photography (DOP) - in technical charge of how the film is lit and shot. Production Designer/Art Director - in charge of the production design helps create the style of the set. On low budget films these two roles are often merged. Gaffer - Chief lighting technician 1st Assistant Director (1st AD) – runs the set according to the needs of the director Editor – cuts the film together Production Manager – organises everything and everyone on set Sound Recordist – in charge of everything to do with recording soundFocus Puller – in charge of focussing the camera Clapper Loader – loads the camera, takes care of the stock and records each take Location Manager – finds and secures locations Grip – looks after all the equipment for supporting and moving the camera while shooting (tracking, cranes etc.) Continuity/Script Supervisor – makes sure everything seen on camera is consistent from shot-to-shot 2nd Assistant Director (2nd AD) – helps the 1st AD, particularly co-ordinating actors to and from set 3rd Assistant Director (3rd AD) – is the 1st AD's right-hand person. He/she is always on set and often co-ordinates the runners Boom Operator – holds the boom, ensuring that the microphone is as near as possible to the actors without being in shot Sparks - lighting technicians Costume Designer – designs, purchases, and manages costumes Hair/Makeup Designer – designs, and usually executes, hair and makeup Production Co-ordinator – works under the production manager to co-ordinate the smooth running of the set Storyboard Artist – works with the director to create a shot by shot storyboard of the action to be filmed Stills Photographer – takes still images of actors and crew for publicity reasons Assistants and Runners – needed in every department - the more hands the better Due to our small crew there will be some overlap with who is doing what tasks and job roles. With me compiling a script and the idea together we felt best that I take a lead role in the production side as I know how I want it to look like in the end. Another factor influencing the roles is the fact we do not have good enough equipment for certain roles so these will end up combining into one. Instead of assigning one person to each job role each person in our group will be picking up any role they can. Jed Hunt:
Dylan Yull:
Clarice Robbins:
A contingency plan is a set of actions that a business formulates incase there are any issues that arise with the event; the contingency plan has to include all possible factors that could go wrong with the event. Events that have a substantial amount of effort gone into research and planning will tend to not need too use the contingency plan as the event will usually run smoothly, but a business or organisation can never predict what negative events could have to have a detrimental effect on the event, this is why businesses have to cover a very wide range of potential issues, just incase any of them happen and then the business knows how to deal with the issue that they have been faced with as they have already come up with a solution to the posed threat. - Forgetting Equipment
- Broken Equipment - Broken down car - Shots are not great - Laptop dies - Faulty editing software - Clips lost - Crew don’t turn up - Injury - Loss of internet - Poor lighting conditions - Problems with audio Forgetting Equipment: One of the possible issues that we could face as a group when filming or in the process of creating the final product could be that some of the equipment is forgotten, so this could seriously delay the event being completed, examples of pieces of equipment that could be forgotten are the camera, the tripod, the battery, the memory card of the lighting equipment, these factors would seriously affect events such as filming, if this happens, the only way to overcome this obstacle is to go back and retrieve the forgotten objects, this would delay the process. Broken Equipment: Another one of the potential threats that we could run into as a group is that equipment could break, all equipment could break such as the camera, the tripod or the lighting equipment, not only could this delay the process, but it could put the whole process to a stop and then could end up in the overall product not being able to be completed on time, which will affect the overall grade received, if this happens the options are to purchase new equipment, or to make do without, or use alternatives that are not effective. Broken down car: The car that is being used in the filming and as transport could potentially break down, causing a real problem for the group, this means that the group may not be able to reach the filming destination or the filming that involves the car may not be able to be conducted, the only way to overcome this issue would be to find another driver with a different car to be able to complete the filming and drive to the filming location, or the car could possibly be fixed in time to still create the final product. Shots are not great: As the group is using a Go Pro camera for the filming of their final product, we will not be able to tell if the shots are any good until they are transferred onto the laptop after filming, this is due to the Go Pro having no viewfinder, one possible way to overcome this issue would be to bring the correct cables and cards, along with the laptop and camera to the filming, so the shots can be analysed on set, and re-filmed if necessary, this makes the overall task more difficult for the group but could save time in the long run. Laptop dies: Another one of the possible issues that the group could face is that the laptop could die when out filming and analysing the shots, this would mean that the risk of having poor quality film is highly increased, it also means that the editing will not be able to take place for a while until the laptop is available for use again, this can be prevented as far as possible by fully charging the laptop before it is taken out and the filming is conducted, the impact of this issue is not huge though, but is still a threat. Faulty editing software: When the final shots are being edited, editors can run into many issues involving the editing software, these can all either delay the process or can stop the process entirely, the way in which we have decided to overcome this possible problem is by having more than one editing software as a backup, so if one stops working, then we can use the other software until the other ones fault has been fixed and reported, this is also a good way of backing up the clips, as they will be saved to multiple sources. Clips lost: One of the biggest issues that a crew can face when editing software is losing the clips, and them not being backed up, this could potentially mean that the whole filming process will have to be completed again, this would seriously slow down the process, and there is the risk of the new filming not being as good as the original filming, which will lower the quality of the video, so to ensure that this does not happen, we will back up our clips on multiple sources to lower the chance of losing them. Crew don’t turn up: Another potential issue for the group is that people that have volunteered to be part of the crew but are not in the actual group may fail to turn up, this could lead to the filming having to be cancelled and rescheduled to a different date where hopefully the crew would all turn up, one way to overcome this could be to have backup members of crew that are available to come if this issue arises, or other members of the crew could multi-task, if non of this is possible, the date would be re-arranged. Injury: One of the issues covered in the risk assessment was injury, and this plays quite a large part in the overall production, as if members of the crew or cast are injured, the filming or the task could have to stop and rescheduled to a date where the member that has been injured feels better or a replacement would have to come in, depending on the scale of the injury. This event cannot be planned, so a contingency plan must be created. A first aid kit could also be taken with the crew to deal with any small injuries. Loss of Internet: Another factor that would affect the research and planning side of the process more than the production and filming side of the process is the loss of internet, this could be at a school or at a house, this would be resolved by the members that have been affected finding a place where they can use the internet and then upload the research and conduct the research there until the internet is working again, this could slightly slow down the overall process but is not too much of a big deal. Poor lighting conditions: One of the issues that is faced by outside filming is the weather conditions, and if on the date that we decide to film, the lighting conditions are poor, the filming may have to be rescheduled to a day where the lighting conditions are more appropriate for the needs of filming, the only possible way to overcome this is to look at weather forecasts and agree on backup dates if the conditions are not suitable for filming successfully, another way to overcome this could be to change location. Problems with audio: The final factor on our contingency plan is that the audio received could be poor or could end up being lost, there are many ways to overcome this, and these could be to back up the audio files, to re-record audio or to put a soundtrack over the whole movie instead of keeping the audio, if there are problems with the audio, then the most appropriate solution will be discussed at the time. A risk assessment is a task that a business completes, which entails the listing the likelihood, severity and the possibility of all negative events that could occur during the overall event. As well as listing the risk, possibility and severity of the risk, measures of control must also be provided, so the staff present at the event are both safe and know what to do incase of an accident or emergency.
Not only is a risk assessment an important and logical task to undertake, but also two laws state that a risk assessment is a compulsory task when holding an event. These two laws are the ‘Health and Safety at Work Regulations Act 1999’ and the ‘Health and Safety and Work Act 1974’. An effective risk assessment should cover all possible risks of an event, no matter how feasible the risk is, even if it is unlikely, it should be covered in case of the worst, a risk assessment will cover both general risks and risks that are specific to the event itself, such as if there is a stage, risks that involve a stage will be included, whereas those risks would not be included on the risk assessment if a stage was not involved in the event. For our group we decided to conduct 3 different risk assessments, one each, and then we would collaborate at the end to see if some of us included risks that other did not, then we would create one joint risk assessment that would include all the risks that were included in all of the individual risk assessments. We believed that this would help in covering all possible risks as three minds are at use rather than one. A risk assessment is also never finished, if one of the group members thought of a possible risk at any time, then we would add it to the risk assessment. There are a set of key principles that should be covered in every risk assessment, a template style set of principles that are applicable to every risk assessment, there are 5 of these principles and when a business or organisation is conducting a risk assessment, these principles come into play when a person is within an area of potential risks, these are: - Identify all possible risks - Identify who the risks apply to - Analyse the severity and possibility of the risk happening - Document the findings of the assessment - Have external bodies review the assessment before the event Principle 1 (Identify all possible risks): This principle entails the coordinators of an event inspecting the venue where the event is being held and applying all possible risks to the assessment, during this inspection, it is key that the coordinators are very thorough and make sure not to miss out any potential dangers, as otherwise the whole assessment can be rendered not useful. Not only should the blank venue itself be inspected, but any activities that are being performed in the event should also be considered. Principle 2 (Identify who the risks apply to): The principle consists of the event coordinators listing all types of people that will be attending the event and allocating each group of people to the risk that applies to them, as not all risks will apply to all people, this is so the control measures can be specific to a group of people, an example of this could be disabled people may be open to risks that would not affect fully abled people, such as suitable access areas. All possible risks should be to be applied to each group as far as possible so that the control measures are as effective as possible. Principle 3 (Analyse the severity and possibility of the risk happening): For a risk assessment to be as effective as possible, once a business or the coordinators has a full list of risks (Principle 1), they should rate the likelihood of each risk happening and the severity of the risk, for example, slips and trips would not be rated highly in terms of severity in comparison to photosensitive epileptic fits. The risks with high severity and high possibility should be the risks that are spent most time being prevented and prepared for, and the risks with low severity and low possibility should not be prioritised but still prepared for. Principle 4 (Document the findings of the assessment): The fourth principle of the creation of the risk assessment is for the event coordinators to document the findings of their primary risk assessment, this is so no possible risks are lost or any of the ratings and applications of the risk assessment are lost, it should also be kept on file for the event and post event for analysis of the event. Not only is this principle important so that none of the identified risks are forgotten about, but it is necessary for the completion of the fifth and final principle, as without a documented risk assessment it will not be able to be reviewed by external bodies that are related to health and safety. Principle 5 (Have external bodies review the assessment before the event): The final step in creating an effective risk assessment is to have the overall assessment reviewed by external bodies, in this context, an external body means a member of health and safety that is not part of the group organising the event. For our external inspector, we are using the Head of Year 7, as he is very familiar with risk assessments for year 7 students and is also very familiar with risk assessments for parties and the jubilee hall, so he will be able to inform us if the risk assessment is effective, and this inspection will be based on years of experience, so will be very valuable to the group. Once we had looked at a short edit of the film we decided that we would not be able to successfully be able to portray the ideas and features of the film that we had wanted. With this in mind we all quickly drafted a new idea. This happens a lot in both professional, independent and short films as an initial idea may seem perfect at the time but because of funds, actors or just a change in the market people can scrap ideas or leave them for another time. The greatest example of this is James Cameron's "Avatar" which had its initial idea back in 1995 but the film was not released into cinema's until 2009. Our new idea now is a film shot in entirely from the main characters point of view (POV) with the audio also being bidirectional meaning that when a character speaks on the left hand side in the film the audio comes mostly from a left hand speaker or headphone. This type of film will be quite experimental as researching it I have not found a short film that has done this. A notable example of an all POV video would be the music video for The Prodigy's "Smack My Bitch Up" Our original idea stemmed from another short film we saw and thought it was definitely thought provoking as well as a great concept. The original short film can be found in the research section of my blog titled "The decelerators". The concept behind this short film was that a group of friends felt like time was going to fast and that they wanted to stay the age they were now and have the same amount of fun. We wanted to develop on this idea that time was going to fast because as students in their final year of 6th form we too felt like time is going too fast and we wished that we could suspend ourselves in this time for longer. This idea went through a creative process of it originally being a boy who was looking for a place where time didn't exist and he could stay there and live forever but having to deal with the loneliness of being by himself and what he would sacrifice to live forever. Through some thought and some practical experiments of displaying this story in the form of a short film proved very difficult and we quickly moved on to another story line that we could follow.
To record the narration we were given the opportunity to record our actor Dylan Yull in a recording studio courtesy of University of Buckingham.
Audacity was the program used in the editing of the narration. We decided that we wanted to have no sound coming from our actual short film, this is because we wanted to add in narration from the character. We wanted to do this because we believed that it would allow the audience to connect fully with our character and gain the understand that he isn't connected with the outside world and would only be able to communicate with people if they weren't near him, moving him away from direct conversation. In doing this we had to write a script for our actor that would express the pain and difficultly our character has.
Diegetic:
This is the sound that you can hear in the short film and see the source of, for example direct speech and a radio playing. We don't have much diegetic sound within our short film; this is because a lack of diegetic sounds within short films. It also helps convey the message that our character is not in a position to have direct speech with anyone and is incapable of communication with others. The only diegetic sound we plan to have is the beginning of the short film, where the character speaks directly to the camera. Non-diegetic: This is the sound that you can hear but can't see the source of in the scene, for example narration or mood music. Within our short film we have both narration and mood music. The narration will appear in the beginning credits of our shirt film, where we plan to put animation that tells the story in drawings of our character (to give a plot background). The mood music will appear throughout the short film, this is a typical convention of a short film, this will help set the tone of loneliness to the audience therefore they are able to connect with the character more. Towards the ending of the short film we plan to again have narration over the top about the character and giving a lasting message. We decided that the music for our short film had to be calming and present the mood of emptiness and alone. We went through many different songs and combinations of songs, in order to pick the music we wanted. For example we looked at songs, such as: - Hand Covers Bruise: Trent Reznor - Penetration: Trent Reznor - Secret Invasion: Denis Stelmakh Overall, we decided after trial and error of using different songs with the clips that we had we decided that we believed that Secret Invasion by Denis Skelmakh was the song that fitting the best with the short film. We decided this as after showing many people about what they thought with the different clips, 8/10 people asked believed that they connected and felt the theme of loneliness was most present with this piece of music being asked; against 2/10 people asked who thought that Hands Covers Bruise by Trent Reznor fitting best with the surrounding. We then contacted Denis Skelmakh to gain permission to use his music in our short film; he granted us permission: The costume again was provided by our actor, this is as we had no money that could be spent on providing, or purchasing a costume, but again due to our actor being 17 years old the clothing was very common. It was also very convenient that we only needed one change of clothes, as the short film was set over one day. The clothes that we decided to use were: - Woollen jumper - Blue skinny jeans - White shoes We decided to use this as our costume as we believed it helped to express our characters personality, he was in contact with the outside world however his surroundings (the house) and how empty everything looked and seemed showed that he was in fact isolated. The costume also fitted with many of the codes and conventions of short films, as some of the short films we have looked at show the character dressed very individually and hipster. Also as we only used one costume and that our short film only lasted over the period of one day, helped us to apply our short film to the codes and conventions. Costume from Clarice Sutton Due to the small budget that we had, being a company that replica's that of an independent company, we had no budget and had to use any resources that we could find or already owned. In order to do this we used props that our actor already had, this contained things such as his bag, and clothing that he already had. The props that we used was: - Rucksack - Plate - Food - Items in his bag - Picture frame - Camera All of these items we were able to get from the actor, our own homes or from the house that we were using for filming. We believed that the props we used help to represent the image that we wanted, as we wanted our character to look as though he was up to date and current with the social acceptability’s in fashion and hair styles. However the clothes also fit with the codes and conventions of a short film, in how the character is wearing clothes that the common amongst the age group of the character. The use of the hand held camera in different points within the short story, this also fits with the codes and conventions as it is very common and popular for directors to have their entire short film or parts of their short film based around the idea of it being a self-documentary. Props from Clarice Sutton We decided that we wanted Dylan Yull as our actor. This is because we believed that he fitted with the criteria exactly, he was the most knowledgeable about the role that he was auditioning for. After combining the audition and the portfolio, Dylan Yull had all that we needed and wanted of our character. We provided us with the disconnection that we needed, his entire personality was what we were looking for, in terms of someone who could be lonely and disconnected with everyone. However he also provided us with the typical look and style of a common teenage boy that we were also looking for, as we wanted somebody who was up to date and current with how teenagers are now. Once we contacted Dylan Yull, he agreed that he was available on the set date on which we wanted to film and would also be available to re take any shots if we needed him to in the following weeks after filming.
Age: 17
Height: 5ft 11’ Weight: 70kgs Chest: 38inch Waist: 32inch Hair Colour: Brown Eye Colour: Brown Ethnicity: White British Shoe Size: 10 Contact Information: House Number: 01280 824368 Mobile Number: 07395469220 Email: [email protected] Address: 4 Gawcott Road, Gawcott, Buckingham, Buckinghamshire Age: 17
Height: 5ft 10 Weight: 65kgs Chest: 38inch Waist: 30inch Hair Colour: Brown Eye Colour: Brown Ethnicity: White British Shoe size: 8 Contact Information: House Number: 01280 816119 Mobile Number: 07713587290 Email: [email protected] Address: 34 Gilbert Scott Gardens, Gawcott, Buckingham, Buckinghamshire We decided to film this particular scene in school, as we believed it would help set the audience up and make the plot line make sense. Even though our character does a lot of his school hacking from home, it would make the audience more aware of his school presence and how he was able to hack his school computers if he was first imaged at school hacking the computers. We choose this particular area as it is a school area that contains computers; this gives the impression that the filming is taking place during a lesson, which is the setting we wanted.
Area from Clarice Sutton This image here gives an analysis of the area that we filmed in. It tells us where the electrical port is, so where we will be able to plug in our camera or any extra equipment we may need. We have the main source of light coming directly from the set of lights already in the room and it also indicates the fire exit. Having this piece of information will give us the opportunity to just arrive on the day of filming and begin, instead of searching the area and making sure that it is safe. We have also plotted the line for our 180 degree rule, this allows us to see the area in which we can and can't film to make sure that the filming images to not cross over, and the character looks as though they are in the right place continuously.
Doc6 from Clarice Sutton This image here is the overall view of the entire school. It not only shows the area that we filmed in but the car park for the crew to park and the entrances they will enter in. It also gives an overview of where they are able to go on the day and areas such as toilets for them. We have also mapped out the fire exits and fire assembly points and any emergency exits in the surrounding area.
Overview from Clarice Sutton The image here shows a close up of the area in which we want to film. We have done this in order to make it clear to us and the cast and crew members where they will need to be on the day of filming, where the toilets are and food; also what rooms are available for them to enter and what rooms can be used for hair and make-up. We have also indicated the fire exit, this is to ensure that the cast and crew members are aware of where they need to go on the day.
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