This is a flatplan of my poster. I was looking at all the war posters and other posters I researched, and decided to create a small design of what I might want my poster to look like. It isn't overly detailed but then again, I might go for the minimalistic looks after looking at all of these posters.

Progress with poster: Considering titles

I was on this online website where i could type in a title or a word and surf through thousands of fonts and colours till i came to the one i thought was amazing. I considered a lot of different fonts due to the genre of my film. I believed these all portrayed what I was looking for. Something gritty, complicated, hard, dark...etc. 

I was certain what we were calling the short film so i simply added some random title for now. 'Trauma' would work but i believe it;s too in your face. Gives too much away. 

 Unfortunately, this font looks too old and the way it just cuts is a shame. I wouldn't blend well into the poster which is a shame and it seems to have gone slight pixelised. This could be down to the screenshotting, but i just don't feel like this would work as well as the others.

This one of my top favourites. I like the old complexity it has. Seems like it's too Sci-fi though. IT has that X-files vibe that I'm not going for. Would work for a sci-fi thriller but not for a war/drama genre film.

I actually put this onto my poster to see if it would work well with what i have so far. Like the others, although they look good on plain paper, once it was on the background with some of the existing elements, it didn't seem to fit as well. It captures the 'old' look I was going for but it lacks what i need. It's hard to put it into words but these just don't fit - they don't feel right. As I'm aiming for top marks and to create an effective project, i want everything to work well together. This looks too much like a cartoon font, you can see by the brush strokes...etc.

EMAIL TO OCR

Me and Alex emailed the OCR board as we were concerned with an image on our posters. 
Basically, we were unable to get a primary picture of a WW2 aircraft for our poster, and we were worried in case we used a found image and it would jeopardise our 

Dear Sir/Madam,

I am currently working towards completing my A level in Media Studies and I'm enquiring about the use of found images within our Ancillary tasks. I was wondering if we are able to use some found image on our posters. Myself and my partner Alex are asking to use one found image. This is due to the lack of resources as the image we're using is of a WW2 Aircraft and are unable to locate one for the poster.

Thank you for your time,
Kind regards

Rebecca Graham.

PHOTOSHOOT!!

Little storyboard update

Over the next couple of days I'm going to be posting the storyboards we did for the shots...etc / the work we did int he TA centre.

Here is the start of the first couple of shots we did.
Some changes will be depending on how we approach the story. If we aim for an emotional film I would rather flashbacks and more sentimental and meaningful shots were used unlike random establishing shots of buildings. Although they're important when identifying a place, sometimes they aren't that necessary. For example: If we use rooms within the TA centre that resemble and shout out "hey this is where soldiers go" then that's ideal. This could happen by:
- Medals ...etc on the walls
- Old photographs
- The layout of the rooms...etc.

Phone Call

I just received a phone call off George - The main actor and my Sergeant Major. We were unsure if he still wanted to proceed with helping us with the project since he has been unable to make it to the last photoshoot days that we assigned.

He reassured us that he was still committed  to the task at hand and would love to be apart of the short film still. We have set a definite date now for the photoshoot and we will be meeting him at school on Friday the 9th January at 1:30pm.

He will be in his army ceremonials ready for the photoshoot. This will then mean that we just have to get Alfie's pictures, then start the ancillary tasks. I'm currently working towards creating an outline for the poster and review so all i'll have to do is slot it in afterwards.

Email to Hawthorne Care home

Me and Alex were struggling to find somewhere to do the last section of filming. We have all the rest of the fillers for the film and all the in-between sections, however, we are unable to locate somewhere with the same feel of  a care home. So instead of replicating a care home, we decided to get in contact with one and ask if they would be able to help us with our project, and let us film in one of their rooms that are available.

Below is a couple of screenshots from their website and one enquiry that we sent. If they allow us to film it would be incredibly ideal, as we are pushing it for time now with trying to film the rest of the film, edit then manage everything else as well as exam work so we need to get this cracked as fast as possible. The care home is located quite close to my house which means It's easy to get to and if they let us film, they may offer us another time to do it. I do hope they allow us. I understand that it's a care home, meaning that other residents are living there and they may feel uncomfortable about 'kids' hanging around filming, but they won't be included in the filming so their identity can remain anonymous.

Making Plans

So today me and Alex needed to get things planned and sorted, else we'll get nothing done.

I rang my sister Natasha, asking if I could get my nephew - Alfie, out of nursery (he's 3) on Tuesday the 18th of November. This will allow us to take some decent photographs in the studio so we can use them on our poster. I've recently been in the studio because I was modelling for a friends AS media project and although green screens are amazingly useful, I prefer the white background. I'm not sure if it's because to me it seems an easier way of cutting out and editing the pictures, but I don't like the green screen. It made the cameras looked rather dark. However, this could have been down to the white balance of the camera not being correct, and a lot of other factors too. I'm going to go talk to one of the technicians and see if there is anyway to get the white screen back, but I've been speaking to my teacher and he believes it is a great screen, so we're going to see how it works on both of the models.

During the phone call with my sister we established that he has an old pair of school pants that we can cut up into shorts. Alex will be in charge of costume for the most part of this project as she is doing an A level in textiles, and I trust fully that she understands her way around a sewing machine more than I do. Also, on Sunday the 16th, I will be going to his house and looking through all his clothes for stuff that can be used in the photo-shoot and filming. Basically, I'll make a stock pile of props and clothes we have and what we have spare along with things we need to get.

Whilst organising this, I've been talking to George (the main actor) who is my cadet sergeant major, and we are going to film on Wednesday. (This Wednesday failed and i'll upload a podcast about that later). Friday the 21st will be when George is coming in. It'll be between 11:50 - 3:00 which is our media lessons. Doing this next week will give us another opportunity in the next couple of weeks to get them back in, to refilm and get shots that we weren't happy with sorted.

For this photoshoot, George will need his kit and cane. This is general sgt major attire and I will post pictures and a separate post about this on Wednesday or Friday when I get him in his actual kit. He can also help me with the names of them and also potentially why he wears this kit. It's great having someone from the actual army/acf help me with project because it makes a lot of the elements in the short film realistic and authentic.

Wednesday the 12th

Little Update Ideas - Location

Our short film doesn't heavily feature many location shots. Referring back to the pitch, it states thats it mainly features in a bedroom/or a house setting that looks homely. There will also be flashbacks and they will either be in a forest setting that looks beautiful and enchanted and then there will be other flashbacks that get darker  and develop more meaning to the story.

Ideas for the house/bedroom:

George is playing the main character in the short film. He is a Sgt/Major at the ACF Kingston Park detachment. He lives on the TA base and this gives us great access to film the army vechicles...etc. Also means we don't have to travel around in order to get a lot of footage covered. I hope that his house looks homely and what i have in my mind. I am going to have pictures put up that are ideal and represent what i want for my short film. We will try and find things that are closest to these ideas.

We may use some back field that is next to Pelaw metro for the flash back scene with my young nephew Alfie who will be playing the younger version of George.

Place we could go:
- filler scenes - TA centre at Kingston park
- Pathways/ the forest


PROBLEM WITH FILMING OUTSIDE AT THE MOMENT:
It is really cold and this could affect things. Make it look misty and not very warm, and also we are working with a 3 year old which could be challenging because it'll be really cold.

Nicolas Cage film: 'Joe'

Somewhere in July (Would like to the say the 28th of July, but I could be wrong), Me, Callum (I past student who was on the media course) and Daniel (a student at this school), went to see Joe the film. I liked how the film didn't have lots of locations and it was centred around a small town. It showed a lot of history and character that moulded the character into what he is now. E.g, his upbringing, the people he knows in the town, the relationship he ahs with them, his work destroying trees...etc.

 

Website for review:

http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/jul/27/joe-review-nicolas-cage-return-to-form-deep-south-drama

Closed questionnaire

 

Open questionnaire

I created this questionnaire in order to find out more about my target audience and what their opinion was on short films.

Here is an example taken from a selection of 15 questionnaires.

looking back over these questionnaires I forgot to include the gender and age of the people I asked. This is a little note to state that when I do upload my pie charts presenting my findings, I will have gender and age on them, I just asked them after the questionnaires were given out.

Short film pitch

Pitch


I am aiming to create a short film with Alex. We have decided on the storyline of the short film however our genre is rather flexible. We will be using a mix of conventions that are carried out in different genres and different short or ordinary films that we have seen to fit without story.

The time period fluctuates as we use flashbacks from the man’s life. The short film is about a man who has a un- said illness that affects him in a severe mental way. Throughout the film, (which is mainly set at his home, and then the memories are in varies other places) he reminisces with old memories by looking at old photos, war medals...etc. He is overcome by emotion and basically has an episode. The episode is hearing his deceased wife talk to him and when he turns around he isn’t in his lovely home but in a sterile looking white hospital room, where a nurse talks him down in a very condescending tone.

The setting appears to be unclear but from what you can gather from his small movements to where he mainly sits in the film (at a desk/mirror+desk area), it is in a sitting room/ warm and comfy looking bedroom. The flashbacks will be set in various places like a forest or a grassy area. We will be using a lot of open areas but places that wouldn’t give away the time we are filming in which is obviously 2014. It wouldn’t look very convincing if we had the metrocentre in shot when we were trying to resemble the 1930s/40s.

In our film there won’t necessarily be a lot of dialogue but there will be some towards the end which drive the story to a climax where you discover his illness.

We thought of having old war music in the background and then when he becomes anxious and starts getting emotional, the music will start to distort, which drives the shots. They get faster and faster and then music stops. The short and quiet dialogue comes in till the end of the film.

Ancillary research

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Short film investigation: The Camera

From what I've gathered this short film is about a young girl who is aware of this camera that possess the ability to show things that aren't there. I believe this because she goes willingly to the camera and this shows she knows or at least has a hunch of what it can do. There is a relationship between this girl and the boy that appears in the Polaroid picture. There's a crescendo of events as she frantically starts taking pictures searching for this boy. As I stated before, she must know him because looks out onto the beach and then uses the camera to see him walking towards the beach. This suggests that she knows where he's going or where he would be going. When she takes a picture of herself, she either enters the 'realm' or 'heaven' he's in (I'm not quite sure what this other place is. It must be down to the audience's own interpretation).

Short film investigation: Casualties of war

This short film features a young woman's story of how she lost the love of her life due to war. It shows you here preparing for some sort of ceremony and my first guess was a wedding. It doesn't state he has died, it just shows lips of shots which start off unfocussed and zooms in to the photographs of herself, her child and her fiancée/boyfriend. The story unravels and shows that she is arriving at a graveyard and it's evident she is in emotional pain. All though it isn't clearly evident, it looks as if she has lost him before their wedding day. She's living out the wedding day they didn't get to spend together.