Task 1
In Task 1 I, Kenz and Hollie made a short Christmas movie brief that typically happens in a Hallmark movie, the one we got was the Military Pen Pal trope where we had to make a story including the cliche what we did was a story about a woman cheating over her husbands Soldier best friend and unknowingly was writing to him through letters. It wasn't greatest story but we did what was asked of us, we did not get the green light in the task due to the fact cheating was a rough topic which is fair. Overall It got are minds on ideas on other stories that we are going to make for the upcoming project.
I will now show two films who the only similarity it has too each other is that they both are somewhat related to Christmas. The first one is Krampus (2015) this movie a twisted tale of Krampus where in a family doesn't get along on Christmas, a young boy unleashes Krampus upon the household, despite the graphic themes it is still considered Christmas film but it would be in the category Questionable due to nature of the film itself. The message of the film would be to be there for one and another if not Krampus will strike.
The Next film is The Grinch even though they both have a message they take different approaches on how to convey it, the plot of the Grinch if you haven't watch it already is how one boy is alienated and ostracized for being different due his green skin and fur and lack of red nose, but due to one little girl kindness he is allowed in the town again and they celebrate the season together. The origin of The Grinch is from the illustration poem but it was later expanded in the start of 1957. The origin of Krampus is a dark old folk tale on how Krampus would whip and kidnap children who were not nice at Christmas and brings them down to the underworld for all eternity, he is a horned two legged demon from hell, although these two movies are different in genre, overall message and even decade due to the movie having a 15 year gap they can both be considered a Christmas film in the end of the day.
They are different types of Christmas movies and all are enjoyed by the Public at Christmas time but they are vastly different to each other and we will give the audience a different feeling watching them, this is each type of Christmas movie and how they are different from one another.
Classic
Classic Movies are mostly to used to express how pure Christmas can be through Family, Nostalgia and sometimes tradition, an example of a Classic Christmas film would be Home Alone due to the message of the story being the importance of family, also the significance of someone in the holiday season. Another example of a Classic Christmas movie would be Elf due to the fact that it has a hidden meaning within it about an importance of doing what you love. If you were to ever to produce this type of film they are some key point you could include so it can stand out from the rest for example you may add some family values so maybe a family dinner or Christmas carolling together, another thing would be redemption this means to add some conflict the main character has to go through to be a better person films that have a redemption format is the following: Christmas Carol, Home Alone and The Night before Christmas.
Hallmark
Hallmark movies are used for cheesy romance movies which most of the time has bad acting in it these types of stories could include the following: single woman finding love in a small town, The main character coming home for Christmas and even Santa and his elves fixing some relationship in the story these type of plots only appear in the Christmas season and may be cheesy in nature but people still watch them anyways. Another thing that happens that appears quite frequently in these types of movies is all the actors have to be somewhat good looking and have Christmas in the title in the name.
Questionable
These types are movies are the most different than the rest due to the fact it could be any genre as long as it has something Christmas themed in it for example the movie Die Hard is a Christmas movie since it takes place within the Christmas season and within the movie the plaza where the movie takes place in was a Christmas party. Another thing that could define a movie to be Christmas related would be if it was movie takes place in the winter an example would be Batman returns since it takes place at that time.
They are all Christmas films in the own rite since it depends on the viewer on what type of film they want to watch in the holiday season, audience may like these types of films since people like things that they can always come back to and enjoy any year and no matter how old they may be, this may be the reason why Hallmark movies are so popular now due to fact they might just need a cheesy Christmas film to watch every now and then.
Task 2
This is a picture of the script that kenz made when making the movie in which the title was only temporary it worked well due the nature of the film we were making also its a pun too which makes it better. Some of the story had to be rewritten after inspection due to a change in story structure for example Santa was going to the Christmas markets with the main character but was later scraped due it only being in two houses entirely. The next thing we did when making the short film was getting the risk assessments for the two houses that were included the one who wrote these were Hollie and when they were later on signed off by Kane, the story style that was choosen was Questionable so films like Die hard for example.
My role in this part of the Christmas short film creation was making the Prop list we may have and the equipment we also may need. Somethings we not included since it was hypothetical for example The Baseball bat that was on the list was changed to a Tennis racket and the fake tasers were removed since in the story the two police officers did not have them. The Equipment we brought with us on shoot was most of what was on the list besides a couple in which was gel sheets since it was on there just in case we needed them and also Light stands which we did not recognise at the time we needed them but we know better for the future although most of the shots used the rooms lighting but still a bad choice in our part. And the final part but most important we had brought what was the Shot list.
This was made by Hollie on Excel which helped us greatly on the day of shoot so we knew what scene we were on next and what shot we needed to do for it, It is important to make a shot list like this so you know on the day what to do and how to do before you actually do it if you don't have this it may prove difficult since you may have not to do next or you couldn't do it on the day you hoped and you forgotten what shots to do and in turn missed a good opportunity.
In the upcoming film my role is the camera operator and also the light operator the pre production so far has been a lot of ups and downs for example we completed everything and where setting up the roles that are meant for the cast but when everything was going our way the Actor backed away a bit when learning of the shooting times they were shortly recasted and asked to do a minor role of singing the end credits but the confirmation of this is yet to be seen. Although my pilot was scraped i still liked the idea i had it was fully produced due it being not questionable enough but overall good idea i would consider.
Task 3
Post Production Stage
This film all started with the story planning where the group made a pilot of what there story intends to be so it can get green lit by Kane and become a thing, my Christmas short film was going to to about this homeless guy who is taken in by the main character who at first is not sure if he should trust him due to him living under some bridge but he warms up to him at the end of the film and they celebrate Christmas together, our theme we had to go by was questionable and what made it so in my story was of the subject of homelessness it was turned down due to being more classic then questionable. Hollies idea was about some girls having a sleepover at 4:44 and supernatural things happen they later find out in the short film that the crystals they got at the Christmas market was protecting them and the number 4:44 was not a sign of despair but hope, this idea was scraped due it being too much for a short film. Finally the idea what was greenlit was Kenzs Santa home invasion type comedy. The reason this was picked instead of the others that it worked of what Kane was intending for the project.
We next started with making the script and making things that we intend to have on the day of shooting I made the equipment list and the prop list while others did the script and found the cast who were suited the roles we wanted for the film, here is a photo of us during the casting.
Production Stage
This is where we started shooting everything worked as intended when we started at Kenz house to film about 90% of the film it took a rough couple of hours to do but it went smoothly despite on how many were there at the time in which was 11 to 12 we filmed in sifts in which i was accustomed to being the the light guy but on occasion being the camera when someone was doing something else at the time, Kenz took the directing role while Hollie took most of the camera work if we had to again i would get a light stand this time since we didn't and it effected how the product looked in the end. The next day of filming didn't go as smoothly for me at least due to scheduling and poor timing I couldn't go but i assume it went without any problems due to less work to do since we were just finishing up
Premier
Here is the final product of the Christmas short film we made it will be also uploaded to YouTube so if the link does not work, I expect it to be there.
https://youtu.be/r9Bi2UwgFGs
These are my pros and cons of working for the Christmas project and what i hope to achieve next time to further improve my skills, firstly one good thing that happened was how everything went smoothly on the first day of shooting and we didn't have to reshoot for another day, this helped for the making of this since we had difficulty finding time where we were all together and despite the amount of distractions from the others it went well, a con I hope to improve is my editing skills even if I am a novice I hope I can help in the future. Another thing I further improve on in the future is scheduling due to the fact that actors could have be in a another film and having to push it back. Finally a pro that we did well on this project was the shot list this way we didn't waste time and wrote all the shots down before hand. My last con that i will further improve on in the future is i wish to use the camera more frequently due me only being the light operator for the most of the short film. My target for the next film production will be to improve Camera since i think it need some work on it and it wouldn't hurt taking the role more often.
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