Candidate Declaration - I confirm that the attached portfolio is all my own work and does not include any work completed by anyone other than myself
Lesson 1
In this lesson I was told to make a inciting incident that could help me improve when beginning to create the final film, One idea I have could be about the main character has some memory loss and couldn't find any sign of life around, the inciting incident is when all hope is lost and they might of given up looking they find something like a radio transmission of a survivor of some sort and with this it gives the main character hope to find them. It could grip the audience by how desperate to find someone they have come, for example through the short film they can slowing give up hope which could be shown through their personality but when they ultimately find them or not is the big climax.
Task 1
In creating a film they are multiple elements that you have to include into the the finished product to make it worth the watch for the audience and that if you don't do a overall good job on making these elements stand out in your film then i doubt it would stand out when people are looking for something to watch one day.
Audio - This is one best ones to include since without sound there would be no overall dialogue can be heard and the immersion for your story your trying to create for the audience would be tarnished, the best way to implement this into a film would be that when you are filming make sure the room is silent so that all the sound can be heard is from the actors on screen, if by chance there was background noise that was heard you can always remove it through editing. How included this element through my FMP is making sure our audio equipment is always operational within the scenes and if they was any outside noise that was recorded without our notice.
Editing - This one is usually made after the production is fully concluded and that it takes a abundant of amount of time to connect them together and making sure that the directors commands and the clapper board appearances are removed. This is important because you can add additional things like music and sound clips to your film to make sound and look appealing. If you did not have this when making a film it would not exist at all because it would be just a assortment of clips without it. How we fulfilled it in our film is making sure all the scenes we made are together and it sounds great to hear.
Cinematography - This means the creation of the camera shots and angles when making a film, this element is usually the first one you should consider when creating the film for example where is the camera positioned in a scene and how could you convey that through that shot, In my opinion i think its the most important because it is what the audience sees when viewing your film so every shot taking is important. How we included this element into our short film is when filming our scenes we had many shot angles so that we can make our short film as good as we could possibly make it.
Lighting - Lighting is something to be considered when doing the shots because it sets the overall tone of the scene, for example if something serious is happening then the lighting could represent that, Another tool that we are hoping to implement into our film is the monotone lighting like from those old film noir detective shows, this will be included into our film last since we need to film the scenes and connect them together before starting on the effects.
Location - Location is important because you are in a location that is not particularly suited for that film then it would look out of place and the immersion from the film would be stunted for this, for example imagine a serious cop drama looking for a killer on the loose and he is looking for clues, then the camera pans out to reveal where he is and he's just at some non related park it would totally remove all the tension gained from the story. How we included this element into our film is the Black Box room in the college since the location we picked was supposed to look like a basement and the black walls looks like something a basement would have.
Scheduling/Planning - This is sort of the least important one but also in a way equally as important as the rest of these elements I have presented, my reason for this is without the proper planning and communication with your actors you will not get any filming done, so you have to plan in advance especially when the actors have multiple films at once. If you don't do it and one the actors are suddenly not available on the day you want them on then the whole film could be up in flames in a sense, how we avoided this was the scheduling board where all the film students put the days they were filming and with what actors so that if someone has the same day as you then you can find a way around that.
Task 2
The Research me and Robert ( my partner ) did for FMP started with the idea of being detective show from the Switch game Disco Elysium in which the main character who is also a detective has to find something, Robert took a lot of inspiration from the game into this our short film, another thing we researched on for ideas was Noir films since they tended to involve around old fashioned detectives we went to include the Noir Font effect into our film plus it provided the opportunity to be fully original and unique to the rest of the films that was being made at the same time. Below is the Green Light Pitch me and Robert made for this idea we had.
https://stocktoncollege-my.sharepoint.com/:p:/r/personal/02001372_stockton_ac_uk/Documents/green%20light%20pitch%20redhering%202.0%20-%20Copy.pptx?d=w4284bc20f5154ee591475b58e46a1c8c&csf=1&web=1&e=tM8zLI - Red Herring FMP Green Light Pitch
Task 3
Here is the google drive with all of the work on it, look at it at your leisure
Task 4
Here's how the Red Herring FMP came into creation, it all started from a thought from Robert who came up with an idea for a detective film due to the fact that he enjoyed the game Disco Elysium's art style and he wanted to expand on that, after he established the overall idea for what we wanted to do we began with the characters and the plot for the short film, in which we did. Next we presented it to the class for the Green Light pitch, Kelly one of the tutors of the class came with the idea of making the the entirety of the film in black and white to fully embrace the old detective noir genre, we did so and began the script and cast auditions in which that in itself took a portion of time due to other films clashing with ours to gain the right actors. Once we found the actors we were comfortable with, we started to film it in the Black Box room due to the fact like it could look like some run down basement from the black walls with the right angles and lighting. The first day of shooting went alright in my opinion we completed the scenes we wanted to do besides the one exception, the actors played their roles they were given fairly well. There was this certain scene we had to redo since a couple of the crew members appeared in shot on accident but besides the hiccup day 2 of filming went alright, I took some photos while we are shooting in which I will upload it here below this task if you wish to see them. A couple of things changed when filming on day 2 that we had to adapt over for it to be done. Firstly was the order the scenes we were making due to one of actors not being available so had to move things around, the second thing that is more prominent was Robert not being available also for a portion of the shoot due to a maths exam, so I had take more of an directorial role which is out of my comfort zone.
Day 2 of filming had its own set of challenges that we had to overcome, for example the detectives hat and coat was missing for a portion of the shoot so we had move some of the planned scenes around due to the narrative constraints, another hassle we had to deal with was in the other room where some of the musical theatre students were singing and we couldn't record our audio due to how loud they were being. One last thing to overcome was one of the actors being late so had to do some scenes later, but after all that, we still did a fair portion of it, but we had to take a extra day to finish things up. The final day went without a hitch as one would say it, due they only being only 4 scenes that we had to do so it all went smoothly, I wasn't there on set due to me editing the pre existing footage. Editing the footage was in of itself a challenge due to the fact that the last time I did some editing was when I did some Foley work so I had to remember some old things but also learn some one new ones too.
Here are a couple of photos that were taken on the set of Red Herring.
Task 5 - Evaluation
Looking back on my FMP project I feel like it has gone okay in my personal opinion, despite the downs it all went smoothly everyone on set did their roles well we did all the shots and scenes on time, the pre production went alright we printed out all the necessary paperwork that we need in which we have together in a FMP folder. When we first started out when we created the green light pitch I was a bit nervous on how this project would turn out but once we started pitching the ideas and actually making the short film. While making the script something didn't make the cut was Cigs due to the fact that we could not find the correct cigarettes that we wanted.
Something I would improve upon would be my editing skills due to fact I don't have much experience in it compared to camera work, so in the future i would like to be more confident in it and see if would enjoy doing more of it, plus its always a nice thing to learn something new and improve. Another thing I would like to improve on in the near future would be simply camera work since its always best to keep going at what you already know to improve further. Lastly If i could of changed something into the development of the film i would change Myself into sorta a Directorial/plot adviser of sorts since it always felt like I could of done more with how the film went down. I will upload the final project when its completed, below this paragraph
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POUXsUnb_qg
Task 6 - Project Proposal
Overall i think i did alright in these units the past year, although they were some bumps every now and then, at the start of the year i did not know much about film apart of the fact that i enjoyed watching them but now at the end of the year i can honestly say that i can film something with a camera, that may sound surprising but at the beginning i seriously did not know anything at all with camera but now that i do, i can take that knowledge into something i would like to do. The Knowledge I gained from previous units helped me in my current project since it helped me with the confidence to expand my horizons and take up some challenges like doing the film in black and white.
My Aim for this project was to experiment on what we could do for my FMP since we didn't always have the idea for it to be entirely in black and white but when it was proposed to us i was curious how it would urn out for us in the end , plus it would make us stand out from the crowd of other short films due its presentation. In the early pre production stage when we making the green light pitch the idea of making it somewhat psychological came from the idea of making kind of like a game called Disco Elysium, it is about this other detective who is dealing with a murder case but to also confront is own past, so of course we took a couple of things to implement it into the short film but we did add our own twist on it. Of course we had to cut the film down to fit it into the 10 minute margin since that was the task they gave us into making the film. Another thing we needed fro the film was extra crew since if it was just the two of us the entire time we would not have done it in the right of time we were given, so the extra crew was appreciated.
Looking back onto the project at the end and at the peak of production, there was multiple highs and lows but above all that it was a overall good experience to have since most films are not going to go smoothly as you would have hoped but overcoming it is good, for the experience.
References
Disco Elysium The Final Cut ( 2021) Nintendo Switch ZA/UM
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