unit 8 final project planing
Rationale
Though out the year iv learnt a lot about cinematograph with each unit teaching me something new. Unit one and two helped me re-familiarize myself with the basics of film, the correct use of shot types and the basics of working with lighting. Unit one also introduced me to foley and the correct situations to use it giving films an atmosphere of back ground sounds needed to bring it to life while Unit two pre-production knowing how to plan out all my work and gather vital information from primary and secondary research this had been invaluable to me during the other units keep my work organized and easy to understand instead of a chaotic mess.
Units three and four helped me further my knowledge and understanding of pre-production. quickly teaching me how to analyze other work and my own helps me better understand the level i'm at and where I can improve.
Unit 5 I had decided to take a focus on primary research using focus groups and interviews to get understand what the audience wants leading me to think deeper about demographics and the wants of the audience.
When I had reach unit seven I had an decent understanding of working with film but lacked certain basic skills with adobe photoshop and illustrate unit sever help fill the gap teaching how to use abode apps more efficiently.
My skills and knowledge before the course was limited to basic use of photoshop and and the fundamental rules of filming. the course has developed skills from almost nothing making me at lest fairly knowledgeable and competent. Giving me the confidence to think bigger and go for risky film ideas knowing I can complete them without fail.
Project concept
My project concept is to make a black and white crime drama. The reason for this is my main focus though out the course has been shorts with visual effects and interesting story lines but haven't paid much attention to the color pallet. I see this as an opportunity make a more artistic film using a black and white pallet with an interesting take on classic story arch a type. For primary research I plan to use interviews and focus groups for the short to get an better understanding of what the audience expects and wants. While for the poster ill be using surveys and social media feed back. The secondary research I will be looking mainly into films based around detectives,mafia and vigilantes and films that use black and white color pallets. examples of these would be Sin City,the God Farther films, and the black and white cut of Logan. For the poster ill be looking a posters of crime dramas in the 1950s and researching whats makes poster most effective and eye catching due to my lack of knowledge in advertising.
evalutaion
I will be doing a written evaluation at the end of my planning, primary research, secondary research, pre-production, post-production and the final cut of the short.
ill be evaluating the quality of each part talking about the problems iv come across and the solutions a found to resolve them.
Project action plan
Week 1: In the first week I plan to finish my rationale, project concept and bibliography.
Week 2: During the second week ill have done my synopsis and interviews for my primary research.
Week 3: This week ill have finished my primary research and started and my secondary research.
Week 4: Ill be doing the planing for my film look at location filling out the characters in my film and look at prop il be needing.
Week 5: Thought out this week ill be going back to my primary research conducting interviews with more targeted questions.
Week 6: During this week ill tart and finish my pre-production ready to film next week.
Week 7: Ill be focused on filming this week and looking though the shots for any errors or mistakes
Week 8 :will be creating the final edit of the film and doing the evaluation
Proposed research sources and bibliography
For my primary research ill be doing interviews and focus groups to better understand what my audience would want from this short film.While for secondary research ill be using films ,tv shows and comics related to crime drama or the art style I plan to use. I also want to look into business side of film. Ill be searching for demographic information, the average budget for these sort of films to estimate what I would need for something on a much smaller scale and cinematograph techniques for filming in black and white.
genre:
action
crime drama
classic noir
black and white color pallet with others used sparingly similar to sin city
film ideas:
classic detective film in the style of 1940s-1950s
probation era where the mafias at its prime
location: America
L.A, San Francisco or New York
basic demographic:
primary: males aged 18-25 interests in dramatic action movies would be your avg film goer
secondary: males aged 35-40 people very interested in cinematography and films made in old style enjoy the artistic side of films more than the film its self
film ideas
three short film ideas
a short drama of a family and friends dealing with the aftermath of someone they know dyeing of something
reality TV show
noire style detective short film
this is likely going to be a dramatic sad film based around loss and trying to continue on with such a drastic change to a groups life
I got this idea because most films focus on the subject with the illness or suicide thoughts. once the subject dies the film finishes when in reality theres so much more story to tell.
the reality TV will focus a very average and stereotypical working class family.
the focus is to create a relatable comedy with the dysfunctional family dynamic.
The Family:
Dad: around 40 years old, very cockney, masculine, builder, likes to drink but not an alcoholic, enjoys betting a bit too much, small social circle, enjoy foot ball, uses offensive slurs yet fails to see why they would offend.
Mum: around 40 years old, loud, rude, openly mean to her kids yet heavily judges other parents.
Twins: around 14-16, road men, chavy, smoke, drugs, drink, they believe there very tough but fail to prove them selfs
Daughter: around 17-22, very demanding, always has a problem, overly dramatic, is in education or has a job not both, always on phone has alot of friends, act as if everything everone dose is to spite her
Wanted to make a classic black and white crime drama. Creating a black and white film can be interesting due to the lack of colour the use of lighting becomes crucial. It needs to look natural while keep the scene focused to not confuse the viewer
A detective trying to uncover a murder sends him deep into the mafia. the goal is to make a action/drama with a small amount of thriller ideally creating a tense short with few brakes to breathe.
Synopsis
My plan is to make a classic crime drama in the 1940s - 1950s style. The short will be set in America during the prohibition era with two detectives trying to shut down the mafia. I plan to use an art style similar to sin city the black and white with other colors used very sparingly is probably one of the most interesting color palettes iv seen and want to take this opportunity to replicate it. To make something unique that seemed fairly difficult and put the focus on an artistic aspect rather than throwing effects everywhere.
primary Research
the focus group helped narrow my ideas down and understand watch my audience will be looking for in my short
Secondary Research
Sin City
Genre: noir, crime drama
Dialogue: the dialogue in sin city is fairly simple leaving men with stereotypical masculine one liners and women with the basic i'm not your every day woman archetype.
Visuals: sin city has an creative art style using high contrast black and white with a sparingly used colour pallet of mainly reds,greens and yellows.that fact that these are used sparingly adds so much impact to scene when used the reds are threatening, greens give off this sort of envious lust and yellow shows disgust. and even the black and white has its place this is a dark gritty corrupt place to be and the bland greying colour pallet speaks to depression insanity and isolation of the location.
music and sound: the music and sound effect are nothing of any real interest there not good or bad the music is easily forgettable to the point you wonder if it had any and the sounds just fit in where there placed nothing of note
use: iv chosen this as my secondary research because i'm want to use a similar art style with my short film
Hunger
Genre: Biography, Drama, historical
Dialogue: the dialogue in Hunger in dramatic and casual it feels very human incredibly natural. I was easily immersed into their back and fourth with the conversation seamlessly flowing into the drama of the scene as the battle over the ethics of a hunger strike.
Visuals: hunger had an interesting idea for its visuals in this scene is just one shot unchanged for around ten minutes with nothing around the two characters to catch the eye in a normal film this would be a bad idea leving the audience bored and waiting for the scene to be over while hunger uses this to pull the audience into the conversation not missing out on a single word or movement getting the really invested to what is one of the key point of the film.
music and sound: in this scene there are little to no sound effects or music used the director really wanted the audience to focus on the back and fourth dialog the two characters are having over Bobby's hunger strike.
use: iv chosen use this scene for my secondary research because one of the scenes in my short will be a police interview and i wanted to have a better understanding of the character interaction to make a compelling scene.
Planing:
Location: I plan to set the film in in a 1950s new york city. Ichose this time period for authenticity this is where the Mafia was at its most powerful adding a clearer view of how powerful there crime syndicate would be.
character profile:
name: James Adam
age: 28
gender: Male
origin: American
key facial features: Short hair, glasses clear jaw line,
clothing: Big coat, Glasses, work trousers, fancy watch,
name: Mike smith
age: 35
gender: Male
origin: American
key facial features: Round face, small facial features, medium length hair quiff,
clothing: Big coat, Glasses, work trousers, fancy watch,
name: David Jacob
age: 24
gender: Male
origin: American
key facial features: Large nose, patchy facial hair, long hair in a pony tail,
clothing: Jeans, denim vest, hoodie
Sound: The sounds in my short will mainly be back ground foley to add an atmosphere and the characters dialog. Music wise ill mainly be using it for an intro and outro as the credits rolls i don't have any plans to add music to any of the scenes it'll take focus of the main characters.
Lighting: since my short is in black and white lighting will be key to pulling it off ill need to find a balance between keeping it natural and and making sure the characters stay the focus of the scene.
Props: In my short I won't be using many props tables, chairs, nurf guns, will try to dress the actors as detectives using clothing they already own, the suspect just needs to ware a hoodie and dark clothing to fit the role. Because my focusing or narrative and art I'm not really in the need for an armory of props at the ready.
THE CHASE
The chase is the final product of my short film the end result became quite different from the planing phase of my final major project. In the end I had decided to create short action packed police chase over a long winded detective drama this was due to two main problems. First being the out door lighting this made it difficult to create the black and white ascetic I had wanted because you would continuously lose the actors in the black and white. The second was the actors themselves I had multiple issue writing a realistic yet impactful script this with a lack of motivation from the actors left a mundane and monotone feel to film not wanted in a detective crime drama .
Sound: Due to the fact we were unable to take equipment from the college for long periods of time I was unable to use a microphone to collect the Foley I needed. With that small set back I decided to use my camera to collect sounds. The obvious problem with this is cameras are terrible for picking up quality sound so in the end I had deiced to keep character dialog to a minimum and use the ambient noise of the location we were filming in to try and hide the sound quality
Lighting: There not much to talk about here I filmed during the day using the sun for lighting. This meant instead of controlling the lights I would have my choice in short narrowed down to anything that can benefit from the suns light. In any short where i didn't have the lighting i wanted i would use the flash light on my phone to illuminate an area to weaken the shadows in the shot.
Shot types: The shots in my short film are a mix of good and bad. There were constant disputations while filming and I had to keep cutting shots early to hide bystanders walking into the scene.I did also forget to keep focus in mind on a couple of the shots but the ones where i did remember turned out fairly descent.
Narrative: clearly the narrative changed a lot with the final product. I lacked a lot of the equipment props and locations I needed for the short film this was due to a lack of knowledge on how difficult it would for me to attain what I required. In the end I redesigned the film on a shorter period of time with fewer props costumes and locations.