Final Film

Context

The plot of my story is a girl, Amelia, is grieving her 'dead' sister so decides to go for a walk one night to clear her head about it, when she was on that walk she sees a figure in the distance and is convinced it is her sister Eden. she runs back home and tells her mum (Julie) what had happened. Julie tries to convince her that what she just saw was not Eden. The next day, Amelia goes downstairs and has a letter from someone, she opens it and it is from Eden telling her to meet her, Amelia is terrified. It cuts to a few hours later and Amelia is getting ready to go and see her sister, even though she still isn't fully sure of her existence. She leaves the house and goes to the alley where Eden said to go. After standing there for around ten mins, her sister shows up and tells her that Julie is dangerous and cannot be trusted, proceeding to tell her everything that their mum had done to her. Scared, they make a plan to ruin their mum. Amelia goes home and gets the keys to the file draw and proceeds to rummage through it intensely until she gets caught by her mum who then starts to get aggressive. Eden sneaks in the house and goes upstairs, proceeding to knock their mum out with a bat, giving them both chance to escape the house. In the final scene, Julie wakes up and looks at a picture of them both, then proceeding to leave. This is symbolic of her revenge... 

The whole reason Eden fakes her death was to try and protect her sister from this, and her mum. This is why she followed her on her walk as she needed Amelia to know that she was alive and could help her, but without anyone else knowing as it could have been dangerous for them both. Amelia is a 16 year old naive character who gets scared very easily and this causes her to do stupid things, for example when she ran back home and told her mum that she thinks she just saw Eden. Eden is a 19 year old sister who is very smart and independent, and always is trying to help the ones she loves the most. She was showing this throughout the whole of the film when she was protecting her sister at all costs, no matter if it got her into trouble or danger. Julie is a psychopathy and does not have good morals at all. she is the opposite of Eden and would go to any lengths to hurt the people she loved the most.

research 

To begin my research, I looked at the Netflix series pretty little liars. This has very similar aspects in it to my film, which is why I chose to research about it. The similarities in the plot are that in pretty little liars, Allison goes missing and fakes her death to protect the people around her and herself so in that aspect it is quite similar. I looked on how they filmed the quick scenes and her flashbacks, and how they interact with each other when not seeing each other for a long time, particularly looking at emotions for different purposes. Another thing I looked at was the music and what type of sounds they used whilst the similar aspects were happening throughout the series.

I found that doing research made everything a lot easier as i was able to look and contrast and similar things i had done to the other shows. More things i had considered during research was the age limits and what type of age range my film would be aimed at. I looked at the guidelines and mine would be a

 15+.

problem solving

Whilst filming, I ran into many problems but a lot of them could be solved. During my script, it took me quite a long time to actually finish it, this was meaning that I couldn’t schedule as fast as I would have hoped, making it a lot harder to fit it all in as the actors were already taken by other filmmakers on a lot of the days. This also meant that I had to work around the times I could use my locations for, as I could only use Freya's house on Wednesdays and Mondays, which made it harder, however this was solved. On my first day of filming, I had a huge slip up as I dropped that camera as I hadn’t secured the camera to the tripod properly yet, not realising I had done this and it fell off and the viewfinder was a bit bent and crooked however there was no major harm done to it, so everything ended up being okay. To solve this, I messaged Kelly straight away as I was out on location, telling her what had happened, and a picture of the damage and then brought the camera back to college. Another problem was that the actors could not film on the night time as they lived so far away, so I had to change the night time shots to day which made it a lot more difficult but it all worked out okay. 

planning

To start off planning this film, it started around two months before we started filming. To begin this, we had to write a script. This had to be done in stages and drafts one by one. We had to think of a rough story line that we could create our script from. Once we had done this, it was time to make draft one of the script. This was the most challenging part of it, as it was piecing all of the ideas together that we had come up with. This then got checked by our teachers Kelly and Kane ready for the second draft. This was the draft where we had to make the most changes, and big changes rather than small. On this one, i changed quite a lot to do with my story, including the whole way it ended. It started off with the parents being spy's at the end, but I then came to realise that that was a bit out of no where and ridiculous. It then changed to the mum killing the dad, as halfway through this process, I had to get rid of one character as I was unable to cast it, and this was the dad. Then we had to make a third draft. This one for me was to mainly just nit pick at it and make sure it is perfect and ready to film. This one only took me a day. Next off, it was time to cast. To be able to do this, we had to make a casting sheet, which included a notice to tell the actors what was going on, a mini description of your film, and details about filming etc. We then put this on the teams chat with all of the film makers and actors I it. I had quite a problem with casting in the beginning as not many people were messaging me, wanting to be in it which worried me a little bit. I then came to realise, that this was because my description of the film was too long, and it didn't really make much sense. I rewrote this description and put it back on teams as a reminder, and a lot more actors came forward a lot quicker. We had around a week to choose out cast. I chose Megan English as Eden, Brooke Robinson as Julie, and La Toya Borg as Freya. When this was done and we had chosen a confirmed cast, we had to get them to sign release forms so make sure it was okay to film them and put it on the Ufilms YouTube.

To actually start planning for filming, there was many things we had to do. I started off with mood boards, for each character as a whole, and outfit mood boards. This was mainly to help the actors with what they need to wear on set, for each day. We then had to find locations for our film. I had quite a hard time doing this because i couldn't find places that i could slot in at subtitle times. However I then asked Freya if i was okay using her house, and she agreed to let me on Mondays and Wednesdays, which fit in nicely around my other shooting location times, and the actors schedule as I mainly did it in the mornings. It was then time to do on set preparation. I got my crew together which was Josh Jorgensen and Freya Whitehouse, as it was easier as it was at her house. This worked extremely well as Freya already knew where everything was if we needed anything, and she helped us if we got stuck. Josh was my camera operator and helped with the lights, and to carry things back and forth from location. We then had to sort out scheduling and what and when we were going to film each day. This was quite stressful at times, especially when it needed to be moved around for one reason or another. I was one of the last people to Schedule as my script took a very long time to complete, which made it harder to slot mine in. However it was a relief when finished. I then had to let each actor know when we were filming and what scenes we were doing on each day. We did this through call sheets which we made a couple days before each shooting day, so the cast could prepare their costumes, lines and anything else they needed for those specific scenes. On the day of filming, me and Josh went in the film studio and gathered any equipment we needed for that day and brought it to wherever the actors were to get them, and then we would set out on location.

production

On the first day on set, it started out really well. My crew for this day was me Josh Jorgensen and Freya Whitehouse. My cast was Megan English, Brooke Robinson and La Toya Borg. We started filming at half past nine, as soon as we got into college. There was a slight hiccup as when we got there we had to do a talk for ofsted, which delayed us slightly. However it was all okay as we got there and still had plenty of time to film. When the talk was over, me and Josh got all of the equipment from the film studio whilst the actors got everything they needed together like costumes and props etc. We then met them in the dance studio and it was time to go. We got the bus, so for this I made sure everyone had the correct bus passes as they didn’t know which one we were taking. this took us around half an hour in total to get there so we ended up getting to set at around 11:00am. On this day I filmed scenes 6,7, 1, 2 and 5. We got through it all quite quickly in the first half, allowing us to go for lunch. When we first got on set, me and Josh set up the lights and the camera, whilst the actors went through their script and practised their lines for that day. In the first few scenes, they were able to do it how I needed and really well on the second and even first take which made it run very smoothly. However just before we went to lunch, this was when the problem happened. I was detaching the camera to pus it on charge and forgot to slot it back in and the proceeded to move the tripod and so it fell and the viewfinder broke. I took full responsibility for this as i was the camera operated on this day. Freya was the runner, and Josh was on lights and production. 

On the second day of filming, we got through a lot more than we did on day one. I managed to do all of the rest of the scenes apart from the outdoor night time ones. It was the same process again of starting at half 9 and finishing at around 2pm. I filmed Megan’s scenes first up until lunch, as she needed to go back and rehearse for blood brothers. These were only short scenes so it was okay. On the afternoon I did Brooke and La Toyas scenes and everything ran smoothly. It was the same cast on day two as it was on day one, along with the same crew. This day ended up being a bit stressful beforehand, as i had to reschedule it a few times, to fit around others that wanted to do it on the same day. However today, everything sleigh the equipment was okay, and i was even more careful as i was on day one.

practical skills

I learned a lot of practical skills during this project, all throughout it. From the beginning and planning, i had improved my script writing a lot as I've never fully understood how to do that, but I thought mine was quite good after a few drafts, and when I got to my final one. i found it a bit difficult at first, however i did quite well when i got the hang of it. Another thing i have learned a lot more of is time management and deadlines as i have never been good at this, however i learned that everything needs to be done on time in order to move on to the next thing, and if it is not it can mess everything ahead of it up and things could go very wrong. On the more practical side of things, I had learned a lot on set too. My camera work has improved a lot and my ability to know what angles will work best, and what will look the best when edited together. Another thing I have improved massively on is my observation of set, where my lighting goes. what is in the background and just little things that would improve the quality of it all. Editing has been a big part on what I have improved on. Casey Weedall taught be about after affects and I just think it is so much easier to use. In the beginning it was all going okay and I was doing really well with it, however by the end it did not go so well and it kept crashing and I lost the most important part of my footage, which was the voice over as this was the main part of the scenes I couldn’t do, and how I worked around it, so without it, my film wouldn’t really make much sense, so by the end i was quite stressed and worried about it.

presentation

My presentation i would say was the hardest part of the whole thing. During piecing it all together i had quite a lot of problems. As half of my footage got lost, so it made it very difficult to make it look good, which is why i tried the voice over, which also didn’t go to plan. This was in the editing part which is what i found the most difficult as it was all going really good until their. I was using premier pro to start off with however Casey and Josh said that after effects was a lot easier so I thought I would give that and and Casey helped me with this. I got the hang of it quite quickly which was good and I did find that it was a lot easier to use. On the other hand, I think my presentations on the paperwork and and the pre production documents was really good, I had them all organised in a folder which I organised everyday to help myself stay prepared for each filming day. I came in early everyday and made sure I had done everything for that day so i could carry on with the other things that I needed to do for the actors and to help myself feel better about filming. I have found that I am better with things such as preparation and pre production rather than post production, as i work better under pressure.

Preparation

To prepare for shooting day 1, there was a lot of behind the scenes paperwork to do. We started off by brainstorming ideas for our final film. This was changed many times due to change of ideas. We then had to put together a pitch which was included of many different slides. This included:

• introduction
• plot
• inspired by
• target audience
• ideal schedule
• documenting
• biggest challenge
• skills
• production
• contingency plans

Filming day 1

• 
  
• 
  
• 
  

• Once we had done all this and it was finished it was time to actually film. I was originally going to film on Wed 18th May, however I was unable to do this as Brooke was poorly. This was easily rescheduled to Monday 24th May when everyone was able to film. We met up on the morning in the dance studio at 9:30 when I had got the equipment. We then got the bus to the location which was Freya's house (34 Greens Grove). This took about ten mins to get there on the bus. Once we had got there, I set up the equipment while the actors went over their lines of scenes for that day. This took about twenty mins. Once we had done this it was time to start filming. we did this for about an hour and a half and then had a ten min break. We then carried on another hour and half filming until we went for lunch and this was around an hour. Once we had done this, we came back and did one last scene, which was scene 15. This only took around 15 mins. 

  
  

  What Went Well

  The things that went well on this filming day was the way the scenes were filmed as they all went right near enough the first time, or after a couple of times. I filmed the longest scene yesterday which was scene 17 and this took around an hour to do as there was a lot of shots. Another thing that went well is the location and how well i could set up the camera and lights for filming. The actors all knew their lines so no one forgot them during filming and my directing went well, as they were getting ready to each scene when they needed too. My crew for this filming day was Freya Whitehouse and Josh Jorgensen. This worked really well as the communication was really good.

  Improvements

  Things we could have done better next time is the timings of shots and scenes. I did not leave a lot of time for each one and therefore we did not get fully done. During the editing process, Casey helped me a lot, and I would show her things that I was unsure of and she would give me feedback and help me with things she thought would look better. During filming, Josh and Freya were my crew and would give me tips throughout the day about what they would have done. For example, as Josh was the camera operator, he gave me some opinions of different shot types that he thought might have looked better than my original idea. During the green light pitch, that was when we got the feedback of Kelly. She told us things we can do to improve this and what we could do to make our film look better than what we originally thought.

  
  

  Filming Day 2

  For this filming day we did 9:30 till 2. We did 6 scenes and 3 in the morning, 3 in the afternoon. We got through them quite quickly and everything went okay. We met in 224 at half 9, however Brookes bus to get here was a bit late so we had a fifteen minute later start, however this was okay and didn't effect anything. Me and Josh got the equipment and carried it to the bus stop. We all used the same bus to get to the location. We were filming at 34 Greens Grove which was Freya's house. Once we got there, I gave the actors about 15 minutes to read over and practice their scripts whilst I set up the equipment. I then had to film some scenic shots so I brought the camera home and did that, this only took around an hour. 

   
   final film link https://youtu.be/5bCUupylTU4