Voiceovers

We have decided to include a short voiceover from Lucas’ perspective during the beginning part of our film. This will help to set the context and make it clearer to the audience where our protagonist is going. Also, it will make it understandable to our demograph that our film revolves around the fact Lucas is going to have to make a life changing decision.

Our voiceover for the beginning:
“We make many decisions everyday without a second thought; whether to have tea or coffee, what clothes to wear and what to have for dinner, but I never knew that the small decision I would make later this morning, would have such life changing consequences.”

Additionally, after our demograph recently reviewed an edit of our film, we got the impression that they found the flash forwards slightly boring, as although it was accompanied by relevant non-diegetic music, no dialogue is present in those scenes. Therefore, we have decided to include two voiceovers; one to go with the successful life and one for the family life. We believe this is an improvement to our film, as not only does it add more depth but also helps to make the plot slightly clearer for our audience as differentiates the two parallel lives more. Below is what we have scripted for the 2 voiceovers, but we intend to separate certain lines so they are heard in relation to certain on-screen actions. For example: the line “the perfect women” will accompany the shot of Lucas and Grace kissing and the line “nights at home in front of the telly” will accompany the shot of them watching TV together.

Voiceover for the successful life:
"I had the perfect job, the perfect house, the perfect lifestyle. It’s everyones dream to live a successful life like this, but as perfect as it was, I wasn’t happy, I was lonely. Getting on the train that day and getting this job has turned my life around. But money certainly isn’t everything, as what’s a great life when you have no one to share it with?"

Voiceover for the family life:
"I may not have had the perfect job or the perfect house, but I had the perfect woman. I was living the family life everyone dreams of and I couldn’t be happier. It was the little things that I loved the most; from walks on the beach to nights at home in front of the telly. Who would have thought that this woman at the train station would end up being my wife? "

Last Part of Filming

We have arranged our last part of filming for this weekend.

On Sunday morning we are filming the train station scene again. We have had numerous problems when filming this scene and have now resorted to filming off peak. Hopefully everything will go to plan this time, especially as we have planned in detail all the shots which we intend to capture and will make sure we get more shots than we actually need.

The only thing which we are slightly worried about is the dialogue. This is because this opening scene at the train station is the only section which includes dialogue, yet during the previous times when we have filmed this scene, the noise at the train station has always overpowered our non-diegetic dialogue. Therefore, we are going to make sure our actors speak with loud dynamics and that we hold our microphone as close as possible to our actors as we can. However, as we have added in the extra scene of Lucas getting ready for his interview – which will obviously be placed before the train station scene in our edit – we now feel the train station scene does not have to be as long. Therefore, we have considered omitting certain parts of the dialogue, as we feel it may be too long especially for the context of this scene.

Once we have re-shot this final scene our filming will then be complete. We can then concentrate completely on editing our film and perfecting our ancillary tasks. We also need to decide upon what diegetic music will be included within our film, as music is an important part which helps to reflect what is happening on screen.

Extra filming

In a recent group discussion we came to the conclusion that apart from the train station, our film includes a lot of fantasy elements. This is because the majority of our film consists of the alternative narratives which are flash forwards, hence are not real life. Therefore, we have decided to incorporate some other shots at the beginning of the film which portray a sense of reality. We plan to capture some footage of Lucas getting out of bed the morning of his interview, brushing his teeth, choosing which shirt to wear, eating breakfast and getting into his car; helping our demograph to connect more with our film and getting to know a bit more of Lucas’ background. When we edit this, we hope to intermingle these shots with our time lapse shot of the train station, reiterating the importance of the train station and involving the audience, as they are left wondering what is going to occur. We plan to capture these shots tomorrow at one of our houses.

Film Review Inspiration

I have previously researched The Guardian and Empire film reviews, making note of the structures, layouts and audiences, so I make sure I create the right style of review for our short film.

We feel Empire would be the right magazine for our review as it is read by the same demograph as those who would watch our film (18-35) and due to being a worldwide company, it can help with the promotion of our film.

As we can see with the ‘Inception’ review from Empire Online, they arrange it with a Plot, Review and Verdict structure, which we feel is a good way to layout our review. We believe it is easy for readers to follow as this way they can choose to read only certain sections if they wish to do so.  

Empire Online - Plot, Review and Verdict structure

Regarding the magazine versions of Empire, they still employ the same structure as the online versions. The review below incorporate still images from the film which is something we intend to do, as it will give the reader an insight into our short film and the locations and actors involved.

Empire Magazine Review - Use of still image from film

Some film reviews, for example the one below, has a still image from the film, set as the background of the review page with the text overlapping, which I feel is a nice feature. This review also includes other images as well, proving to be an interesting layout.

Empire Magazine Review - image set as background

Although we are adopting an Empire style film review, I did look at The Guardian film reviews, as they too are read by a wide audience, albeit it only British. The feature which The Guardian employed which we liked was the fact file box, as shown in the review of ‘The King’s Speech’ below.

The Guardian Review - Fact File box

Ancillary Task: Film Review research

As I am creating one of our ancillary tasks; the film review, I have researched film reviews from other publications, in order to help me adopt the correct style of writing for the review of our short film.

I chose to look in detail at two different publications: Empire Magazine and The Guardian’s film reviews, to give me ideas on the best way to approach our film review. When reading reviews by these publications, I noticed how they both apply a different format and style of writing to their reviews and there were certain features of both which I want to incorporate within our film review.

Empire is the world’s leading movie magazine and it sets out its reviews in three sections: Plot, Review and Verdict, something which I felt was an interesting arrangement and easy for the audience to follow and read. The Guardian, on the other hand, does not have a set structure and its layout is much more like a newspaper article, although it does incorporate a fact file box, stating interesting facts about the film it is reviewing. It should be taken into consideration how Empire and The Guardian are created for two very different audiences, hence why there are differences within their writing styles and layouts. The Guardian is more likely to appeal to the middle class and only to a British audience, as is a British newspaper, whereas Empire is a much more global magazine, for a younger audience than The Guardian’s. 

As our film has the target audience of 18-35 year olds, we need to keep that in mind when creating our film review. We believe that Empire Magazine would be a good place for our film review to be published, as it would help to promote our film worldwide and we suppose our demograph are more likely to read that type of magazine. Additionally, as we consider that our film will appeal to women more than men due to the fact it is a drama and relates to emotions and making choices, traits more associated with females; then a women’s magazine would also be a good place for us to publish our review as this would directly reach our intended demograph.

Hopefully we will create a film review that will interest and persuade our demograph into choosing to watch our short film.

Filming plans

We are filming the time lapse shot for our short film on Friday morning from 8:30-9:30. When filming the other scenes situated at the train station, we discovered that it is very difficult to film on the bridge separating the train station platforms, especially when we are filming at rush hour times. Therefore, we are fortunate that from the dual carriageway we are able to view the train station, so we are hoping to capture our time lapse shot on the footpath where the red arrow is.

Changes to our film poster idea

Originally we had decided that our poster would contain the image of our main protagonist standing on the crossroads of a train track, to signify how the message of our film is about making decisions. However, it has been very hard to find a location where we can capture this photo, as obviously we cannot have our actor stand on an actual train crossing. Therefore, we have come up with another poster concept. Our main protagonist will still be feature on the poster, yet on the left half of his body he will be wearing a suit to reflect the business life within our film, and on the right side of his body he will be dressed in casual clothes, representing the family orientated life of our film.

We feel that this poster idea will still represent our film, as it will reflect the two different lives incorporated within it and how he must choose one. Furthermore, hopefully it will interest our demograph into watching our film. Nevertheless, we understand that our poster could be difficult to create, as we will need to take the 2 photos of our actor in exactly the same position when wearing the different clothes, otherwise when we edit it on Adobe Photoshop it will not correspond correctly.

Changes to our train station scene

As we have filmed our train station scene twice already and we have had a lot of difficulties filming this scene, we have made some changes to the storyline of our short film. When reviewing our train station footage which we have captured already for our short film, we all agreed that it does not look very realistic when Grace falls over on the train platform and drops her papers. Therefore, to overcome this, we have decided to include another character who will walk by, bump into Grace thus provoking her to drop her papers and then he will walk off and leave her there, prompting Lucas to come in and help her. We believe this will be more effective, more believable and hopefully should be easier to film. Furthermore, when we first filmed this section the train station was very quiet, so when we re-shot we decided to film it during peak time, yet that proved to be just as difficult. So, we are currently discussing when re-shooting, that we film at an off peak time again, or further down the platform where it is quieter, so there will be less people getting in the way.

Planning for producing our poster

We have already planned a draft of our poster ancillary task, whereby our main protagonist Lucas is positioned in the centre with 2 railway tracks behind him, reflecting how he has 2 life changing decisions to make in our film. We had the idea of Lucas standing on a train track with 2 different paths splitting off, however, we understand for safety reasons we of course cannot allow him to stand on a train track. Nevertheless, Moors Valley Country Park has a children’s mini railway station, and it would be suitable there for Lucas to stand on the track without getting injured. The picture above shows the two tracks splitting off and we hope we will be able to position Lucas there, in order to capture the photo for our poster.

The railway track at Moors Valley Country Park

Props for the next stage of filming

We have planned to film the proposal scene and one of the opening the letter scenes on Friday morning. Both of these scenes involve props, which are pictured below.

For the proposal scene we have made the “Will You Marry Me T-Shirt”. Lucas will wear this t-shirt when he proposes to Grace whilst they are having a picnic. We wanted him to propose in an unusual way, making it interesting for our demograph and will also have a slight comedy aspect too.

Our "Will you marry me?" t-shirt for the proposal scene

The opening the letter scenes are where Lucas opens two cards simultaneously in both lives; one congratulates him on the good news of Grace being pregnant, and in the other he is congratulated for receiving a job promotion. On Friday we are filming the one with Grace and Lucas. Once we have filmed the other one, we plan to edit them with a split screen, reinforcing the differences between the 2 different lives: one is all about success, whereas the other life revolves about family.

The inside of card which Lucas and Grace will open in the family orientated life.

The inside of the card which Lucas will open in the successful career life.

Re-shoot of Train Station Scene

We are planning to re-shoot our train station scene tomorrow morning. Last time we felt we were not fully prepared, so this time we have planned things much more efficiently and hopefully everything will go to plan. We have also organised to take more than one camera with us, as the trains do not arrive very often and when they do, we have to film in as few takes as possible. For instance; with the scene of Lucas walking onto the train, we need to effectively have that perfect by the first take, due to the factor that other people will be boarding the train at the same time too, which creates verisimilitude. However, if we have to capture that shot in more than one take, then we will not have the other people boarding the train, therefore it will not look as real and effective. Last time we felt the train platform was not very busy, due to the fact we were filming off peak and it was a Sunday, however tomorrow we are planning to film from 8:30am to 11pm, which will hopefully be a better time. Furthermore, the fact we are taking more than one camera means we will be able to film from more than one angle simultaneously, of course making sure that the other cameras are not in shot. Additionally, we are planning to start our film off with a time lapse looking down on the train station, which we have scheduled to film from 7:30am to 8:30am, steadily for an hour. Hopefully the time which we have allowed to record this will provide us with sufficient footage for the time lapse to work effectively.

Filming of Indoor Scenes

We are planning to film the indoor scenes for the family orientated life of our short film tomorrow night. We hope to capture footage for the romantic meal scene, the sofa scene and the argument scene. We recently decided to incorporate an argument scene within our film because, as we were showing the negative sides of the successful life with Lucas stressed out at work and being alone, we felt it would be fair to connote the negative aspects of being in a relationship too.

All of these scenes are set inside and are being filmed at one of our houses so we have planned to film them all at the same time as it will be most convenient. We should not encounter any problems as we have planned out the shots we intend to capture and as we are filming inside the weather will not be a problem.

Plans for filming this weekend

We are planning to film a large section of our short film this weekend. The table below indicates our schedule. We have checked the weather and for Sunday it is expected to be sunny, therefore that is why we have planned to get all our outdoor scenes done first. We have allocated the largest amount of time for the train station scene because that is the main part of our film and therefore will take the longest to film, especially as is a location where we may come across the most problems. Moreover, all of the footage we are planning to capture on Sunday are all scenes which portray the family orientated life. We are going to make sure we capture more footage then needed, so that way when we come to edit our film we will have a large selection to choose from.

Time	Scene	Characters Needed
8am – 12pm	Train station scene	Lucas and Grace
12pm- 1pm	Beach Scene	Lucas and Grace
1pm – 2pm	Dog walk scene	Lucas and Grace
2pm – 3pm	Romantic meal scene	Lucas and Grace
3pm – 4pm	Sofa scene	Lucas and Grace
4pm – 5pm	Argument scene	Lucas and Grace
5pm – 6pm	Opening the letter	Lucas and Grace
6pm – 7pm	Pub scene	Lucas and Grace

Re-cast of main protagonist

Due to our previous main actor being unreliable, we have had to re-cast. Nevertheless, we managed to find someone quickly which was good as we were already behind schedule. Our main character Lucas, is now being played by Sam Keep. We decided to use him because he is best friends with our other actor who is playing the role of Grace, therefore, they will have good on screen chemistry, thus helping to create verisimilitude.

Our new actor in the role of Lucas in the successful life

Our new actor in role of Lucas in the family orientated life.

Both of our actors.

Filming Schedules and Long Term Plan

Below is our filming schedule for our short film and our long term plan for getting our film produced.

SCENE	DATE	TIME	ACTORS NEEDED
Dog Walk	Fri 3rd Dec	9-10 (period 1 and 2)	Jack & Aimee
Work/Office	Wed 8th Dec	Period 1 and 2	Jack
Mansion	Thurs 9th Dec	To be decided	Jack
Proposal	Mon 15th Dec	Period 1 and 2	Jack & Aimee
Normal House	Wed 15th Dec	Period 1 and 2	Jack & Aimee
Train Station	Mon 27th Dec	10am onwards	Jack & Aimee

Stage in production	Date to be completed by
Filming	27th Dec
Editing	24th Jan
Auxiliary tasks	18th Feb
Evaluation activities	18th March

Weather for Dog Walking Scene

We are planning to film a dog walking scene for our short film this Friday 3rd December. At the moment it looks like there will be good weather, which is good.

Weather for Filming

We are planning to capture some footage for our short film this Wednesday 10th November 2010. As we are filming this short scene at the beach we need to make sure the weather is good and at the moment it looks like the weather should not be a problem for us.

Draft of Poster Ancillary Task

Within our group we have been discussing ideas for the poster of our short film. As it revolves around one character, Lucas and how one decision can change his life, we all agreed how an image of him must be on the poster. We have the idea of showing Lucas standing on the platform at the train station, as this is where he experiences the flash forwards of the different lives he could leave and where he has to make the decision upon which life to choose. Moreover, we want there to be 2 train tracks behind him leading to different directions, hence reflecting the plot of our film. We also like the concept of having Lucas as a silhouette image.

We have created a draft for our poster by using Adobe Photoshop. We found an image of a man, which we cropped to show him on his own and positioned 2 train tracks either side of him. We then placed a picture of a train as the background to the poster, making it more interesting and not so empty. This is just an idea of what we want our poster to look like, as when we create the actual one for our film, we are going to use an image of the actor who is playing our main protagonist.

Our poster includes the title of our film, the name of our production company and the tag line which is: “Sometimes it’s the smallest decision that can change your life forever”, reflecting how whatever choice Lucas makes at the train platform – to help Grace up or get on the train – will change his life drastically.

Draft of our films poster

Costumes

The costumes for our characters are very important as it can help to portray their personalities, especially as we have no dialogue within our film. So the characters clothing, their actions and the way they are conveyed by the choice of camera shots and editing is the only way for our demograph to find out about our characters. Also, as we are having shots of Lucas and Grace together in different locations, they don’t necessarily need to be wearing the same clothes, so continuity with costumes will not be an issue here. However, we want to have a contrast in clothing between the successful Lucas and the family orientated Lucas, hence creating verisimilitude.

·        Successful Lucas – Suit to connote business man and professionalism and a strict/stern lifestyle which reflects why he gets quite stressed.

·        Family orientated Lucas – Casual clothes to reflect his laid back life.

·        Grace – Casual clothing to represent a care free life.

·        A “Will You Marry Me” T-Shirt – One of the scenes in the family orientated life shows Lucas proposing to Grace, however we didn’t want him to get down on one knee as we thought that was very cliché, therefore instead we have decided upon a unique idea whereby Lucas will undo his coat to show a t-shirt which reads: “Will You Marry Me”. Again, this way of proposing reflects how Lucas is quite a fun character, which will contrast how he is portrayed in the successful life.




Lucas - casual clothing - family orientated life



Grace - casual clothing



Permissions for Filming

We are filming our train station scene at Bournemouth Train Station and we needed to get permission from the Duty Manager. We thought that we may not be able to film at the train station, due to it being a public place and especially as safety is a main issue, however we are allowed to film there as long as we do so on off peak hours.