WELCOME MODERATOR

NATHAN FOSTER

CANDIDATE NUMBER 1623

CLAREMONT FAN COURT SCHOOL

Welcome to my blog!

I worked with MAX RAGAN 1636 and CHARLES GORDON 1626

Our brief was to create a short film, accompanied by a film wesbite. The title of our short film is 'Down and Out' and the genre is horror. The main blog roll includes my construction, planning and research work. The pages at the top of my blog are to navigate to other areas of my work. My work will appear in reverse order (most recent post first etc). To present my work creatively, I have used a wide variety of platforms and tools. These include; Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Adobe after effects, Scoopit!, Piktochart, Final Cut Pro X, Slideshare, Canva, Prezi and Visme.

Editing

When it came to editing I did not as big a role as others. Although having previous experience with Final Cut Pro I was assigned with finding the best sound effects and music to use. Following conventions of a horror film it was essential we had lots of intricate sounds to enhance the effect, one function that proved useful was sound scapes, where sound builds rapidly to create tension.

Directing

When it comes to directing, we split this role up depending on what we were doing in order to utilise our specialities. However, for me, I had a heavy influence of the directing within filming and editing. For the main part, I took control over constructing the perfect shot: from the right angle, height and time. This allowed us to collate lots of quality footage making the editing process relatively easy.

Camerawork

Closely related to directing, camerawork was extremely important to consider, especially due to the fact that we were creating a horror short. The use of close ups and interesting angles which are not typically scene in other films such as worm's eye view are important as they add to the quirkiness of the horror. As a team we came together to think of the best camerawork possible, therefore this role was shared among all of us.

CONSTRUCTION: MY SHORT FILM

CONSTRUCTION: FILMING

I decided that using a Panasonic GH5 camera was the perfect camera to film with. This is because of it many different features including image stabilisation. This camera was also accompanied by a 12-60mm lens which left our images with a crisp 4K image, allowing each shot to be extremely detailed and precise. This lense was especially good with mid shots and closeups with its image tracking.

In order to get steady shots i used a Manfrotto 055XPROB, this allowed us to keep the image steady and upright. I bubbled the tripod before filming and extended the legs to get great looking Long-shots.

In terms of lighting we used a softbox light for the shots that were indoors in order to achieve a naturalistic lighting, and we used a Neewer SL-12 that attached to the camera in order to light up the shots that we took outside at night.

                                                     

CONSTRUCTION: SOCIAL MEDIA

Matt Smith from the FDA website stated that the 'spend on digital has increased enormously.' he explains that social media has become a large chunk of marketing and advertising and effort of publicity can now be online as well as digital. The reasoning for this is because as technology has evolved the number of people who spend a vast majority of time on social media has also increased, meaning that this is the best platform to target audiences in order to promote films. 

I created social media pages for my short film in order to fulfil consumer needs online. Social media pages are useful for films as they draw attention to upcoming films by releasing trailers, important updates and general posts to build up hype around the film.

I created an Instagram and twitter page for our short film, 'Down and Out'

CONSTRUCTION: COMPANY IDENT

A production company ident creates a brand image for a company and is found at the start of a production. In less than 10 seconds, it offers a brand's visual identity to the world. As a group, we decided that a simplistic, fast ident was effective as it clearly presents our production company with little confusion. This was matched with the two simple 'whoosh' sound effects which I used to give the ident some audio effect. The 'whoosh' sound effects are in time with movements of the text and shapes.

For our production, we decided to create our own production company ident. In order to do so, we sourced a template off youtube which we thought fit our film opening well. After downloading the template, we downloaded the software Blender so we could edit the text to display our own production company "Silverline Studios".

Here is the final ident:

CONSTRUCTION: FILM POSTCARD

Postcards are created to help raise awareness of a film, a film postcard shows the viewer what type of film it is and whether it is a suitable film for you, it is challenging as the demographic profile of the film must all fit into one image. I have created my own film postcard in order to promote my film:

CONSTRUCTION: BBFC CLASSIFICATION

We researched how film is regulated in the UK, in order to decide the correct rating for our film, by studying the BBFC website https://bbfc.co.uk/about-us/who-we-are

All UK films are given an age rating by the BBFC.
The BBFC's focus is on helping children and families choose well by providing them with the guidance they need to help them choose what’s right for them and avoid what’s not.
The BBFC’s classification standards reflect people’s current views and expectations and their decisions give due weight to what people find acceptable for each age rating.

When these consultations find significant changes in people’s expectations, they adjust their standards and criteria accordingly.
Their standards are published in the BBFC’s Classification Guidelines.These give details of what’s acceptable in each age category from U to R18, and explain the laws and principles that govern our work.
The BBC has two over-riding principles, which are as follows:

• To protect children and vulnerable adults from potentially harmful or otherwise unsuitable content

• To help children and families choose what’s right for them and avoid what’s not

We used a template and edited it to reflect our film, DOWN AND OUT.

In order to create this image, I downloaded a template BBFC certificate screen and used Photoshop to change the title of the film, president, director and the reason for why it is a 15 rated film ("infrequent strong violence, strong language").

PLANNING: RISK ASSESSMENT

This Risk assessment goes through the hazards which could cause potential injuries during the filming process. We have made a table discussing the precautions taken in order to reduce the risk. In our opening sequence there was very low risk involved when filming.

	HAZARD TO HEALTH AND SAFETY	RISK POSED AND TO WHOM	LEVEL  L/M/H	CONTROL MEASURE TO REDUCE RISK
Transport eg accident/delay/platform safety/derailment/missed train	Travel by SW trains. Travel through Surbiton towards Wimbledon	Students looking wrong way and getting knocked over Students being hit by or falling into train	M	Monitor each other during a group travel by keeping and eye out for each other Make sure to stay in contact with each other Monitor road crossings and only cross at designated pedestrian crossings
First aid issues	Trips/falls/cuts/bruises	Those moving around onset	M	First aired to be present at event
Weather	Rain - possibility of slipping, wet clothing	Everyone	L	Students are required to bring appropriate jacket and clothing
General public eg theft/assault	Theft Assault Student causes incident with member of the public	Threat of pick pocketing on crowded locations	M	Students to stay in a group Students are not to approach other members of the public or respond to any comments intended to provoke Follow guidance and advice of emergency personnel
Staffing eg ratio of first aid cover	1:6		L	Ensure that the ratio of first aiders to staff stays at 1:6
Major public incident eg terrorism	Act of terrorism given national threat level	Group could become caught up in a terrorist incident causing injuries or separation	H	Esnsure every venue has assembly point and pupils know where it is. Ensure pupils know the national advice to run if possible and hide if not Ensure pupils know to always follow police instruction Issue pupils with printed emergency contact card detailing school landline and school mobile – instruct them to call if they become lost (as well as alerting security official)

PLANNING: SHOT LIST

Scene	Sound/Voice Over	Visual	Actors	Props	Shot type	Notes
Street	Footsteps. Homeless dialogue.	Low lit street Homeless man sitting down with pan handling sign Protagonist walks down street on his own	Homeless man Protagonist	Pan handling sign	Establishing shot, long shot of street Tracking shot of protagonist as he walks along- glide cam – as protagonist walks past homeless the camera stops and focus’ on homeless man. (enter dialogue) Pan camera round so that protagonist is behind homeless man. (two shot) – then curse Close up, pull shot of protagonist (reaction shot)	At the end of this scene - hard cut
Corner shop	Cash register Dialogue from protagonist and shop keeper Bell as he walks into the shop. Heart beat	Contrast between outside darkness and light inside shop.	Shop keeper ` Protagonist	Wallet Money Food/ snacks	Establishing shot of corner shop Long shot from inside shot to a mid-shot as he walks towards the camera through door. Wide angle two shot from side of counter. As protagonist puts items on counter. (doll down the end of the corridor peaking round the corner, audience only see it for a second) POV shot of shop keeper looking at protagonist. As he goes down to get another item. Then over the shoulder tracking shot as he comes back up, reaches for wallet but it’s gone. Close up of his face, as he feels a curse. Steps back from counter. Long shot of him checking his pockets. Pans round to the door as he leaves. Then focus on door.	As protagonist puts items on counter shot is level with table Close up on protagonist as he losses wallet- heart beat fades in
Ext. Home	Quiet wind	House and window looking in.	Protagonist	Laptop, sofa	Long Shot from outside window zooming in on him in living room on laptop, hard cut to in house.	N/A
Int. Home	Notification sound from laptop. TV on quietly in background of news about homeless crisis Heart beat	Protagonist looking at laptop screen dark room and blue light reflects on his face TV news about homeless crisis.	Protagonist Shadowy figure		Close up of protagonists face with dim blue light from laptop. over the shoulder shot of him looking at his laptop, (possibly in background something walks past the window.) TV and window in background. POV shot of laptop as notification pops up in corner of the screen. (clicks on notification) Close up -to a reaction shot Long shot of Lights all go out in room, he screams in anger.	looking at something on laptop, then notification pops up in corner of screen about job, when he clicks on it and it pops up full screen.  After this he turns off TV. Close up reaction shot = heart beat fades in. Hard cut to finish this scene.
Int. Bedroom	Echoed Dripping	Dim lit bedroom	Protagonist	Picture frame with image	Mid shot of him in bed Track across past a picture with his daughter with a doll.	The image with the picture has the daughter with a doll
Int. Kitchen	Heartbeat dripping	Lights flicker	Protagonist Shadowy figure	Smashed plate	Long shot of door as protagonist enters Long shot showing the whole kitchen, then to POV shot, light flickers. Doll appears – hard cut to close up of the dolls face, slowly tracks down the dolls body to its hand as a single blood drop drips off its finger. Lights flick off and then the doll disappears. Close up shot of the protagonist lights headed and rubbing his eyes. As he stumbles over to the tap to get water. Echoed dripping	Light flicker on and off. Then silence Build a soundscape consisting of cutlery shaking, heart beating. (Crescendo to silence) Shadowy figure outside (subliminal) This shot makes the protagonist seem lightheaded with disbelief, slightly distorted and shaky.
Basement	Dripping	Brightly lit basement, lights then suddenly go out and red room is lit by a red light. The room is filled with old dolls, all staring at the protagonist ‘Stranger Things’ effect	Protagonist	Dolls, fake blood	Tracking close up shot of protagonist’s feet as he walks down the stairs. Longshot from down the steps (maybe use glide cam to zoom out) (look at IT basement scene for inspiration) Shot from behind the dolls as he walks past them to a single one at the end	Use a super 8 film effect. Use of red gel.
Int. House	Footsteps, heavy breathing, doors slamming.	Dimly lit stairway with straw light	Protagonist		Tracking close up shot of protagonist’s feet as he runs up the stairs.   long shot from dolls perfective as he runs out the door, camera slowly begins to slide to the right as if the doll is moving away.	Fast paced hard cuts, intense. Super 8 effect. Use of yellow gels
Int. house	Light high pitched ringing sound and echoed fast paced footsteps as he leave the house.	Distorted corridor/ visuals, hard cuts			Long shot from door of Joe stumbling down the corridor, hitting against walls.	Hard cut montage as he runs out the door (3 hard cuts of him running through the corridor to the door)
Street	Non- diegetic music	Dim Lit street, we see Joe walking down the street.	Joe	N/A	Establishing shot, long shot of street.	Same street as first scene.

PLANNING: STORYBOARD

I created story boards in order to plan out the shots, movement and plot of our short film. It was extremely useful when it came to filming our production as our group could all visualise the same final result.

PLANNING: PROPS LIST

For our film, we need to consider our props before we begin shooting. As we discussed what props may be needed we realised there are many. I have collated them into a list here with a collage of props we will use:

Wallet

Money

Food/ snacks

Picture frame with image

Smashed plate

Fake blood

Creepy Doll

Flashlight

Laptop

props collage by Nathan

PLANNING: CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT

'Hot seating' is an effective exercise in which an actor is asked specific questions as their character's background, behaviour and motivation. We were inspired by an article written by Charlie Sierra about building the back story to film characters in which he quoted from Riding the Alligator, a book written by Pen Densham, an Academy Award nominated filmmaker. One of the chapters in the book gives an outline of the questions that an actor should ask themselves about the character that they are playing, in order to have a greater understanding of the character for both the actor and the director.

To prepare for this exercise we wrote a script comprising of questions to ask the protagonist (Joe) and his responses. This made the video more fluid and professional. For our interview we asked questions such as: 
- What are your views on the homeless crisis?
- Do you believe in spirits?