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Charles Gordon 1626

CLAREMONT FAN COURT SCHOOL 64680

I worked with Max Ragan and Nathan Foster to complete my film. Our brief was to make a short film. We decided to use the genre 'Horror'. he Title of our production is 'Down and Out'. I did a verity of research and planning which i documented on my blog.  I presented this work in the form of info-graphics such as Emaze and Prezi. We also created social media pages, a film website and a film postcard to market our final product. 

Directing

I took responsibility for directing the production. This included working out camera angles, story boarding and on set directing- I also directed my acting deciding movement, facial expressions as well as the different aspects of dialogue. 

Editing

Max Ragan took the main responsibility with the Editing process. However, I also overlooked the editing process thus making sure we had multiple opinions on the editing in our production. I helped suggest areas to focus the films' climax's at, as well as which which sound FX to use in our film.

Camerawork
As our film had some complex angles and ideas, we all worked together when deciding the camera work. Being very specific with what shots we were using and making sure that they all linked together smoothly.

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: 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".

CONSTRUCTION: SOCIAL MEDIA

I created social media pages for my short film in order to market to a broader audience.
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: BBFC CLASSIFICATION

All films in the UK are rated by the BBFC. 

These ratings give families a guideline as to what films their children can watch. The BBFC's classification system reflect society current views and expectations as they survey 10,000 members of the public every 4-5 years. 

The BBFC has two main principles: 

• 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.

For our short film Down and Out, we found a template of a BBFC rating that was used in an actual film. After finding an appropriate template, I imported it into Photoshop to edit the title of the film and the details about rating etc. 

We decided as a group that our short should be rated a 15 due to 'threat and horror' and also 'infrequent violence'. 

FILM WEBSITE: SCRIPTING

Charles Gordon
Charles is an actor from Wimbledon, London. He learnt the craft of acting at RADA with stints in multiple productions and short films, including the award winning 2019 film Takeaway, which was screened at multiple local cinemas and film festivals. For this he was nominated as best actor in 2019 London Film Festival. He plays the protagonist in this short film. Charlie also loves working on the other side of the camera as a film maker, in the style of both storytelling and documentary.

Tony
Tony's years behind the counter in various retail jobs whilst he was 'resting' has given him countless days of experience, preparing him for the role of Reggie. He has previously taken on small roles in series such as 'Eastenders' and 'Friends'. Although he is taking on a smaller role, he has risen to the challenge as he makes his breakthrough in film.

Man
After countless successful years in the film industry mann is taking a role in this short film, taking on the role of the homeless man. Mann has made appearances in films such as 'Ghost Stories' and 'The Room'. His performance is one that challenges expectations.

PLANNING:CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT

In developing our main character for our short film, we decided to hot-seat. This gives our audience an idea as to what his role is in the film and how he feels about the social issues that we present in our production. To complete this i used Soundcloud, a website which allowed me to upload soundfiles to the internet to be viewed by anyone.