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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.

PLANNING: PROPS LIST

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: HOT SEATING

To develop our protagonist we created did a hot seating exercise.

PLANNING: ADVANCED PRODUCTION INITIAL DEVELOPMENT

We're considering setting our short film in the 1960's. Therefore, my group did research into the time period looking at such aspects as, Music, technology and location setting. I used an iPad with the mind-mapping app SimpleMid+ theme, time setting, costume and inspiration.

Our group also researched locations that we could use, we found a verity of locations that would suit our short films theme.

Fullers Earth work factory

In this lesson I researched into the codes and conventions of a horror film, I drew a spider diagram in order to display my findings.

I also researched into a range of horror films to take inspiration from;

In my lesson i further researched into Horror films, focusing on the themes that horror films enforce in order to relate to their audiences, These include;
Nightmares; this is something that everyone has experienced at least once in their lives.
Vulnerability; 'the quality or state of being exposed to the possibility of being attacked or harmed, either physically or emotionally'.
Fearing what is unknown; this is the common fear of something that is unknown such as the paranormal or unknowing who or what the killer is.
Alienation; the fear of isolation and being different to other people.

PLANNING: SHOT LIST

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.