Reflective Journal

PROJECT START

Tuesday marked the first day of our Final Major Project. Coming into the first day, I was feeling confident as I had already had various ideas that I could explore and had a brief understanding of. As mentioned in my Unit 12 journal, I wanted to carry on a majority of my research on director/writer Edgar Wright as I enjoy much of his work and elements he uses within them. These range from the unique transitions, sound design and most prominently his style of editing seen in the ‘Cornetto Trilogy’ and ‘Scott Pilgrim vs The World’. 

In lesson, we discussed various poems and how they can link to broader themes. The main example of this is through Benjamin Zephaniah’s ‘Talking Turkeys’. On the outside, the poem talks about how turkeys fear Christmas time due to the tradition to have turkeys for dinners, however this can link deeply into the idea of genocides and other conflicts. This lesson allowed me to have a better understanding of how you can research context and other pieces of media, whether it is poems, art or music and how they link to a greater theme. This is something in which I plan to do in this project by making sure I cover a range of topics that relate to my story.

IDEA GENERATION

On Wednesday, most of the day was spent on creating an idea for my project. 

Before that however, I decided for this project that I will work with a classmate, Ben. The reason for this is to benefit both of our strengths, while also covering our weaknesses. As I’ve mentioned in previous projects, I feel like I have always had a problem with the technical side of filmmaking and putting my ideas into fruition but in my opinion, succeed at the theory side. On the other hand, Ben has said that he struggles more on the theory side but is good at the technical side due to him wanting to become a camera operator. By working together, we can assure that we can create something that we are both proud of while also prioritising areas in which we are strongest at. 

Continuing on the idea, I had previously listed a bunch of different ideas, a majority of which come under the comedy genre. I initially thought of doing a scene of what would be a longer story, in which it would be of a police interrogation after being inspired by a scene in Netflix/Marvel’s ‘Jessica Jones’. I wanted to pair the seriousness of that scene with a comedic aspect where I can incorporate areas of Edgar Wright’s camerawork and transitions. Another few ideas discussed were; Murder Mysteries, Courtroom dramas, and a comic adaptation. 

However, after looking into short-films about murder mysteries, I stumbled across a film titled ‘Mop’, a dark comedy featuring a janitor accidentally killing someone and scrambling to hide the body. Within this he pretends to onlookers that the body is alive and struggles to travel the body to the boot of his car. After watching and enjoying it, I wanted to take inspiration from this and add onto it. We decided to delve into the crime genre a little by making our main characters henchmen for the Mafia. 

After this, unlike previous projects, I made sure to properly plan out a storyline and explore the characters’ personalities more. Doing this will enable me to be more prepared when writing the script and making sure the plot is tight, without any potential disruption and/or confusion.

LIGHTING WORKSHOP

At the end of the week, we had a workshop from a lighting rental business run by Diogo Atadani. In this workshop, they demonstrated different lighting tools such as stands and LEDs and discussed how to use them. As lighting is something which I have always struggled with understanding, this was a massive help to me, especially when coming from an industry professional. It helped me understand how the lighting affects shadows and how different accessories are used and why. 

During the workshop, there was a part where they got some of the actors in to perform a scene with lighting. This helped me in understanding how light and colour is just as important as visuals when telling a story as it not only presents the setting, but also the feelings within the scene.

PROPOSAL

The start of the week was dedicated to finalising my proposal for Wednesday’s deadline. As through a previous lesson which went into more detail about what to include in our proposals, I had a better understanding in how to lay it out.

For my rationale, I discussed how I feel I have developed over the past 2 years, labelling areas in which I have succeeded in and areas where I have had difficulties, those of which I want to improve upon.

For the project concept, I wrote down the basic plan (with added details) for our story and the reasons behind each decision. Within this I listed the plot, the genres and inspirations behind our idea. As advised, I added a paragraph talking solely about the target audience and psychographics. A key detail of this was our ambition to reverse and oppose the generic stereotypes and ideologies of films associated with the crime genre. Consequently, this gives me more information to research when diving into the context, therefore hopefully being used to improve and add more depth to the screenplay/film.

Lastly, for the evaluation section, I explained how I want my work to be evaluated. The main method for this is through a reflective journal (what i’m writing in now) where I will write down every experience I have when working on the project. This enables me to log my progress, process and learnings while being honest on how I view the project from a personal perspective. I will also ask for feedback from teachers, classmates and outside perspectives constantly throughout the project to find ways on how I can improve my work, rather than leave it too late, a mistake I’ve made with previous projects.

BIBLIOGRAPHY LECTURE

We had a brief introduction into how university students lay out their bibliographies through our teacher. She discussed how we can easily find academic sources to support our work, rather than focus solely on websites/articles. This is something in which I have done previously and something where I now know I can drastically improve upon. After the discussion, I searched for various sources and found myself shocked at how many lectures and essays there are, some of which I listed for my own use for research.

Furthermore, another thing in which she discussed was the pieces of context we should be researching. These included areas such as books/comics, interviews, theatre, fashion, art and music. I found a lot of information on different pieces of artwork and music that I will 100% research further, therefore proving that this lecture has been incredibly useful in our pre-production phase.

As mentioned in my Unit 12 evaluation, a main area in which I went wrong was the fact that I didn’t have a schedule, which caused an overload of work and stress towards the end of the project. This was something I was desperate to mitigate this time, meaning that the action plan section in the proposal was of great use to start off a basic schedule. It allowed us to plan ahead of time, finding days/weeks where we plan on completing a specific task, leaving us sufficient time for upcoming tasks and ensuring we don’t have an overload of work at the end.

As part of this, we also made a brief to-do list. This was in-order to split the workload between us as well as explicitly say what tasks each one of us should do, so neither of us can be confused on what we’re meant to do. We plan on updating this list throughout the project to keep track of our work. 

As of writing this, I am currently quite confident on this project. I feel like at this stage, we are increasingly prepared and understand what our plan is. This is helped by having a set idea and equal vision on roughly how it will look visually and how the dialogue will play out. This is a massive improvement for me personally as I have never felt this confident about a project prior to this due to my lack of belief in my technical abilities and often not having a set idea down.

RESEARCH START

Moving forward, at the end of the week, I began working on my context research, and for now focused heavily on the Mafia. I looked into the origins of both Italian and American Mafias, the structure and activities. While researching, I found information about the Valachi Hearings and the Maxi Trials. The reason why these two pieces of information are so important in this context is because to me it shows that there is a “rabbit hole” of context to find, most of which I had never heard of before. And the Maxi Trials are important as they have occurred in both the 20th and 21st century, allowing me to find links between the past and modern eras of law and society, supporting the contextual research.

ARTS RESEARCH

This week was spent largely on my research. I continued with my research on the Mafia and the context behind them. I started to move onto other topics such as the music, art and fashion consumed and related to them. This should allow me a broader perspective on the effects of the Mafia and how it has contributed to the wider-world and media. I was able to find an art exhibition inspired by the actions of the Mafia. One example of this was the Ucciardone Project which features 54 life-sized statues of dogs from materials such as iron, foil and concrete distributed within a bunker and car park. As per artist Alessandro De Lisi, the dogs “Represent the criminals’ hunger for power and the Mafia’s abuse of society. As for the music, I researched two different genres, one being Narcocorridos and the other Gangster Rap. Narcocorridos is a controversial genre of music, generally residing between the borders of Mexico and the US, which tell stories of drug lords, arrests and shootings. Due to this, a dozen musicians have been found murdered between 2006 -2008 alone. This was a main priority for me as it is a genre so heavily connected with the actions of the Mafia and other crime groups. Gangster / mafioso rap on the other hand, is the product of the romanticisation of the mafia in pop-culture as well as the reflection of the violent lifestyle inhabiting American inner cities at the time. It presents graphic stories of gang violence and often appealed to the rebellious lower class.

OSCARS

In lesson, we discussed a variety of different films and events related to this years’ Oscars. These included; ‘American Fiction’, ‘Poor Things’, ‘All Of Us Strangers’, ‘Past Lives’, ‘The Iron Claw’ and Lily Gladstone’s Oscar loss. This lecture was mainly about the meanings of each film and how they link to each other and/or to past films. For example, a common theme between some of the films include family, grief and love, some of which for different reasons. Another link that was mentioned was particularly about Poor Things and how it takes a lot of inspiration from 1927’s ‘Metropolis’ and Frankenstein. 

Lily Gladstone’s Leading Actress loss and Celine Song’s Director snub led us to discuss how throughout the near 100 years of Oscars history, there has been a distinct lack of cultural appreciation. One point brought up was how The Academy kept praising Gladstone's nomination and how she was the first indigenous woman to be up for the Best Actress award, but ultimately lost out to Emma Stone in Poor Things. And then how Celine Song nor Andrew Haigh got nominated for Best Director for Past Lives and All Of Us Strangers respectively. This could show how there is a distinct lack of cultural appreciation for people of different ethnicities, gender and sexuality and how they very rarely get the media attention that those of the “norm” would. 

This lecture helped me understand the meaning behind context more and truly helped me understand how deep you can go to find connections throughout history and use it to benefit our work. Consequently, this has caused me to plan out to analyse a wider variety of films linking to my story that I would not have done before, those including the likes of ‘Reservoir Dogs’ and ‘The Valachi Papers’.

USE OF MODERN TECHNOLOGY

In a separate lecture, we were asked the question “How do you think advanced technology will affect the TV and Film industry?”. Immediately my mind went to the use of “The Volume”, a LED screen that acts as a green screen but used in real time, rather than completing in post-production. Using Star Wars as an example, ‘The Mandalorian' was praised and hyped for it being one of the first big budget productions to use the Volume, in which the first season had very high praise and reviews. However, this caused a sort of butterfly effect to where every big budget production company would use the Volume as a way of cutting corners and reducing the costs and time when filming on set. This led to the point where it was becoming increasingly notable and overused to the major public. 

While not entirely participating in the debate that followed, I was listening closely to some of the points made by my classmates and the teacher. I feel like there were times that I could have joined in the conversation as I had points to make (especially about the large production companies i.e Marvel & Lucasfilm) and share a different perspective with them.

NARRATIVE THEORY RESEARCH

After completing my research on the Mafia, I moved my focus to Todorov's Narrative Theory. This is the first example on how I will use past research into this project and develop on that research. I looked deeper into the theory and found it incredibly helpful, not just for the research, but for preparation in writing the screenplay. It showed me how a narrative is perceived to general audiences as well as how the structure is implemented in nearly every film. While looking into Todorov’s theory, I came across Vladimir Propp’s character theory, which presented how characters serve a purpose to the narrative. I found this to be useful information, however in my opinion, it feels outdated as a lot of modern media has strayed away from basic plot and characters unlike the folklore that he had studied for his theory.

TARGET AUDIENCE 

I moved away from narrative study over to dissecting our target audience. Priorly, we already had a good idea of what audience we are aiming at, however never really discussed it properly/went into detail. I started by looking at the age range and what was the common range for dark comedies and crime films. I was able to find audience analysis by the BFI for both 2014 and 2018 films, which supplied me with significant information on what attracts each audience. Having two different examples allowed me to contrast between the two with one particular difference standing out. In 2014, the most common themes for 15-24 year olds were comedy and action, with 22 Jump Street accompanying 68% of that audience, on the other hand in 2018, the most common theme was largely horror based. While closing out this area of research, I plan to revisit the audience analysis and gather information that relates to any changes that we make in the future. 

Continuing on our target audience, in my proposal I mentioned how we want to switch the gender stereotypes often seen in the crime genre. General conventions seen are that a high majority of these films are aimed towards men due to their violent imagery and themes of power. I managed to find a bunch of various academic studies on the eccentricity and the glorification of masculinity in film, referring to terms such as the “hardbodied hero”. Previously we have discussed ways on how to present this in our story, with us (as of now) agreeing on the idea of opening the film in the style of a crime drama, but on the twist that the body is alive, suddenly switch the genre into a comedic style. This is so we can incorporate the stereotypes and subvert audience expectations through the comedy, which is assisted by statistics that show comedies are directed largely towards the female gender.

ACTORS

Furthermore, one issue that we have discussed is our need for actors. In doing so, towards the end of the week, I was able to get in contact with a friend of mine who has friends (who I also know) that have acted before. Thankfully, both of them accepted the opportunity and have said that they like the concept. This is a massive development in our pre-production for many reasons. The main one is that they are girls, and that can help our decision to subvert audience expectations as obviously, women are not a common thought when thinking of the mafia. It allows me to research further into women in the Mafia and see if there are any examples or important information that I need to embed within the script. Another reason why sorting out actors early is so important, is that we can now concentrate further on how things will work, instead of leaving it too late; a big mistake I made last year in my FMP.

On a more personal note, when I heard that they were fans of the concept, I was happy with myself as I feel it is a nice start for my screenwriting journey for my actors to enjoy the concept I’ve thought up and are actually excited to act in it.

CHESHAM WORK EXPERIENCE 

To begin the week, I had work experience at Chesham United Ladies Football Team. This consists of me going to their Sunday home games and writing a match report to be put on their website (which is available here https://www.culfc.co.uk/) Sunday was the second game I have watched and leaves two more games of the season left. Writing the reports is a really good experience for me as it helps me get into more of a habit of writing, fiction or non-fiction, and it is to do with something that I regularly enjoy. Unlike my first report, where Chesham won, this was more difficult as unfortunately they lost - and not in very good fashion. This meant that I would have to be more careful with my words as I aim to not upset, but still give an accurate account of the game’s events. I feel I managed to complete this well as I made sure I articulate my wordings so that on some occasions, the reader is able to gather a good description of the events, without knowing the full context. 

In the future when there is no threat of rain, I would like to use my laptop at the games rather than a traditional pen and paper. This would allow me to easily write the report while being at the game, which most, if not all modern sport reporters do, instead of having to wait a day later when some events aren’t as fresh in my memory. 

PRODUCTION MEETING

Later in the week, Ben and I met up for a “production meeting”. This was basically so we could catch up over the half term and make sure we are still on the right track with all the research and pre-production. While there, we were able to develop our idea further and gain a better understanding on how we both want the film to turn out. We did this by me starting to work on the script, while Ben started working on a blocking sheet simultaneously. This worked well as it meant we could talk in-person on how we want the shots to look so they fit the tone of the story and that we are on the same page about it. I feel over the course of the day, we could have done a bit more work, however a lot of the time was spent communicating on planning the project as a whole, so this can be excused to an extent.

As mentioned, I began writing the script and as it is the first draft, it is mostly for outlining the main points in the story and creating the personalities of the characters. In the future, I will develop this script to at least 3 drafts in order to try and perfect it, however for now, I am content with my progress. 

One thing we discussed was the need for primary research, or a questionnaire of sorts. We decided that we should base the questionnaire on our target audience. The next day, I created and shared said questionnaire. It featured questions revolving around their preferred genre of film, what is the main draw for them and questions more specifically aimed at comedies and crime films. As of writing this, we have 4 responses and are awaiting more in order to gather as much as possible.

AUDIENCE POLL

Following on from the previous week, after posting the link onto both Ben and I’s social media, we ended up receiving 14 different responses. We found that a majority of the responses were male (9), though had some female participants (4). This enables us to get a wider spread of results to help relate back to our plan of opposing gender stereotypes in areas of the film. It leads onto other questions within the form and helps us to understand what the recipients like, dislike and how they perceive different genres. 

The first section was designed on a more basic scale, with the questions revolving around their interests and preferences. A few examples include favourite film genres, their “main draws” and whether they prefer characters to be of similar ages / genders to themselves. The most varied responses occurred in the genres and main draw questions. Results have shown that 9/10 genres were selected at least once, with the outlier being ‘Romance’. Expectedly, the highest percentage went in the favour of action films, however personally, I wasn’t expecting people to choose genres such as Dramas and Thrillers, especially as most likely every recipient is of a similar age of 17-18. An improvement I should have done would be to ask their ages as it would make a lot of the conclusions a certainty rather than an assumption. 

The second section was more specifically aimed towards our project, notably towards the Comedy and Crime genre. Some of the questions were aimed at the respondents’ preferences and opinions on what the generic target audience is and what types of comedies and crime films they like. 

The most surprising result found throughout the entire survey was when asked about what gender people associate with comedies. The results showed that a majority (57%) associate comedies with a male audience. However, through the BFI audience research paper and other sources, most comedy cinema-goers are female.

Overall, I feel the poll was a good decision as not only it contributes to our primary research, it has given me a greater understanding of our target audience and their preferences. Because of this I have made sure to apply some of the information within the script, particularly about the types of comedy they prefer. A few things I would change would be to include questions that don’t relate solely to the target audience. I could have asked about areas specific to the Mafia and perhaps questions relating to the plot of our story, just to see what people’s opinions are.

SCRIPT DRAFT 1

Reverting back to the script, I managed to complete the 1st draft of the script. In the end, I believe it is the best script I have written (so far) and don’t see many major changes in the future (although I know it will most likely not be the case). As I had already had a plan for the plot and character personalities, I found this a lot easier than past times as I knew where the story was going. Through inspiration in ‘Bullet Train’ and ‘Shaun of the Dead’, I believe I have written the script in a similar style - in character dialogue and structure. 

However despite this, it definitely took longer than I had expected and meant that I was behind schedule. To overcome this, I began to draw a storyboard while Ben started on a blocking sheet, which works well as it spreads out the workload while allowing us to come together and combine our ideas.

The main objective for this week was to finish the storyboard. I have made sure to include every shot that I hope to include in the final product, because in past storyboards I’ve drawn, I haven’t included reaction shots or properly labelled them correctly. By doing this, it should allow us to have a better understanding of what we have to do on the day, therefore determining we have as much footage as we need. Due to already having a complete storyline / script, I found creating the storyboard easier as I would imagine how the scenes would play out when writing, meaning I only needed to convert them into a visual format. When showing the storyboard to Ben, as the cameraman, he said he understood what I’ve drawn and believes that the shots will be practical on the day.

ALLEGORIES LECTURE

During Friday, we had a lecture revolving around Allegories. Prior to the lecture, I had already had an idea on what allegories are and examples of them within film. Despite this, I still found the lecture really insightful, especially through an exercise where we had to ask ChatGPT to find allegories within our own projects. I have never been much of a fan of AI when used in creative ways, however the answer it gave surprised both Ben and I. We put our whole script into the prompt and it gave us the answer; ‘It serves as an allegory for the eternal struggle between blind obedience and moral conscience, highlighting the importance of questioning authority and choosing empathy over allegiance to prevent tragic consequences.’ This is something we had not thought of when writing the story, though in a way set up when creating the characters’ personalities. It surprised us because when thinking about it, the allegory does fit with our story and the historical backgrounds of crime syndicates and Mafias. 

Furthermore, we were shown roughly the first 20-30 minutes of the film ‘Okja’. These opening minutes perfectly depict what the story is going to be and what message they are trying to say. The allegory images the problem with Western cultures from an Asian perspective and presents their issues with the environment (environmentalism). As an aspiring writer, this was a great way to teach more about allegories and how they are important when writing a story. This is something which I will make sure to implement in the future, and due to this I decided that I would add extra research on the topic to add to my evidence and hopefully enlighten me more about the topic.

CHESHAM WORK EXPERIENCE

Towards the end of the week, I wrote another match report for Chesham. For the match, it was much of the same however this time, I was asked to do a post-match interview. As this was a very new experience for me, it was initially difficult to produce relevant / “good” questions - in my opinion- but through help, I was able to come up with 4 separate questions. 

I had to wait a while as I did not feel too comfortable disrupting the manager’s conversations, although I know that is something that most reporters have to do. When getting the chance, I used a voice recording app, which surprisingly worked quite well, to record the answers so I can transcribe them onto a word document later.

As I gain more experience writing the report, the better my vocabulary gets in my opinion. While writing, I started to use Thesaurus.com to broaden my vocabulary when writing, so it doesn’t feel too repetitive and bland. I feel like I should have done this for my previous reports because I didn’t realise how much this would help and benefit me as I keep getting into more of a habit of writing. 

SHOT LIST

This week, I began working on the shot list. Previously, I have used my own template which has made things much more simpler through clear descriptions of what I expect the film to look like from a more technical standpoint. Firstly, I began translating the storyboard / script into the list by describing the events and how the camera should be framed and/or the movement of them. However, due to Ben’s superior knowledge of technical aspects to me, I have asked him to help add those areas such as the camera lens and audio type. This is another example of how working with a partner with a different knowledge to I, as it allows us to help each other and determine that our work can be to the best of our abilities. 

SCRIPT DRAFT 2

I also began working on the second draft of the script. As I was content with the structure and story, the changes made were particular on dialogue and action, refining them so it feels much more organic and descriptive. One of the bigger changes I made was dialogue within the scenes where they find an address and also the ending sequence. In hindsight, some of the dialogue felt “tacky” and at one point features heavy “exposition dumping”, therefore I adjusted it so the exposition is hinted at more and the conversations feel more natural. I plan on creating a 3rd and -hopefully- final draft in preparation for our filming date to ensure that the script is the best it can be. 

FILM PLANNING

Within the week, I spoke to our actors who we plan to film with and discussed when we are set to film. After discussions on dates when people are free, we agreed on filming next Thursday and Friday after they finish their school day (3pm). Therefore, Ben and I conducted an equipment list of everything we need in preparation for those dates. This has shown to be useful as it ensures we remember everything, whether they’re props or costumes. Because we need to buy equipment, this means we would need to create a budget sheet to add to our evidence. 

Furthermore, we also sent them the script so that they can get an idea of what we want to do and for what they can expect. In return, they mentioned that they like it and from a friend heard that one of them was excited to act in it, which similar to the response to the concept, made me somewhat proud of what I’ve written and is a nice way to begin my screenwriting journey. I feel like at the time we should have gone into more detail on the costumes we’re hoping for and our plan for the day but that’s mainly because we hadn’t fully cemented that yet. 

However, a day later, one of our actors came back and told us that she doesn’t feel she is in the right frame of mind to act in the project due to upcoming A-levels. We accepted her decision and quickly discussed our plans. As filming was soon ahead, we came up with the idea of getting someone from college, though with them not being actors, it has the potential to create issues within the editing process. In the end, I asked one of the actors whether she knows anyone who could fill in and told me about one of her friends who could be available and as of writing this, we are waiting for a formal response. I feel we handled the situation fairly well as we were able to contact people calmly and without stressing. Moreover, our communication I felt was good as we both understood each other and the situation at hand. 

Towards the end of the week, we’ve received a response from the other actor and the decision that she’ll be available for filming. This meant that we moved on to the process of collecting / buying all the props and costumes we need for filming. As we’d priorly discussed this, we had already said that we’d split the costs of everything. This ended up being a split between me, buying the costumes (glasses, hats, gloves) and Ben buying the body bag - bringing the total to around £15 between ourselves. 

In response to this, I created a budget sheet from a StudioBinder template but soon found out that I didn’t require a large majority of the documents. As we only planned on spending on costumes, props and transportation, costs such as; crew wages, electricity and development rights are unnecessary and therefore cut from the topsheet. 

We also assembled a filming plan, talking through the locations we plan to shoot in and the schedule for the days. We started compiling our chosen locations, making sure they’re all in and around Hazlemere to occupy the actors.

For our woodland scenes, we chose Penn Wood, mainly due to its closeness and accessibility. Another reason was the suitability of the area. Previously, when going there for a friend’s project, the area we went to fits our vision and believe that using the tall, thin trees, it could create a stylised effect. 

For the roads/streets in our montages, we had no specific preference on what roads we want, however we intend to film all around Hazlemere, particularly the roads where it’ll be quietest. And for the park, there is an area outside Sir William Ramsay School - where we’re collecting the actors - that is suitable for our bench scene due to the open greenspace. 

In terms of the scene outside the shop, we chose to use Park Parade, an enclosed area where there is an array of different shops such as; Food, Medical and Charity. Due to the area having space to park parallel outside the shop, it works perfectly for how we want the scene to look and feel.

Lastly for the end sequences, we decided on filming outside Brackley Road specifically. Unlike the roads mentioned above, this needed to be more specific as we needed to film on a doorstep, therefore needing permission from the homeowners, but due to Ben living there, we wouldn’t need a location release form. The road also sits upon a hill, giving a good view of the sky, meaning that our evening / sunset scene will -hopefully- look visually appealing, especially at this time of year. 

In the PowerPoint, under each location, we added a few photos of each to give an idea where we want to set it specifically. 

CHESHAM WORK EXPERIENCE

On Sunday, I had more work experience with Chesham United. As always, it would consist of me taking notes and writing a match report to send to their chairman the following day. However due to their home pitch being waterlogged, it meant that they played the game at Chiltern Hills Academy - where they train. The academy is astroturf and lacks the facilities of a purpose-built stadium such as a media bench where I’ve taken all notes before. Due to the weather, it meant that I couldn’t use paper and pen and turned to using my phone. Although easier to correct mistakes, as the game went on, it was more difficult to type because of the cold weather.

Lastly, I found out that my report from last week ended up in the Bucks Free Press within the sport section. Unfortunately, out of my control, the report was cut in half - them even ending the story in the middle of a sentence - and no credit was given. This obviously is frustrating but on the other hand, it is something I can be proud about knowing that the report was good enough to be selected for the local newspaper.

3 days prior to filming, one of our actors said that they wouldn’t be available for the planned filming dates on Thursday and Friday. Despite being frustrating due to the nearing deadline and our need for footage, we thought to ourselves that it wouldn’t be the “end of the world” and that it gives us extra time to prepare in addition to ensuring we complete our research and pre-production documents. This means that when we get the footage, we have enough time to focus solely on our individual edits and evaluation, rather than juggling between the project as a whole. Knowing we have to identify each part of our work, it was advised we create two different cuts. Using those cuts, we thought we could aid and share ideas in order to make our own better. Particularly, one “debate” we’ve had is the type of music that we scripted to use for the montage and credits sequence. I chose to implement Queen’s “You’re My Best Friend” and Jay Israelson’s “The Longest Week (Django)” from the soundtrack of the film of the same name. I chose Queen as the lyrics show a large contrast / juxtaposition to the visual events, adding another style of comedy to the final film. Whereas for the latter, the soundtrack chosen features a lot of jazz-styled music, so I thought it would work well for the montage scene as it may give the impression that they are being watched through the lens, fitting our shot description and storyboard. Ben, on the other hand, has suggested using other songs / music, so accordingly having different cuts allow us to use both our ideas and make our films unique to us.

POSSIBLE ISSUES

Reverting back to the situation, through conversations with the actors, we were able to agree on another two dates, them being Monday 6th and Tuesday 7th with the possibility of extra days throughout. Monday however, we would have to start at 6:30pm because of actor commitments, meaning that we’d have less time to conduct all the material we need for that day. Consequently, this meant we had to reorganise our initial filming plan. We settled on shooting the montages and the ending sequence on the Monday as we have less time but due to that, it would make the evening scenes a lot easier to film. Afterwards, on Tuesday we agreed on shooting the scenes in the woodlands and with the car. The main reason for this decision was the knowledge that we have a smaller time-restraint to film, and undeniably, those two are our biggest scenes (at least with dialogue).

One thing that may or may not have been an issue was obtaining a car / having someone who would be able to drive the car during filming. As neither Ben nor I were eligible to drive, we asked a friend whether we could borrow him and his car, to which we got a good response. However this week, unknown to me, Ben had his driving lesson and ultimately passed, consequently meaning we have easy access to a car and quicker transport from location to location, hopefully maximising our efforts. Despite this, it doesn’t mean that we will cancel the help from our friend. Not cancelling allows both of us having larger control of the production rather than struggling between audio, lighting and camera at the same time.

Another issue that arrived was an injury to one of our actors, meaning that we had little time to find another to play the part. This was frustrating but thankfully we had a friend who agreed to cover and allow us to continue with our preparation.

DAY 1 SHOOT

On Monday, we shot part of our final film. One big issue that derived early on in the day was the weather, with forecasts predicting that there would be high(ish) chances of rain in the hours we set to film. This was an ongoing issue throughout the day, to the point where I was wondering if it would be best to reschedule. However, we kept to our plan and were determined to film as much as possible in order to reduce the workload for the next day. Luckily for us, we only had to encounter light rain on small occasions, other than those, a majority was filmed in clear conditions. This made filming much easier and less stressful because there was less pressure on us, allowing us to not rush our shots. One problem was that the rain made it more difficult to check the shot list and storyboard, which meant we may have detoured from how we wanted the shots to look exact. As we knew about the rain issue, we should have prepared and thought about this specific issue. The main fix would be to bring an umbrella so that our documents couldn’t get wet. 

We met up with the actors and began to prepare for our shoot. Setting up the camera stabiliser took a lot longer than expected, consequently limiting our time as we had to arrive at our final location at around 20:40 to capture the sunset. Despite the less time, we still managed to film everything we needed for the day but would have been better with the maximum available as it could have meant we could film more takes and at different angles. 

A lot of the shots we wanted (in the park) were structured in the montage sequence with runtimes of only a few seconds. I feel we were able to capture our idea well enough in the sense that in some shots, you can get the feeling that they are being watched, contrasting with the upbeat jazz we plan to put in that scene. It definitely helped getting proper actors in as they were able to form the best facial expressions for the situations. 

While filming at the park, we changed our idea for the pedestrian scene to be set on the field rather than from across the street. In response to this, we decided to try a whip pan from the actors to the pedestrian. In my opinion, the idea was there but the execution wasn’t up to our standards, so may decide to not use / cut some of it out in Post. Due to us using the stabiliser, Ben found it difficult to do the whip pan and mentioned that it would have been easier handheld.

When we got to our final location -Brackley Road- we arrived to see that there was no sunset like we hoped. Despite this, we still continued to film exactly what we needed. Although  frustrating we couldn’t see the sunset, we could still see a tiny bit of colour so there is the possibility to enhance that in Post. Furthermore, there is the option we can reshoot the next day. 

One issue was that through the camera screen, the lighting at some points in my opinion looked “off” due to the sky getting increasingly darker as the time went on. However upon reviewing the footage later, it wasn’t as much of a problem as first thought, although definitely could / should have been improved by using a brighter back light rather than a wall lamp.

For the first day, I was content with the footage we acquired as at times I felt we got some nice shots, but others were rushed and lit poorer than normal. The main hindrances would be the quick turnaround and the “rustiness” of us creating a large project. The turnaround of needing to be at our final location for a specific time meant that we would have to rush certain shots and capture less angles of each, leading to having less options when editing something that I’ve been subject to in past projects, particularly in last year's FMP.

On top of that, I was tasked with being the main director for the project and as stated in previous evaluations, directing is something in which I’m not as confident in and have criticised myself in the past. Despite this, I feel I had done a much better job this time around as I had a clearer idea of what I wanted from the shots, which shows the improvement in our pre-production. I felt I was communicating better between what I wanted from the actors and Ben, who would comment on any improvements or issues that occurred, to which we would work around fairly well. In turn, directing was also made a lot easier due to having proper actors who would understand what was being asked of them.

DAY 2 SHOOT

Moving onto Day 2, where we planned to complete the entire film. This included the main chunk in the woodlands and the smaller conversation in the car outside the shop. The first thing that was better than the previous day was the fact that we had a lot more time to film, plus there was no specific ending time. Due to this, we had enough time to film everything we needed and more, therefore expanding our options when editing through various different angles and takes. This was helped by us having an extra person on set. The extra person allowed us to continue with scenes at a much quicker rate as they were able to support the boom mic while filming, while yesterday, it was only Ben and I.

We began by shooting the scenes in the car park and soon encountered our first problem. The previous week, we had changed our idea of buying a bodybag to using large bin bags to act like someone was inside. However, what we found out was that the bags weren’t going to be big enough to resemble a body, so our work around was using towels to bulk up the bag and use that. This would obviously cause continuity errors within our film as the bag sizes would differentiate from scene to scene, however we felt at the time that it was the only work around. In hindsight, what we should have done is to tape multiple bags together and use larger / more towels to bulk up the bag more, trying as close as possible to resemble the shape of a body. Another issue was framing the shot where the car pulls in/out of the parking space. The issue derived from Ben needing to drive the car where the actors should be, making it difficult to frame the particular shot we wanted. This led us to change our plan and film the shot of the car moving away from the camera rather than across. 

We then proceeded to film our scenes in the woodlands. Firstly, we needed to find a suitable location which is spacious enough to fit all the actors and equipment but enclosed enough for the area to look ‘claustrophobic’. Due to the bag issue mentioned above, for the body, we laid out 3-4 bags over our actor’s body (only when shooting - risk assessment) so it creates the impression that there is a body in the bag. But as we only used one for the car park scenes, the continuity is “scuffed”. 

Filming went fairly smoothly in my opinion as due to us having larger amounts of dialogue, we were able to film multiple takes of a conversation from one angle, and repeat it from another - a majority being over-the-shoulder shots. This worked well in the aspect of recording audio and not losing the chemistry and continuous feel of the conversation. I made sure to follow the shot list and storyboard a lot closer than I have in previous projects and that proved to be vital to us getting the shots. When directing, I was able to follow the structure of the story well as well as the shot descriptions we’ve applied before, therefore regressing the stress I tend to feel.

On the other hand, filming did take longer than expected for the whole scene, meaning we had less time to shoot the final scene at Hazlemere Park Parade but comfortably had enough time. In relation, we repeated our technique of filming the whole conversation but from different angles, reducing the time and maximising the amount of footage we have for post-production.

EXTRA RESEARCH 

My plan at the start of the week was to begin the editing process of my final film. After shooting the footage the previous week and without any chance to reshoot, it meant that anything we had would have to work. Meaning that there were possibilities there could be continuity errors and missing shots - something in hindsight I will discuss.

However, to begin the week, on the way to college, I had a discussion with a friend - also doing their FMP - and we discussed our research and context and how they fit with the grading criteria. During this, she brought up some good points on how I can improve mine, particularly within my research on female audiences and current trends. I took this into account and in the first lesson, began to dive deeper into female audiences and how 2023’s ‘Barbie’ impacted majorities’ views on feminism, patriarchy and the psychological meanings behind its decisions. I’m glad I had this conversation as it enlightened me on my work and ways I can improve and I feel the material I’ve added is beneficial to my final piece and how an (almost) all female cast can change the ways an audience can perceive a piece of media.

On top of this, I also went in more depth on some of the modern trends within the filmmaking industry, primarily about AI and the potential effects it possesses. Through an article/interview by The Guardian, I was able to find how an industry professional - one who has a famous family history in the industry - finds the prospect of AI in the screenwriting industry, something quite important to me due to my personal aims. 

Both pieces of research are areas which I should have gone in-depth about earlier in the project, however only picking up on them now 2 weeks before the deadline with post-production to also complete, it means that I hadn’t enough time to fully understand the topics. In the future, I need to provide myself with more specific ideas on what to research rather than listing brief topics because it would have allowed me to discover better and more relevant sources.

EDITING : DAY 1

Soon after, I started working on my final edit. By following my pre-production documents, I had always had an idea on how to begin the film - by the car entering frame and/or introduction to the characters through a truck shot inspired by ‘Pulp Fiction’. An issue with this shot is that the audio was recorded through the camera rather than the boom mic, leading to the slam of the boot being overwhelming, but was quickly fixed through adjusting the volume levels. 

The biggest problem I’ve found so far is the lack of transitions from shot to shot, consequently causing some of the visuals to have continuity errors and makes it look unorganised at times. To combat this, I altered the structure of the film’s opening by adding a few seconds of black screen in order to break sequences up and for the reason of replacing the missing transition shots. Those shots are something that I should have spotted when laying out the shot list, and ultimately due to this, has led to difficulties in continuity and all-round structure of the story. 

Annoyingly, another issue I encountered was us not recording the room tone. This is particularly frustrating as I remember on the day we had mentioned that we needed to record the tone for the forest. Without this, it has meant I have had to edit around our shots to find background audio to fit in the places that need it and fundamentally led to some of the audio being “stop-start”. 

EDITING : DAY 2

Today, I completed the structure of the first minute of the video and as I previously thought, there are a few missing transitional shots which affect the pacing / continuity. Unlike with the intro, which was fixed with black screen, editing around this (and predictably future shots), I had to find different workarounds, which in this case, consisted of altering the duration of the clips longer than we had originally planned in the shot list. 

The biggest problem I found today was with using the college computers to edit. While already having proxies, the computer still found difficulties with the playback, particularly with the audio. The audio would both / either be sped up and/or be very “laggy”, meaning that it was near impossible to mix the audio and sync it with my visuals. Due to this, I had to change my plan and decide to mix all the audio after finishing the structure rather than doing it continuously. Because of the issues with the computer, I wasn’t able to do as much as I hoped but understand what I’d be able to do the next day I edit at college. 

However, one change I made that heavily benefitted me was changing the colours of various clips (as seen in the image). This change was specifically for scenes where I would have to edit in and out of 2 or 3 shots and consequently made it a lot easier for me to identify each shot and helped when it came to syncing audio to both clips. Before the change, this was something in which I had struggled with, so finding a suitable solution has given me a little more motivation to succeed. 

EDITING : DAY 3

On day 3, the focus was on the main dialogue scenes in the woodlands. Editing these shots was made much easier as we had a number of suitable angles and takes to choose from, supported by us deciding to film the dialogue all in one take from the different angles. 

Despite this, I soon realised that syncing the dialogue would be a lot harder as the actors would change a word or speak quicker/slower in some shots. Due to this, it meant I had to be more particular with the shots I choose, but as mentioned above, having an array of different takes enabled me to find matching shots and fix that issue. However, this is something that we should have been more alert to when filming so we don’t end up with this problem in post-production.

I did find a few problems in our shots though. One of which being a large continuity error (as seen in the gap towards the end of the timeline) where our actor stands up when speaking, but in the next shot they are kneeling down. At this moment I am struggling to find a solution so I plan to continue and then come back to it when I either think of a fix or finish the full structure. 

Another small issue I found was an out of focus shot. We had other takes but all of them would contain other small issues like framing or overexposure, meaning that I had to use the out of focus take. This is something which I plan to attempt fixing later on when I begin colour grading my visuals. When filming, we should have made sure to review our footage for the possibility of technical errors. 

One other shot was when the body exited the bag. In our case, the shot goes on for far too long, without any suitable shots that can be placed in between. I ended up sticking with the shot due to the lack of alternatives, but frustrated at the increasing trend that thus is becoming.  

EDITING : DAY 4

On day 4, I finished the structure of the woodland scenes and moved on to the dialogue scene in the car. 

Using my past research on Edgar Wright, I edited my first montage sequence to be in a similar style of his. With this information, I added in movements and transitions to the shots, while planning to add overexaggerated sound effects later on via foley and pre-existing downloads. I feel with the added sound effects, it can become effective in showing the comedy as well as presenting the inspiration I found from Wright.

I also decided to incorporate crossfade transitions to other areas in my film, particularly to hide the shots needed to go from scene to scene. Although, at times it can look odd, it is certainly a better fix than using a black screen where it wouldn’t make sense.

In terms of my directing, there was one case where I cut the shot too early, leaving a lack of time for a reaction shot. Due to this, it meant I had less footage than I needed, therefore in the edit, I decided to slow the footage down to fill the space. Once doing so, I initially thought that it wouldn’t fit and would look highly out of place, however after going through it to find the right balance, it looks more natural and does the job of acting as a reaction shot.

On the topic of speeding up footage, I had to do it for the shots where the car moves. Because we had limits on how fast the car can go and the safety concerns around certain camera shots, the raw footage features the car going at slow speeds, the opposite of what we need. Therefore, I sped up the footage to try and get close to what we wanted and I feel like it worked to a small extent, with a lot of the improvements revolving around the limits before it looks completely unnatural. 

I ended up cutting the reveal that the soldiers shut the car boot on the body’s leg due to difficulties cutting it together. I felt like the shot of the leg broke a lot of the momentum of the scene so I decided to cut it to support the fast-pace of the scene. In replacement, I took inspiration from the short film ‘Mop’ (a big inspiration for our film as mentioned earlier in the journal) and plan to use sound effects to imply the incident, rather than explicitly show it. Although not having the same effect as in ‘Mop’, I am content with this change, but feel like if we planned for this eventuality, the effect would be stronger and fit more to what I wanted when writing the script.

EDITING : DAY 5

I wasn’t able to get much done today due to personal reasons but for what I did do, the biggest issues I encountered were the different levels in audio between dialogue clips. This made it a lot harder to mix and match up with the dialogue before. After some time, I was able to get it roughly the same, which took a decent amount of time that could have been spent on the 2nd montage sequence. 

I did manage to start the montage sequence set to Jay Israelson’s ‘The Longest Week’ soundtrack from the film of the same name, with the reasoning explained in both my journal and research. In my opinion, the song works very well and exactly how I planned the tone of the scene to play out through the use of camera framing and movements. My only difficulty was fading the audio to the end of the song as the ending plays out in a different note/tone to how it sounded come the end of the montage, but with persistence, I was able to crossfade it so it feels seamless.

Using what I did before for some shots, I changed the colour of the audio track to distinguish it from the dialogue and sound effects.

EDITING : DAY 6

Due to the first day of filming being wet / dark, it meant that a lot of our shots varied heavily as seen within the montage. Although it can represent the chronological structure of the story, for some shots, the lighting is starkly different and could affect the colour grading. 

Other than that, I was able to finish the montage sequence, leaving only the final scene + credits sequence to be completed. Overall, as said the day before, I am happy with how the sequence played out and how it translates my idea on paper into a visual medium, something which I feel hasn’t always gone right for me. This personally, is a nice confidence booster for me as it shows how my scripts and ideas can be seen through visuals, rather than just through the writing. 

EDITING : DAY 7:

With only the final scenes to complete, it meant that I could begin to think about the sound design and effects I would use. But prior to that, the final few shots were fairly simple but struggled visually due to the lighting which should have been improved via an extra key light (mentioned in Day 1 shoot).

For the last shot in particular, I think it works well with the long-one-shot combined with the juxtaposing lyrics of Queen’s, ‘You’re My Best Friend’. The use of the song (explained further in journal and research) helps oppose the sudden and ‘violent’ nature of the scene and instead acts as a comedic device rather than just purely as a generic needledrop. On top of that, it also acts as an end credits song as the credits play over the top. I feel the credits playing over the video rather than a plain black screen fits the tone of the story more and supports the comedic elements of the ending.

After finalising the structure of the story, it has allowed me to reflect on the storyline from a writing perspective. I believe the aspects that turned out well were the concept and character personality. Through inspirations in ‘Mop’ and a scene in ‘Despicable Me 2’, I felt I was able to incorporate some of those elements and combine them with elements of my own to create an interesting concept that I could easily have developed further whether I had the time and/or resources to do so. That and using proper actors definitely helped flesh the personalities out more, helping to differentiate both soldiers and gain an understanding on where they stand on both their morals and ideologies. 

However, one area in which I think suffered the most was in the story’s pacing. This is seen prominently within the ending and the short time between the montage of the soldiers carrying the body and the ending. I feel if I had more time to write and prepare for filming, I could have extended this period and added more depth to further flesh out the character’s personalities and their struggles.

Moving forward, I began working on my sound design. This is something that I’ve never really gone in-depth before and was an area of criticism I had for the Year 1 FMP, so I was determined to make sure this one is better. I started on watching a few video tutorials on the basics, which included areas such as adjusting levels, ambience sound and how to incorporate / mix sound effects efficiently. 

When beginning to edit, I discovered an issue with how the dialogue audio played back through my headphones. I found that the audio would only play out of the left speaker. However using the ‘Fill Right With Left’ effect, I was able to fix the issues fairly quickly. But this too meant that I would need to go back and change all my past adjustments, which took time but was soon sorted, ready to add in sound effects. 

EDITING : DAY 8

Following yesterday, I began to add the sound effects (seen in blue) and used more video tutorials to help mix them in with the audio. 

While doing this, one video mentioned about ambience sound which would be used to cover up gaps between the audio when nothing occurs. I soon realised that this would be extremely important to the end result due to the lack of room tone that we had as stated in EDITING : DAY 1, meaning I used audio from the clips that ended up causing the audio to be stuttery. Because our video was all shot outside, it meant I needed to find a sound that fit the tone of the video and I managed to find one without any external noise such as birds singing or extensive wind. When importing it into the timeline and fixing those prior audio edits, it instantly made the sound of the video better quality and when adjusting the levels to fit the scene, made it feel much more natural. I felt this is something that I should have known before editing, and should have been one of the first things added to the timeline, however despite this, I am very glad I found the video and the specific ambience noise as it helped enhance the quality of the video.

Carrying on with the sound effects, using free websites such as Pixabay, I was able to find efficient effects to use on areas such as footsteps, car boot shutting and shovels digging. Using what I found from the videos, one described a quick way of syncing the effect to the visuals which turned out to be very helpful as it allowed me to sync the effects coherently. Playing these types of sound effects is something that since the last unit, I have wanted to try and implement into my final video and after doing so, feel like it was the best decision as the effects have added an extra layer of realism and depth to the video. If there was anything I’d want to improve is to use more foley sound than just downloads from the internet. The reason being is so instead of using time to cut the effects together, I could easily match the foley to the video, therefore taking up less time.

After finalising the audio, I moved onto the last step of the process being colour grading. Colour grading is something that I’ve previously found enjoyable so I was looking forward to starting the process. The first thing I did was instead of placing the grading on the video clip itself, I used adjustment layers and placed them above the visuals. This was a much easier strategy as it helped keep the timeline more organised and quick to get back to compare or copy over adjustments. My idea for the grade of the video would have a realistic and grounded feel

However, fairly late on in the process, I found that there were a few clips towards the start of the video that suddenly became quite grainy and out of place compared to the 4k footage around it. At first, I was confused on why this was the case and why it had only occurred a while after colour grading it. After looking online for ways to decrease the grain or revert the footage back to its original quality, I found the solution which was to re-render my footage. I still don’t exactly know the reasoning behind the grain but was relieved to find the solution, even if it meant having to wait 30-40 minutes for my footage to re-render itself. 

Towards the end of the video, the darker scenes which needed better lighting ended up turning a little grainy but unlike the start, were down to the poor lighting we set up. Using what I had available, I tried my best to decrease the grain and managed to do so to a certain extent, to which some was still present. Other than those few scenes, the rest of the video is in high quality, like we had planned. 

EDITING : DAY 9

After finishing everything yesterday, today was purely for any final checks and adjustments as well to export the video. 

The main thing I did was tidying up the timeline to make it clearer and easier to understand if I ever needed to come back to it. As in the image, I identified each different visual and audio track for different areas as well as colour coding them, for example; V3 = Colour grading / adjustment layers, A2/A3 = Sound effects / Music, A4 = Ambience. This enables me to find the areas I want much quicker in case I needed to edit any more. However, this is something I should have been doing throughout the editing process as it could have reduced some of the time spent on finding, therefore in the future I will ensure that I keep my timeline and project bin a lot more organised, especially for larger projects like this.

FEEDBACK

Afterwards, I finally exported my video in 4k quality and shared it with others for feedback. Firstly, my thoughts are easily that I feel this is the best video I have made throughout the past two years in relation to the storyline, visuals, audio and colour. No doubt that a lot of this was helped by Ben, who used his knowledge on the technical areas of filmmaking to aid through the production process, especially in places where I have been known to struggle previously. Our decision to work with each other has, in my opinion, worked out extremely well as it allowed us to help each other with areas we struggle in and in response, create something that is suited to both of our passions and aspirations within the industry.

In terms of outside feedback, a lot of the praise was aimed towards the comedy and the last montage sequence. After hearing the feedback, I felt proud of myself as it proved that my writing did turn out enjoyable for our target audience and that the editing fit well with the storyline and added to the comedic effect, so what I was aiming for. 

On the other hand, the improvements they suggested were towards the scene where the man wakes up and the cuts that surround it. This was something that I massively agree with due to us missing another shot, leading to the scene to be way too long and halting the momentum of the story. This was something that I tried to adjust while editing, but had to leave it as it is in the video unless I wanted a continuity error. Like previously said, if I were to do a production like this again, I would have to be more organised and ensure that we shoot additional angles and/or set up a re-shoot day where we can recover anything that we may have missed.