Index

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History of Directing

Ancient Greece:

The role of the theatre director has evolved throughout history. This started in ancient Greece, where European drama first developed. During this time the playwright was the one who was in charge of everything. Writers didn’t just create the text, they also directed the performance, trained the chorus, and even acted in the plays themselves. The director was called didaskalos, which meant "teacher," which reflects how closely their role was tied to instructing performers and shaping the entire production.

Medieval Theatre:

By medieval times, theatre had become more complex, especially with large-scale religious mystery plays that involved big crowds, parades, and impressive effects. This meant someone had to take on the practical side of staging, and the role of the director (or pageant master) became even more important. Directors at this time were responsible for building stages, casting, managing the actors, and even speaking to the audience.

The Renaissance:

From the Renaissance, the job of directing was usually taken on by the actor-manager, This was  usually an experienced performer who led the company. They were the ones who chose the plays, ran the troupe, and oversaw the performances. This was common in Commedia dell’Arte. The modern idea of the director as an artistic leader of a production came about in the 19th century, especially with the Meininger Company led by George II of Saxe-Meiningen. His detailed, large-scale productions required someone to coordinate everything from staging to crowd scenes, which helped define the director as a separate role. Germany and Russia would soon bring about influential directors like Max Reinhardt, Erwin Piscator, and Stanislavski, who helped shape directing into a creative, visionary job rather than just a practical one.

Post WW2:

After World War II, the tradition of the actor-manager faded away as directing became recognised as a full artistic profession. Directors were now expected to develop the concept and overall vision for a production, with big names like Orson Welles, Peter Brook, Bertolt Brecht, and Franco Zeffirelli leading the way in this shift.

Because directing developed later than acting or music, formal training didn’t really take off until the second half of the 20th century. In the UK, many directors originally came from academic backgrounds, often studying literature at places like Oxford or Cambridge, rather than attending drama schools. But from the 1970s onwards, more practical training programmes started to appear, and today most countries offer some kind of formal directing education. Even so, a lot of directors still learn by doing, starting out as assistant directors or joining in-house training schemes at theatres.

Cinematography

"Cinematography, the art and technology of motion-picture photography. It involves such techniques as the general composition of a scene; the lighting of the set or location; the choice of cameras, lenses, filters, and film stock; the camera angle and movements; and the integration of any special effects." - Written and fact-checked by The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Cinematography | Photography, Lighting, & Camera Angles | Britannica 

The 180 Degree Rule

The 180-degree rule is a filmmaking principle used to maintain clear spatial relationships between characters on screen. It involves drawing an imaginary line, usually based on the characters' eye lines or positions, and keeping the camera on one side of that line. This ensures that the characters stay in consistent left-right positions relative to each other, helping the audience understand the layout of the scene. When the camera jumps over this imaginary line, this is known as crossing the line or breaking the line, and it can produce a disorienting and distracting effect on a viewer.

What does the 180 degree rule do?

• Following the rule will establish orientation.

• Breaking the rule will disorient and signal unease.

• Bending the rule signals a gradual change in your scene.

How to follow the 180 degree rule:

Once you’ve established the imaginary line, you need to choose which side of it the camera will stay on for all future shots. You should keep the camera on the same side of the line. If you switch sides, you’re “crossing the line.” There are times when breaking or bending the 180-degree rule can actually enhance a scene, but these choices should be intentional. The emotional impact or effect of crossing the line should guide your decision, if it doesn’t serve a purpose it could end up being a distraction and waste the visual energy of the scene.

Manage scenes with multiple eye lines:

When filming a scene with multiple characters, it helps to imagine the set like a stage play, with the camera positioned where the audience would be. The invisible line separating the audience from the performers becomes your guide for keeping screen direction consistent. While you can cross this line and set up new lines between individual characters, doing so makes it much harder to maintain clear spatial orientation throughout the scene. By keeping your camera setups “in the audience,” you stick to a single line, which simplifies things. This is also where blocking becomes crucial, especially when coordinating movement and positions with several actors.

The 180-degree rule is key in dialogue scenes, but it's even more critical in action sequences like car chases. For example, if a car is shown moving from right to left on screen, every following shot should maintain that same direction. If the direction suddenly flips, it can confuse the audience and make it seem like the car and the characters are heading the wrong way or doubling back.

Bend the 180 degree rule:

Bending the 180-degree rule means intentionally straying from the usual guideline of keeping the camera on one side of the imaginary line between characters or subjects. Instead of fully crossing the line, this approach allows for slight shifts in camera angle or perspective that can change the viewer’s point of view or subtly signal something in the story without creating the disorienting effect that a full jump across the line would cause.

Neutral Shot: A neutral shot is filmed directly on the line, essentially eliminating any sense of a “side.” This resets the 180-degree line, since there’s no longer a defined left or right. A typical example would be a shot taken from directly behind a character’s head or straight on from the front of their face.

Camera Movement: This happens when the camera physically moves across the line in a continuous shot. Since the movement is visible, the audience can follow the shift in orientation, which helps maintain spatial clarity. This technique not only adds visual interest, but it can also be an effective way to subtly signal a shift or change happening within the scene.

Cutaways: A cutaway is when the film briefly shifts away from the main action to a shot that doesn’t have a set screen direction, like a close-up of an object or reaction shot. Since this new shot resets the audience’s sense of direction, you can use it to change the 180-degree line when cutting back. Often, filmmakers use cutaways without realizing they’ve opened the door to a new line setup.

 The Rule of Thirds

The rule of thirds is a useful technique for framing the elements in a scene, making the image more visually engaging. However, like many other filmmaking "rules," it's more of a guideline than a strict rule.

Defining the Rule of Thirds:

The Rule of Thirds is one of the most widely recognized and frequently used techniques in both photography and cinematography. It offers a simple but effective guide for framing shots, making it an ideal starting point for beginners exploring composition. Essentially, the Rule of Thirds involves dividing an image into nine equal parts using two horizontal and two vertical lines. The idea is to position key elements of the shot at the points where these lines intersect, creating a more balanced and visually pleasing image. It’s also recommended to place the horizon along either the top or bottom horizontal line for a more harmonious composition.

Breaking the Rule of Thirds:

Breaking the rule of thirds can be a powerful artistic decision, especially if it aligns with your directorial vision. Here are a few ways you might choose to intentionally break the rule:

Centre your subject: Embrace symmetry by placing your subject directly in the middle of the frame.

Create discomfort: Placing your character slightly off-centre or pushing them all the way to the edge can create an unsettling effect for the viewer. If that’s the desired emotional tone, it’s worth experimenting with.

Extreme close-up: When your subject fills the entire frame, there may be no room for the rule of thirds. The intense focus can be used effectively for emotional impact.

Establish patterns: This often works well when centering a subject. If you're not following the rule of thirds, you can still create visual harmony by introducing repetition and patterns to keep the frame aesthetically balanced.

Mise en Scène

What is mise en scène?

Mise en scène originally comes from theatre, where it refers to the arrangement of scenery and stage elements. Translated from French, it means "placing on stage." In film, however, the term has evolved to describe everything the audience sees within the frame, set design, lighting, actors, costumes, and more. It’s the combined effect of these visual elements that shapes how a scene feels and how the story is experienced.

Mise en scene elements include:

• Sets

• Props

• Lighting 

• Costumes

• Actor blocking

• Shot composition

Mise en scène plays a vital role in filmmaking. When used effectively, it can transforms a film from a simple sequence of moving images into a powerful work of art. It creates mood, deepens emotion, and draws the audience into a fully realized world that stays with them long after the scene ends.

Mise en scène and production design:

Production design is a broad term that encompasses everything that contributes to a film’s overall visual style. This includes sets, locations, props, costumes, makeup, and more, all managed by the Production Designer. The director collaborates closely with the Production Designer to help bring the world of the film to life through thoughtful set design. All of this is planned during Pre-Production, which is a crucial phase for organizing and refining ideas. It’s during this stage that different departments come together to ensure the production design supports the strongest possible mise en scène for the story.

Production design is another one of Wes Anderson’s trademarks, and it plays a huge role in his storytelling. Staying true to his signature dollhouse-like style, his sets often reflect the personalities of his characters in intricate detail. Take The Royal Tenenbaums, for instance, each child’s bedroom acts as a visual extension of who they are. Even without the narration, we instantly get a sense of their identities. Through carefully crafted sets, Anderson uses mise en scène to bring his characters’ inner worlds to life.

One of the key connections between mise en scène and cinematography is frame composition. Composition goes hand in hand with cinematographic choices like camera angles and shot types. By being intentional about what appears in the frame—and how you decide to capture it—you gain control over the visual style and overall feel of your film.

Mise en scene and blocking:

Blocking isn’t just about the actors’ performances, it also involves how they’re positioned within the frame and how they move through the space. Thoughtful blocking can bring energy and life to a scene that might otherwise feel flat. Because the audience usually focuses on the actors, how their behaviour, body language, and relationships are shown is crucial. Directing actors as part of the mise en scène includes deciding where they’re placed in each shot. For instance, standing might suggest confidence, while sitting or appearing small in the frame can make a character seem weak or vulnerable. There are endless ways to approach this, and when combined with other elements of mise en scène, blocking can create a strong emotional impact. Every director handles it differently, depending on their style and the story they’re telling.

Shot Types

Colour Theory

Filmmaking is a visual art, and to excel at it, a strong understanding of colour is essential. Many of the most iconic directors, cinematographers, and production designers come from visual art backgrounds, which informs their approach to colour on screen. There are countless ways to use colour in film—to set tone, highlight emotion, build atmosphere, or convey meaning—all of which contribute to a film’s visual language.

Before there was colour in film:

In the early days of cinema, black and white cinematography was the standard. Companies like Technicolor began experimenting with colour film techniques as early as the 1920s, but it wasn’t until the 1950s that colour fully took over as the dominant style in filmmaking. With this shift came the need for a new approach to colour palettes in film. Filmmakers who had once relied solely on light and shadow to tell their stories now had a much wider range of visual tools to work with.

How can colour tell a story?

The main reason for using colour in film might seem straightforward. To make the visuals vibrant, striking, and aesthetically pleasing. But there's a deeper purpose as well: colour can be a powerful storytelling tool. The most effective use of colour in film goes beyond appearance—it helps convey meaning. As part of the mise-en-scène, colour plays a huge role in shaping how we interpret what’s on screen. It can influence us emotionally, psychologically, and even physically—often without us realising it.

Colour can create harmony or tension within a scene, draw focus to an important theme, and so much more. When used thoughtfully in storytelling, colours can:

• Elicit psychological reactions

• Draw focus to significant details

• Set the tone of the movie

• Represent character traits

• Show changes or arcs in the story

The psychology behind colours in film:

A carefully chosen colour palette can set the mood and establish the tone of a film right from the start. When selecting colours, it's important to consider three key elements: hue (the actual colour), saturation (how intense or muted it is), and brightness (how light or dark the colour appears).

What are the types of colour schemes?

There are several ways to create a balanced colour palette in film, including complementary, monochromatic, analogous, and triadic colour schemes. While a single recurring colour can carry symbolic weight, a more developed and intentional colour palette is often more effective at conveying a film’s thematic meaning. A well-balanced colour scheme is based on the harmonious relationships between colours on the colour wheel.

How to use colour in film symbolically:

There are various ways to introduce symbolism in a film, but using different colour schemes can be one of the most effective. Even if the audience isn’t fully aware of the symbolism conveyed through the colour palette (as they might be with more discordant colour schemes), they will still be influenced by it. In this section, we’ll explore several ways to create strong connections between ideas and themes by thoughtfully using colour in your palette.

Lighting Techniques

Basic lighting: 3-point lighting setup

The most fundamental lighting setup in film is the three-point lighting arrangement. This technique lights the subject from three different angles to give them shape and separate them from the background. To create this effect, your lighting equipment should be positioned to light the subject from the front, the side, and from behind.

Key Light:

The key light is the main source of light in a scene and is used to illuminate and define the subject or focal point. It sets the overall tone and atmosphere of the shot and plays a crucial role in shaping the subject’s features and creating depth within the frame.

Fill Light:

A fill light acts as a secondary light source, usually softer and less intense than the key light. It's positioned opposite the key light to reduce harsh shadows and lessen contrast. This helps to reveal detail in the darker areas and makes the lighting appear more natural and even.

Backlight:

A backlight is placed behind the subject to light it from the rear. In filmmaking and photography, it’s often used to produce a rim or halo effect around the subject’s edges, helping to separate them from the background and add a sense of depth to the composition.

Soft Film Lighting

Soft Lighting:

Soft lighting in film creates a smooth, flattering effect with gentle transitions between light and shadow. It minimises harsh shadows and is often used to convey warmth, intimacy, or a natural, relaxed feel. This look is typically achieved by bouncing the light or using large, diffused light sources to spread it evenly across the subject.

High Key Lighting:

High key lighting involves increasing the strength of the key light and using ample fill lighting to brighten the entire frame. This approach eliminates most shadows, resulting in a clean, balanced look. It evens out the lighting between objects in the scene—this balance is known as the lighting ratio—and is often used in genres like comedies or commercials to create a cheerful, polished aesthetic.

Diffused Overhead Lighting:

Diffused overhead lighting is a technique where light is positioned above the subject but softened through diffusion. This method reduces harsh shadows and provides an even, natural glow that’s often used to create a calm or neutral mood. There are several ways to achieve this effect:

• Diffusion materials such as silks or gels are used to scatter the light;

• Bounced light can be reflected off surfaces like white walls or bounce boards;

• Overcast weather naturally diffuses sunlight, providing a ready-made soft overhead source.

Hard Film Lighting

Hard lighting in film produces sharp, clearly defined shadows and strong contrast, making it ideal for highlighting texture, depth, and intensity. It’s marked by an abrupt shift between light and dark areas, typically created using focused light sources such as spotlights or Fresnel lamps. This technique is often used in horror and thriller films to heighten the drama and create a more intense, unsettling atmosphere.

Motivated lighting

Motivated lighting in film is a technique where the light in a scene appears to come from a visible or logical source within the frame—such as a window, lamp, or streetlight. This approach helps create a sense of realism and draws the audience deeper into the world of the film by making the lighting feel natural and believable. Filmmakers either use actual light sources or replicate their effect to build a more authentic and cinematic atmosphere.

Practical Lighting:

Practical lighting refers to the use of visible light sources within a scene—like lamps, candles, or televisions—to add a realistic feel. These sources, often called "practicals," are clearly shown on screen and help shape the mood and tone of the scene. Rather than relying only on hidden or off-camera lighting, practicals provide a motivated light source that enhances the sense of immersion for the viewer.

Natural Film Lighting

Natural lighting in film involves using available light sources—such as sunlight, moonlight, or streetlights—without relying on artificial lighting setups. This technique aims to create a sense of realism and authenticity, helping the audience feel more immersed in the world on screen. Filmmakers often take advantage of golden hour lighting (at sunrise or sunset) and soft diffusion (like light filtered through clouds or trees) to achieve a cinematic effect.

Before filming, it's a good idea to scout the location with your camera to see how the natural light behaves. This allows you to assess whether you'll need to add extra lighting or make adjustments. For instance, you might use bounce boards to reflect light or black flags to block it out where necessary.

Edgar Wright

The director plays a crucial role in shaping a film’s editing. When a director has a clear vision of how editing should influence the tone and pace, the final product is greatly improved. Edgar Wright is a prime example and one of my personal favourite directors. With films like Shaun of the Dead (2004), Hot Fuzz (2007), Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010), The Worlds End (2013) and Baby Driver (2017), Edgar Wright has developed a distinct editing and directing style which is marked by sharp, rhythmic cuts and inventive transitions.

This style evolved from early challenges with his debut short Dead Right (1993). Wright lacked enough footage to choose from when editing the film, so to try and keep the film engaging, he had to rely on fast cuts and creative editing. These limitations then became a signature part of his style. He’s also a meticulous planner, storyboarding scenes in detail before filming and even animating them to plan pacing and timing, especially when music plays a key role. 

Beyond visuals, Wright’s editing is adaptable across genres. Whether he’s working on a rom-com zombie film or an action satire, his cuts enhance tone and reinforce genre conventions. In Hot Fuzz, for example, exaggerated action-style editing is used in mundane scenes to parody the modern action film, creating humour through contrast.

What sets Wright apart is his understanding that film is more than just about the storytelling, not to say that Wright doesn't know how to to tell a compelling story. His comedic timing doesn’t rely solely on dialogue or plot, but on the camera itself, the framing, pacing, and transitions become part of the joke. Every choice is deliberate, and the editing plays an active role in the storytelling. His films are engaging, stylish, and innovative and a reminder of how powerful a well-planned vision can be.

Katie Mitchell

Directing Style:

Katie Mitchell’s directing style, as described in The Director’s Craft, is highly methodical and text-driven, with a strong emphasis on psychological realism and the actor’s process. She advocates for an intensely detailed rehearsal method, where directors break down the script into units, actions, and objectives long before rehearsals begin. This level of preparation can be incredibly useful in helping actors find consistency and depth in their performances, especially in more contemporary plays grounded in realism. However, one criticism of Mitchell’s approach is that it can feel rigid or overly prescriptive, leaving less room for spontaneity or creative exploration in the rehearsal room. Her process is heavily influenced by Stanislavski, but adapted for modern contexts, particularly in the way she applies “actioning” as a way to clarify the intention and structure scenes. While this gives actors clear tools to approach a role, it could arguably limit experimentation or more physical, devised approaches that some contemporary theatre-makers prefer. That said, Mitchell’s style is undeniably effective when the goal is precision, nuance, and psychological truth. Her work may not suit every text or ensemble, but for directors interested in a clear, collaborative framework rooted in text and character, her methodology remains a valuable contribution to modern theatre practice.

Would Mitchell's style have worked for the Murder Mystery Show:

Due to the inherently rigid nature of Mitchell’s approach, I do not believe it would have been an appropriate style to follow when creating The Masquerade Murder Mystery. This was developed as a devised theatre piece, meaning we began the process without a script and built the show collaboratively through workshops and improvisation, using a murder mystery game as our initial inspiration. However, this devising process took time, more time than we could realistically manage within our timeframe. As a result Hollyann and I, as the directors, took it upon ourselves to write the script for the show. In hindsight, this decision proved essential; I don't believe we would have ended up with a complete production otherwise.

That said, the nature of the final script and our rehearsal process would likely have clashed with Mitchell’s stylistic approach. The show we created was a light-hearted, comedic Christmas piece that didn’t take itself too seriously. Mitchell’s method centres around detailed text analysis and emotionally grounded, realistic performances. In contrast, our show existed in a deliberately "heightened" reality, where characters often responded to situations in exaggerated or unrealistic ways for comedic effect.

This tone was supported by our rehearsal process, where we encouraged actors to improvise and follow their instincts in the moment. This spontaneity contributed to some of our funniest scenes and helped the actors feel ownership over their roles. In conclusion, while Katie Mitchell’s directing style offers a clear and disciplined framework well-suited to realistic, text-based theatre, it would not have complemented the playful and improvisational nature of The Masquerade Murder Mystery. Our more flexible and collaborative approach allowed us to meet the needs of the project, both in tone and in practice, resulting in a show that was engaging, entertaining, and unique.

Masquerade Murder Mystery

We decided it would be best to use a pre-made murder mystery game set as a stimulus and foundation for our piece. We want to create an entertaining murder mystery that is also profitable, which with a cast our size, 11 Actors and 2 backstage would require a lot of work planning and creating characters. This would be fun to do, we just don't have the time to create backstories, motives and alibis for 11 characters along with creating the show around those characters and then writing it all. The pre-made murder mystery game set would do a lot of that for us and we can adapt the story to suit our needs. So we took inspiration from the previous year and picked out a murder mystery game set, one that we could easily be set around Christmas time.

Website:

We set up a website to help market the show.

Masquerade Murder Mystery 

Responsibilities and Planning

Responsibilities:

• Ryan - Directing, performance project (PP)

• Hollyann - Directing, PP

• Charlotte - Producing Theatre, PP

• Josh - Management role, Lighting Design

• Sam - PP, Set Design

• Basia - Hair and Makeup design, PP

• Thomas - Devising Theatre (DV) 

• Will - DV, Lighting 

• Faith - DV, Costume Construction

• Phoebe - DV

• Kian - DV

• Fru - DV, Costume Construction

• Emily - Hair and Makeup Application

Departments:

• Sound and lighting: Josh and Will

• Hair and Makeup: Basia and Emily

• Set and Props: Sam, Kian and Thomas

• Marketing: Charlotte and Sam

• Directors: Hollyann and Ryan

• Choreographers: Charlotte and Phoebe

• Costume: Fru and Faith

Timeline:

After discussing with Hollyann, Josh, Charlotte and Sonia this was the firmed up timeline:

• 20 September: Characters assigned

• 27 September: Performance Proposals due (what everyone would like the performance to look like from their POV). 

• 30 September: Pt 1 blocked

• 11 October: Pt 2 blocked

• 18 October: Talk to clients, Marketing deadline

• 24 October: Hair, Makeup, Costumes, Set, Props lists and Script Deadline.

• 08 November: Lighting plan, Budget Deadline and Pt 3 Blocked

• 15 November: Story cemented (not going to be changed drastically from now)

• 22 November: Pt 4 blocked, Set, Props and costume Making deadline, lines learnt. 

• 29 November: Performable, Venue arrange and prep, Food and Drink buying

• 05 December: Tech programming and Rehearsal

• 06 December: Dress rehearsal/Practice run (TBC)

• 12 December: Performance at 6pm (Confirmed by client)

Inspirations and Research

Masters of Mystery game:

This was our main bit of inspiration and research. This helped us to plan out all of the characters, motivations and the plot. Using this very basic structure we created an outline that our story could follow. We of course changed things and added things to it too, so that it flowed better and felt like an actual story rather than a game. We also added in that Phoebes character, the hare, gets murdered in it as well. Which helped to create a more natural way of finding the second piece of evidence. But having the game as a jumping off point really helped us out in the long run, as it saved us so much time creating characters, backstories, motivations and we could instead focus on the story and acting.

Previous Years Murder Mystery:

These are videos of the previous years performance. This helped us to see what kind of style was used previously and what worked with it. This did help to show us that since we have a bigger cast that we would have to adapt differently to the material we had, one thing being that we wouldn't be able to focus on all of the characters as deeply as we just didn't have the time for it and that we would need to choose certain characters to focus on. But they also showed us that the Christmas murder mystery was a tried and tested model that worked out really well in the past, as they managed to raise around £600 for charity.

Agatha Christie:

Agatha Christie is the mother of the murder mystery genre. She is known for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections, particularly those revolving around fictional detectives Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. Christie's stories deal with timeless themes like greed, jealousy, love, and betrayal and she is credited with introducing and perfecting many of the genre's most enduring conventions, including: 

• The central crime, usually a murder.

• A closed circle of suspects with motive, means, and opportunity.

• A detective who uses deductive reasoning to solve the crime.

• The detective explaining the solution to the crime to the suspects and the reader.

She is a clear influence for many murder mystery stories including ours. Our story also includes themes of love, jealousy and betrayal and includes a lot of the conventions she introduced like the crime being a murder and a close circle of suspects.

Characters

Me and my co-director Hollyann decided that we'll pick out some of the more interesting sounding characters to use in our show. We have 11 actors so we picked out 10 characters from the game, cause we knew we wanted there to be a detective character who would essentially be the host of the game but the detective doesn't have their own character sheet. These are the characters we ended picking:

• The Countess - Party host, wealthy widow and queen of society, you need her approval to do anything.

• The Dragon - Single man of large fortune, nephew of the countess, main target for a lot of women.

• The Dove - young and quite naïve, very pretty and has recently inherited a large fortune.

• The Lion - retired military, wealthy, and craves power and social status. doesn't tolerate anyone from the lower class.

• The Stag - Was in love as a young man but wasn't allowed to marry her, so never married anyone.

• The Hare - Life and soul of the party, jolly and drunk, loves to celebrate any occasion.

• The Bluebird - Upper class, rich, dislikes the lower classes, desires to move up in society.

• The Wolf - Had money but wasted it, now has to fend for himself, lies a lot.

• The Turtle - Quick to anger, jealous, wants to help their family but doesn't go about it well.

• The Weasel - Vain, selfish, has a profession but still seeks a rich woman to marry to move up ranks.

• The Detective - used to control the audience and steer the story. 

• Red Cloak - The murder victim. Had dealings with all the suspects.

We ended up removing the Turtle later on, we cast Will to play him but because his unit for this term is lighting operation we figured he couldn't really act on stage and operate the lights at the same time. Instead we decided to cast him as Red Cloak, the murder victim, as this would mean he could be in it at the very start and quickly get killed off so he could go and operate the lights. 

Update: This way of doing it worked because the lighting controls were up in the lighting box. Unfortunately we ended up moving the lighting controls next to the stage so we could have to room in the lighting box for Red Cloak and the Hare to do their death scenes. With this though it made it hard to have Will play Red Cloak and also be able to control the lights, because Red Cloak was dying in the lighting box. 

So we had a small meeting with me and Hollyann (the directors), Charlotte (the producer) and Josh (stage manager) to discuss what to do about it and we came to the conclusion that it would be best to recast Red Cloak. This was alright with Will as the unit he was doing for this project was lighting operation so it was more important for him to focus on that. Plus we had also already given him the role as the narrator which worked better as he could pre record his lines, it also worked towards a later unit for him, that being voice for actors.

We ended up asking Emily if she'd be happy to play Red Cloak for us, Which she very kindly agreed to do. Which was good as she was the only one who would be free during the performance. Everyone else was either already in the show or was doing something behind the scenes during it. Luckily Emily was doing Hair and Make up application so she was free during the performance.

Characters Relations:

• Detective - dislikes murder and rich snobs 

• The countess - likes dragon, dove and lion - Dislikes Red Cloak and the poor

• The dragon -  likes countess, dove  - Dislikes Red Cloak

• The dove - likes dragon, countess  - Dislikes Red Cloak

• The lion - Likes countess, stag, bluebird - Dislikes hare, Red Cloak

• The stag - likes lion - dislikes Red Cloak

• The hare - likes alcohol  - dislikes Red Cloak, lion

• The bluebird - likes lion - Dislikes Red Cloak

• The wolf - likes - Dislikes Red Cloak

• The weasel -  likes rich people - Dislikes Red Cloak, the poor

Cast and Crew

The Cast:

We decided it would be best if we all sat down together and decided on who should play who. Me and Hollyann read out the character's description and as a group we decided who would play which character. This is the final cast list we ended up with:

Behind The Scenes Crew:

Evidence packs and Table set-ups

Test Tables:

Day to Day Logbook

27th September:

Warmups 

Vocal warmup

Focus exercises - number game, close your eyes and count to 20, splat?

Hot seating  

Improv scenarios - bank heist, dentist, Disneyland, 

Production meeting

Talk about their ideas for their departments

Make sure everyone knows the general idea for the production.

Make sure everyone goes away with an idea of what they should be working towards.

Finish off with some commedia dell'arte exercises to help the actors better understand their characters.

3rd October: 

Sonia is starting the day with doing some work with everyone on practitioners Frantic assembly 

Warmup the actors to get them ready for the day.

Change references from Venice to London

Want to get them to help devise a script with the character sheets we have.

Using the structure for the show we’ve created and the character sheets, I want to get the actors to improvise scenes for the piece so we can see what might work. 

We will also experiment with using ai to see if that can help us with the writing of the script.

4th October:

Warmed up and stretched the actors.

Went through some improvisation and focus games.

Went through the beginning of the play. Improvising new lines.

Decided the order in which people get to the party

Had a discussion on how we will do round 2 and 3.

7th October:

Update people on what they have missed

Update Hollyann on the discussions we’ve had.

Get the people who weren't in to do their introductions. The original introductions don’t sound good so we’re getting everyone to re-write them to make them sound better.

Did some patch testing.

10th October:

Came up with the idea to add a second murder victim

Try out with performing round 2

Try blocking out the scenes

Maybe try progressing through the scenes further.

11th October:

I updated Hollyann on what we had done the day before.

I went through the accusation scene with everyone who was in and went through blocking the scene with them.

We took character photos for promotional images

We worked on creating a script for the show, as it would be easier to work on the show if we had a script.

14th - 22nd October:

We worked on writing a script for the show as we decided it would be easier for everyone to work from a script.

22nd October:

The deadline for the script was today so me and Hollyann sat down for most of today to try and get the script finished. Hollyann went through and polished up the rest of the script whilst I wrote scene 6. The main thing I wanted to figure out with scene 6 was how we got the last piece of evidence. Every time we've gotten a piece of evidence so far in the script it's come quite naturally. We found the first piece of evidence on Red Cloaks body and the second piece of evidence the hare found before being killed. So I wanted us to find the last piece of evidence in a way that felt natural. 

4th November:

We had a meeting in the morning since we had just come back from the half term. I decided, after looking through the script over the half term, that some people didn't have very many lines and that it might be good to make some adjustments to the script to give those people more lines and things to do.

So I went through the script with my co-director Hollyann and came up with parts where we could put extra lines in for the dragon and the narrator. I came up with having the dragon come in with the dove when she goes for her questioning, as I thought it showed her character as being overprotective more and to also have her tell the detective that the weasel was pickpocketing him. We still have to come up with lines for the narrator, but we know where we want his lines to go and what we want him to say basically. We want the narrator to speak at the start to welcome all the guests to the party. We then want him to speak after we get the first piece of evidence to tell the audience to open their evidence packs and to tell them how long they have. We then want him to speak again after the hare has been killed to tell them to open the next evidence pack. Then we want him to speak after we get the last piece of evidence from the weasel to tell them to open their last evidence packs. Then to finish off the show we want the narrator to say thank you for watching and to have a merry Christmas.  

11th November:

We started today off with having a production meeting. Charlotte Rich was chairing the meeting.

People Present: Charlotte Rich, Ryan Thornton, Hollyann Freeman, Sam Gwilliam, Josh Jarvis, Basia Klimek, Sonia Friend.

Agenda:

• Charlotte Rich has asked for a props lists, set list, hair and makeup plans, costume list, sound and lighting.

• Directors have made a point of how its unpredictable when actors are in.

• Directors made a deadline of when scenes are to be done.

• Directors want scenes blocked by Monday 18th November.

• Directors except everyone off script by the end of the month, 29th November.

• Lighting team need a print out of the script so they can do the cues for the show.

• Next Friday will be when the last orders will be place.

• Lighting design has been completed.

• Dance in the middle of scene 2 - 3 and Santa Baby will be played by the pianist. This will be completed by Fruzsina Docs, Basia Klimek and Sam Gwilliam. Phoebe Pope will be choreographing the dance.

After the meeting me and my co-director Hollyann decided that we should start with them showing me what they had done on the 8th Nov to do with the dance, as I unfortunately wasn't able to come in. They showed me the dance they had choreographed and the music they had picked for it to go with, that being a piano version of Santa Baby.  

We then decided that it would be good to start blocking out the scenes as we wanted them blocked for 18th Nov. We started off with scene 6 because it was the easiest one to block with the people we had as the scene mainly just involves 2 actors. We then moved on to block most of the scenes as it was going faster than we thought it was going to. We planned most of the blocking today because it would mean that when we come in on Thursday 14th Nov with all the HNCs we could show them what we have planned and get them to learn it. This will also help us to finish the blocking for the 18th Nov and hopefully have it all fully learnt quicker. 

Luckily Phoebe was able to come in today and help to choreograph and clean up the dance between scene 2 and 3. When the dance was initially proposed I found it funny and thought we should do it. But after thinking about how it fits in the show and from the audiences perspective, I thought the scene didn't work very well where it was as it was as originally just after Red Cloak had been murdered. I thought this would mess with the tone of the show and ruin the audiences immersion, because we go from death and everyone being shocked about it to the silliness and fun of a dance. I also thought that it wouldn't have made sense for the characters in the show to want to dance right after someone had died as it would show that they didn't care, which wouldn't make sense as right after the dance is when they start accusing each other which shows that they do care and are taking the situation more seriously. We decided that it would be better to move the dance to after the accusations and to make it the countess that gets the dove to go and dance. I feel that this fits better within the structure of the show and adds more character to the countess as it became apart of her character that she just wants her party to go well and doesn't think murder should ruin it. This has helped me bring out more of my character as well as I've made it so he confronts the countess about why she thinks it's appropriate to have a dance after someone has just died.

14th November:

We started off by telling everyone what we had planned for today. Me and Hollyann decided that it would be best if she ran through the blocking with everyone and got them up to speed with what we did on Monday and that it would be best if I went through and added the final things we wanted to add into the script. 

Ending/ Big reveal:

In my previous copy of the script I had made notes and had changed some of my lines a little bit as I felt that it helped to make the lines feel more natural and closer to what my character would say. So after I had put all the narrators lines, I went through and changed all of my lines to fit better with the adjustments I had made. One of the sections I changed the most was my confession at the end and the lines after it. Charlotte Rich made the point that the end seemed to be a bit too rushed and ended too abruptly and I agreed, so when I was going over this section I made some extensions to some lines that I thought would work better and I also added a part where the rest of the suspects react to me being revealed as the murderer. I thought it felt a bit off before that they didn't say anything or react to the big reveal. So I added it in that they all get angry and start having a go at him to show how they are feeling about the situation.

Detective Questioning:

As I was writing more of the script the idea came to my head that we should question the detective. I was going through scene 5, the second bit of questing, and saw that it felt like it went a bit too quickly. So to try and beef up the scene a bit more I thought it would be a fun idea to question the detective. My thinking was that my character would be looking for someone to pin it on, to divert attention from him and put attention onto someone else, I also thought that my character would question why there just so happened to be a detective at the party. I took the idea to my co-director Hollyann and discussed it with her. She liked the idea and said to do it. So me and Sam (the Detective) sat down together and started writing the scene. Our method for is basically just improving it. We both know our characters very well by this point and we know what we want the scene to be. So we just go back and forth riffing off of each other until we got the scene we wanted. I polished it up a bit and we came up with the idea to get the audience to ask questions as well.

15th November:

For the first part of the day we decided it would be good to do some vocal, physical and acting warmups and exercises to help us connect better with our characters. We started with a warm up lead by Phoebe followed by some stretches.  We then went on to warm up our facial muscles, vocal chords and diaphragm, to help us project. Then we finished it with some tongue twisters to help with articulation.

We then moved on and I lead the group by doing the 7 levels of tension, I had them walk around in their characters to figure out how tense they naturally would hold themselves and to help figure out how their character would walk. We then moved on to the exaggeration levels of our character, 1 being tiny movements, 10 being exaggerated to the extreme. I feel like my character wouldn't be very exaggerated. I think he would be trying to keep it all together, hiding any hint that he's the murderer, with the occasional break in the façade. I also feel like he'd find a lot of the people around him to be idiots, he wouldn't take them seriously at all. He'd have a false sense of confidence, thinking they won't be able to figure out that he was the one who did it. Which would cause him to not be particularly tense for most of it, until he's revealed at the end of course. So I'd give him a tension level of 4 for most of the show, then moving to a 6 at the end.

Later we moved back to the theatre and did a read through of the final script I had completed the day before. We decided to do it without reading the stage directions, so we could time it to see roughly how long the show may be, which came to around an hour including getting all the audience in, giving them time to look over the evidence and any breaks like that. Which is good, even though we was aiming for it to be a bit longer at 1 hour 30 minutes, I feel like 1 hour is still a good length for the show to be. I thought the read through went really well, it seemed like everyone was happy with the additions and changes I made to it. I feel the changes made, made it feel like a more complete piece and it's definitely easier to the show all coming together now.

22nd November:

Today felt like a bit of a clean up day. We all focused on different things that we needed to get done. I decided it would be best for me to spend some time learning the script, so me and Kian went off by ourselves and went through the script. Our method for learning the script may not be what's best for everyone but it works really well for us and that is basically to just keep going over it. So for when we was practising my lines Kian would be looking at the script and act as the other people in the scene and I would do my best to remember my lines. We would go over the same scenes again and again until we got all the lines perfect. I would then do the same for him.

Other people focused on other things. Josh and Spike spent the day rigging the lights, which is good and needed, it just meant that we needed to adapt when doing the run through later on as we didn't have as much space.

Emily was doing make up tests today, she took Faith and did her make up which went well.

Hollyann went off with Phoebe, Sam and Basia and they went through the dance as it's important that they are confident in the choreography for the show.

Fru and Faith also spent the day continuing with their costume construction. They had already done everyone's masks, so they worked on doing the Dragons "wings", the Countesses cape and Red Cloaks cloak.

After the break we all came back and did a semi-costume run through as not everyone had their costumes and some costumes are still not finalised. The run through went well though I feel concentration could've been better, including my own concentration. I have a tendency to try and make jokes and stuff during the run throughs, which I am going to try and improve on. I did though, feel much more confident in all of my lines, apart from my last scene as we didn't have time to go through it properly. Spending the time in the morning helped a lot.

25th November:

We're in the week before our first performance to the Level 3s so things are really starting to ramp up now. Me and Kian spent some time with Sam in the morning trying to help him learn his lines, which is really important as he is the person with the most lines so he needs to know them. When I was busy with other things later on I got Kian to go through Sam's lines with him more, just to make sure he was confident in them.

Emily was testing out hair styles today on Charlotte to see how long it would take for her hair to be done, so that we know for when they have to do it on show day.

When we was going through the run throughs Josh and Sonia watched very closely and wrote down the blocking and lighting ques. Which meant some of the rehearsal was very stop start, but that's okay as we had to get that done. We also had some people missing again today so I had to fill in for their lines, which isn't a problem but it would be better if we was able to do it with them.

Lines felt better today but some people were still struggling to remember their lines in some areas, which when we're only 11 days out from the first performance is worrying, but there's still time for people to learn their lines.

Me and Hollyann had a talk and decided to have a talk with everyone individually. This did take up quite a bit of time, but it felt like we needed to do it. Throughout the process of creating this performance there has been an underlying tone that people was unhappy with how it was going. Whether it was with how things were progressing, the story, other actors or even just that we was doing a murder mystery when they would've preferred to do something else. So I thought as directors we should hear everyone out and let them get there worries off there chests. I also wanted to talk with some of them away from everyone else and discuss how they was doing acting wise. So we brought people out one by one and just had a talk with them, I asked them what they thought of the performance and how they thought it was going. Which we had some really feedback from, people spoke about their concerns with how things were progressing and that they felt it was going too slow, they had concerns with other actors as they felt they wasn't taking thing seriously and some other things. In turn we spoke to them about some of our concerns. Things like making sure they are taking time to learn their lines, making sure they are being confident and not holding themselves back and making sure they are taking rehearsals seriously. After we had a talk with everyone I feel like we all started again being on the same page and went forward with more optimism. Personally I believe it was a bit of a turning point as everyone seemed to be having more fun with the performance, it felt like they was confident in themselves and the overall atmosphere was just much better.

2nd December:

Today was tech programming day. So we spent the first half of the day doing a run through but stopping any time Josh needed us to so he could program the lights. This was a very productive day as we was able to finish the tech programming before lunch. We also did a lot of tests with the lights, especially for the confession scene at the end.

We also finally did my hair and makeup which went very well and looking at myself in full costume with it all done, I think it fits my character incredibly well. The slick to the side hair fits in very well for the time period we're going for and my grey/ brown suit jacket works perfectly. Not only does it fit in with the colour coordination but also fits in with the tie period. 

We did have to deal with the Red Cloak situation today. Charlotte asked to meet with me, Hollyann and Josh this morning to discuss what we should do about Red Cloak. She brings this up as we had cast Will to play Red Cloak, but he's not come in again today which has become a bit of a pattern and he's not proven himself to be very reliable. There was also the issue of how we was going to get him from the lighting box to the lighting desk as the lighting desk was now down next to the stage. Originally the lighting desk was up in the lighting box so him being Red Cloak wasn't an issue because Red Cloak was going to die in the lighting box. But now that the lighting desk is next to the stage we wouldn't be able to get him to it without the audience seeing him, which would ruin the immersion. It's also more important that he focuses on the lighting operation as that's the unit he's doing for this project. So as the producer Charlotte suggested to us that we should recast him. I felt bad about doing it but it made sense to recast Red Cloak. 

We ended up asking Emily if she'd be happy to play Red Cloak for us, Which she very kindly agreed to do. Which was good as she was the only one who would be free during the performance. Everyone else was either already in the show or was doing something behind the scenes during it. Luckily Emily was doing Hair and Make up application so she was free during the performance.

5th December:

I'm really happy with how today went. We ended doing 2 full rehearsals, with full costume, hair and makeup done for both. We also had our Pianist Leon for the rehearsals, unfortunately we haven't been able to have him in much but he was absolutely amazing, slotted the music in so well with the piece. Everyone remembered their lines and stayed in character which is incredible as we have our first show tomorrow. On the tech side the Narrators voice over worked well, the lights and sounds were also on point. Apart from one point in which we had an issue with the gun shot sound effect at the end of scene 4, but that has been sorted now.

The lead up to this was quite the experience. A lot of people were worried with how it was going to turn out, though I always tried my best to stay optimistic and just create the best show I could and I think today has shown that all the hard work we all put into this has been worth it. I'd be wrong if I said it was the smoothest experience in the world creating this show. We had 12 weeks to create the show, which is very possible. Last year we put on our Halloween show in less time. But it still requires people to be focused, dedicated and to work hard, which for a while felt like we was lacking. We had issues with people missing rehearsals, not finishing work, not sharing work, people was still missing costumes a few weeks ago, people hadn't had their hair or makeup done, it taking a while for lines to be learnt and people just wasn't focused when they were in. I think in a lot of ways we were all guilty of these in one way or another and as team it's something we need to improve on going forward. Though after the talks we had with everyone last week, things got a lot better. Everyone came together and worked really hard and the show now looks really good.

Performances

Audience notes:

Evaluation

Evaluation Of The Level 3 Performance:

I thought this performance went really well. It's probably the best performance of this that we've done so far. The feedback we got from the audience was really good, they enjoyed it and a few of them managed to guess who the murderer was, which is good as it shows that the clues were there and that it came out in through the story. Everyone also managed to remember their lines and stay in character. We did have an issue where the gun shot sound effect played through the speakers on the computer rather than the main speakers, which meant we the actors couldn't hear it and had to use Phoebes scream as our cue to come out of the prop cupboard. I'm not sure how this looked for the audience but it was fine. It still worked as it was meant to, we just have to make sure this is fixed for the next performance.

I think this is also the first time we was able to properly see whether the show would work or not as none of us was able to see it from an outsiders perspective. But it seemed like everyone had a lot of fun when watching the performance, which is the best we can ask for. We had some very good feedback from our technician Spike as well. He had seen bits of the show throughout the rehearsal process but today was the first time he saw it all in it's entirety and he said it felt like an actual professional production. He's taught us all at some point over the last few years and he could see the influence from everyone and said he could see how we have all progressed and improved.

Evaluation Of The Main Performance:

Rehearsal:

Before I talk about how I thought the performance went I want to mention the rehearsal that happened before. We didn't do a full costume rehearsal, as I thought it'd would be best to do the make up and put on our costumes after we all had our break. This was mainly just so we didn't have to end up doing everyone's makeup twice and to make sure costumes didn't end up dirty before the show and the rehearsal was mainly so we could make sure everyone still remembered their lines as we hadn't performed it in 6 days. The rehearsal itself went a bit of the rails and ended up being taken less seriously. This didn't worry be so much, as everyone was still remembering their cues and lines and the energy was very high for it. I think this might just show that everyone was confident enough with the material to take it easier and have some fun with it. I know this did worry some people as they would've preferred to do a proper rehearsal where we was all being serious and looking back we probably should've made sure we could fit a serious rehearsal in there. But with how the show went I don't think it would've made much of a different as it still went really well.

Before The Show:

As we was setting up for the performance, Faith was filling up all the prop wine bottles we was using for the show. Taking them to the water fountain and putting squash in them. She ended up being told off by someone at reception, who told her to not do it as there was some governors in and it might look bad. Although I understand his point and that carrying around bottles of wine filled with squash would look bad, they were needed for the performance. It would look stupid for us to be "drinking" from wine glasses that had nothing in them. Especially when one of the characters in the show is supposed to be "drunk". I think it was unnecessary for them to say anything and that they should've understood that it was for our performance. This caused our producer Charlotte to go with Faith the next time in case anything else was said.

The Performance:

Now for the actual performance. It went great, everything went as planned for the most part, lines were remembered, people knew their cues. The energy was good, though wasn't as high as the rehearsal earlier but I think that's the nature of doing a show later in the day, we had a similar situation with our "A Mini Summer Night's Dream" performance in June as our last show that day felt like that energy wasn't as high as the previous two. I'm very happy with how the show went, I think with everything we went through to make this performance it ended up being better than a lot of people thought it was going to be. The acting on everyone's part was very good. The tech team were absolutely on it and when issues did occur they dealt with it very quickly, discreetly and professionally. The hair and make-up team did a very good job on everyone's hair and make-up and managed to get everyone done in only around an hour. It felt like everyone came together, knew what they had to do and did it very well. Making the day run very smoothly.

A few things that happened, at the start of the performance I think some people weren't projecting as good as was needed which I believed led to some audience members not being able to hear them properly. Some people weren't speaking to the audience when saying their lines and their was an issue was some peoples clarity, though for the most part this was fine. During scene 6 when the Weasel was taking everything out of his pockets that he stole, the umbrella that was taped to the inside of his jacket fell on to the fall onto the floor. This wasn't meant to happen, but it worked out massively as it ended up getting quite a laugh from the audience. 

We did have one issue with the sound this time and it wasn't to do with the gun shot. The last lines that the narrator says to basically say "thank you for watching" to the audience was played too late, this cause the actors to assume that maybe they had an issue with it and go straight into the bows, which they're normally meant to do after that line is said. This then cause another issue as the line started playing as the actors were doing their bows and the tech team had to quickly stop the line. I'm not sure how this looked to the audience as I was outside the room for some of this, after just being taken away as the murderer, though I believe it didn't cause too much of an issue and the line was played after the actors did the bows instead.

There was one thing I did during the performance that I was personally praised for that I didn't even realise was that big of thing before hand. This was in scene 5 when I was questioning the detective with the audience, at the end of my scene when I was going back to the table I took a bottle from the interrogation table with me. This was left there because Phoebes character had it with her when being questioned during the previous scene and she forgot to take it with her when she went off stage. I instinctually took it off with me as I knew it wasn't supposed to be there, but I didn't really think about it in the moment.

Another thing that happened during my questioning of the Detective was that at the end Fru spoke up in character and asked to ask the Detective whether he committed the murders. This was not how it was meant to go as I was supposed to be the one to ask the Detective that. She did this because she felt the scene was running on a bit long and that the audience was getting bored of it. Which is true, I do agree with that. The thing is though, I knew that in the moment too and I was just about to say that line before she spoke up. This did throw me off for just a second, but I quickly went with it and the line to the line as intended. I understand why she did it and despite it being different from what was planned it still looked good from the audiences perspective. Part of me thinks it might've been more impactful if she hadn't spoke up and the scene went as planned. 

Commission:

We were commissioned by Gloucester welcomes refugees to put on this murder mystery show and we have successfully done that. I think according to Stanker we managed to sell 38 tickets on event bright which results in £380 raised for the charity. Though we did take a few sales at the door so we could have raised around £400. This is very good and around twice as much as we raised for them last year with the Halloween show. Though it still didn't manage to raise more than the last murder mystery as that raised around £600. Despite that I am still proud of the amount of money we did raise.

Evaluation Of My Directing:

This production felt like it went on forever but was over really quickly and I think a reason for that is that it took us a while to properly get in the groove of things. I found this show to be very difficult to envision at the start. Normally when I've directed stuff in the past, whether it was a film, music video or theatre piece, I could visualise how I wanted it to go and that would help influence how I went about directing it. This time however it was more difficult to visualise the show. A reason for this is that we didn't have a lot to work with and it definitely didn't help that it took us a while to finalise the script. With us not having a script for a while it was hard to know what we should get the actors to do during their sessions. At the start we did a lot of work on commissioners like Stanislavski, commedia dell'arte, Complicite, Jacques Lecoq and others to get them ready for when we had the script and so they could start to create their characters. 

Eventually we made the decision it would be best if we focused as much as we could on getting a finished script and once we had that things definitely went smoother. During the process of writing the script however, we didn't have anything for the actors to really do, a few of them helped come up with things for the script but the rest were sort of left to do their own thing. Which ended up not being good as it gave the impression that we didn't know what we was doing. For some of it we didn't know what we was doing and we should have planned things out better. But a lot of it was just that we didn't have script yet so couldn't really do anything. 

We had to take some time writing the script so we could start working on rehearsing scenes and then we had to take more time for the script to be rewritten to properly start going for it. The problem this created, was that during this time we didn't have a lot for people to do, which caused the opinions towards to show to become more and more negative. So by the time we got the final script and started doing proper rehearsals, people were mentally checking out and not putting their all towards the performance. And as the co-director I could feel that people didn't have much hope for the performance and I felt like I was letting them down and not doing a good enough job. Despite this I tried my best to stay as optimistic as possible about it all and always look on the bright side, cause I knew once I started to show signs of thinking the show wasn't going to go very well then everyone else would lose hope as well. In the end I think we managed to get everyone to come together and I think we managed to make a pretty good show.

As for my own directing abilities I think I did quite well despite the issues. From some of the feedback I had from some of the actors they appreciated that I was approachable and that they felt like they were able to say their opinions without judgement. They were also confident when it came to coming to me with ideas they had for the show. Some ideas I had to turn down lightly and explain why we couldn't do that, but some of their ideas actually ended up being used in the show and helped to make it better in my opinion. The idea of having a second murder came from Kian which ended up being a key moment during the show. The Countesses breakdown after the second murder was an idea Faith had as she felt like her character would go off on one at that moment and I think it worked really well. A lot of people had different ideas for how what their characters would say for certain lines and they ended up working very well. So overall I feel that being approachable and listening to others ideas helped to make this show a better one than it could've been if I had just gone with the ideas I had.

The next show we are doing will come with a script already completed, so I'm hoping this will help with some of the issues that came from this production. But for me and Hollyann to take full advantage of having an already written script we've got to start preparing early and have a plan going into it. I'm hoping this will give people more confidence in our abilities and help the process go more smoothly. I hope to go forward learning from the mistakes made this time round and make the next one even better.

The Smile

The Initial Conception

This film came about because me and Kian (the co-creator) have a habit of improvising scenes and characters for fun. One time when we was doing this I decided to improvise being his elderly Grandmother who had dementia. We was joking around with it and came up with a bit about Kian's character sending back off to bed and I'd leave but stand at the door doing this horrible breathing. Surprisingly this actually made Kian feel quite uneasy and creeped out. Then to end the bit, cause at this point it had gone on quite awhile and we had done a bunch of scenes of the Nan being forgetful and quite frankly weird, I ended it with the Nan confessing to her grandson that she was aware of everything she was doing and was doing a lot of it on purpose because she doesn't him and wants to make his life miserable. In performing the confession scene I got very close to Kian and looked right at his eyes but I had my focus behind him, which gave the effect that one of my eyes was wondering off a bit, making it creepier.

That's when we decided it could make a pretty good idea for a short film. But we knew if we was going to turn it into one it would take more planning and revising than what we could do whilst just improvising. We would need actual characters, motivations, a history and a story. We would need to turn what we came up with just for a bit of fun into something that could work as a short film. Throughout the process of making the film, several elements were changed or altered to fit better with the end product.

The Planning and Research

The Structure:

To start with we came up with the structure for the film and break it down into three acts. This is what the simplified structure looked like.

Act 1:

• Nan with “schizophrenia” moves in with grandson James because she's in need of care. 

• Nan starts acting really strange, doing weird things.

• First night he hears nan breathing from behind his door. 

Act 2:

• Second night he wakes up to nan breathing from under his bed. She takes his duvet

• “When is a door not a door. When it’s ajar”

• Third night she's standing at the end of his bed breathing. James thinks it's a dream and closes his eyes. Still hearing the breathing he looks again and Nans is still there. He closes his eyes again and the noise of her breathing is gone. He sits up and thinks she is gone, Or is she……

Act 3:

• Third night she's standing at the end of his bed breathing. James thinks it's a dream and closes his eyes. Nans still breathing, getting closer to James, getting louder, James opens his eyes and Nan is back at the end of his bed. He closes his eyes again and she goes even closer than before. He opens his eyes and she's back where she was again. He closes his eyes again and she gets closer, touching his face. He opens his eyes and she's not where she was. Camera looks back at James and she's standing next to the bed.

• James breaks down to the social worker as he's been made to go slowly insane

• Nan reveals at the end that it's all been an act. And that she's been doing it all to screw with him because she hates him

In Depth Structure:

After writing the initial "simple" structure we decided to go more in depth with it and write out every scene in the film. We did this as it would help us when it to writing the script, as we'd have a plan to follow.

Day 1:

• James is speaking to the social worker about his Nan having to live with him. She’s sold her house but has to wait to move into the care home so has to live with James from anywhere from a few weeks to a couple months. They have to wait for the financial assessment to be completed before she can move into the care home.

• Offers Nan a cuppa. James makes the cuppa, Nan starts acting weird. James turns and Nan is gone. James goes looking for nan, can’t find her but she’s always there, lurking in the shadows. He hears Nan turn the TV on downstairs. He goes downstairs and she’s sitting on the sofa drinking tea. He tells her to turn the TV down. 

• James needs to work, He works from home doing something that includes calling customers.

• Nan runs up and down the stairs. But when James goes to look, no ones there.

• James offers to help Nan go to bed, Nan agrees and he tucks her in. Nan talks to James about the nightmares he used to have as a child.

• James goes to bed. At 2am James wakes up in a sweat, panicked. He sits at the end of the bed in silence trying to calm down. Nan starts breathing heavily outside his door. He checks and there's no one there. (we see him from the stairs and Nan is now in his room behind him looking at him). He gets startled by tapping on his window and he goes to investigate. As he gets closer to the window the bangs get louder. He opens the curtain and there's nothing again. (we then see Nan behind James) then a crow smashes through the window. Nan attacks. James wakes up in his bed.

Day 2:

• James checks the window and crow and sees that they’re back to normal. Must’ve been a dream. (But we see a shard of glass has been left on the floor)

• James goes downstairs and sees Nan eating breakfast. Asks Nan about last night. Nan doesn’t know what he’s on about.

• Turns out James woke up late and is late for work. Gets a call from his boss, promises it won’t happen again. He goes to work. 

• Nan has the TV on loud again. (the ninky Donk) 

• Distracts James whilst he’s working. James gets annoyed which causes him to lose his first customer. Goes off on Nan. Makes Nan cry. James apologises and gives Nan a hug. (we see Nans face and there’s no emotion)

• Night 2. James wakes up in another panic. 2am again. Hears the breathing again and looks at the door. Realises the breathing is coming from under his bed. Goes to look but stops himself, thinking it’s another dream and attempts to go back to sleep. 

• He opens his eyes, his duvet is being dragged off of him and pulled under the bed. He lies there frozen, shivering. Nan speaks “when is a door not a door… When it’s ajar”

• Door creaks open. Sees a tall figure at the door smiling at him. He pretends he didn’t see her and looks up at the ceiling. (we see a wide of ‘the smile’ looking down on him, then a close up of his face frozen in fear, then a POV of ‘the smile’ looking down on him, cut between James closeup and POV, zooming in closer each time it cuts. Finishing on James closeup which cuts to James wide awake in the day with his alarm going off.)

Day 3:

• POV of Nan standing over James telling him to wake up. She goes and opens the curtains telling James she thinks he’s late for work and that his phone keeps going off. 

• Life comes back to James face and he releases a deep sigh.

• Walks down the stairs in sloppy clothes and bed hair and goes to make a cup of tea while his phone is ringing. Turns the kettle on, then turns it off and grabs two beers from the fridge instead. Nan walks into the kitchen and asks if he’s alright. He opens the beer and pings the cap off her head.

• He sits at his desk and goes straight into working instead of calling his boss back.

• He has a call with a customer, who begins to annoy him. He opens his second beer. The customer continues to annoy him and he breaks and starts verbally abusing the customer. Causing the customer to get upset and take his money elsewhere. This ended up being one of the businesses biggest clients. 

• James' boss calls him and starts shouting at him and fires him for making them lose one of their biggest clients.

• James, defeated, goes and gets another beer and sits in the living room with Nan. Pinging another cap off her head. He grabs a blanket for himself.

• Nan starts having a go at him but he can’t hear it. It’s blurred in the background. He drifts off and has a nap.

• He wakes up. It’s 2 am again. Blanket is off of him. Nan must’ve gone to bed already so heads to his room and locks the door he goes and lies in his bed, looking like he’s given up on life.

• Whilst he’s just looking up in bed he hears the breathing again. Assuming it’s coming from the door he sits up and looks at the door. It’s wide open with the lock broken. Breathing is coming from the corner of his room. Slowly turns his head and jumps when he sees ‘The smile’ slicing his foot on the shard of glass.

• Begins to have a mental breakdown. Starts banging on the bed. Starts expressing every emotion he’s feeling, shouting at ‘the smile’. Remembers the shard of glass on the floor and picks it up and starts to threaten ‘the smile’. 

• When his threats seemingly have no effect on ‘the smile’ he takes a moment to breathe and wonders why he has a shard of glass. We see on his face as he goes through a series of emotions realising that the glass is from the first night and that he hasn’t been dreaming at all.

• As he’s going through all this ‘The smile’ begins to giggle to itself. Happy that it has finally broken James. It floats past James and begins to close the door. Just before the door is fully closed it says “goodnight dear” in Nans voice. 

• James shoots up realising that ‘the smile’ is Nan and legs it to the door. But he can’t open the door. It’s locked from the outside. He shouts at Nan, bit of panic and urgency in his voice. After a moment of his please going nowhere he begins to break down, silently crying. Dropping to the floor where he remains for the rest of the night. 

Day 4:

• James wakes up. He stands straight up instantly trying the door. It’s no longer locked. He runs downstairs and sees Nan standing by the door, smiling. James says “It was you”. But before he can say anything else, the doorbell goes. It’s the social worker.

• Nan opens the door and greets the social worker very kindly. James pushes past Nan, tells her to go finish her cuppa in the living room. Immediately says to the social worker “I need to talk to you” and rushes him into the kitchen. 

• James breaks down to the social worker, coming across as a crazy conspiracy theorist. Telling him everything that’s happened over the last 3 days. Telling him that his Nan has been doing all of these crazy things. 

• The social worker doesn’t believe him at all, thinking he’s gone crazy. Starts trying to make excuses to leave. Telling him that he’ll try his best to quicken the process but can’t promise anything and that in the mean Nan has nowhere else to go so has to stay with James. Social worker says he’ll be back on monday to check on them again. Advises James to get some sleep. Social worker leaves.

• James, feeling defeated, goes to the living room and sits next to Nan. 

• James with a sigh asks Nan why. Nan tells James that she did it because she doesn’t like him. She wanted to ruin his life, make him seem like he’s going insane. Knowing that if he ever told anyone no one would believe that his elderly Grandmother would do this.

• Finishes on Nan smiling, knowing she’s won.

Film Inspirations:

Next we decided it would be good to do some research and watch some films that we thought would be good inspirations for our film. We came up with this:

• The Nun: 1h 36m

• Inside: 1h 27m

• It comes at night: 1h 37m

• The lighthouse: 1h 50m

• Lake Mungo: 1h 29m

• Total watch time: 8h

After sharing some of our ideas with Sonia, she gave us the suggestion to also add the Alfred Hitchcock film 'Rear Window' to our list. Which we did. In the end we only managed to watch three of the films, those being Rear window, The Nun and The lighthouse. Which we reviewed after each viewing.

"The Smile":

We wanted the smile to feel like it was a real person. But we also couldn't really get a real person to be "the smile", cause it had to be quite specific. So we opted to go for the much more difficult avenue of using a puppet of sorts. We essentially came up with the concept to design the head of the smile and basically put it on a stick. 

Inspiration:

Doing some research online I came across these pictures I thought would work perfectly for we had in mind. The difficulty came from somehow making this real and something we could use. We thought of a few options we could do, like 3D printing. But they all seemed to be out of our budget or not feasible. So we went back to basics. Sonia allowed us to use a mannequin head that they weren't using. So using that and some clay, we decided that we would sculpt the face we wanted onto the mannequin head. 

Making The Head:

This is the head we started out with. We decided it would be a good idea to get the hair out of the way so we decided to shave it off.

After we shaved the hair off we got to work getting the clay on. This did take some time to get right and the video below was initially around 1 and a half hours long. But in the end it ended up very good.

We worked on it some more, Added more clay to make the eyes, eye brows and nose. With these added, it has really brought the whole thing together.

Once the head was finished, we had to find it a body. We had a few ideas, including getting some scrap wood to make a makeshift pole for a body. In the end the best thing we found was actually a curtain pole, that we shaved part of the end off to make it fit in the hole in the head. Then finally to make it stand, we attached the pole to the base of a standing fan. Anytime we needed the smile to have arms, I would essentially, put on the puppet and we'd shoot it from the waist up so you couldn't see my legs coming out the bottom.

The Script

Storyboards/ Actual Shots

The Planning Wall

Shooting Plans

Rehearsals