treatment, pRe-production, Post-production and audio- unit 20 and 41.
unit 20-audio.
p1:
For Unit 20, we have decided to put it together with Unit 41 and we shall be making foley sounds for the short film we are going to create.
For the short film we are going to produce, we have decided to create a short horror TV/trailer for an upcoming film. This stars a young male student walking around an empty, silent school after hours. He's roaming around the empty school not fearing anything until he starts noticing odd sounds coming around him before heading upon a random monument. Once the male interacts with the odd object, it sets off a vision he has of flashing images and messages.
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For unit 20 we plan on creating and editing some Foley sounds that can be used in this TV spot film. Things such as footsteps, breathing, door noises, demonic whispers and more.
tREATMENT:
The title of this short film is "Happy Ending".
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The genre of this Tv spot/film trailer is Sci-fi Horror.
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The duration of this short film will be from 30 - 50 seconds long.
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The target audience for this film is young male teens/adults (15 – 28 years of age) due to the frightening & disturbing nature present throughout the film. The general themes of this film are tailored more so to the male demographic which would lead me to believe that this film will thrive with that audience more so that horse obsessed female teenagers, though I've heard they can get pretty hay-wire. As for their wealth I can't foresee why wealth would segregate our demographic as this film will not be shown in a cinema and won't be behind a paywall when it trots its way onto YouTube. I will preface that audiences will have to have access to an internet connection and a device capable of accessing YouTube so based solely off that fact I'll highlight the middleclass though I believe everyone in this day in age has access to both of those things just maybe not necessarily as readily available as others.
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The story behind this TV spot/movie trailer is a teenage male as stayed late at school and is on his way out of the school, though as he wonders the hallways alone being tracked by an amnesia inducing monster who toys with our protagonist by erasing his memory and replacing it with disturbing images of himself. When the protagonist come I contact with anything fabricated by the monster he will begin to have mental images flash in his head of him running, with several other miscellaneous images that the monster is corrupting his mind with. After each mental manipulation scene our protagonist will briefly forget where he each time more and more until he forgets where and who he is completely at which point the trailer ends. The beginning of the trailer will show our student sat alone in a classroom finishing up some after school studying and packing away his things, as he walks out of the classroom and begins making his way down the school he starts hearing whispers and noises through his headphones so he decides to take them off. He continues to notice doors opening and closing and random footsteps at the end of corridors before coming across the first 'trap' set by the monster. It's a familiar looking teddy bear that our character proceeds to bend over and pick up which triggers the first amnesia scene filled with childhood tapes and children's toys with our studying running in the background. He drops the bear as he comes out of his vision and it disappears before it hits the floor and our protagonist proceeds to look around to gather his bearings. He continues to walk towards the schools exit before and we see the monster's feet following the student and noise continue to come for classrooms. Our student decides to investigate one if the rooms only to find a message on the whiteboard reading "She trusted you and you mislead her". This triggers the second vision filled with images of a girl and writing in a diary and women's makeup and a slow bleed coming into frame; still with our protagonist running in the background. Like before the image is gone after his vision and he forget where he is. The monster then proceeds to approach the student then the trailer cuts the and displays the title and release date and social links.
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Our characters in this film are the student 'Matthew', the memory manipulating monster and 'the girl'. Matthew a 17-19-year-old white British male is your standard secondary/sixth form student. He is currently stressed due to approaching deadlines and upcoming exams so he decided to stay late at school to make the most of his time. The amnesia inducing monster in this film is female though you can't see her face as she's wearing a dark cloak that covers her image completely. The monster isn't a physical being its closely related to a spectre in the sense that everyone can see her though she is not able to be touched and cannot be interacted with. And the girl is only visible briefly in visions of Matthew. She is the same age as Matthew and seemed to be close to him so there's a hinted relationship within the flashing images.
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Visual elements for this film are as follows; Camera movement for the beginning will be mostly smooth or static however as we follow the student going through visions, the camera will take a violent handheld approach to given the impression of panic and recklessness. Transition during this scene will also be very fluid, trying to keep cuts to a minimum we shall employ the use of whip pans, fade to blacks & frame coverage wipes. Editing will be standard for most of the film, however during the montage in scene one the editing will be cut to the tempo of the music. The setting for this film is present day, Late evening/ early night at an empty school. Actors include Matt Bristow, Aylisha Sims. Props used are a mobile phone, headphones, a whiteboard and pen/eraser and a ball and or globe. Costumes will be decided by the actors themselves however it's been advised to keep branding to a minimum and wear standard student attire in the case of Matthew. The monster will be covered in a black drape and their clothes and face will not be visible.
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Audio elements includes the use of Foley sounds of running, whispers, stationary being used, clock ticking paper crunching pages flipping etc. Most sound effects will be recorded by ourselves expect a few difficult to capture sounds such as fog horns or patented loud movie trailer bong noise.; they'll be acquired from a royalty free sound effects website. Similarly, our soundtracks will have to be taken from a website that provides 100% public domain music that can be used for film use as we don't have the budget so purchase music licensees or otherwise.
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This idea was chosen as it is seen by us to be an easily achievable film idea that has potential for good cinematography, comedy and storytelling. The simple idea allows us to tackle this idea with little to no budget and still have the potential to produce a visually good-looking film with the story not being so empty content wise. Unfortunately, this idea lacks the ability to have any significant character development as our 30 – 50 second time limit doesn’t permit us enough time to really develop any characters or relationships effectively. Furthermore, our team possess the skills required to pull off a film like this one, Harrison Maidment is capable of using a DSLR and has experience with set lighting, Aylisha Sims has knowledge about special effects and makeup that can be applied to actors during the shoot, Ben Collins can properly set-up & use audio equipment and Matt Bristow is able to edit a visually stimulating product whilst also keeping a clear progressive story. This idea will also allow cast and crew to develop their skills as this production includes a few things like set design that hasn’t been overtly relevant in past productions/units.
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Research for this production includes watching back productions that have a similar story and style to what we want to achieve. Watching TV, film and video game trailers have helped us flush out how we'd like to tell our story and what effects we'd like to use. For example, we plan on editing the visions similarly to how Call of Duty Black Ops did with Mason and the interrogation scenes. Research into how to achieve these shots will also take place and we shall be looking into articles and tutorials online to aid with this production.
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Cast and crew includes; Matthew Bristow, Ben Collins, Aylisha Sims & Harrison Maidment. Our equipment includes; 1 – 2 Canon 700D DSLR's, Tripod, steady cam/stabilizer, assortment of DSLR lenses and Rode boom microphones. Locations include John Cabot Academy, Bristol/ Bath cycle path and Staple Hill. Permissions have been acquired from teaching staff at John Cabot that will allow us to film on site and the other two locations do not require permission.
Problems that could arise includes unforeseen absences from cast & crew, technical malfunctions, weather conditions and permissions. These issues are unavoidable but they are repairable and can be minimised with planning. Having extra contacts may come in handy should we be short of hands on the day of shooting, technical knowledge and backup equipment will help eliminate any delays caused by equipment. Checking the weather forecast should aid us with choosing an appropriate shooting schedule and permissions will have to be revised should and issue arise.
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Legal issues naturally includes copyright, we shall avoid using any protected content unless we have the licence or permissions for the original creator. To avoid any legal battles all content used will be royalty free stock footage/ non-copyrighted original pieces. Being proactive about representing all genders, races and religions equally is also important as not only it is ethically correct but it could also become a legal issue as it could become a discrimination lawsuit should other be treated or represented differently from others. Privacy is also something to consider as we will be filming in a public area so we shall have to acknowledge people rights and preferences to being captured on camera etc.
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2 Canon 700D's with zoom lenses £900.
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1 50mm Prime lenses £80.
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1 Zoom lens £100.
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2 Rode shotgun microphones £186.
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1 Tascam 60D's £100.
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1 Monopod £40.
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1 closed back headphones £50.
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Adobe Creative Cloud £40 (per month).
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Desktop computer £900.
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audio script:
daily shooting schedule:
CALL SHEET:
p2:
Location recce:
risk assessment:
p3- legal and ethical issues:
When creating and production any platform of media, there's always legal and ethical issues to consider. This includes copyright, we will have to exercise the fact that when creating foley, it could be copyrighted if you don't succeed on making the sounds you wanted to go for and also, backtracks.
Fortunately, there are many places on the internet where there are royalty free assets for commercial, personal and educational use so we shouldn’t have many issues finding what we need, it'll just be essential for us to double check everything used is legally permitted by the creator.
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Another consideration is suitability for our audience, making sure we do not use any inappropriate content. This is very unlikely, but might still occur whilst producing a horror TV spot/trailer, as they are notorious for unrestricted sounds and features. To avoid any occurance of inappropriate content, we will not use anything could be potentially offensive such as; any religious imagery, inappropriate language or sound. These countermeasures apply to the discrimination legislation which is in place to ensure no certain group is misrepresented via stereotypes etc.
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Ethical issues are another main consideration in terms of privacy, protecting individuals personal lives and data.
p4:
foley process:
After evaluating our risks as a team, we began to collect foley recordings. We choose to use the Rode Boom microphone on a pistol grip. We got all the audio in 1 take, I got told what I needed to capture, I then told Matt where I needed him and once he was in place, I said 'go' and I set record and captured all I needed.
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I found using the audio kit wasn't too bad, I enjoyed being foley artist for this production.
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Below are images of me, the foley audio, capturing sounds that are going to be used in our final film.
Here you can see me and Matt collecting foley audio for footsteps(top), a door opening (middle) and whispers(bottom).
p5:
final film
audio process:
Once we had captured all of the audio we had to make a couple of adjustments to the clips to make them seem more realistic. First thing we captured was the whispers as we could make out that this piece of audio was coming from a human and it wasn't unsettling. We began with adjusting the pitch of the audio to make it sound more feminine.
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We also faded the audio after syncing it with the existing footage in order to make the changes less noticeable. With this, as a group we helped Matt through audio editing with key framing in the effect control panel. The technique used was the soundtrack coming through the male students headphones.
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visual process:
unit 41-short film.
p1- pre-production.
Treatment:
Here is the treatment for our short film. Within this document it says what the film is, who's involved, character breakdown, backstory, beginning, middle and end.
audio script:
storyboard:
Above is a the storyboard that has been created for the group to use whilst in production of the short film.
To keep consistent, the storyboard has been drawn carefully and inline.
location recce:
Risk assessment:
daily shooting schedule:
call sheet:
set design:
Here is the set design of the location where we produced our short film. The yellow highlighted section is the specific area where we were based throughout production. We used this section of the location as it was perfect for what we produced in the sense of it being quiet, spacious and dark. It really suited what we were going for and it set an atmosphere that is noticeable.
risk assessment:
Daily shooting schedule:
p2:
camera/action process:
Once we had finish creating in pre-production we began shooting for our TV spot/trailer. We decided to use 2 Canon 700D DSLR cameras and 1 75-300mm lens and another 55mm prime lens. Using this lens allowed us to capture long and short distance shots with a brilliant depth of field and the 75-300mm lens gave the footage captured a more professional look.
Here you can see Harrison (camera operator) (above) improvising with a skateboard acting like a dolly helping him get smoother shots whilst filming.
Then, Harrison and Ben (Director) talking through a shot that Ben wants Harrison to film.
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For the short film we were creating, we decided to carryout with handheld shots because, there was a lot of moving around from the male student interpreting the fact he was being watched and hearing noises around him. It's also to give the impression that something is hiding from him and he's trying to find what he can hear.
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In Terms of storyboarding, we kept to it, we didn't go off it once, we kept it up and stuck to it. We also had to make sure about our risk assessment in order for minimal harm during production.
Here is a screenshot of our sample footage short film.
Sample footage:
This sample footage featured has colour correction added, it is mostly adjustments with the blue hue of the footage and a decrease in exposure to give the impression that it was filmed during the sundown. The colour is quite harsh and this will be touched on in the final film to make sure there is no harshness exposed.
Above is the process of colour changing made to the footage using LUTS. The colour of white and black exposure is lowered dramatically to give the effect of sundown.
p3: draft edit.
Above is a draft edit of our TV spot/ horror trailer, it's a compilation of put together footage with some colour corrections, Foley audio is synced in with various movements that Matt does and some special effects during different parts throughout the footage.
Above is the final, final timeline for the edited film. Here you can see how many resources were used up in order to create this short film.
The audio, Foley we recorded for our short film is placed in Unit 20 (above) , other sound effects used such as still not moving sounds, we got from a royalty free website.
rushes logs:
Short film feedback:
Here is the feedback we received as a group for our short film:
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- 'The offline edit for your horror film was very powerful. It seems as though it would be the perfect fit for a teaser and left me wondering if a title care at the end with a release date and film title would fit? This is something that is up to you but I felt it had quite a promotional vibe about it ass it left so many unanswered questions.'
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- 'I thought the foley sounds you produced were great also. The layers of footstep, lanyard jingling and doors creaking worked well with my only criticism being that the music from the headphones could be louder at the start as it wasn't blatantly obvious to your audio.'
- 'The beat of the audio track was lost in amongst the creepy demon noises. This could be powerful if it was louder and then drops to silence when the actor removes his headphones.'
- 'I think the VFX build up at the end could be longer with the progressive volume. A slow build up of noise creates tension within the audience.'
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- 'Visually, some of the scenes seemed a tad dark. Not sure what colour correction you may have done but I felt it was slightly underexposed.'
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With the feedback the group received, we decided to go back to the board and review some colour corrections that we touched on before in certain shots to make sure the footage was visible.
As a group, we analysed our TV spot/horror trailer in order to give an approximate age classification of the British Board of Film Classifications (bbfc) standards. After we reviewed their standards of age classification, we decided to give our short film a 15 age rating, as our trailer itself doesn't contain any inappropriate language, violence or disturbing imagery, our completed film might. Our completed film would most likely contain some vigorous language, mentioning of drug use and potential violence as our short film is a horror genre and commonly invites those various themes along with it.
Having the age rating of a 15, the age range have the capability of understanding what they are watching on screen in terms of situations or events that occur. They will be able to understand and know that what is happening isn't real so they wouldn't be influenced.