Sound Research for own film- Anything But Social

For the research for our own film and sounds, we looked into the specifically needed sounds that were essential to make our film understandable and which created more effect. Examples of this are phone notifications and vibrations, a bottle dropping and pills spilling, and also the soundtrack. As well as this, to give the ending a chilling affect, we wanted to incorporate a 'white noise' type of sound to symbolise the stillness of the character, Lucy Wiles. Here are some of the examples of the sound research that has been done for our own short film, Anything But Social;

All of these sounds are minor elements that could add huge affect to the sound micro-element of our short film. By including these sound effects, it gives the film more of an effect and helps the audience understand and empathise with what is happening throughout the film. These specific sounds add to the emphasis on specific events. For example, there is a sound effect for the messages that come through on the phone, to emphasise the frequent harassment the character gets from the people at her new school. Another example of a sound effect that we have included in  our short film, is the bottle dropping at the end of the film. The adding of this sound effect is to project the emotions that are felt by the character and the audience in this exact moment.

Our Chosen Logo For our Short Film and Feedback

This is our chosen Logo that we have decided to make for our groups short film, Anything But Social. We decided to keep it simplistic, for example we only used two colour which are the colours black and gold. By choosing these colours it makes the logo stand out, as it is very bold, as well as giving a sophisticated feel to it, using the gold. We decided on the name 3/4 Productions because it short and snappy, and it will stick in audience's heads as it is not complex. As a group we have made two versions of the Institution logo as we are struggling to choose a specific design. Because of this we have decided on doing a questionnaire, giving  two options to people to decide which one they prefer, which will help us as a group to decide which one we are going to use. Here is our questionnaire; 

Here are some examples of what our group decided on when making the logo-

Planning for day of filming

For the day of planning, we have created a video document of us as a group discussing what our plan for the day is. We also have included each person's personal jobs, with specific times for when we are going to carry out different sections of filming. We have also included a period of time at the start if the day to prepare for the day ahead, where we will focus on our separate jobs, and set up the location to what we want it to look like for our short film.

My personal job-

My personal job on the day of the filming would be that I am in charge of the hair, make up and costumes of the actor, Emily. At the start of the day I will do Emily's make up and hair ready for the first set of filming. Due to having a lot of costume changes during the middle of the plot, when the character experiences flashbacks, we will film the first section of the plot and then the ending, leaving the middle for afterwards, making it easy with the costume changes. After we film the first and last sections of the short film, there will be changes in costumes and make up as the flashbacks are supposed to be presented as different mornings during the week. Therefore the hair and make up cannot be the same all the way through the sections that are the past, as it needs to look realistic.

Here is a video of my group and I discussing what will be happening on the day of filming ;


 

Drama Genre film History

A short film is any moving picture which is not long enough to be considered as a long feature film. The definition of a short film is declared to be- "an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes or less, including all credits". Short films are frequently shown and presented at local, international and national film festivals, as well as made by an independent film company with either low budget or no profit. Short films usually vary in genre and have a wide range of meanings and purposes.

For our short film genre we decided to do a drama. By doing so, this widens our availability to interpret different sub-genres within it. A possible sub-genre that can be seen in our short film would be psychological drama. This is because it engages in a wider issue within society and reinforces the problems happening in society today.

Drama Genre History-

The definition of the drama genre films are ''serious presentations or stories with settings or life situations that portray realistic characters in conflict with either themselves, others, or forces of nature. A dramatic film shows us human beings at their best, their worst, and everything in-between''

Drama genres contain a number of conventions that films have to follow in order for the film to fit the requirements of a drama genre. There are four conventions that have been put into place as the conventions of a drama film;

- Portrays a characters journey and their development

- It displays real life people, situations, settings and stories. 

- It includes intense social interactions 

- It includes dramatic sounds and emotional performances from the characters 

There are also many sub-genres of drama which includes;

- Crime drama
- Comedy drama
- Historical drama
- Romantic drama
- Melodrama

Filming of the Auditions for Potential Actors

This is an audition that we held for one of our potential actress', Emily Mellows. 

Descriptions for each Potential Actor-

A key part of planning and organisation in making our short film is auditioning the actors that we are considering to be part of our short film, as the main character Lucy. 

The actors that we auditioned for the role of Lucy are;

• Elizabeth Reynolds
• Emily Styrka
• Emily Mellows
• Emma Edgell-Reeves

After we had emailed all the possible actors we may like to include, our number of actors increased which is a massive help for our group and the filming element of the project due to the fact that on the day of filming, an actor may not be able to come due to illness or any circumstances. Therefore by having more actors than needed, on call, it will be easy just to have a back up actor that can take the part if needed. 

  

Emily Mellows-

Emily Mellows is 17 years old and has previously been involved in a GCSE film that was made a few years ago, therefore we believe that she knows and respects the time consuming effort that will need to be included in her role within the short film. Although as a group we believed that her audition was good, we decided that she is not right for the role of our main character Lucy due to the fact that she 

looks too young for the role. 

Emma Edgell-Reeves-

Emma is 17 years old, she is a keen actor as she takes part in a lot of outside school, drama-orientated activities. Emma is a very confident performer and does not mind putting in the effort of the role. She took GCSE and A-level drama, a due to her being a drama mentor she has a lot of involvement with drama club. Although Emma was a strong contender, she has a very busy schedule at the moment therefore she is unable to commit to the task of playing the role of Lucy.





Elizabeth Reynolds-   

Elizabeth is 16 years old. She is a enthusiastic aspiring actor who very much enjoys drama and performance. She takes A-level drama and enjoys being involved in outside productions. Her audition was very good, but as a group we decided that she was not completely right for the role due to the fact that she looks particularly young, like other contender, Emily Mellows. 

Emily Styrka- 

Emily Styrka is 18 years old. She is an eager and determined drama student who studied drama at GCSE and A-level. Due to her huge involvement in outside and inside school, in productions, her passion had led her to gain lead in many different productions. As well as this, she is now Drama Captain, which is a predominant role within drama, as she helps younger children, and teachers within the drama department. Due to her positive attitude, as a group we decided that Emily was the best for the role of Lucy in our short film, because not only does she have numerous amounts of achievements within drama, she also fits the description of our character Lucy (hair colour, eye colour, height and age)

Emailing Possible Actors

In our group, Nimat was in charge of the responsibility of emailing possible actors to see if they were interested in auditioning for our main role in our short film Anything But Social. 

Below is the first Email sent out to three possible actresses that could have the role of the main character;

Here is the reply sent back from Emily Styrka;

As having a specific time everyone, including the actress, is free, we asked all possible actors to send their school timetables, which enabled us to find a time that everyone could attend, to film the audition. Here is the email of Emily Styrka sending her time table-











Here is the reply we received from the actress, Emma Edgel-Reeves-

Animatic Feedback

After we completed our animatic, we presented it to the rest of our peers and received constructed criticism about our short film. By gaining this feedback, it helps us now to incorporate new ideas to make our film, Anything But Social, the best it can possibly be. Our peers had to;

• Summarise the narrative
• State the genre
• Reveal the target audience they think is appropriate 
• State improvements that can be made regarding the micro-elements

Most feedback that was given mainly revolved around;

• Including more sound effect (ie, text messages and crying)
• Changing the colour palette when the flashbacks occur, in order to make the contrast clear ad easy to understand
• Change quotation marks when the statistics appear at the end 
• Increasing the time gap between each statistic

Here are some of the notes we received back from our peers-

Here is a video of our group discussing feedback and what we are going to do in regards of moving forward;

Trial Shots-

In order to practice for our filming, as a group we completed a mixture of trial shots. This was done to accomplish the specific camera angles and movement we want to include in our short film during filming. As well as this, by doing trial shots, it gave us an opportunity to get used to and become familiar to the equipment that we will be using during filming, which will help  make the duration of filming simple and relaxed, rather than not knowing how to use the equipment, which could take up a lot of crucial time. In the near future we will be completing another set of trial shots, taken at the location chosen for our short film and also with the actor that we have chosen. 

Here is a compilation of trail shots we completed-

Animatic-

Here is an Animatic that we made for our short film, Anything But Social.

Animated storyboard-