Alongside the antagonist villain for our short film is a character called Zeb, who is a high ranking employee of Igor from Syndicate International. Together, him and Zeb were able to track down Jack Morgan to hold him for interrogation, with the help of Crimson. Zeb acts as Igor's sidekick in this short film and just like with most protagonist and character's sidekicks in many common Action/Adventure genre films I have researched such as Batman and James Bond. His rank in the Syndicate makes him extremely worthy and important to Igor as he can be trusted to complete a mission set by Igor by himself without the help of any of the other agents. His matching physical build to Igor makes him appear more threatening and brutal whenever he approaches his victims.
The image above is of a moodboard I created which denotes images of what Alex and I imagine as being Zeb for this short film. He will wear a similar suit to what the character for Igor will be wearing in the short film which will help the audience identify that these two men work for the same organisation. He will be forced to obey every order given by Igor which will be seen when Igor takes control of the interrogation when he finally arrives.
Alex and I had decided that a close friend of Harry and Morgan called Luke Dix should take on the role of acting as Zeb. Harry and Luke both have similar physical builds and already perfectly match the typical stereotype of strong athletic agents in most Action/Adventure films. Luke also has some experience in drama so he will hopefully be able to play his role perfectly for this short film.
On 22nd December, Alex and I attempted filming our next lot of footage for the city scene. Since the last shooting day of the city scene back in November, Alex and I were certain that we need to re shoot some additional shots for this scene due to the poor weather conditions during the first day and also the lack of experimentation with camera shots. The next attempt of re shooting this scene would allow Alex and I to get another chance at shooting this scene and improve on the mistakes we made last time.
First of all, the weather was significantly better than last time. There was no rain at all and the cloud cover was just perfect with some sunlight eventually breaking through as the morning progressed. We were very fortunate with the weather this time round as this meant that there were not as many disruptions from the weather, such as rain, whilst we were filming. In addition, Alex and I arrived on set with our actor Harry 2 hours earlier than last time on set as this gave us both plenty of time to re shoot the footage we needed without also being disrupted by other members of the public since this was an issue we faced last time too.
The filming itself was a real success and we have now gathered enough footage from this scene to begin editing the first scene to our short film. We experimented more with different shots and have decided to stick with the shot of the camera pulling over Harry's shoulder as we had discovered from last time. This time around, we used both the DSLR camera as well as Alex's iPhone 6s which surprisingly captured amazing video footage despite it having only one lens inside the camera. The image stabilisation really improved the fluidity of the over the shoulder shot and tracking shot of Harry. On the downside however, the iPhone camera has no setting on removing the auto-saturation, which leaves me more work in post production to edit the footage in a more cinematic look.
As always on set, there were occasionally mistakes made whilst filming that disrupted the overall quality of our footage. The first example is of Alex walking right in front in frame, which was very amusing in the beginning. Another common error which occurred was when my finger was accidentally covering up the lens of the camera and therefore caused an inconsistent look to the footage.
Due to a lack of experimenting during the first film day, we wanted to take advantage of the extra time we had and beautiful weather too to experiment more with different camera shots. Here are two examples of experiment shots we played around with which might or might not make it into the final cut.
After several hours of filming, Harry eventually had to make his way over to work on that day. However Alex and I were very pleased with the overall success of this film day and we are both excited to begin editing our first batch of footage for our short film.
In preparation for the 2nd retake shoot of the city scene in Exeter, Alex and I have made sure that we inform Harry once again for the 2nd retake and make sure that we prepare the filming equipment/props just like we did last time. We are aware however that we are planning to experiment more on the shots this time since we were sticking very closely to the storyboard, but we completely forgot to try out different shot techniques when on set. This was due to the fact that we were disrupted by the harsh weather conditions on the day as well as the limited time we had due to Harry's college lesson at 12:00 o'clock.
Below is a checklist I drew which finalises the equipment we are planning to take for tomorrow.
The weather forecast for tomorrow is looking a lot better than the previous film day, which is a major bonus in comparison to the weather disaster we all faced from the last film day.
After creating a first detailed design draft to Crimson's costume, Alex and I decided there were elements to the original design we wanted to change up a bit after several discussions. We firstly agreed the gas mask was an iconic image of Crimson's character and personality, so we decided to keep the mask for that purpose. We were both a little unsure however on the clothes of Crimson since his costume is fairly complex and would be very difficult to replicate when on set. We decided therefore to draw up more ideas on the cloth which he wore and began to change things up a bit.
The new render above follow the same basic design principles as the original detailed illustration I made when coming up with the character for Crimson, except this time we have created a long sheath/robes for him will hide away the robotic parts of his body and mechanics which help keep him alive. This change was made since the actors arms would be shown when on set, and by covering them up with a cloth it would heighten the audiences perception that this character is hiding fake limbs underneath the sheath. Using the only cloth material we could find, we decided to use a sandy colour sheath since it helps give a contrasting effect against the black mask and black boots he would wear.
I was used as a model to see whether the sheaths I had brought it in to be used for Crimson's costume would work with new ideas we had. In the end, we both decided that this design didn't really work as well as we hoped since the sheath didn't cover the entire areas of the body and due to the heaviness and density of the material, the restricted movements made it very difficult for me to move around without tripping up. The colours of the sheath also didn't suit the Crimson's character since he is supposed to be the side villain of the narrative. Using contrasting colours would inflect connotations of him being a weak villain and not very threatening.
After this draft test out for Crimsons costume, Alex and I are going to develop our ideas for his design further before the 2nd film day.
Following up from my post about the test footage we captured during the Thursday morning of the city scenes in Exeter and the car scene in East Hill, Alex and I edited together a 1 minute sequence of the footage we captured on that day. This test footage would help us both realistically consider what the next stages of our filming could be as well as receiving critical feedback from our audiences on their thoughts about the footage we have got.
Before we showed our footage, other audience members presented to us their 1 minute footage to us all as well.
Audience member Tom Joyce presenting their 1 minute footage to the others.
Eventually, Alex and I presented the work we have to our secondary audience. We both knew that there was going to be some useful feedback we wanted to receive from our secondary audience, so I came prepared and decided to take a few notes down for what they had to say.
An image showing some of the notes I took as the audience was giving us their feedback
The list below shows a breakdown of the notes I took when we received the feedback from our secondary audience.
This exercise has really benefited Alex and me since we needed advice from our secondary audience about the aspects they enjoyed from the 1 minute sequence. Our primary audience would have similar tastes to both of us when we edit the final product together, however as I had discovered in the pitch which we delivered and the research I gathered in my slideshow about the importances of audience, it was necessary for us both to understand the tastes of our secondary audience if we want to distribute our product to multiple different audiences.
To be alert on how much Alex and I have agreed to spend on for this short film. we have made a budget table of all of the props and accessories that we have used in our short film that cost money to obtain. Below is our budget table that clearly outlines each of the individual prices of everything we have used as well as the total:
Alex and I agreed to have a maximum budget of no more than £400.00 during the initial planning stages. However, as with most high budget films, we went over estimated our original budget by almost £200.00, with our final spending total being approximately £600.00. The budgeting phase was a new learning curve for the two of us as it made us realise how important it is to effectively plan a short film without us spending too much money for the end result.
The main protagonist character for our short film is the character Jack Morgan. Jack was former worker of the Syndicate International organisation and former employee of Igor. Before he joined the Syndicate, he was an ex-military soldier in the British Army. After leaving the organisation to seek peace and to defend for his own country instead of causing terror with the Syndicate, he has been tracked down and held for interrogation by the group after his recent mission set by MI6 with the help of the bounty hunter "Crimson". Jack suffers from a traumatising past, after losing his wife and family to Crimson who murdered them. To this day, Jack continues to fight with his own drives and is determined to one day gain revenge from both his former boss and Crimson.
The image above is a moodboard I created which denotes images of what Alex and I imagine as being Jack Morgan for this short film. He will wear a pair of sturdy/desert style boots, a green pair of combat trousers, a fleece and a bomber or leather jacket over the top. This style of clothing we have chosen for our character to wear is similar to the style of clothing worn by a character we were initially inspired by, Jack Bauer. The rough, action style clothing is instant connotation of someone who is working in disguise for a secret intelligence service like MI6, but is also an iconic style of clothing for unsuspecting characters in action/adventure films.
Alex and I decided that Morgan Taverner was going to be our actor to play the role of Jack Morgan in this short film. We were prepared to give Morgan a chance at casting the role for the protagonist character in this short film since James unfortunately was unable to give up most of his weekends due to other commitments, however Morgan's excitement to be acting in this short film was what made Alex and I decide to choose Morgan for this role. His enthusiasm will hopefully reflect on his performance when on set.
Morgan Taverner (centre) will be playing the role of Jack Morgan
To help Alex and I with the planning in post production for our short film, Alex decided to draw up a timeline diagram which shows roughly when we intend to insert the titles for our short film. We took a look at our animatic again and began to time stamp precisely when and where the titles will come in for our short film. This is an essential part of our planning and preparation as we need to be aware of how much footage we can fit into the 5 minutes time frame we have but also give us an idea for when the titles will come in depending on the narrative. For example, after the first opening sequence of our antagonist character in the city scene, we will stamp directly afterwards a title saying "An Illusion Studios Film", which will help introduce the film to the audience. This is also a typical convention of most films to introduce the production company to their audience in the opening scenes of a film.
We hope to stick to this timeline as much as possible, however we cannot necessarily guarantee this as we will most likely expect some changes to be made during post production or when we show our draft versions of our work to our audiences.
On the 24th November, we had a special guest from a BBC correspondent called Simon Hall who came to visit our Media Studies class to give us an insight into what working in the media was like, and all of the challenges that come up with being involved
Task: During the session, he set us a task of putting 3 headlines out of 5 in order for our show. He then gave us two more headlines when the time scale became shorter, which essentially showed how reporters during a broadcasting have to tackle situations and think constantly on their feet ready for any challenge that may come up.
A key aspect which I took away from this session was the idea of being creative and having the freedom to create your own media, since having these attributes is key necessity for any applicant wanting to work for the BBC as an apprentice or as a graduate.
On 18th November, Alex and I attempted filming our first lot of footage for our short film. We invited our main antagonist character actor Harry to play the role for Igor for the first scene on the top floor of the Princesshay car park in Exeter. The role of the filming day was to test out firstly whether the equipment we are planning to use works properly since it has almost been a year since Alex and I had made our Opening Sequence at AS and secondly to gather some footage to present to our audiences for more feedback. When we arrived, we were very lucky to see that there were no cars in the car park. This was the idealistic situation for us both since we could film without any interruptions from the other members of the public. Based on the rough storyboard we drew, we headed over to the lift and got Harry to practise the first few scenes with him coming up the lift in sync to our recording. After several attempts, we soon realised that his was becoming increasing difficult due to people flooding in for the lifts and stairs as the morning progressed and the car parks started to fill up. It wasn't easy for us to signal each other when it was safe to come up the lift and when the entrances where clear of people. We tried this many times but the car park was just getting more and more full with shoppers so there was more interruptions as morning progressed as well as the weather getting worse. Here is a clip of Harry going the up the stairs following the original idea we had in mind for our storyboard.
Alex and I quickly changed our idea on the spot of using the elevator for our character to enter the scene and instead introduce him by pulling the camera back over his shoulder as he looks over the city centre. As more cars began to fill the car park, the weather slowly got sunnier which was a slight flaw since we wanted this entire scene to appear dark and gloomy, like a typical British Gangster film. In my opinion, the sunny weather didn't reflect the expensive and high class portrayal of our character however Alex and I both share different views on this subject matter.
After around an hour of experimenting with footage and positioning of our character in relation to the environment, we managed to gather some test footage which we could present to our audience and receive helpful feedback to see what we could build on further for the rest of the short film.
Looking at our production schedule which Alex and I had both devised about 2 weeks ago which listed down the filming dates we have organised with our actors, we are now both organising our filming equipment, props and actors together in preparation for our first film day tomorrow with our main antagonist actor Harry in the city of Exeter.
In preparation for the first shooting of the city scene in Exeter, Alex and I have made sure to confirm with Harry that he can be picked up in the morning by Alex so that we can head off to Exeter to begin shooting the first scene for this short film at 10:00. Whilst Alex and Harry plan to make their way to Princesshay car park (location of our first scene) in the Mercedes-Bens A Class Car (prop car used for this short film for our antagonist villain character), I plan on making my own way up with my father who will have all of the filming equipment and sound equipment which we will need for shooting this scene. I plan to bring the Canon 600D DSLR, RODE NTG3 Mic, RODE Mic Boom Pole, Audio Recorder to sync all of our audio together and Alex's iPhone 6s to use as a back up camera in case of the camera batteries dying midway through shooting our scene.
In terms of additional preparation steps I needed to check, we made sure to inform Harry his costume he will be wearing on set. We said a black suit, tie and smart shoes will be the costume worn by him to illustrate the highly sophisticated criminal which he his. Alex also thought that the Mercedes prior to tomorrow needed a clean to make the car all shiny and brand new, to reflect again the wealthiness of our antagonist character.
The weather on the other hand is looking a little unpredictable as there is a mixture of both rain showers and cloud cover for tomorrow which to some degree could become a problem when filming, so we will have to see.
A key antagonist character which Alex and I have created ourselves for this short film is Crimson. This character was created in mind to give a new edge to the plot of our narrative as we wanted to include more fantastical ideas into this short film to appeal to wider audiences but also to deliver an original idea for this media product.
Crimson (played by Alex Muir) is a bounty hunter hired by Igor to hunt down Jack for the missing half of the key. He is portrayed as a human who no longer has a body of his own. Instead, he is a creature who is sustained through an extensive use of cybernetics and robotic joints which replace his missing body parts. The gas mask, being a key feature of his suit, helps to keep his oxygen supply sustained after suffering from 3rd degree burns in his scalp and upper body in a fight. During the design process of Crimsons character design, Alex and I were heavily influenced from the film characters of Darth Vader and Kylo Ren from the Star Wars Saga and Bane from Batman: The Dark Knight Rises. These characters are very sinister when their presences are noticed. In both of our minds, the aspect which makes Crimson similar to these characters aside from the robotics is his mind set. Crimson feels no love, and he is constantly driven by anger. His differences on the other hand are his ability to travel through different dimensions (unsupported flight) and his ability to read people's thoughts (both abilities will be seen in the short film)
Since Crimson is an original character of ours and his appearance is very alienated to what the other characters in our short film look like, I decided to illustrate how in detail my first initial ideas for Crimson's costume design. I took inspiration from the designs of the villains portrayed in the slideshow above.
The render below is a current detailed illustration I made on Photoshop using a Wacom drawing tablet of what Alex and I believe to be what Crimson would look like on set. His face is shrouded over with a cloth hood and covered with a gas mask. He also carries lightweight clothing for extra mobility and parts of his robotic limbs are shown. I added extra details such as the armour he wears and the weapons which he might carry with him. In the next future drafts Alex and I will make to his costume design, we will simply cover over the top any extra details we may come up with in the future.
An initial render drawing of Crimson
Screenshot of the artwork in Photoshop
Having now completed a draft design for Crimson's appearance, we will continue to refine his design and test out with models which designs will work best for this short film.
The ultimate antagonist villain in our short film is the character of Igor. Igor (played by Harry Cockayne) is a key high ranking member of the Syndicate International who is out to hunt the protagonist character Jack Morgan for the map which he possesses to a Swiss vault. Igor hires a bounty hunter called Crimson to hunt Jack down and bring him to a remote location where he will be interrogated by Igor's colleague Zeb, Crimson and the help of Igor when he eventually arrives. Igor like most typical Action/Adventure villains is portrayed as very mysterious, powerful and extremely manipulative who demands his workers to complete the job no matter the circumstances. Jack Morgan (protagonist character) was a former worker of the Syndicate and employee of Igor, however Jack eventually left the organisation to pursue his goal of finding peace and defending his country as newly recruited agent for MI6.
The image above is a moodboard I created which denotes images of what Alex and I imagine as being Igor for this short film. He will wear a black suit, white shirt and black tie which will demonstrate his wealth and intimidating character when on set. The suit is a typical costume worn by either agents or highly sophisticated criminals that are typically seen in Action/Adventure films such as "Hitman: Agent 47". The image below is an example of a sophisticated criminal from Hitman called John Smith, who is wearing a very expensive suit.
Alex and I decided that Harry Cockayne was going to be our actor to play the role of Igor in this short film. Harry's physical appearance plays to his advantage since he already looks older for his age then most teenagers do at 17 years old, which in turn will make our audience believe more that he fits perfectly in the role of a action/adventure film criminal. Harry was a great antagonist villain in our Opening Sequence at AS and we therefore wanted to re-cast him this year as the new antagonist character for this short film. We will message him in prior to the first filming day on the 18th November which is rapidly approaching!
Harry Cockayne (Left) will be playing the role of Igor.
Being able to take into consideration the different potential risks involved during our filming stages is a fundamental part in insuring none of our actors or crew members do not get injured when on set. Alex and I have devised a list below here showing all of the potential risks we could encounter when filming and how we both plan to avoid these risks to prevent damage or even injury.
The areas which we both had to carefully consider were the risks highlighted in red. These risks have the highest possibility of someone being injured if we do not plan our actions properly in advance. Being able to carry part a risk assessment is a crucial part of any planning stage for the creation of our short film.
With the conversations made with the rest of our cast on our Facebook group chat, we have successfully organised dates in advance for when our actors are available for the the short film. We asked them in the chat the dates which they were available and mention to us which dates they weren't. Due to the majority of our actors attending different schools, we have to organise the dates around the times they are available also. The screen shot below is from the group chat Alex and I organised on Facebook so that we could all communicate to each other easier.
We eventually got some responses from our cast, and we have listed in the table below the full production schedule for this short film.
In the production schedule, I have listed the location for each scenes we shoot as well as the props and equipment we will need when on set. We will try to stick to this schedule as much as possible to organise our time better for post production.
In preparation for our shooting our short film, Alex and I wanted to drive off to the locations of where we both intended to shoot the main story line of our short film. During school hours, we took some time off to drive to these locations and explore the areas with the intentions of how we were going to film each sequence professionally since we had planned to introduce a car chase in our short film too. We both first drove to East Hill which is the woodland nearest to our school which also holds some very long and lengthy roads; perfect for our car chase.
The lengthy roads are the perfect source for the car chase we plan to have, however we will have to be mindful of other oncoming pedestrians and cars to prevent injury on anyone. The framing of this shot is also very cinematic and will look even better when shot with the DSLR on a shallow depth of field.
An interesting view point which we both saw from the furthest side of the forest. We both thought this could be a place where our main protagonist character looks over the horizon towards the end of our short film.
This location in the furthest side of the forest is an area we had in mind for where we wanted to shoot our interrogation scene initially before we arrived here. The framing of the trees rising up towards the sky makes this scene look very peaceful but also sinister because of the low key lighting reflected onto the ground. Unfortunately the photo quality here did not demonstrate this low light effect which we both experienced on the day.
Other then the location we were both intentionally thinking of using for the interrogation scene, we drove to another part of the forest to this car park location here. If the place we intended is very busy on filming day and packed with other cars which is always a possibility, then we plan to shoot the scene here instead since it isn't as busy on most days compared to the first location.
The view from this location is also spectacular.
To the opposite of this new location is a more rugged road which could be another spot we use for our car chase. However this road could be very risky for the drivers' cars and especially the tires.
Once Alex and I took a visit to our first location, we then drove for another 15 minutes to our 2nd woodland location we were thinking of filming our interrogation scene and car chase. We found this place at Harpford woods which is a lot less busy on most days compared to East Hill, which is the preferred situation we want for our filming if we want to avoid any distractions from other members of the public.
The long stretch of road/bridleway we found was a very idealistic location we both wanted our car chase to be. The conditions on the days where very damp and wet which meant the road was very muddy and slippery. To avoid any injury, we must make sure to avoid driving the cars at high speed down roads which do not grip the tyres very well.
Nonetheless, the framing and lighting of this setting is very beautiful and would have looked very cinematic once again if shot on the DSLR camera.
Having now visited our primary location sources for this short film, this has helped us to begin to picture in our heads how we are going to film the scenes we are going to have in this short film, in particular for the car chase sequences.
When we first pitched our idea for our short film to our secondary and primary audience back in September, we mentioned that we would like to use the same actors for this short film as we used for the Opening Sequence that Alex and I created for our AS coursework. We both hoped to have Harry Cockayne and James McCullin for this short film we will be making as well as include other actors that are close friends to both Harry and James. Unfortunately, due to certain circumstances, James was unable to give up a lot of his free time to devote the weekends for filming as he had a lot of work to be catching up with. Alex and I were both gutted that James would be unable to make the film dates to shoot the scenes we need him in since he pulled off an amazing acting performance for our Opening Sequence at AS. We both had to therefore find another actor who could replace the role of James as the main protagonist character.
James and one other person we had asked said they wouldn't mind being the supporting actors for the film, which means that they would fill in for the main cast actors on days which they couldn't make when we come to plan out our production schedule. In the end, after several discussions with the rest of the cast members, we were able to get hold of a guy called Morgan Taverner who is very close friends with Luke (another key cast member for this short film). Morgan agreed as a result that he would be in this production and even said that he was excited to be featured in a film for the first time, which made Alex and I very pleased. We therefore have decided to give it a shot by casting Morgan as our main protagonist character for this short film.
We are all very excited for the upcoming schedules for this short film and Alex and I hope we can create a really impressive film with the use of our new actors!
Looking back at our AS task, as the cameraman and director for this film, a skill which I would really like to improve on for this year's short film is my assets in camera work and shot manipulation. I found it obvious that last year I had a very natural eye for the camera and I was able to record the best looking shots when we were on set. For this year' coursework production, I wish to push these skills further and improve on my techniques more to help this short film achieve a better "film look" in comparison to our task at AS.
I decided to therefore research on YouTube for a tutorial that helped me explain the basics on how to improve my camera work when on set.
This tutorial I found by DSLRguide gives an overview of the different camera techniques he uses in his short films and also gives me some potential ideas on how to improve my camera work using filming equipment such as a tripod or steadicam to help stablise footage.
He also explains about a technique called "shallow depth of field" which is a common technique used in most films to help the audience focus more on a particular subject within the film.This is a technique which I would very much like to implement in this short film and experiment more of.
After creating a first rough draft of our screenplay for this film previously, I have now successfully completed with the help of Alex our final screenplay which describes in detail the narrative to our short film. In the screenplay are the actors lines which they will be given prior to the filming days that we have organised with them, sluglines on specific plots that happen throughout the narrative as well as any camerawork descriptions to guide me on filming days for how I will film each shot, with the help of the storyboard too.
In comparison to our rough screenplay, this final version is very detailed and a lot easier to read since I had followed the standard screenplay formatting used for screenplays in the film industry and each slugline is clearly headed to give Alex and me clearly direction of how we will film on set our short film. By developing the screenplay, it meant the narrative has also been improved and polished. I added a section in the story where Crimson enters the scene to interrogate Jack more since Zeb couldn't really get much information out of Jack regarding the clue which he possesses to a Swiss vault.
Soon enough, we will be filming our first scene with Harry in the city. So Alex and I will make sure we give him a copy of the screenplay and that he reads it through before film day.
CULTURE by bearjohnstone
Tzvetan Todorov's narrative theory undermines the crucial patterns the narratives of films today. Not all films however follow the same equilibrium pattern, which was why it was important for me to research this theory and what existing film apply this theory to them and which ones don't. Eventually this theory will help me illustrate how my short film will fit according to his theory (if it does).
Once Alex and I had fully drawn out our storyboard in detail and created a shot list of every single shot we intend to use for this short film, it was about time that we both began to think about the screenplay and script in a little more depth since we are still undecided as to what our characters are going to be saying in our short film. We listed on our animatic "*Dialogue*" to show the moments when our characters will be speaking when on set. We are both very lucky to have actors who have some experience in drama or stage performance so they will hopefully be able to deliver exceptional performances with the scripts when on set.
When developing our script, it was important for us both to understand how the script will relate to the overall story of our short film but also making sure the script also makes sense to our audience. If the script isn't meaningful and doesn't make sense to our audience, this can have really huge impacts on the overall construction of our product and thus reduce the audiences interest in our short film. Alex and I decided to sit down during a Media Studies lesson and for us to plan our script/screenplay based on finalised animatic and storyboard. The screenshots below show the notes we wrote following the standard Hollywood screenplay format.
Within the script, we made sure our character's lines are delivered in different emotions; angry, scared, confused, cheeky etc. For example, in the opening scene of the interrogation, the protagonist character will be acting scared and confused as he is unaware of where he has been taken to, whereas the criminals in question interrogating him will be portrayed as more superior and powerful to him as there are greater numbers of them.
Now that Alex and I have a rough idea for how our script is going to work, it's now time for me to write a more formal screenplay for our actors to read rehearse in their own time before filming day and so that we are fully prepared and not wasting time when on set.
Now that Alex and I have completed the final version of our storyboard and animatic, I went ahead to produce a shot list for every single shot we plan to film throughout the entire short film. On each of the film days, we intend to bring a copy of the shot list and our storyboard on set so that we prepare ourselves in advance and so that we can get as much filming done as possible. As our ideas for the production improve and we receive more audience feedback for the short film drafts, we will eventually diverge from our original shot list and think of new camera shots to use for the short film.
The slides below shows the full shot list which Alex and I have made for this coursework production.
Having completed our new and improved storyboard for this short film, I went ahead to produce a new animatic for our short film. In comparison with the first animatic we drafted out, the storyline did not make much sense for our audiences to understand and there were a lack of sound effects in the animatic which can help enhance specific trigger points throughout the sequence. In this animatic, I have carefully placed each individual frame and have added in a lot of sound effects to match with the scenes we are planning to film which has impacted the way our audiences now see our film.
This screenshot shows the number of Audio Tracks I used to insert the different sound effects. In total I used around 50 different sound effects to make this animatic which realistically is what we are both expecting to have in our final product.
Having completed the first planning stages of our short film and having consolidating our ideas for this short film, Alex and I are now ready to continue researching on the themes we would like to introduce in our short film as well as continue receiving feedback from our audiences about our progress with our product.
Having fully researched into our chosen genre as well as working from the preferences of our intended audience, Alex and I have now created our final draft of our storyboard for this short film. When Alex and I showcased our Animatic to our secondary audience, a comment which they made was that they found the storyboard very difficult to follow since the drawings were rushed and did not demonstrate to them what the narrative was explaining. The drawings were drawn by Alex and I which was easy for us to follow since we knew exactly how the story was going to flow, however this did not translate for our audience members who couldn't really picture our story very well.
This is why we both decided to refine our storyboard even more since we had developed new ideas for our story line as we continued our research as time progressed. Comparing this storyboard to the previous one, each individual frame flows with the next as well as being incredibly detailed with both the drawings and description of each frame. I ended up drawing about 100 frames for this short film storyboard which is realistically the right amount we will need to be fully prepared in making this production.
