Timeline Titles for Main Task

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.

Visit from Simon Hall

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.

Follow Simon Hall on Twitter --> @SimonHall

Short Film | Day 1

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.

Preparation For Film Day 1

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.

Crimson | Costume Design Ideas 1

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.

Igor | Costume Designs

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.

Risk Assessment

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. 

Production Schedule

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.  

Location Shots

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.

The Actors

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!