Short Film | 1 Minute Footage

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

Photograph showing our secondary audience watching our 1 minute footage 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.

The Sopranos Final Scene

The Sopranos | Final Scene by bearjohnstone

Budgeting Table

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.

Jack | Costume Designs

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

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.