Researching and planning the movie

image work

By Thahmina Khan

Research:What research did you carry out into similar

products?

From looking at my case study’s, the aspects I found useful as research for my own production was the film “Insidious”, this is because the sound affect used where there was a foggy atmosphere and none of the characters were talking created a dramatic atmosphere which is similar to the theme I want to create in my short film as it sounds spooky and more like a horror film.

In addition, another technique which I found useful in my case study was the exploration on editing, this is because the cutting rate in “Insidious” was fast, this helps produce an uncertainty and tightness atmosphere which most horror films include.

From my research on my case studies, the last element that I would like to be included in my short film is a linear narrative structure, this helps create a continuous order where the film is working towards; the problem usually occurs in the beginning or middle of the film but at the end it is solved.

Concluding from my research when doing my case study’s, I have found that most horror films prefer to have a narrative structure as all the tension builds up slowly but towards the end of the film, all questions are unanswered and solutions solved.

How have your skills in researching real media products improved since the AS

course? My skills in researching have improved dramatically from AS media when I was producing a music magazine till A2 media as now had to create a short film.

An area of researching that I have developed on is my case studies from AS media. This is because when I had to produce the music magazine, my case studies were rushed and not thoroughly thought, this was shown when it came to making my music magazine, I struggled on this because I did not have much similar music magazine case study’s I could relate and get ideas from, which then I struggled on writing up the evaluation when it came to linking ideas from the case study to our music magazines. I have realised there has been a development on the case study research as now, I did through research on similar short films that I can pick up ideas from and add in to my own short film. This made creating my story board easier as I had more ideas to create the story from. Moreover, I am familiar with always relating my case study’s back to any of my research as I had to do this in AS media for the music magazine.

Moreover, I realised when producing my short films, I always used my story board, plans and notes to help me create the short film whereas in AS, when we produced our music magazine, I did not have any plan to get me through this process, this meant that my organisation skills have developed as well as my researching skills.

Research on target audience: What research have you carried out

into your target audience?

When me and my group pitched our treatment to the class, we received feedback where there was constructive critics and good points of our treatment.

The feedback helped conclude potential target audience of our film as our class is full of teenagers aged 17-18; they liked our idea of the short film which helped reinforce that our short film would be successful on our potential target audience from the age 13-19. The reason we chose to stay 13 and not below because our main character is a 13 year old girl who has supernatural elements occur to her, if a child below 13 watches our short films, they may get more spooked out than an older age group.

Also when receiving audience feedback from my class and the teachers, I realised comments received was the same as when I produced my music magazine. This included points needed to improve my product and good points too, for example when presenting our treatment on our short film, someone mentioned that having one of the locations in the forest will make our film more scary then our other locations.

Logistics planning:How well did you organise your actors, locations,

costumes and props? The release forms, risk assessments and call sheets all came in useful when organising our

actors, locations and props as. This mean that our organisation skills were good however improvements could have been made. For example, when it came to shooting, our prop was not organised successfully as we had to take pictures on the day whilst printing it and putting the image into the frame, doing this on the day of our shooting meant a delay of one of the scenes which had to be filmed another day in the same location.

Also filling in the risk assessments were useful as we were aware of any hazard thought our filming days. For example one of our locations was in the forest so we made extra care of the camera equipment as we were shooting outside and also looked at the weather website to see if it would rain the day we wanted to film. This helped us be aware of the rain and temperature so our actors did not freeze.

In addition, our costumes were quite organised as we planned days before filming what each actor had to bring in n what day.

Furthermore, throughout our logistics planning, this included regular team meetings which helped ensure that every group member knew what they were doing and the days we planned to film.

The logistics planning was much better when creating the short film compared to producing the music magazine as this helped me and my group to be ahead of schedule, this meant that we had more time to efficiently do each task correctly whilst having time to regularly update on our blogs and improve it. Blogging this year was one of the main improvements compared to AS media because, when producing the short film, I updated any piece of media related work I do on a daily basis.

Risk assessment sheet

Narrative planning:Evaluate your story boards and/ or

scripts? When carrying out the tasks to complete the story boards and script, we had to divide each of these to the member of our groups.

First we started of creating a plan of each scene that every frame would include, this included camera techniques and angles of the camera so that when it came to putting these notes on to the story board, each group member knew what to write. This ensured that our story board was detailed and easy to do. We then divided our plan into four story boards each group member does.

The script was roughly planned out in class what we wanted each character to say, this was then finalised in Microsoft word with better dialogue and format, at the end of this, I updated the task and script after it was approved by our teacher and added in a few comments she pointed out to our story boards and improved on before blogging.

First page of story board

Evaluate your story boards and/ or scripts?

Thought our narrative planning, the only problem occurred was that one of the group member was not present in the first team meeting so me and the other group member talked about our story boards and did this on our long break we had together, this team meeting also included us doing some of the call sheets and printing out all the risk assessment, location and actors release form out. Because me and my other group member seemed to be doing most of the tasks, it seemed unfair on us as the other group member did not do as much as we did, so this could have been improved if we was more firm on the other group member and all three of us planned out exactly what sheets we all needed to do, this then would of ensured that there was fairness in the same amount of tasks each group member does.

The planning, sketches, plans and mock-ups compared to A2 media than first year when we had to create our own music magazine was that this year was much better organised and more sketches were needed to be carried out when producing a short film. This meant that more work had to be done but because I had a taste of how planning starts of in AS media when making the music magazine, I knew what needed to be included in the case studies for the short films as it was a similar layout.

Evaluate your own, and your group’s time management. How does this compare to time management of the music magazine

project? My time management was efficient as I always ensured I did the task given straight away and moved on to the next task needed to do, this then made sure that me and group’s time management was ahead in schedule as we started to shoot early and start on editing as soon as possible.

Time management of the music magazine project compared to the short film would be that this year is much better on carrying out tasks as me and my group are ahead of schedule however, when carrying out the music magazine project in AS, I would say that all my tasks were given in on time however there was some slight delays on photo shooting.

How well have you presented your research and planning?

I would say that my creativeness on using different technologies to blog up my work has improved to last year’s blog.

This is because I try to make sure I don’t use the same technology more than twice so use different technologies to present my work in, for example, last year’s production schedule was done in Microsoft word however this year I had done it in time toast. I found this much more efficient as I could easily go onto my time toast and add in any extra notes to my production schedule, such as me and group being ahead on tasks were updated and I also changed the dates to when we shot our film and started to edit them.