Fourth Day of Shooting

On the 18^th of December 2010, the group commenced what we assumed would be our closing day of shooting. With an almost jaded layer of clouds consuming the days sky we packed up the cameras and headed swiftly off to my house to construct some lingering shots from our storyboard. Although the day seemed relatively structured, ideas and positive energy did veer-off somewhat frenetically at points, resulting in fresh and innovative shots that were conjured up on the spot.

At around 9:30am, the group began to set up what would be the first shot of the day. As Dave had previously stated, we had to adapt and tweak the meeting shots in order to mould the plotline in its new direction. Therefore, we had to re-erect the living room environment into a make-shift patient living room, without breaking the invisible wall of cinema whereby props had moved such as glasses or picture frames etc.  Secondly we had to devise some more lines of dialogue, a process that unfolded as a more taxing task than initially expected.

So with that particular shot executed, we began to consider a succeeding shot that Dave Waters had impulsively conjured up. The idea was that following the previous line of shooting- “close your eyes”, Dave Huxford our actor would comply, and sprawl back in his chair (complemented by some clever editing). We decided that the footage would be more profound in the form of a point-of-view shot, and therefore performed several attempts, until Dave Waters executed the perfect shot when knocking the back of his head on my sofa, grounding the film to a very stripped down and raw portrayal of what would happen if a patient was induced into a catatonic sleep.

At around 12:00 we decided to chronologically follow the order of events in the film, thereby we pondered over how we could execute a shot whereby comatose David Huxford is being dragged up the stairs to his demise by crazed psychiatrist George Austin. We decided on a low angle shot in order to portray George’s dominance over his patient, as well as to visually display from a very raw angle the struggle George has to endure to lug a comatose body up a flight of stairs.

The chief problem we encountered in the process of shooting this particular scene was the surface on which we executed the shot. We discovered after several shots that the momentum needed to tilt the camera was simultaneously moving the tripod; therefore I had to sacrifice all dignity by lowering myself beneath the tripod legs and keeping the camera steady in order for the tilt to stay smooth.

At this point the process of shots had been incredibly successful. Therefore we decided to push our luck and head back to a scene at the films progression. We needed to capture a shot of the psychiatrist walking to the patient’s house; therefore we pulled down the legs off the tripod once again and executed another low-angle shot of George walking down the driveway.

It was at this point that it started to spit with rain, a factor that could have easily ruined the shorts continuity. However, the environmental shots secured previously could have easily turned to rain later on in the day, so we thereby decided to preserve the footage to reflect a real gritty, cold sensation- an idea conveyed in a variety of English independent shorts and feature length films.  

The next shots we decided to capture would almost be the linchpin to our short psychological/thriller- the framed suicide letter shots. The most taxing part once again was devising a short, dynamic yet meaningful line that summarised the film without sounding cliché. The dubbed suicide letter would have its origins shot at my bedroom table, lit by a solitary lamp as George forges the patient’s handwriting. This stirred up a variety of problems, the first being that the copy itself was not always central when he wrote it, and secondly, when being scrutinised by the camera and group, the pressure at times veered him into slipping, or mistaking specific word orderings etc.

Its second appearance would appear pinned to the bathroom door and George swiftly leaves the room, implying that the patient has met his demise.  This would be our last shot of the day, whereby George swings open the door, shuts it, and departs with the words pinned to the door- “life is precious, but not for me”.  Despite the fact this should appeared to be quite taxing with many trials and tribulations that could ruin it, the shot was executed smoothly in roughly 3 takes. The door itself didn’t bounce back once, and George managed to open the door just enough without revealing too much.

So completely spurred on with confidence and promise, the group headed back to school, handed the tapes over to Dave, with the upmost self-reliance that he would be able to edit the short by the New Year. Using Facebook as a means of communication Dave unfortunately had to inform us that there was simply not enough footage, unless we were willing to compromise with some less than admired shots. Therefore, within the last three days we are allowed to spend together, we plan on finishing the blogs over Christmas, filming roughly fifty seconds of footage, editing said footage in the evening, thus completely the A2 Media Coursework.

Ancillary Task- Unique Selling Point

Once breaking up from school, I decided to take a day out of my holiday to contemplate over the unique-selling-point of our final five minute product-“The Existence of Christian”.

Along with its blemishes and imperfections, I found it relatively difficult to focus all my energies towards one element which would independently sell our short. Therefore, I delved all the way back to the Intended Audience profiles Taylor and I devised. It was here that I embedded myself into Kate’s and Michael’s psyche and questioned what elements of our short would most likely appeal to someone of their age and livelihood.

Though both Kate and Michael vary in age and tendencies, there are very few correlations but correlations nonetheless that formulate some target for a USP. Both have experienced some form of university education, and while one has paid it off, they are still only earning modest money, yet to reach their peak in terms of occupation.

Furthermore, they both seem to revel in independent films alongside glossy Hollywood Blockbusters. Therefore it would appear they appreciate a more concentrated, intricate and at times gritty filmic experience, tackling relevant issues in today’s society.

Now that I have accumulated these character traits, I have carefully reflected over the course of our short, the intricate filming details, the institution who plans on exhibiting it, and will hopefully be able to conceive a perfectly fitting unique selling point that appeals to both model male and female.

It would appear then, that amid the actual filming, the most pivotal factor towards selling the film lies in the institution who shall distribute it- “Openfilm”. Being that it is an online platform for filmmakers, budding artists such as Michael should be aware of the sites existence and should therefore stumble across the film on the proverbial internet surf. While on the other hand, the site is equally user friendly to the likes of Kate Lowlands, who frequently uses the internet for films when the television has nothing to offer. Another unique selling point entwining with Openfilm is the meagre fact that the films are simply free, which one again should entice an audience in the thick of a recession, especially those paying off substantial university fees such as Kate.

When considering interests and the overall intellectually demanding demographic we have obtained, I genuinely believe one of the most unique selling points of our short lies in the subliminal messaging and undertones we have tried to convey throughout our short. Such themes would include madness, abuse, the value of life and inevitably death. As someone who would one day like to go to university and hopefully belong within this demographic, I have a thriving interesting for unearthing subliminal messages within a film, especially the more encrypted ones- a trait I’m sure someone like Kate or Michael would surely have developed.

To summarise the unique selling point in a nutshell, it would go along the lines of- A short psychological thriller, executed through a sparse budget, for people with a sparse budget, while still offering intellectually stimulating footage that mirrors our demographic.

Marketing Techniques for our film – Other Films and their target audience

Through more research into marketing our film and finding the target audience, our group realised that we had not planned marketing techniques for after the films potential cinema release, for example DVD promotions and television showings on such channels as Film4 and Shorts TV. We then decided to research these other methods of marketing.

After checking popular websites like Amazon and Play.com, as well as researching TV advertisements we agreed that our film needed to be connected to other films of a similar genre, to draw people in who may have missed the film’s original release or just not been interested or persuaded by the marketing techniques.

After looking on sites that are popular for DVD buyers, I discovered that when looking on any film, there are always recommendations for other films of a similar genre. I personally know that this can be very helpful as it introduces people to other films that they may not have been interested in before. I felt this was important to our films potential success, and the group agreed that we needed to look at similar films to ours and try and draw in viewers of those films to ours.

One film we felt was a good place to start was ‘Moon’ (Dir. Duncan Jones, 2009). The film itself focuses on the main character Sam, who has committed to a job on the Moon for Lunar Industries for 3 years. Everyone in the group has seen this film, and we agreed that it had similar themes and tones to ours. The fear of isolation, only one companion to confide in and the feeling that things aren’t as they seem. The audience for this film was quite varied, as older sci-fi fans and newcomers went to see it, and the film has also been very popular on DVD. The group thought that a ‘for fans of’ section on posters and websites for our film would be very useful and ‘Moon’ will definitely be there.

Another film the group thought was similar to ours was ‘Blue Velvet’ (Dir. David Lynch, 1986). After a fairly ordinary opening, the film delves deep into the hidden realms of this ‘normal’ town and reveals a dark underbelly of lies and deceit. We as a group felt that the general feel of this film captured ours perfectly, and that the slow revealing of the monsters inside the characters was something we were looking to demonstrate in our film. David Lynch has a very large cult following, and we feel that this is something our film may generate as well, because of its differences to the norm.

After more research, our group found another film that we thought we could use to help propel ours. The film was ‘Blow Up’ (Dir. Michelangelo Antonioni, 1966). This film is very eerie and uses minimal amounts of non-diegetic sound, creating a real sense of dread and misguidance. The director also uses a vast amount of different camera shots, with many shots lingering for minutes on end. Another trait the group found intriguing was how no character is ever referred to by name, making everyone seem fragile and guilty. Being an older film, we thought that by relating our film to this one we may be able to tap in to an older and more intellectual audience, rather than today’s mediocre film goers.

The final film our group has agreed to relate our film to is another cult classic, ‘Donnie Darko’ (Dir. Richard Kelly, 2001). This film again centres on a main character that feels alone and, like our main protagonist the patient, is in therapy. Though the film is more surreal and psychological than ours, it possesses a similar darkness and takes the viewer on a comparable journey. A favourite to many in our group, we feel that this is another film that could help us gain more fans.

After much researching, we believe that these similar films will help ours stand the test of time and keep gradually gaining more fans long after the original release. Many of these films have survived not because of successful cinema runs, but because of DVD sales and growing numbers of fans.

Music/Sound

While editing the film I realised that we had not really given much thought to the soundtrack. We briefly discussed that there were certain shots which would work better with silence or diegetic sound only. However, we had not settled on any music.

I therefore went ahead and searched for music on freeplaymusic.com. While much of what I sampled would not have been appropriate for our film, I very much liked the following piece:



The inspiration for using this type of non-diegetic soundtrack is the ending for the film 'Saw'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJyvVMgl-p0
(unfortunately embedding is disabled by request in this video)

The music while the twist is being revealed is appropriate for the genre and heightens the intense atmosphere of the film’s ending. The rapid editing used for the flashbacks is also a technique which could be put to use in our film, as it gives a sense of déjà vu, and is also very effective.

Extra Shooting

While editing the film, I noticed that there were several scenes which did not appear to fit together as well as we had originally hoped. I also thought that our film lacked pace. After some careful thought, I realised this was because I was stretching out the shots to make the film longer, while we had an overall lack of actual footage. This was despite the fact that we had shot several hours worth of footage, because much of it was actually unusable for various reasons.

Therefore, after lengthy discussion with the group we decided that we would have to film more footage, as it was the only way to achieve the effect we desired. Although the Christmas holidays are upon us, we decided that the extra effort required to find another video camera and assemble the group in our own time is worth it if we are to make our film to a good standard.

Of course, the extra shooting will also require careful planning if we are to make the most of our time and be as efficient as possible, so more on this to come…

Script Changes

When it came to actually filming, we decided to make a few small changes to our script. Here is the original, written by James Moss:

Psychiatrist: So let’s progress. Within this world, within the confines of your own existence, explain your troubles. What bothers you?

Patient: Hmm… I dunno’. Every morning, I get up, and I think what am I doing here? What am I feeling? What am I giving?

Psychiatrist: You see (name), it doesn’t matter what path you’ve gone down, or where you plan to go. You just need to find some hope in this world.

Patient: Hopes just a word, and you can’t just find it at work, or with the family, or in some dream. And sometimes you just think, damn, have I really got to live like that?

Psychiatrist: Well now, that’s why I’m here, together we can beat this.

Patient: Are we done?
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Patient: Now listen, I may be wrong, but this hope you speak of. It lies in the air we breathe, the sounds we hear, and the water we lay in…

Although this script was a good base, when we heard it being spoken aloud we decided to change some elements as they did not sound completely natural.

Here is the revised script:

Psychiatrist: So let’s progress. Within this world, within the confines of your own existence, explain your troubles. What bothers you?

Patient: Every morning, I get up, and I think what am I doing here? What am I feeling? What am I giving?

Psychiatrist: You see Christian, it doesn’t matter what path you’ve gone down, or where you plan to go. You just need to find some hope in this world.

Patient: Hope is just a word, and you can’t just find it at work, or with the family, or in some dream. And sometimes you just think, damn, have I really got to live like that?

Psychiatrist: Well now, that’s why I’m here, together we can beat this.

Patient: Are we done?

Patient: I’m going to try something new today. I want you to close your eyes, take a deep breath and relax.

The decision to get rid of the “Hmm I dunno” was taken in the editing stage, as I felt that it didn’t fit very well with his character. It sounded a little false and didn’t seem right, but it was easy to omit during editing.

The final line, “Now listen, I may be wrong, but this hope you speak of. It lies in the air we breathe, the sounds we hear, and the water we lay in…” simply did not sound like something somebody would say, so we filmed an alternate line the next day. The new line was inspired somewhat by the opening of the Dream Theater album which I did a post on earlier. It also fitted better with the plot, as he is told to close his eyes and it is implied that this is when the psychiatrist kills him.

Ancillary Task- Analysis of The Psychological/Thriller Posters

Before devising a concrete poster of our own, the group decided draw together some influences in order to improve fundamental standards. Therefore, we delved into the realms of the psychological/thriller film, extracted our favourite posters and wrote up a brief analysis on each. Hopefully in the near future when we decide on a definite poster, we shall be able to incorporate all of the ideas below, resulting in a poster that is truly reflective of our five minute short, and the genre as a whole.

When deliberating as to what posters I should analyse within the confines of the psychological/thriller genre, I decided to delve straight away into M. Night Shyamalan’s 2010 production dubbed “Devil”. Watching the picture in September I can happily reserve judgement on the films quality, while essentially focusing the films chief ideas, and how these notions are reflected through their posters.

On a mere, one dimensional basis, what I picked up from this filmic experience was the notion that evil can quite simply lurk in all of us, whether that lies at work, with family, friends, or in this case, a geriatric.

In this case, I truly feel the poster anchors this central notion quite reflectively. The cold, frantically oozing red light instantaneously suggests danger on the most fundamental level. When analysed further, the red light clasping around the crevice is shaped in the form of the cross, which is thereby symbolic of Jesus’ death, and grounds the film in terms of religious wrong-doing.

The fact that the doors are shut was the most prominent reasoning behind choosing this poster however. From what I have written about above the overwhelming theme of evil is present within the lift. This should thereby disturb the audience’s psyche somewhat, initially leaving them to question who or what lies behind the door. When watching the film, I feel that the posters low key lighting even manages to capture the bleakness in each of the films characters, from the rip-off merchant, to the volatile security guard.

It is important to notice that within the psychological/thriller genre, all their posters seem to adopt incredibly short and dynamic taglines. This stems all the way back to films such as Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960) - "Check in. Relax. Take a shower” in order to shift the focus on the lift, which is the films pivotal instrument, as well as leaving the audience somewhat cut-off, in a way which they will yearn for more.

It would seem then that the overall impression behind posters such as Devil is to leave audiences with an incredibly blunt snippet of what could be an incredibly complex, elaborate film-in order to leave audiences feeling cold and emotionally detached from the world outside the film.

For my second psychological thriller film poster I decided to analyse Christopher Nolan’s narrative warping classic Memento. Written and directed in 2000, the film centres on Leonard Shelby, a man with anterograde amnesia who is unable to render new memories, yet completely driven to lay a path of vengeance towards the man who raped and murdered his wife.

What initially struck me as somewhat interesting was the use of Polaroid photographs to formulate the poster. Once watching the film, the audience are aware that the life that Leonard Shelby once lived has now faded into the past, so to some extent, the pictures should almost strike the audience as a singular frozen moment in time, something Leonard, nor the audience should never forget.

While remembering something such as a photo may not entice the audience, it is also important to analyse the copy-“MEMENTO”. The writing itself is incredibly rugged and almost embedded into the photo quite forcefully. This should accumulate pre-conceived notions in the audiences’ minds of an incredibly frenetic, impulsive anger, and when coupled up with the incredibly tense NVC (non-verbal-communication) that this concentrated moment in time will involve some type of sickening vendetta.

Once again, the poster adopts a snappy dynamic tagline dubbed- “some memories are best forgotten”. This sense of ambiguity should raise questions in the audiences mind concerning these memories, and what the future should hold for these two people within the shots.


Similar to the two films above, Secret Window is a 2004 psychological thriller film directed by David Koepp.

Similar to Devil, the posters copy is flourished in a very sickening, oozing red. What struck me was how the typeface for “window” is almost smudged and disfigured, which should instantly evoke audience reaction, as something in this poster is evidently blemished, which in some sense anchors the films plotline.

This generic uneasiness and danger is furthermore anchored through Johnny Depp’s NVC. This is reinforced by the fact that the shot is a close-up, which should emphasise some sense of claustrophobia or paranoia. I think it is also incredibly interesting how the window pane almost breaks his face into quarters, which could connote a sense of a dual personality, which is truly reflective of the films narrative plot.

As a whole, I would conclude by stating that this psychological thriller poster has been incredibly ingenious, in the sense that it unfolds a lot about the plots narrative course while simultaneously concealing anything too important. For instance, Depp looks neither volatile nor vulnerable, yet the red danger-connoting slewed copy would simply suggest that he is unstable. The fact he is partially concealed behind a jaded shadow could propose that he is hiding as a victim, or a felon. If this psychological/thriller captures anything in the audiences mind, it would be an overwhelming sense of ambiguity and unease, a suitable catalyst for any passionate thriller fan.

Marketing Techniques for our Film – Creating a Trailer

With the basic viral marketing strategy figured out, the group will now turn our attention to the making of the potential promotional trailer for our film. With all the footage finally filmed, and editing currently coming to an end, we are able to look through the clips we have gathered and decide what ones should be shown in the trailer to draw in the public. Before we rush into production however, we must first research other popular and successful film trailers to see how they operate and what makes them interesting to the public.

One excellent example of a trailer is for the film ‘The Shining’ (Dir. Stanley Kubrick, 1980). Though there are a number of trailers for this film, there is one that really stands out. Just one shot is used in the promotion, which is of a set of elevator doors. As the crew credits and the name of the film pass by on screen, blood suddenly gushes out of the elevator and covers most of the room. This trailer appealed to us as we loved the ambiguity of it, the idea that no one knows the plot of the film or even the specific genre, but the image on screen immediately gives shock and creates enigmas that the audience can only answer by going to see the film. Our group agreed that this approach would be better suited for our film – a teaser trailer rather than a full one would keep the plot of our film hidden and hopefully make people question what our film is about.



Another good example of a trailer is for the film ‘Stir Of Echoes’ (Dir. David Koepp, 1999). This trailer is very different to the one mentioned above, as it is longer and contains vast scenes from the film itself. This is not necessarily a bad thing though, as many clips from the film can still be shown without the narrative of plot twists being give away to the audience. All of the group preferred the trailer for ‘The Shining’, but agreed that if our film went into production, several trailers would have to be created anyway. So, after viewing, our group searched through all of our footage and picked out what clips we thought would suit this type of trailer. The clips that we thought would draw the audience were all major plot points in our short film, and we agreed that the footage would have to be heavily edited to keep the plot intact and a mystery.



Another stereotypical piece in trailers is the voice over. Most trailers nowadays tent to veer away from the voiceover and have captions come up on screen instead. But in the past, almost every trailer had a voice over and the voice usually changed upon genre of the film. This led our group to another discussion – whether to include a voiceover or captions. The group agreed that the voiceover was too generic and cheesy, but the captions idea divided the group. Aster much careful thought, we agreed that if a teaser trailer much like the one for ‘The Shining’ was developed, there would be no need for captions as the images shown on screen should wet the audiences appetites until the release date for the film would draw closer.

Upon finally deciding on the type of trailer and how we would go about it, the group started writing down and drawing up plans for trailers and where and when they would be shown. If our film was ever released to a wide audience, we are confident we would know exactly how to market it and draw in our target audience.

Marketing Techniques for our Film – Viral Marketing

As our film nears completion, we must decide how to market our film to the target audience we have chosen. Our target audience is mostly men between the ages of 15 and 35. Our film is dark and gritty and will most likely not appeal to many women or pre-teen children. The most likely BBFC rating for our film will be a 15, so anyone younger would not be able to view it anyway. Before deciding on our marketing campaign, we must first research how our target audience lives and where would be the best place to promote our film.

There are many ways of promoting a film. They range from the traditional way of posters around the country in places such as bus stops and train station, to TV adverts and trailers, to marketing the film on the internet using a more interactive approach. After much careful deliberation, our group has decided that because our target audience is typically teenagers and adults that are technologically sound, viral marketing will be the best way to market our film and will most likely result in more people seeing the film and leading to bigger profits.

Once we had decided what marketing technique we would use for our film, the group had to come up with ideas for posters, trailers and interactive graphics. We seemed to struggle at first, but once the first excellent idea became apparent, more began to flow.

The first (and perhaps most important) item that we completed planning was the poster. Every film has a poster (or “one-sheet”) and it is always one of the main reasons that people are drawn to the film and become interested. Usually the first item released in conjunction with the upcoming film, the poster gives the public their first view of the tone and themes of the film. An excellent poster with intriguing and original ideas can really draw the public eye and get people pondering about what they are looking at and make them want to go and see the film. Our main idea for the poster came from two group members Taylor Gladwin and David Huxford. David came up with the idea of focusing on the shirt and tie worn by the patient in our short film, as his quest for smartness and acceptance is a major theme of the film. We as a group thought this was a good place to start as it was simple and more ideas could develop from it. As a group we agreed that just the name of the film and a shot of a shirt and tie would be too bland and would not catch anyone’s eye. After more discussions, Taylor Gladwin proposed replacing the tie on the shirt with a noose instead. The group agreed that this made the poster more original and fresh. The noose around the shirt gives our potential audience a feel of the film and shows them that it will be dark and will most likely contain death of some kind.

Now that our group had our basic poster idea, we set about deciding what viral marketing techniques would work well for our film. We drew inspiration from the film ‘Inception’ (Dir. Christopher Nolan, 2010). Though the viral marketing campaign wasn’t amazingly huge, the main part of the campaign we were interested in was the way the director and crew kept the story so hidden, right up until the release date. Many viewers of the film went in ‘blind’ and did not know the story at all, giving the film a bigger impact and special feeling. We decided that this was exactly what we wanted for our short film – to keep the plot a secret and just draw people in through posters and viral ads. We also thought it would be an excellent idea to follow Alfred Hitchcock’s rule for his film ‘Psycho’ – who did not allow people to enter the movie theatre after the film had begun. As a group, we felt that this was an excellent idea and would have kept the suspense cranked up. The audience would not have been distracted by latecomers and could be completely absorbed in the film. We agreed that should our film ever get a wide release, this would be another technique we would use, thus keeping the audience delved deep in the mystery of the narrative.

Another film that used viral marketing well and influenced our campaign was ‘Cloverfield’ (Dir. Matt Reeves, 2008). A trailer for the film was released a year before its official release, containing just a website that people could log onto to find out more about the film that at the time had not released a title. As the release date drew closer, to promote the ‘lost footage’ scheme of the film, Facebook pages were created for each of the main characters and were updated regularly. Websites for the fake companies seen in the film we also created, to give the audience the feeling that the events in the film were in fact real. A whole Cloverfield universe was created, to give the film more depth and allow people to be more immersed in it. The campaign proved to be a success, as Cloverfield did very well at the box office. We decided that a similar campaign would work for our film as well. Many teaser trailers leading people to specific websites and ‘treasure-trails’ would get people absorbed in the film, leading them to tell their friends and hopefully make the anticipation for the film larger.

Overall, our group feels that if our film wanted to gain a wide cinema release a viral marketing campaign would be the best way to promote our film and draw the public interest. People of all ages use the internet nowadays, and it is probably the best way to promote a film, as long as the campaign is interesting and original. Of course, other traditional methods would also be employed but we feel that promotion on the internet sparks more interest from more people.

3rd Day of Shooting

On Monday 13th December, our group continued filming for our short film. The location was again group member James Moss’ house. One problem had arisen a few days before, as co-star George Austin told the group he would not be available for shooting on that day. Though this was disappointing, the group proceeded, intending to collect specific shots only involving the patient.

Arriving on location just after 10:00 am, the group unpacked and began getting to work. We all agreed that our main task for today was to get the opening sequence finished and ready to upload when we got to back to school. This particular sequence is very important in the context of our film, so we knew getting it right was a must. The scene was going to be shot in the bathroom, which we had decided fitted the storyboard and original ideas nicely. Some problems arose before shooting could begin, however. Main actor David Huxford needed to be in the bath for this scene, but had not brought a change of clothes. James is a very different size to David so he was not able to allow him to borrow and clothes. David decided to go ahead with the scene, even though it would prove inconvenient for him later on. Another problem we had was with a very important piece of iconography – the radio. The radio is important as it leads to the reveal of the twist at the end of our film, so we knew that without it, the whole film was in jeopardy. After searching the house for a radio, or anything that looked remotely like one, two group members decided to go back to school and borrow one (fortunately the school was only a couple of minutes drive away). Upon returning they had found a radio and had also brought along a spare tape for the camera – a decision that would prove vital later on in the day. Of course, it was just our luck that as we were preparing the scene, James found a radio that was perfect for the scene and the whole tone of our film. Finally with the scene prepared, David got into the bath, we placed the radio on the ledge of the bath, and began filming.

The intended shot was a steady cam pan following the wire of the radio from the plug, to the radio itself, passing the patient’s lifeless body along the way. When coming up with this scene, the group knew it would be hard to complete but agreed that if we managed to pull it off it would look fantastic. What we didn’t account for was the way we were going to film it. Because the plug socket was on the floor, no tripod or tracking device would sink that low, meaning that we had to film handheld. Taylor, James and David Waters each had many tries tracking the wire, and some were successful but the group still had a feeling they could have been better. We tried putting the camera on a swivel chair with wheels and moving the chair but the noise of the wheels was too loud and the chair wasn’t as smooth as we would have liked. After changing angles slightly, the group became happier with the shot and believed we could edit it into something special.

Another important shot that needed to be completed was the ‘backwards clock’ shot. While storyboarding, the idea came up about seeing a clock ticking backwards, to give the film an eerie and supernatural tone. Though potentially a simple shot, we took time in preparing it as the clock needed to be straight and in a good area of the room. We also agreed that the camera should be in line with the clock and zoomed in very near. After positioning the camera, the group pressed record and left the camera to its own devices, as much footage had to be recorded to get the full effect of the hands ticking backwards. This gap allowed us to rest and think about what other footage needed to be recorded later.

After allowing the camera to record a significant amount of footage of the clock, we set about planning for the next scene, which was intended to be the scene where the patient can’t get his clothes as smart as we would like and begins to get agitated. Two more problems occurred though, as at first the group couldn’t decide on where to film this particular scene. One argument was that James’ house was basically too nice and wouldn’t be the kind of place where someone with mental problems and inner demons would live. Another argument was that the shots weren’t interesting enough and needed to be edited before we shot. Before those arguments could be resolved however, David Huxford was too wet from the bathroom scene to film anymore in the right clothes. The clothes are obviously important as continuity must be achieved, and with his dampness, filming had to abandoned until another day.

Fortunately, not many shots remain to be filmed and we are nearing completion. The group has agreed to film yet again on Wednesday 15th December, this time with co-star George Austin as well, giving us time to film the dressing scene, a further scene with the two characters and carry out any more shots we may have missed last time or feel need to be re-shot. Hopefully, Wednesday will be our final day of filming and we can then get around to editing the shots into our final product.

Ancillary Task - Film Posters to Influence Ours

Film posters are a major part of marketing campaigns and advertising, and can make or break a film’s success. Potential viewers of the film are usually attracted to the film by the poster. If the poster is bland and unoriginal, it will not interest people and they won’t want to see the film. However, if the poster garners immediate interest with the use of unusual images and thought-provoking taglines, it will draw awareness from the public and may convince them to go and see the film. Therefore our film poster is extremely important and we must get the correct themes and mood across to the public or our target audience will miss out on our film.

One poster that has influenced us is the poster for ‘American Psycho’ (Dir. Mary Harron, 2000). Though there are various posters for the film, this one shows main character Patrick Bateman’s lust for violence (the knife) along with his need to be seen as successful (the suit). This is similar to our main character – the patient. Though he doesn’t have a desire for violence like Patrick Bateman, he does have some deep emotional problems, but wants to hide them by looking successful and ‘ordinary’. A similar poster could be created for our film, showing our protagonist’s crazed persona along with his desperate need to be seen as ‘normal’.

While the American Psycho poster focuses on the main protagonist, other posters that have influenced us focus on unusual and intriguing images rather than characters and the actors that play them. Since our film obviously has no ‘stars’ in it, focusing on interesting images in our film may interest more of the public. The poster for the film ‘Spider’ (Dir. David Cronenberg, 2002) does have the star Ralph Fiennes on it, but it focuses more on disturbing imagery and dark, relentless colours. This poster is very murky, unveiling the film’s tone and atmosphere so that the producers can draw in their target audience. The poster sparks interest from the public and most people will take a second look at it. This is another direction our group could go down, focusing on specific imagery from our film, perhaps the blood in the sink or the backwards clock.

Another poster that has influenced us is for the film ‘American Beauty’ (Dir. Sam Mendes, 1999). Though not the same genre as our short film, the poster relies on just one image, even though the film contains two big movie stars – Kevin Spacey and Annette Bening. The image is very simple yet thought-provoking. The bright colours immediately grab the attention from people and the single image filling the whole poster has an overwhelming effect on the senses. Just from looking at the poster, the audience can tell that this film is something different and unusual to other films coming out of Hollywood. Our group may also create a poster similar in vein. By finding one specific image we could show our target audience that this film is something worth looking into as it is diverse and atypical. We should also make sure we choose the colours for the poster carefully, as colour can have a large affect on whether the public is attracted to the film. For example, since our film is a mystery thriller with a death in it, colours associated with crime and murder would be a good route to go down. Reds, browns and greys will allude the public to the tone of the film and give the poster an overbearing, envious and dirty feel. This would hopefully show people that the film is not a typical Friday night popcorn movie, but one that the audience has to engage in and think about.

Ancillary Task: How We Can Improve

To gain a better mark in the ancillary task, the poster needsto be as official as possible and resemblance to an actual film poster. There is much iconography to a film poster, and to make this more official is to entice audiences more. Howeber, the main iconography is still the main part of the poster, as the image and the title is what sets the mood for the audience about the film they're about to watch, but the reviews remove doubt in the audience's mind, and the text at the bottom (for the credits) makes the poster more official and reveals cast director etc. to the audience.

Awards are a good thing to advertise on a poster as audiences like to see a film with prestige. Many independent film posters are solely advertised on awards alone, as not many people may know either the actors or directors that were in the production of a film. An example of this would be from the film poster for ‘Looking for Eric (2009, Dir. Ken Loach). Because not many people would have known who Ken Loach and the actors were (other than Manchester United fans knowing Eric Cantona). Because of this, they advertised the 4-5 star reviews they got on the poster.

As well as this, the text at the bottom of posters (usually to show the credits of the film) would gain us marks, because it makes it official. However, making one personalised for our group would take up a lot of time, and considering time is running out rather quickly. We could possibly rob some text of another film poster saving us time, but then we would have to search for an appropriate one, which would again cost us time. However, the main focus of our group is to included the text at the bottom and reviews to entise audience members to seeing our film.

The items mentioned that need including in the final design for our poster to make it more official in terms of apperence, and to entise audience into paying money to see a film (more specifically our film). These wouldn't necessarily effect the design of the poster (such as the main image and text) but positioning is key to preventing it getting in the way of the main image and/or title of our film.

Ancilliry Task: Film Poster - First Draft

One of our group’s ancilliry tasks was todesign a film poster for our film. This is to be completed with a magazine review of our film after the film has been completed. The finished 1st draft looks blank at first glance, but initially the production towards this draft culminates all of the factors in which we want from our short film.

To begin with, the title of our film came after a long and thoughtful discussion with members ofthe group and others that we know. We got the existence part of the film as our film shows thefinal moments of our character, who is eventuallymurdered by the psychiatristin our film, but it is made out to look like suicide throughout the film. Then we want a very average name to contemplate the mood that we wished to create in our film, to which we decided on the name ‘Christian’. Coincidentally, one of the people that gave us the idea for this was a friend of our named ‘Christian’. The slight faded effect of the writing was inspired from the card that we used in the AS film opening ‘Allegiance’,as well as the fact that it represents the slowly declining mind of the main character
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On top of the title, the tagline to go with the poster needed to alert audiences of the film’s release, but it also needs to be connected with the film in some way. Because of this, I decided to make the style of writing the same as the main title (the 1st letter in small case, the rest in capitals with white spray paint to give it a faded effect). Because the story involves a patient having meetings with his psychiatrist, I decided on ‘Our next appointment is…’ as clever intertextuality between the poster and the short film. My main inspiration for this style of writing was from the same sort of style use in the film ‘eXistenZ (1999, Dir. David Crohenberg)’. It creates as sort of mental feel to the poster, as well as reflects the psyche of the mind of the main character.

The picture on the front of the poster is the part of the poster in which audiences will look at and think ‘What is that about?’ Originally the image was going to solely consist of a white shirt and a black tie (because that is what the main character wears throughout the film). However, one group member (Taylor Gladwin) made it apparent that the poster was very bland and that nobody would take interest in the poster because there isn’t anything interesting to look at. This is when we decided to make the tie a noose instead. Not only is it something more interesting to look at, but it also makes the audience believe that the main character is suicidal (when he isn’t).

Hopefully, some of the ideas used in this poster will be incorporated into the final poster used to present our film to audiences. Otherwise, if we do decide this poster to use, the group can add things to the poster to make it more appealing to audiences. This I hope will give us a better chance of gaining a better grade in the ancilliry tasks.

Influences - Shaving Scene

In our short film, there is a shaving scene where Christian (the main character) cuts himself shaving in preparation for the day. The shot is then followed by rapid editing of Christian in the countryside in the rain. The implications of this are to convince the audience that Christian is insane, and has in fact committed suicide. The main influence for this scene is the short film ‘The Big Shave’ (1967, Dir. Martin Scorsese).

In the film we can clearly see that whoever is shaving in this film, though he may look fine to begin with, he begins to cut himself. At first we see nothing wrong, to which he eventually cuts himself so often, the audience watching this realise something is wrong with this person. This short film is a microcosm of the mentality of the Vietnam War. Basically, no matter how much damage this man does to himself he keeps going causing mass harm. Similarly, No matter how many people were sent in to be massacred in the Vietnam War, more and more kept on getting sent in.

This film is a huge influence to us for not only this scene, but the mental state of the character in Scorsese’s film is similar to our film, and this mental state continues throughout our film. Because of this, this film can also be considered as an influence for the mental state of the main character (Christian) as well. However, the main reason ‘The Big Shave’ was so helpful to us was for the shaving scene in ‘Existence of Christian’.

Development of ideas

Following our 2nd day of filming the group was inspired to develop our ideas further, eventually thinking of a plot idea which we believe will significantly improve our film. Although this will involve changing both the script and storyboard, we think it will be worth the effort.

We decided that instead of the ending twist being that the psychiatrist is killed by the patient, the patient should be killed by the psychiatrist. We thought that the twist should be that the audience is led to believe that the patient has committed suicide at the start, and at the end we find out that they are actually killed by the psychiatrist, who drags the body to the bath tub we see the patient in at the start and places a suicide note by his body.

Not only will this be a more effective twist, it will allow us to implement several ideas:
- There will be a news report on the radio about killings in the area at the beginning, planting enigmas in the mind of the viewer.
- Our chosen setting of a fairly plain and conventional house will provide the perfect setting, as the psychiatrist will be calling into the patient’s house. This will allow us to make the ending effective as it will only look like a suicide if the patient is dead in his own bath tub.
- As we see a hand writing a suicide note earlier in the film, the audience will not know who the hand belongs to, again creating enigmas.

The final scene, although originally planned to be a repeat of the first scene, could be extended so that the radio says that the serial killer is posing as a psychiatrist and making the murders look like suicides.

Day 2 of shooting

On Wednesday the 8th December, with the school back open and the snow mainly cleared on most roads, we decided to take this opportunity to shoot some of the key scenes of our film. Unfortunately, there were yet more problems to come. Taylor was unable to make it due to having important lessons which he could not miss, however as the rest of the group and our actor all had free periods, and with time running out we decided that the only thing to do was to film without him.

We set off for our location (James’ house) in the hope that it would provide adequate mise-en-scene for our film. Initially, our first thought was that it would be a somewhat unimaginative setting for a film which is intended to be interesting and thought provoking, so we considered revising our setting to avoid making our film look like a run-of-the-mill sixth form film. However, we decided to do as much filming as possible while we could and see how it turned out, with the possibility of re-filming our shots in another location if the result was not satisfactory.

As it turned out, with some furniture rearrangements and strategic framing of shots, the footage we acquired turned out to look much better than expected on camera.

During the course of the day we managed to film three important scenes, including the scene where our protagonist is shaving in the mirror; the conversation between the psychiatrist and the protagonist; and the scene in which the protagonist is getting dressed.

Of the shots we attained, the one I was most proud of was of the protagonist shaving in the mirror. We achieved the effect of blood dripping into the sink with red food colouring, which proved to be the perfect texture and colour to look like blood. The positioning of the camera so that the framing was correct and the pan up to the mirror (making sure also that there were no unwanted reflections) took a long time to perfect but in the end it was worth it.

We also improvised with the camera, using camera angles and mise-en-scene not necessarily shown in the story board to create interesting shots. For example, we shot the getting dressed scene at a tilt in order to subconsciously convey a sense of something not being right to the audience. This technique has been used successfully in great films such as Twelve Monkeys (1995, Terry Gilliam); in which almost the entire film is shot at a tilt, giving viewers the distinct feeling of impending doom.

Overall, our day was rather successful, and we were even inspired to develop our ideas further, changing the storyline somewhat in the process (more on this in another post).

The Post Production Process

For the past month or so our group has been entirely focused on the pre-production phase of our project, planning the script, costumes, locations, etc. This is fine, however since we cannot go ahead with shooting until the extreme weather conditions have passed, I decided to give some thought to the post-production phase.


The editing software we will be using will be Pinnacle Studio 14. Although there are other editing software packages on the market; some of which are free to use, and some of which may be more advanced; we settled on Pinnacle as it is familiar to all of the members of our group from using it for our AS level productions. It is a high-quality software package, which is simple to use and will allow us to concentrate on making our production look professional without having to worry about re-learning anything. I also have the software available to use at home which is convenient for the group if any editing needs to be done which cannot be done during school time.

It is important that in the post-production process we learn from last year's project. One thing that I found extremely helpful when editing last year was having a well-thought out and clear storyboard on hand allowing me to put each shot in the correct order relatively easily.

It is of paramount importance that we get many different takes of each shot to make sure that we do not have to go back and re-film anything, as this can often lead to issues with continuity, as outside shots can easily be shot at different times of day or in slightly different weather conditions. We also need to make sure that we get all of our filming completed as soon as possible to allow for any problems during post-production.

It would also be helpful to have a second person on hand to give a second opinion on which shots to use and when to cut a scene, as this can often lead to better results.

2nd Day Shooting Dilemma

With the countryside footage fundamentally secured the group began to ponder over a day in which we could shoot the psychiatrist sequence. With the first and foremost priority concerning if our time-table frees interlocked, we settled on the 30th of November- a Wednesday. This would essentially serve as enough time to lock down the psychiatrist footage, with just one more day left to execute the bathroom sequence (and remaining shots).

With this arrangement set firmly in the groups minds we set off to prepare for the days shooting. With Dave devising some last minute script notions we even began to reconsider re-drafting the script for the day ahead. However, a day prior to the shooting process the BBC Weather Forecast looked somewhat daunting. Reports had been formulated stating Heavy snow and light rain showers for the night.

If the forecast was accurate to any extent, the days planning would have to be abolished. This fundamentally derived down to a series of reasons, the most predominant being the fact that if the snow was as relentless as predicted, the team wouldn’t be able to congregate at all. Secondly, the shots captured in the sequence prior were merely somewhat foggy; therefore the conflicting mise-en-scene would be extremely noticeable.

As a result, we have been left with no other choice but to shoot another day when the snow has cleared- perhaps the Friday of the week. However, one lesson to take from this unfortunate circumstance is that we need to scheme these days more thoroughly, insuring the weather will match the cinematic frameworks, and preferably earlier in the year, with more time to spare.

Choosing Our Actors

Obviously for most short films, actors need to be used to develop the story and allow the audience to make a connection with the film. Our film only uses to characters, and one of them is in every scene of the film – so must be chosen carefully.

For the character of the patient, our group searched extensively for the right actor. We had described and imagined the patient as a skinny man of average height, who looks stereotypically ‘normal’ – trying to fit in. He wears shirts and ties most of the time, attempting to look smart. His main goal in life at this time is to desperately try to hide his inner demons, so he often has a stressful feel about him. Many people from our school were considered, but nothing seemed to quite fit or some were unavailable. The shooting requires quite a lot of effort and time, meaning that people’s lives were going to be interrupted for a brief time, and with mounting school work people had to decline. After much deliberation, we decided that David Huxford, one of our group members would fit the part. Though he is quite tall and perhaps not exactly the look of the patient we were looking for, he seemed enthusiastic and enthralled to be placed under the spotlight. It turned out to be quite convenient on our first few days of shooting, as David knew the story inside out and understood what emotions and mannerisms were required. As a group we are now happy with our decision and hope that audiences to our film will connect with David’s portrayal of the character.

Finding the actor to play the psychiatrist proved to be much easier. Almost as soon as our film had its basic plot and we knew a psychiatrist was going to be involved, we all had someone in mind. Our friend George Austin is very elegant and we feel has the perfect look of a psychiatrist. First of all his beard adds sophistication to the role and gives the character a father-like quality that our group thinks can be hard to find. George also owns a very stylish coat that we may incorporate into our film as it has a look of success and will hopefully give viewers an idea of experience. George also has a very masculine yet sensitive voice, which we hope he can use to his advantage in the role – being what the patient inspires to be yet also being caring and considerably ‘normal’.

Overall we as a group feel confident in our actors and hope they can have the impact we intended the characters to have from day one.