Reflective Journal 11/04/16 – 14/04/16
On these two days of college, I worked on my script and pieces of research. I learnt that I had in fact a lot of research to carry out in order for a successful production. I had originally done some research of certain subjects within my production, but released a lot more was needed, as I actually don’t know much about rape.
It has given me insight into the fact that rape is a very sensitive topic and I must put a lot of thought and research into it before carrying out filming.
I know understand how important research is to a production, and that it is impossible to create a meaningful and engaging production without it.
This knowledge is useful for my future productions, as I never put effort into research at all, such as only research the budget on a production. Now I will look into ever topic and aspect of my production and idea before carrying it out.
This realisation overall added some stress because I realised the workload I will have to do before the deadline. It has affected me emotionally because it has made me feel as though I will not be able to get it all done in time. However, it has also given me motivation and drive to get it done quicker, which could also be a bad thing, as it could seem rushed.
The action to be taken is to increase my workload and to also speed it up. This will be hard with the time left, but I feel as though it is all still possible.
When writing my script I realised how difficult it is to come up with engaging and interesting content and speech to keep my audience captive and paying attention. I have never had to write script that was for a drama before and I am finding it difficult to do it successfully.
I have many ideas about how I would like my shots to be filmed, but I am struggling with how to put them into script form. Despite difficulties with the script I am hoping that by the end of this production, I will learn anew skill on potentially being more creative when it comes to dialogue.
Reflective Journal – Brief
This reflective log is about reading through and annotating the FMP (Final Major Project) brief. This was on the 14th March 2016 from 9:00am-11:am.
I learnt exactly what I would need to be doing and when I will have need to done each task by, just like a step-by-step guide. This helped me a lot, as I felt a lot more organised and it also didn’t feel like as much as I originally thought it was going to be. I also started to understand a few factors about certain tasks that I was unsure about, for example, what research was necessarily wanted/needed.
I felt good about going through the brief with everyone because we could al ask questions and help each other figure stuff out, and just all round help us to understand the brief, especially through annotating the important factors of each task.
This did not affect me emotionally, the only way it did was in the way that I was slightly stressed out, but I felt more organised so it was okay.
I enjoyed someone else reading through the brief, because it made it easier to understand. However, I didn’t enjoy the fact that some of the tasks didn’t relate to me, such as having a script because I do not have any speech in my production, therefore will need to do a different kind of script. This brought stress because now I will learn how to format a completely different style of script.
Going through the brief has made me realise the amount of research I will need to carry out and that I need to start now in order to get a distinction.
I feel confident with the brief and my idea, in a sense that I feel like I can do it in time and that it’s a strong idea. The only thing I am possibly worried about is being able to Photoshop Donald Trump into the production.
Reflective Journal – Budget
I learnt that even for a low-budget short film, if I wanted the best, for a total of five days work, it would cost me £15,000 overall. Hopefully, if this was in that case, where I would be paying for the best, I would make profit off the release of it, depending on where it were to end up. For example I could send it to film festivals/challenges and potentially get my film out into the public, or at least my name out there.
I now understand from doing this budget that; ideally I would need a loan of money to create my film.
I felt good after doing this budget because it actually helped me to figure out how long I would need to film and edit for, and like the majority of other pre-production tasks, made me feel organised.
I also enjoyed writing up my budget because it was definitely one of the easier and quicker tasks to do. Luckily it was easy to do as well because Excel would calculate everything up for m and give me my total amount.
I did learn, however, that my budget for this production is £10,000 and I went over by £5,000, this again would mean I would have to go into my own money for this production.
Reflective Journal – Problem Solving
I learnt that during the filming and editing process there are more things than I thought that could go wrong, and that if one of these were to actually go wrong, it could damage the whole production massively.
Doing this gave me an insight into the precautions I will have to take to make sure none of these risks pop up during production.
After doing this I now understand that in order for a successful production, I need to be organise and punctual to the best of my ability, so that I can get the grade I have set out to achieve.
I feel that after doing this task, I now know how many YouTube tutorials there are on how to do certain tasks such as making lighting using cheap IKEA products.
This has affected me emotionally because I have realised how much could go wrong and that makes me nervous for actually filming, as I often forget to do simple tasks and can be quite unorganised.
I liked, however, that this made me feel more organised and that I would find it easier to carry out filming in hope nothing could go wrong.
I disliked the fact that I did not know about how many risks could come up during filming and post-production. This caused me a lot of stress because it also me realise how much I have to do before filming and how much I have to do after filming to make sure everything runs smoothly.
I found it easy to come up with solutions to each individual problem, as I have a solution already, however I would find it hard to necessarily solve these issues.
Reflective Journal – Proposal
24th March 2016
Through writing my proposal for my FMP I learnt a number of different things, for example, writing a proposal is a lot harder than I originally thought it to be, and actually coming up with an idea can be very difficult.
This gave me an insight into how hard it will be to actually send off a proposal to a production company, let alone just write it.
It helped me to try and bring out my more creative side as I feel like I lost that since the first year of college.
Doing this proposal is useful for my future and potential career as I now have a template for writing proposals in the future, of course they will have to be longer and more in-depth but I now have this to help me.
This particular task affected me emotionally because I had originally come up with an idea, which I thought to be original and current, but was told it would not get any laughs and my audience may not understand the humour behind it. I understood and appreciated this feedback, but it threw me back a lot and forced me to adjust my idea it make it better and more doable in a shorter space of time.
I do now think my idea is more doable than the previous but it will be harder to come up with a script as I will need an in-depth storyline to engage my audience.
I enjoyed coming up with my idea, but find it extremely stressful at the best of times. What I enjoyed most was looking at similar products. I found it easiest to speak about how I will evaluate and research my idea, but found coming up with the concept the hardest.
Reflective Journal – Risk Assessment
Through doing my risk assessment, I learnt a number of things, for example it allowed me to realise all the risks that could happen to my crew, actors and the public. It wasn’t the risks that could go wrong for me, or the filming process but the risks such as the public potentially being worried by a scene they saw (murder scene) and calling the police on us. This helped me to understand that I will need a few people around me on the crew to help and, for example, warn the public around that anything harmful they may see is solely for a student film and there is nothing to worry about.
This gave me insight into the fact that, in previous productions, I have never had a crew or people helping me before, and therefore hadn’t realise before how much could go wrong with the public and the dangers. However, before I have never done a production with as many potentially harmful scenes as this production has, such as loud music playing from a house or violence in public.
I felt good after creating my risk assessment as it made me feel like everyone helping me will then be safe and I won’t have to worry about these risks, as we will all know about them.
It affected me emotionally in the sense that I felt more at ease, surrounding the whole production and also helped me to realise that I would need to let actors know before applying for my film.
I liked writing up the risks because it made me feel more organised but what I did not like about it was that, although I know how to solve these problems, the worry of them actually happening puts stress on the whole production process.
Reflective Journal – Call Sheet
Through doing the call sheet I learnt various different things, such as the nearest hospitals to me, and the nearest police stations. It gave me the knowledge I needed to carry out my production successfully. Everything ran smoothly as I knew what the weather was going to be and when it would go dark. It was last minute that I filmed, therefore last minute creating the call sheet, so I couldn’t change much about the fact that it was raining, but at least I could prepare for it.
I also understood that from looking into all these things, it could affect my production and overall outcome of the production. However, knowing this allowed me to also warn my actors about their clothes potentially getting muddy and informing them to either bring a change or be okay with it.
After creating my call sheet I felt better about the whole production, it made me feel more organised and like I could go though the film with ease and that everyone would also be happy and feel safe.
The call sheet did not affect me emotionally, but I did enjoy doing it, it felt good to get everything sorted.
I also learnt how much actually needs to go into a call sheet; there are so many different factors to look into that are of huge importance to the filming process.
Reflective Journal – StarNow/Actors
During this process, I learnt that actors are near to impossible to get a hold of, let alone film with them, with two weeks left of my unit, I have failed to come into contact with any actors that even live near enough, let alone are actually right for the part.
I have had someone from America apply to be an actor in my short film, which would never work.
Therefore, from this process I have learnt that I need to put an ad out for the film months before filming, which I couldn’t have done as I didn’t have an idea at that point. I could also offer paid work which may get more respondents, but as I am a student myself, that would have been impossible. It may have also helped if I had friends that did drama at school or were in the process of studying it.
I also felt that if I had less sensitive content in my film, it wouldn’t have taken so long to verify it on StarNow and more people probably would have applied.
It would have also been easier if we had more time in general for the whole FMP.
This has made me realise how much I enjoyed doing the BTEC course more than UAL. I now understand however, that as much as real actors may be important for a production, they are difficult to find, may not be available or have the right image that you had in your head when thinking up the idea and writing the script.
Getting actors has overall, been the hardest and most stressful task for me so far for many different reasons, which are the following;
· Meeting new people and putting own ideas and work out into the public eye us a terrifying thought and something I would have found difficult to overcome had the right actors applied for my film.
· It has wasted a lot of my time as I have two weeks left until the due date, with no actors and no decent footage for the final piece.
· This has then meant that I will have to use my friends who have never done a day of acting in their life, to act in my film. This is bad as acting is marked on and will effect my final grade overall, and my chances of getting to university are slimmer.
Reflective Journal – Target Audience Research
When carrying out my target audience research I had learnt, simply, what my target audience would be for my short film. I looked at Channel 4 shorts and dramas, BBC dramas, film festivals and challenges, the audiences for similar products. It allowed me to figure out what sort of content was right to put in my production, whether it should be in-depth, or would the audience understand it if it was.
It gave me the insight that I don’t necessarily need to have a film that has incredible acting, or amazing dialogue, although if I did it would be even better. However, that I could use the skills that I have and my audience would still like it just because it involves current issues and controversy, such as rape and homosexuality.
I felt good after doing this research because I didn’t have too much confidence in my product, as I didn’t feel like I would be able to pull it off, and having to adapt my idea so late in the process.
I found it quite easy to look into the Channel 4 audience, as they are a channel that takes a lot of pride in knowing their audience and design everything around that. They know who watches them and therefore how to draw others in.
Reflective Journal – VOX Pops, Focus Groups + Survey Monkey
Through doing a VOX pop I learnt that my short film was easy to understand when I were to read it out and describe what was going on, but when actually reading it off paper, it did not make much sense to anyone else but me.
I then re-wrote my script a couple of times and read through it and asked friends if they understood what was going on, and they did.
When I did my online focus group I asked similar questions to those in my survey monkey. The focus group was based around my friends, and was therefore a little bias, so did not help me much, but my survey monkey were people who could remain anonymous, so were free to voice their truthful opinions on my idea. I learnt that majority of feedback was positive toward me, and that it could be successful once produced.
To help me with getting my script to the final draft I acted out the murder scene with my friends to see which would be the best and most appropriate way to carry the scene out. This helped a lot and gave me an insight that I do not necessarily need to use curse words and I don’t need to show as much gore as I originally thought, for it to be engaging.
I felt happy once all of this was done because the script and coming up with my final idea was wasting a lot of time for me, and had I gotten it done sooner, I wouldn’t be as far behind as I am at this point in time.
It took a huge weight off my shoulders, and allowed me to actually be able to imagine what the scenes would look like in my head, which all in all makes it easier to film them.
The action taken after carrying out these tasks was that I had realised I needed a clearer and more engaging script with more dialogue and I have gained that from this experience.
Reflective Journal – 18/04/16
I learnt a lot more about rape and the issues surrounding it today. I also learnt that my audience would be easily offended, by my short film, as all of the responses on my survey had said they would not watch a film about rape. However, the majority of responses said that they would watch my short film.
It helped me to see that I should try and make the death scene and rape scene less graphic than I had originally planned to. This was useful knowledge to me because I learnt that what I may be okay with watching, a lot of people would not.
I have felt successful today as I feel I have completed a lot of research, and now have a stronger image of what I want my production to be, in my head. It affected my emotionally as I feel a huge weight has been lifted off of my shoulder, at least until the next task has to be done.
My survey questions turned out to be quite alarming to the people answering, and I have had some people come back and tell me they felt uncomfortable filling it out. Despite this factor, I received plenty of helpful responses, and am now warning people before they fill it out.
I have disliked the fact that I may have to change my film slightly, in terms of the amount of graphic imagery I wanted to include.
Reflective Journal - Survey Monkey Results
I learnt a lot through creating and getting results from my two survey monkeys. First of all, I learnt that I need to know how to phrase my questions that, first off make more sense, and second are more sensitive to the people reading them when answering them.
Despite this, I also learnt how my audience would take in my film once produced. Most people were comfortable with the whole idea, but I had a couple of people that weren’t even able to answer them as, as soon as they opened the survey they felt sensitive towards the topic. Therefore, instantly learnt that despite the fact I’m not showing the rape or any real violence, just the pure thought and suggestion of it can harm people, so I will have to have a content warning at the beginning.
I also learnt that the majority of people would rather see the rapists tortured and have destroyed what they used to destroy the girls lives. I had originally decided my film to result in the murder of Andrew and Reece, but after my survey decided to either castrate, beat them up or destroy their genitalia in one way or another.
I enjoyed having this survey done because it helped me to understand and identify my audience a lot more. I knew that my audience would be people who would see a rape scene, understand it, but not necessarily be affected by it in a negative way. I understood what I wanted my film to do and how I wanted it to come across after doing this survey, I also felt more sure of what I was doing after this.
Reflective Journal – Storyboard
Through doing my storyboard/animatic I learnt that anyone could near enough find a picture of absolutely anything on Google. Even looking for a picture of someone opening his or her front door at a medium shot is on Google.
The knowledge this gave me was that I no longer needed to attempt at drawing a storyboard, as I’m a terrible artist. My storyboards never used to make any sense to other people looking at them. They also made a lot more sense to me, as I could use Photoshop – which also helped me with learning new skills – to easily make an image look like a drawing. It was also then very easy to put each image all together into Final Cut Pro and save as a master file. With this I could then share it with friends and on social media to find out if people like the look and idea behind my film.
The only thing I disliked about creating the storyboard was how much time it took up, as despite the fact there is a picture of almost anything of Google, the fact of finding it is a long process, and then actually editing each one in Photoshop took some time. There was also the case of it being a stock photo, which meant having to rub out the logo in Photoshop, once again making everything a lot longer.
Reflective Journal – Filming May 9th
I learnt that ideally, finding my actors on the day is not the best idea for future projects, although it all worked out, it meant filming an extra day because we didn’t have our male actors. This then meant using up the time of my actors from the first day.
The knowledge I gained from this first day of filming was that it’s also ideal to plan an empty house before having to play loud music and have strobe lights when family is home. This wasn’t an issue, but had it been a difficult evening, I wouldn’t have been able to film. Overall I learnt that I needed to plan ahead of production by about 3 weeks, despite the fact I had planned for a while, I hadn’t looked into the little details, which arose certain issues.
It helped me to see how tiring I actually found it, doing it all on my own. It would have been a whole lot easier on me had I had other people helping me on crew, such as lighting and sound. I learnt quickly when trying to capture sound that my camera was struggling to pick it up successfully. It ended up working out in the end, as in post-production I could just turn the volume up.
I felt a lot of relief after the first day of filming as I had gotten the majority of shots I needed, and only, then, needed the ones with the male actors to complete the process. During the first day I managed to get a hold of a male actor that would be free the next day, and luckily so were all the other actors from the first day.
I enjoyed filming a lot; it’s my favourite task within any unit as I hope to be a camera operator in the future. Ideally it would have run smoother, but it was still a lot of fun, and my actors had stated how much they enjoyed it.
Reflective Log – Filming May 10th
The second day of filming pretty much ran the same way as the first day but took a shorter amount of time as I had less shots to film. The only difficulty with the second day was capturing the same lighting as the first day as we had to go back and film some of the park scenes that we got the previous day. Luckily, these shots were all the same lighting and there were no issues there. The only issue was when I filmed my male actor outside; it was a different lighting to the first day when I had filmed my house. This changed the outcome of the film slightly as I could no longer use one of those shots and it was too difficult to colour correct on Final Cut Pro.
I enjoyed this day more than the first, as we finished earlier and I had completed all the shots I needed to start editing, which therefore relieved a lot of stress and I could move onto the next task.
Reflective Journal – Editing
First of all, I learnt how much thought and concentration actually needs to go into editing a drama. With previous projects I have had, there has been no worry about necessarily colour correcting, or continuity, editing techniques, or sound. The whole editing process took about a week longer than I originally wanted it to, as I had to keep adapting it, especially with the audience feedback I got from each edit, there were always changed that people had suggested to potentially make my film better. Although I appreciated the feedback on each edit, it was very stressful as I was editing right up until the last day, and still feels as though it is partially incomplete.
However, despite the stress of it being last minute and not necessarily being the film I hoped to have in the beginning, but I am still happy with the end product and feel like it is possibly the best project I have completed and one that I am most proud of.
A couple of things I learnt in this editing process ware; how to colour correct, how to edit an audio file, how to zoom in in post. These will all help me with future projects in the future and hopefully increase my skills and knowledge around the topic so that I will maybe be able to have a career in editing as well.
I enjoyed this task a lot as well; as I love to see all my shots come together to create the project I had thought up. There is always a massive sense of accomplishment with finishing an edit.
Reflective Journal – Feedback from tutors
The feedback from my tutors was majority very useful, but also added a lot of stress to the whole project as it meant there were a lot of things, which needed to be changed and adapted in a short space of time. One of the first tasks, which I received, was about my proposal. I spoke to my tutor a lot during this process, as I was never confident with my idea or how to go about it. My first idea was to do with Donald Trump and I knew a lot of people wouldn’t get it, and didn’t know how to correctly portray it. My tutor informed me that this idea would be difficult to get laughs out of people with, and that I should try to think up a different idea.
I then knew I wanted to do something including lesbians or the LGBTQ community as I feel passionately about it. My tutor backed me with this idea, which gave me the support I needed to carry out the project. I felt at ease after discussing my idea with her, and we bounced different ideas off of each other. I felt a lot let stress after this as I felt like the project was moving forward.
The next task that I received a lot of feedback from was my editing. My first draft of my edit I knew needed a lot of work to be done on it, but I had got all the shots I wanted and needed to include in it. I just needed the correct feedback and guidance on how to properly improve it. I first received feedback from friends, family and the actors, which helped me a lot. I then took to my tutor who gave me technical updates, such as changing the contrast, making the fight scene faster, as at normal pace you could tell they weren’t actually getting hit. With a bit of her help and her guidance on how to zoom in on shots, and speed them up right down to the split second, I created project I wanted to create all along and was eventually happy with it. It may have caused me a lot of stress in that one week, but that stress gave me the motivation to finish it correctly, as I was already to the point of leaving the edit how it was, unfinished. This would have meant for a worse grade had my tutor not pushed me.
