First Scene

We have shot and edited most of the first scene. We have achieved the opening that we wanted with the fade to black and the two establishing shots of the graveyard. It has a very calm feel, which is what I wanted to achieve the quiet nature of the graveyard. The title is basic giving no indication to the plot and the twist ending of the film. We could have used a Halloween styled font, which would give the plot away, like feature films do, but as this is a short film we wanted the title to give nothing away. The film followed the script and the shots have fitted together well. We may have to cut some of the opening scene down, to focus more on the plot. Also we have to add the voice over, but we will do this when the whole film has been edited properly. 

 

We have done all of the filming now apart from one scene, which we are shooting tomorrow, and then next week we can get down to finishing the whole first cut of the film, and seeing if we need to add scenes. We can then begin to put in the music and the voice over.

film posters: The Machinist

The Machinist is a psychological thriller directed by Brad Anderson released in 2004. the film is written by Scott Kosar and stars Christian Bale. the film is in the same vein as our film as it involves a character with a problem, and because of the problem is isolated from society; In this case Bale's character Trevor has insomnia and has progressively lost weight to a worrying level. his insomnia makes him act erratically and his strange behavior leads him to be isolated from everyone, as work colleagues stay away from him. Therefore i thought of looking at the films poster in order to look for influences for my film.

             To begin with the poster strikes the viewer with its plain but striking look. The only text is the title in large bold font at the bottom of the page with a small tag line at the top. it also has the name of the actor so as to draw in fans of the actor. the poster reveals very little about the film and the tag line is pretty ambiguous, as it states a name 'trevor' and reads that he is 'four letters from the truth'. this statement is very open ended as it could have multiple meanings, leaving the very plot of the film in mystery. i really like this idea, as the poster links in with the mystery of the film, focusing on a small part of the film, in this case a post it note with hangman on it. This post makes the viewer think and causes intrigue, which i will try to duplicate in my film poster. 

Short films

The term was derived in North American and referred to films of around 20 to 40 minutes. In britain and europe however the term relates to a film spanning from a minute up to 15 minutes. Short films often focus on the visual whereas the american focus more on character. In this respect I feel that my short film has characteristics of the two; on a basic level it slots into the European idea of a short film as it is limited to 5 minutes, yet the script is based more on character mixed with the visual side. short films can also be used to test out new technologies or new camera work. We are using quite a few different camera angles and the use of flashbacks gives the film the abstract edginess, which is added to by the mystery of the script. Short films often have little or no budget, as do we, so rely on the camera angles and the editing to get the ideas portrayed. We have to do this and also have to rely on the acting, as the acting is pivotal to the suspense of the film, and with very little chance to use special effects we have to rely on the acting and editing, as do many short films.

shooting script-Scene one

Scene 1

Start with black screen with music quite loud and weird. Title appears on black screen followed by directors name. Then a few more seconds of black screen and suddenly music stops and screen cuts to a medium close up of the man sitting by gravestone with diajetic sounds that are naturally there. The man looks down at his wrists and the camera follows his gaze, in a documentary style way, for a few moments and then slowly looks up, in sync with the camera, and looks right into camera. Non-diajetic voice over of mans thoughts. He tells the viewer of his feeling of isolation in the past two weeks, with people ignoring him. the camera switches to a longer shot if the whole of the man, the gravestone and a few gravestones behind. The camera, using the man as a pivot point moves around him in a 360 degree pan, while the man is talking. There are flashes of him walking down the street being ignored. In the flashback the man is in colour  whilst everyone else is in black and white. The flashback only last a few seconds while the man is talking about people ignoring him. the shot fades back to graveyard with the man still talking. The next shot is in the graveyard with a high angle medium close up of the man talking, as if the viewer is looking down at this man. He talks about what he has to do to be recognized, for example murdering someone, and here we have a short cut to him holding a gun to someones head in a long shot. This seen is meant to be darkly comedic and only last briefly. The shot fades back to the graveyard with the non diajetic thoughts of the man as he tries to pick up a cigarette of his lap. The camera again follows his gaze in a medium close up shot, like a documentary. The man can’t grasp a cigarette and he blames it on his alcohol consumsion. He looks back up at the camera and exclaims he hasn’t done anything but sit on this grave for days. The shot last a few seconds as the music gets louder for a few seconds and the camera fade to black with the music louder.

 

locations, props and costumes

For the film the main shooting location is in a graveyard. the graveyard had to have quite new gravestones, as the man has only recently died. We visited a few graveyard's around the town and found the perfect church, situated on a hill. The graveyard has good natural lighting, especially at sun set which cast a dramatic light over everything. It also has some interesting features, such as sculptures. It also has old and new gravestones, which is the main factor we wanted.

     For the flashback and future scenes we needed to shoot in a house, at a party, in an office and on a street. We used the our main actor jack's house. It is situated in the middle of a town and is medium sized, which is the type of location our main character would be likely to live in. For the office we shot in an office at the school.

     The main character is meant to look as if he has had a long night and ended up sleeping in the graveyard. He is meant to be quite well off and have the look of a fallen man. we decided to put him in a shirt and a jacket to give this idea of a one time professional man. the jacket is however grey and quite worn to give the idea that he's not washed it and been sleeping rough recently. The jacket only features in the scenes in which he has began to fall apart, for instance he is not wearing it in the office scene however when he is walking down the street he is wearing it.

     The most difficult prop we had to find was a gun. We could have just bought a cheap plastic toy gun from a toy shop however I wanted it to have a realism. I asked around and my friend had a replica bb-gun, which was perfect for the short scene.