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. 

This is the first draft of the script and we will adjust it and cut or edit parts as we go along.Short film script:SCENE 1:Screen starts of black with title and credits and cuts to man sitting at gravestone. Man sitting down on grass leaning against head stone, quite relaxed and looking confident. He is average height, average build, average age with average hair and an average stare. The only thing slightly odd about the Man is a slight vagueness to his features. Camera starts with close up of mans face.

(Camera zooms out as a passer by walks in front of the camera and is tracked)Man: Hello

Passer by: *Coughs* (walks on, taking no notice)

 (Man looks straight at the camera and begins to divulge his story non-diajetically)

Man: Don’t you hate it when people look right through you? (Nods head towards that passer by) I seem to get it all the time. I swear no one even knows I exist. I know I am great lookin’ and all but Jesus is it too much to ask for a little attention!

 (Camera fades to flashback of the man walking down the street alone)

 Man: I walk the streets that I once bounded down but now, no matter what, even if I back flip the full length of the town no one takes a second glance.(Camera fades back to man, with a high angle shot looking down at him as he looks up.)Man:  I feel like I have done some unthinkable crime that everyone knows I have committed, but are too scared to mention it. But no it’s not even like that; I look in these peoples eyes and I see nothing.   (The man stares at camera for a few seconds then looks down and the camera begins 360 pan around man, as he continues to mentally tell us his tale)Man: Surely if I had murdered a mother and her 2.4 children or blown up some bus I would strike fear into these people but they just look blankly at me. It’s like those guys you see from time to time that just have something about them; they have an innate power surrounding them that just tells you they have shot a guy.(Camera flashes to the man’s thought of him shooting someone)Man in thought: I am going to kill you! Get down of your fucking knees and beg!(Scene only lasts few seconds and flashes back to graveyard, with a medium close up shot of the man smirking)Man: However, I talk now about killing but I could never go through with it. Don’t have any guts you see. I could never be one of those guys. I wouldn’t even know which way to hold a gun let alone take someone’s life. (Smirks again) And if I’m honest I can’t back flip down the street; my arms don’t seem to work like they used too.(Camera follows the Mans gaze down to his lap as he tries to grasp the cigarette but cannot, and the man looks back up to the camera, and speaks out loud.)Man: I can’t even hold a cigarette anymore. In fact I find it hard to do anything with my fingers now since that black out I had a few weeks ago. I’ve just sat around on this grave for days on end, doing nothing and…(The man looks away from camera, trying to think. Screen goes black for a second then comes back with him shaking his head still trying to think. The entrance music begins again getting sharply louder as the man searches his thoughts and the screen slowly fade to black as the music reaches its peak.)

 

SCENE 2:The scene fades from black to a medium close up of the mans face again. He rubs his face on his shoulder, faces back at the camera and blinks, seeming to wake himself up. He starts to speak, non diajetically again.

 Man: Anyway every human needs companionship don’t they. I wish some one would acknowledge me in some way. Heck, I’d even take a smack in the mouth above this ignorance people show towards me. ( Smirks to himself) I’ve got a lot to give, you see. Even though my accent is, as my Father would put it, common I am a well educated man and have a degree in art under my belt. (Pfft) What fucking good that ever did.I should be flying high, going to parties, getting wasted, fucking celebrities…(Scene flashes to party quickly, like before and then back to man. The camera begins to circle the grave stone again and after one pan the camera settles on a medium close up..)Man: But I seem to have been dealt a bad hand. I have worked hard all my life at school, in Uni, at work but still people haven’t noticed my potential. My Dad had a good name for the youth of today when I was young; wasted potential. And I had become the very thing I swore I would rise above. Ah well who cares.(Shot fades away again for a brief moment with just sounds of graveyard, then fades back into previous shot of the man.)Man: You may be thinking I have always been lonely and always been an old windbag, whinging about his life but I was once happy (slight smile in corner of mouth) I met this woman. She was young and beautiful. We fell in love.(Scene flashes to couple walking along street holding hands then flashes back)Man: We went out. We got married. We had a child. We were happy. We were average…(Expression changes to look of despair)Man: We were bored. I had the ‘perfect’ life and then I went and fucked it up.(He bangs his head on the gravestone and the scene cuts to image of a girl at a work desk, the music begins t get more dramatic.)In hindsight sleeping with my secretary was not the best of ideas but at the time I needed something exciting, to make me feel alive.(Scene then flashes to the man holding a box leaving an office block, the cuts to a long sceene of a woman and child walking away from him. this all coincides with the dialogue.)Man: However that one night of passion followed by awkward day at the office led to a sexual harassment charge, me being sacked from the museum and my wife subsequently taking her perfect self and our Jeremy away with her. That bitch took him away from me, my own son, just because I hand a fling with the office whore.(The shot fades from the mother and child walking away back to the graveyard with the man Looking away, suddenly thinking).Man: Saying that if I knew the consequences would I still have done it? …(Out loud)  Probably.

 SCENE 3:(Over shoulder shot looking at the graveyard, as we see what the man is looking at. There is a person walking around reading a gravestone, not even noticing the man.)man: When I was growing up I had a pressure placed on me to succeed. It was my dad. He was always pushing me to do well ever since I did my first Jackson Pollock at the age of four. He forced me into art school and then of too Slade, in London, which led to my degree. (flash of graduation day) After that however I became THE disappointment.(He lets out an ironic chuckle.)man; I guess I just wanted a bit of love but I left behind my art and went to work in the History Museum.(Camera fades back to medium close up of man)Man: This shocked him and I was forever labelled as the black mark in the family. Now you may say the history museum curator of fossils is a respectable job but when you have a sibling in government and the female Einstein (Flash picture of Einstein) for a sister then you can see why I am seen as the weak link. But I was always told I would be special. (Out loud) And I became ‘the wasted potential.(Shrugs shoulders and slouches, losing confidence and screen fades black and back again)Man: Naturally when I settled into my mediocre job (Flash wedding photo) and my mediocre wife and acquired my mediocre child I became very, very, very bored. The love died and Jayne became one of those ‘soccer mums’ you hear about complaining to head teachers about a staff member telling of her precious child because he just threw a ball at another kids head. (scene fades to family room, with man over top) I began to look on my family with distain and this led to the affair, my family leaving me and then the drinking. (This family scene fades to man in house alone drinking and watching horror film) One day I just went down to the local Co-op, bought a bottle of vodka and a remake of some 80’s horror film, went home and drank the whole bottle. (Scene fades back to grave yard this time the man talks out loud)Man: Now I didn’t get addicted; I’m not going to whine about how I crave liqueur like those people you see on daytime TV shows, crying how they have destroyed their family and then blaming it on alcohol. I just chose to drink. That simple. It gave me something to look forward too and to take my mind of stuff. It made me happy.(Scene fades to black with man giving slight smirk again)

Scene 4:(Scene opens with close up of man)Man: Anyway back to my point, I wonder why people ignore me. These past two weeks have been hard, with her leaving me and now I can’t seem to connect with people. It’s like my chord with reality has been cut; I’m watching my life through a plastic screen. ( Out loud)Why is that? When she left did she take more then my car?(Leaning forward, resting head on his hands)I don’t know. it’s all a blur really.(Shaking head in a confused manner)Maybe the drink is blurring my memory. Actually what have I been doing this past fortnight? It’s all jumbled.(Sitting bolt up)Graveyard?( Fade to long establishing shot of grave yard then back to close up with man Looking around him)I’ve been hanging around this graveyard? Yes. I remember, yes, I have been spending a lot of time here at the local graveyard. Don’t ask me why, I just have been drawn to it, in my alcohol ridden state I ‘spose. I always sit by this new headstone too…(Points over his shoulder)…only been here two weeks I think. I just sit here, thinking drunken thoughts, having these nightmarish flashbacks to memories I haven’t lived through. ( cuts to scene of man in toilet) There’s always this man in my dreams, a downtrodden man who’d been dealt a bad hand. I see him sat in the bathroom, empty bottles surrounding him. He is sat propped up by the bath, sat in a pool of red liquid. There are slashes on his wrists.(Fades to extreme close up) It’s Blood…(Stares forward)… His blood!?(Turns around and reads the headstone. His face suddenly takes on a transparent look and he slowly fades into the damp earth.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

audience research:questionairre and evaluation

EVALUATION

This is a questionnaire I gave out to research what people like in films, especially thrillers and films with monologues. I gave them to 7 males and 6 females. This would have only slightly biased the result in favor of the male point of view.

It is not surprising that all of the males said they like thrillers, as there are many mainstream male thriller films. However only 3 of the females said they liked thrillers maybe hinting my audience should be slightly more male based. Both sexes said there had to be 'a lot of action' in the thrillers and 'interesting stories'. The fact that they see action as important pushes me away from mainstream fillers, and I will aim to make more of a psychological thriller mixed with drama. This I feel my monologue already has which is positive. Another positive almost all but two said they like to see a murder or death in a film and all said they like to be shocked. A surprising aspect was that more females said they like to have least a certain element of comedy in films than the males. This could be down to an anomaly, as I would have assumed the males are generally more into comedy then females. Obviously not! However this does help me as I will try and incorporate some of the comedy elements of the monologue script to target a wider audience. A final interesting and helpful idea I got from this research was that 'eerie' and somber' and 'exciting' music is associated with Thrillers. This research has shown me how to make a film suitable for a real audience and what the general feeling is towards plot based films and thrillers. I think the film will be more of a drama with a bit of comedy and a thriller-istic end!

Questionnaire
My name is Charlie Quainton and I am studying A level media at Sheldon School. This is a questionnaire to do initial research into what people want to see out of short film. Thank you for your time and circle appropriate.

1) Male / Female
2) Do you like Thrillers? Yes No
3) What would you say defines a thriller? ___________________________________________________________
4) Do you like thrillers have to involve a death/murder of some kind? Yes No
5) Do you like a lot of action in your films? Yes No
6) If no what films do you prefer? ________________________________
7) Do you like there to be a strong plot in a film? Yes No
8) Do you like being shocked when you see a film? Yes No
9) Do you like monologues in films? Yes No
10) Do you think all films need elements of comedy? Yes No
11) What kind of music do you associate with Thrillers? ____________________________
Thankyou for your time x