Directions Unit- Idea development over the Christmas Holidays

Over the Christmas holidays I have spent a lot of time developing my previous ideas about my 4 minute short film about "A Journey Through Freedom."
In my previous blog entry, I briefly discussed an alternative idea I had come up with about a character living life in the same way as a character from George Orwell's classic novel "1984". I have since decided that this alternative idea would in fact be a much easier film to create, as well as a much more effective story overall.
I have also been thinking about camera styles and how exactly I would like my film to be shot. I have recently been watching a lot of the films from the "Paranormal Activity" series, and although the acting and storytelling in those films isn't anything stellar, or something I'd like to emulate, I must admit the idea of the camera being a physical object in the film as opposed to some omnipotent eyepiece is something that interests me.
If I were to tell the story of somebody living their life while constantly spied  on by hidden cameras (ala The Truman Show) I would be able to express the character's need to break free from their life, and show the story of a character trying their best to escape from a life which they have no control over- a life where they are simply a subject to be spied upon and watched.
This would be great for the theme of Freedom.

Paranormal Activity

 

I have attached a screencap of one of the paranormal activity films here to demonstrate the kind of shot I would want my film to be filmed like in terms of camera placement and such. You can see clearly that there is a timestamp present which suggests that the camera is a physical object in the scene, much like a CCTV camera.

I believe this sort of feature is something that would be a great thing to insert during the editing phase of my film, giving it a sense of it being "found footage" or security camera footage.

I am still undecided as to whether or not my film will be shot in this way in part or whole, but I expect it will most likely just be sections of my film that is recorded in this way.

 

 

 

Directions Unit- More development of 4 minute short film idea.

I have spent some time recently developing my idea about my 4 minute short film which has already been scripted ( I only have to direct.)
Since the theme I chose was "freedom" my original idea was to base the story on a prisoner in jail who meets with another character who provides them with some kind of object which will allow them to escape from the prison (such as a file or a crowbar of some kind.) The only problem with this would be the inconvenience of having to create a set that would resemble a prison cell, and also a set which could represent the outside of a prison.
Baring this in mind, I have been developing an alternative idea, which although revolves around the same idea of a prisoner not being able to leave an area and another character giving them an item to help them escape. However, instead of the character being in prison, the setting could be some kind of post-modern "Big Brother" type scenario, where the "Prisoner" is kept hostage and monitored in an everyday house, similar to the George Orwell story "1984".
Although with the second story the setting would not be in a prison, the theme of "freedom" would still be present.
I will continue to generate more ideas for stories, and will probably decide on which one to use for my project over the Christmas holidays.

Directions Unit- Gregory Crewdson Photographs and Planning to Direct a 4 Minute Short Film.

I have recently begun my new unit at university, which is entitled "Directions." This unit mostly focuses on moulding me into a better director, and seems to target my skills as a director, as opposed to script-writing, camera work or any form of editing.
The first part of this unit involves me creating a 1 minute sound design piece featuring a photograph by the photographic artist Gregory Crewdson. The aim of this project will be to tell a story using a photograph using only sound. I will not be able to manipulate the photograph in any way, and the only visual enhancements I may use are to zoom into certain parts of the photograph when I wants to show that a specific sound is playing from a specific area.
The class has been given a choice of which Gregory Crewdson photograph they would like to work on, and one that I am particularly interested in using is his "House Fire" photograph shown here:

The reason I am planning on using this image as opposed to the others is that this is definitely the scene which has the most "action." I believe there's potential for me to make a much more interesting sound design piece if there is a lot going on in the image.

The second part of my project involves me creating a 4 minute short film based on "A Journey Through..." The catch with this project is that I can only operate in a Directors capacity. This means I cannot write my own script, film my own scenes, appear in my own film or do my own editing. For this project, I had to choose what my journey would be through. The choices were:

• Sorrow
• Love
• Anger
• Freedom
• Loneliness

I decided to choose Freedom as my journey piece, with the reason being that the script I was given to direct by immediately brought a particular storyline into my head which would work if it had Freedom as the main "theme" of the film.

Storytelling unit: Critical response and trailer feedback

I have recently completed my 2 minute trailer and uploaded it to the UCA TV Production YouTube channel, (here) and have since received critical feedback from both my course leader as well as my class-mates at a screening that was held at the Maidstone TV Studios where we are based.

Firstly I found it to be a very valuable and interesting experience to have my work critiqued by people who had also completed their own projects, as opposed to randomly chosen viewers, as my classmates and course leader had a better understanding of the amount of work that had gone into making said trailer, and would therefore take small mistakes and inconsistencies into account when watching it. I believe people that hadn't completed the same project as me may have critiqued the work more harshly.
The majority of the actual feedback I received was positive, with the main criticism being that the "eviction" notice that appears in my trailer was a hand-written one as opposed to one that I had created digitally and printed off.

Looking back however, I have a few criticisms of my own, mostly about the ways I shot the film. I feel like I should have made more use of the cameras focusing features, to create good depth of field. In my trailer however, all shots are perfectly clear, which although gives my film the look of perfect quality, makes it lack the depth it could have had if I had made more use of the focusing as opposed to using autofocus.

I have thoroughly enjoyed working on this unit, and I feel I have learnt a lot about what it takes to script, film and edit a trailer, as well as what it takes to perform in front of a camera. As such, I will be able to control my actors in later film pieces in a much more efficient and effective way due to my own experiences in front of the camera.