Unit 21 M3: Pitch feedback

The client for BBC three was represented by Kristel Hutchings and Alex Van Zomerplaag. and after my pitch, she quizzed me on all the gaps and issues that may arise or are present in my TV show idea. Here are some of the gaps and issues she found:
  The first issue she had was the ambition and topics of the show. She felt that the show was too ambitions and big for BBC Three and more suited for either BBC One or Two because of all of it's complexities and big topics that are touched upon in the first season. She was concerned that the topics are something that a wider audience would want to see and the aspirations both with what will be explored and the budget would be too big for a typical BBC Three show.

  The second issue was with who the primary protagonist(s) is for the show. The concern came from the fact that I have so many characters that the show looks at that BBC Thee's audience may not be able to relate with all the characters, and that I had to focus on one or two characters rather than the seven key characters. The fact that I mentioned that the audience would hopefully be able to relate to at least one of the characters is possibly another reason why Kristel mentioned this as she knows that a lot of people who are part of BBC Three's target audience won't retain their interest if there are so many characters in focus who they can't elate to and would need so much character development for a show with such a serious tone.

  The third question was slightly related to the second - relating to the audiences interest in the show. Kristel asked if the two families were connected in anyway to see how the two story-lines are connected to each other. Admittedly there isn't a strong correlation and link between the two families and this could cause some confusion with the audience as they may not see a direct link between the characters. This was echoed in the clients concern about why Lucy-Sky Walker would care or be concerned in the slightest about the Adeola family when she doesn't know them and has no relation or link to the family.

  The fourth concern was about the characters themselves and mainly their character arcs, development and personalities. Kristel was concerned that the characters could be really basic and simple - which can easily happen with a show so topic heavy with so many characters within an eight episode season. What were the characters going to do throughout the season? Were they just gong to try to accomplish one thing and when they complete it their character arc is over? All these questions had to be answered.

  Question five touched on potential future seasons, what would happen and how much potential the show has. This question was looking more at what the span of the show would look like: how the first season would end and the second begin, what happens through out the second and the overall end goal for the characters and the show by the last episode. I believe the aim of the show and what it should be aiming to accomplish at the end of the last ever episode is the most vital part of this question. This was also a large part of the next question which was "What is the overall goal/aim of the show?". This is looking at aspects like viewing figures, characters arcs - or current and new characters, the message of the show to the audience, the take-away from the show and how the show will handle and achieve it.

  My lack of clarity on some of the topics that would be raised throughout the show made the client question the topics and asked me to explain what was meant by some of them, especially the topic of religion. The client was unsure if I meant that the characters become more religious or lose their faith as time goes on. I also inferred from this question that I had to explain what the show would explore about faith and religion.

  The Budget was a question and worry that came up as the client was worried about how I'd manage to pull off some of the big scenes - like when the Adeola family are at sea - or with the animation that will be used from time to time on such a small budget for everything to be completed.

Unit 21 P4: Pitching ideas to client

The final pitch to the client

The Presentation I used in the pitch

Unit 21 M2: Amending pitch and proposal

Overall refection on the pitch:
     I was happy with how my pitch went, both in how I presented it, the way I responded to questions and the reaction from the audience I had. Going into the pitch itself I was really confident with the idea and the details I had thought about for it so I knew that almost no question could surprise me when it came to the questions. It was just a matter of getting over my small stammer, but once I started the pitch I knew what I was going to say and how I was going to deliver the pitch. Considering the minimal preparation time I gave myself, I was really happy with the topic areas I covered however, after finishing I did realise the minor areas I forgot to mention about, like actually saying what would happen in the pilot episode. My body language was good, focusing on addressing the mass audience and turning around on frequent occasions to ensure i was addressing everyone and that everyone was listening and engaged. I  believe I spoke clearly and confidently to people as well as ensuring that I wasn't going too fast for the audience to keep up. I think I could've improved the structure a little because there were parts where I repeated myself and although some of the times were intentional to make sure people understood where I was coming from and what I meant, it was not always needed, I also needed to make it more of a sales pitch than just giving information and my idea to them.

I don't think that the presentation was branded enough and memorable enough in terms of the aesthetics. I also think that there was too much text on a lot of the pages because of the amount of detail I wanted to go into, however I did somewhat resolve this issue by making all the key terms and lines in a different colour, usually red. This made the reading more manageable for the audience as they could just read those lines and mixed with what I was saying to them, I hope they got an image of exactly what I was saying and could interpret my words and vision for the show. To further explain my vision I used stills from some of the shows that inspired me as well as videos from two of the shows to give the audience a stronger vision of what the elements of the show I was describing would actually look like. Looking back I do think that despite the usefulness of the videos, I could've got them pre-prepared to reduce the hassle of getting them up and running. I was strongly considering playing my chosen soundtrack ("Quiet" by Ibibio Sound Machine) in the background as I did the presentation but in the end, I decided to leave it because I knew it would finish and play the next video way before I finished the pitch. I do however think that the videos and pictures were effective in giving the audience a visual image of what the show would look and sound like.

I included a lot of the content that was needed to be covered like the title, executive summary, statement of need, format of the show, duration of episodes and length of the series, budget, character profiles accompanied with possible actors and actresses, possible soundtracks to be used and a rough series narrative. However, I did forget to mention the pilot details and the production companies I could use to produce the show.

Unfortunately, I didn't have any supporting documents because the script scene I was writing was not complete and I had not started drawing the storyboard. For the real pitch, I will ensure that I will have all supporting documents and a real and completed working title ready to show.

Fortunately I covered most of the topics that would have likely been questions about the show and my pitch, however there was areas that I couldn't cover and these came up in the questions. One of them was about how I was going to make the show not as depressing as it seemed it would be. This is going to be solved through Temi's story arc through the first part of the season and then through Lucy's story arc through the second part of the season as we see what each of them do in the circumstances they find themselves in. Another concern that arose was the safety of the cast and crew when filming at sea. As mentioned in the video, I would reduce the risk for the actors and crew by ensuring a thorough and detailed weather watch and report has been taken before we go out and shoot. As well as this, because weather can be unpredictable, I will have coastal a safety guard or an organisation like the RNLI with us at sea at all times and will ensure that only the necessary people are on the boats as we don't want to have any injured. If this is too complicated to do or not possible to do, we can film these scenes in a separate safer location to ensure the safety of all crew and staff. Because of the detail I had given and thought about I believe there was almost nothing that would've caught me out in the questions.

I know that the questions asked at the end of the pitch, along with the gaps I found when reviewing the pitch will all be easy to answer once I go through the plot and the pitch once more. This should help me with the real pitch in May.

Unit 21 P3: Creating a pitch

The first draft proposal

The proposal shown in initial pitch (2nd draft)

The final pitch

One of the first differences that is noticeable between the second draft and the final pitch is that I put the Promised Land logo on nearly every page of the presentation to brand it a little more as that was one of the criticism I had when pitching it to peers.

Unit 21 P2: Proposal

P1 - Unit 21: Initial ideas

Initial idea mind maps

Idea no.2

Idea no.3

Idea no.5

Unit 3: D1 - Analysing post-production techniques and processes

Sound

Music

The music is there to set the tone of the film and it's the first thing that can be heard in the film. The steady guitar strums and beat are there to get the viewer in the frame of mind for the film as it's intended to calm and prepare them which is accomplished by steadily fading in and out the music as it plays in the background. It took me a long time to find a suitable song for the film, I tried various songs with varying tones and levels of success but in the end I thought that this song (The Woods) by an Austrailian duo called Hollow Coves was the most suitable as it is about freedom and finding comfort, in addition to this it is also very relaxing and worked brilliantly with opening and closing the film - especially with the voice over at the end playing on top of it. I did also unintentionally have music playing in the background of some of the scenes in the film as the bar owner was busy and we didn't have anyone to tell to turn down the music. This causes parts of the film to feel disjointed as music plays in one scene and stops mid-sentence or worse - changes songs - between scenes.

Voice over

The voice over dialogue was heavily inspired by a poem in Kendrick Lamar's 2015 album "To Pimp A Butterfly" (TPAB) where Kendrick mentions the first two lines of a poem in the second song, and as the album develops and progresses he gradually adds more lines to it up until the final song "Mortal Man" where he delivers the full poem which reveals the overall moral of the album. I knew I couldn't do this throughout the film so I started and ended the film in this light as the last voice-over is a finished and more developed version of the first voice-over.

I added the voice-over after completing the first daft as I realised that I continuously had to inform the viewer about what was happening/what happened in the film as not all the actions of the characters made sense to them, so as a way to make it easier I decided to input the voice-over to allow the audience to know what Sam was thinking as I thought that the connection with her was the most important since early viewers had lots of questions about her. The voice-over allows the audience to know what Sam is thinking which is very important if I want them to understand Sam's emotions, thoughts and reasoning for her actions in the situations she finds herself in. I think I managed to accomplish this largely throughout the film and I do feel that there could've been a little more done to inform the audience but I'm just happy I managed to sort out some of the bigger issues early viewers and script reader had with the film before it was released.

Unfortunately, the microphone I used wasn't great so the sound quality did suffer and vary throughout production. The only other sound issue that happened - which was entirely my fault - was that I forgot to film a small scene/shot of Laura talking. As I didn't manage to film this section and Diana (the girl playing Laura) was on holiday abroad when I started editing, I had to improvise and asked her to send me a recording of the lines she had to say and then I layered it on top of some spare/scrap/unused footage I had taken from filming but the sound quality of the recording was extremely low with it being quiet and a little muffled and unclear.

Editing

Fixing missed scene

Fortunately, I was filming some behind the scenes footage whenever I could to help produce a behind the scenes video and thankfully one of the throw-away pieces of footage I had was used to fill out the gap in film that I forgot to shoot. The instance happens 5 minutes and 5 seconds into the film when the camera angle and distance suddenly change and the sound quality of the dialogue drops dramatically. This is because - as mentioned above, I had Diana send me an audio recording of her saying the lines we missed out and since she recorded it on her phone, the sound quality wasn't great. This does slightly hamper the quality of the overall film but it doesn't have a huge impact on it, but it was a vital scene to include in the film as the rest of the scenes following wouldn't make sense without it.

Tone

One of the big things about this project is the tone that it achieves as I wanted it to be a reflective piece of work and I believe that I achieved that with the editing by fading certain scenes in and out when needed. This was done to ease the viewer into and out of the film and specific scenes like when Sam walks back into the bar after the the second time she goes to the toilet to calm herself down where I use it as a mood setter to show that Sam has calmed down by just easing the audience back into the conflict between the two characters.
Another way I tried to show and set the tone was by the way I cut some of the scenes. Occasionally in the film I focused more on the reaction of the person listening rather than the person talking to show the audience their reaction and response to the comments made, this would've hopefully created a dynamic relationship between the viewer and character as the viewer would've hopefully managed to relate to something that one of the characters say or how they react to a comment.
The final things I added to the film was the credits, I had to implement the names of the actors and the characters they were playing to make it easier for the audience to recognise them when the film was playing - although I did actually forget to mention any of the character names throughout the film which would leave the audience guessing who's who while watching. I also added post-credits to show who else worked and helped on the film as well as a thank you to people and locations that helped and the musicians for the song that was used.

Mise-es-scene

One of the things that makes my film stand out is that it's all in black and white. Admittedly this wasn't the intention at the beginning, I felt it was the best thing to do when I found out that some of the shots I took had an orange look to them as I didn't change the white balance setting after filming outside. I chose to make the whole film black and white because I know it was much hard to see what scenes are orange and what scenes are okay, but it also worked to my benefit as it was a great way to show the contrast between the two characters and their beliefs. The only change I'd make is making the colour slowly fade in at the end to symbolise that not everything is as clear as black and white however that would've probably been seen as a mistake or confuse the audience when they view it.

Unit 3 - M4 - How the film has met the client brief

The client brief stated that we had to produce:
     - Short narrative film suitable to be entered for the Independent Directions Film Festival
     - Film can be no longer than 15 minutes long including credits
     - Must conform to a recognisable genre
     - Must make in groups with a maximum of three people
     - Specific production roles must be taken
     - All content produced must be original and produced by us/me
     - Music or audio effects from a copyright-free source may be used, but must be referenced

The brief asked us to make an original short film that would be entered into a film festival. Although my film did not get entered into the film festival because even though is was shit, post production was not complete therefore ruling out an exhibition at the festival. Despite this I did manage to produce a good short film that was under the 15 minute time limit. One of my biggest regrets was not going back to the client brief enough because if I had, I would've tried to develop my ideas further and possibly even introduce one or two other ideas which would've fit into the story-line seamlessly.When initially writing the script I thought the time limit was 10 minutes, which led to me being very cautious about what I wrote. I wrote the script on 14 pages which for most films would equate to at least 14 minutes because of the actions as well however, because my film is almost all dialogue, the run-time was equivalent to just under 10 minutes. This meant that I didn't go into as much depth with the dialogue as I wanted, however it did also mean that I accomplished the task.

I was very happy with the feedback that people gave to me, because they could recognise it was a short film and they also recognised the relevance of the issues that were talked about in the film. This was vital for me because it meant that people within my target audience found it compelling, thought provoking, enjoyable and simultaneously raising more awareness for the topics raised, all of this was part of my own personal goals when planning and making this short film. They were impressed by the decision to do the film in black and white, and I also think it added a element of intrigue and made the film more interesting and compelling.


"Potato" is a short drama film about two strangers talking about sexuality, racism and equal rights in general in a bar. One of the difficult things for me personally was to make sure that the film stayed as a drama, and didn't drift off into another sub-genre because of the significance of the topics. When writing the scripts I often found myself drifting off and slowly changing it into a comedy because it felt a bit stale and I wanted to add something special to the short film, but I had to remember the importance of the topics and not to make light of the serious topics plus if I did I'd also have to do it from both characters. Writing a compelling and realistic script was the hard part, the easier part was translating it into production. This was easier because the codes and conventions are common in the majority of film and TV so it was just a task of implementing them to my film. This includes things like shot-reverse-shot, over the shoulder shots, the voice overs I used, the titles and the black and white colouring.


As I was working on my own, I ended up doing all the work on pre-production, production and post-production because I had no one to help, but I think I managed well. This made the film more difficult to do as I was in control of everything meaning needed some help with some things like asking friends to review the script on multiple occasions to see if it still made sense and they would be interested in watching. I also had three friends come to production to help out, all three just held the microphone as i was in charge of directing lighting and camera. Post-production was completely done by me and the most difficult part was waiting for the band Hollow Coves to respond about me using their song in the film. I sent an e-mail to the e-mail on their contact page on their website and he got back to me later to say as long as I credited them, the band had no problems with me using their song.

Unit 3 - P5 - Post-production techniques and processes

Editing the film footage:

Starting the film

I started the film with a few black snippets of footage I had to act as a background for the film because the shots before the first scene I used didn't go on for a long enough duration. I wanted to ensure it was a sufficient enough time for the credits to be shown and for the viewer to read and acknowledge the credits. I placed text on top of the black shots to act as the working credits and inform who made the film and who's in it, this runs into the first scene of the film and the names of each after is placed under the character when they are on screen. I used a song I found on YouTube by a band called Hollow Coves. I downloaded and converted it then placed the downloaded mp3 sound onto my film. I had to cut out the first part of the song because it was the sound of nature that plays in the music video. The track played a vital role in the film as it is the soundtrack that plays throughout the film in the background. I made sure to include that the song is not mine and that all rights, royalties and credit belongs to the record label and the people and businesses that made the music video and song.

Layers of sound

 The sound is layered so it could work together. The music has an immediate start and fades out as time goes on which allows the voice over to come in at the right time.

Here I demonstrate how I managed to finish the short film by ending the voice over and at an appropriate time towhees

Unit 3 - M3 - Production: following codes and conventions of genre

Public comments

Unit 3 - P4 - production materials

As I'm working independently in my project, I will be doing almost every aspect of the production process. I'll be the director, camera operator, editor, etc. however the only roles that i won't be doing are the mic holder because my hands will be busy with filming, and the lighting technician because I can't really change the quality of light in my setting. I will however be accompanied by friends who may help with some directing instructions to the actresses and they're also likely to have a small role in the film as the waiter(s).

Production Log

3rd April 2018 - Filming day 1
     I chose to film during the holidays because it was the time when I and the actresses were most free to film. On the first day of filming, I had a friend come over to the venue to help me film because I couldn't film and hold the microphone because of a faulty leg on the tripod, and he played the role of the waiter. We filmed a few scenes and the actresses started to get used to the flow of filming and grew to understand their characters more.  The biggest issue that I realised early on when I arrived at the bar was that 3 of the lightbulbs were either not working or the electricity to the connection wasn't working, so I had to make the decision to film on a different table than the one I planned to use, which didn't help with the low lighting problem. The biggest problem that arose was the lighting in the main setting - in the basement - was not well enough lit to properly film each Ruqaiya's character Sam, so we used a phone torch to try and compensate for the lack of light and although it didn't good, it did the job. Another issue was that the radio was playing in the background of the first few scenes we shot on the day, so its's going to be an issue going forward when editing because of the continuity and sound quality problems it can cause. Unfortunately we didn't film the first couple of scenes because the weather was not good enough. We had a task of filming a certain amount of shots and we accomplished our goal so it was a pretty good day of filming, despite the lighting and sound issues.
The next task for filming now will be to continue shooting the scenes and to try and irradiate the issue of the hight of the camera constantly changing.
 Day 1 completed scenes: 1-4K
 Next step: To continue filming the next collection of scenes.

5th April 2018 - Filming day 2
     I had another friend come down and help me film on the second day of filming. The aim for this day was to complete all the outdoor opening scenes and all the two-shots. It quickly became apparent that filming in a busy bus was not going to be a possibility because of various issues including continuity errors, sound quality, footage quality, getting permission to film on it as well as passengers constantly coming into the shot. Therefore we decided to forget that plan and went forward with our backup plan of filming on a public city bench in a quiet area.

Reflecting on my reflection

I felt like this was the right day to film the outdoor scenes because it was the first time the sun was out and it would look good on film. However, what I didn't expect was for the sun to come out with full force, meaning that a lot of the videos that we initially took were over exposed even with a low ISO and a change in White balance, so we ended up trying to film every time the sun was covered by the clouds. This worked really well as I think we got some really good shots from the day, even if they are a little over-exposed. I eventually realised that I had to change the angle I was shooting from because I could be seen on film in the reflection of the shop we were filming in front of (above inset).

Two-shot not incandescent

On reflection I think the sound quality of the outdoor scenes were great and the "daylight mode" on the white balance really helped with the footage quality of the outdoor scenes, however it didn't help when I forgot to switch it to "incandescent" mode when we got back inside meaning that all the two-shot scenes I filmed until I realised are all orange, don't look good compared to the other scenes and may cause a couple problems when editing (right inset). I filmed almost all the two-shots in one go to ensure that the distance and angle between the camera and the actresses remained the same throughout the movie rather than the distance constantly changing and causing problems and confusion when watching it back, however i couldn't film every scene because of the time limitations concerning the activities in the bar and also the availability of the actresses. The rest of the shots we took however, I am very satisfied with.  The next step I think is to shoot all of the over-the-shoulder shots of Diana's character Laura.
 Day 2 completed scenes: most of the two-shots and all the scenes filmed outside.


10th April 2018 - Filming day 3
     On the third day of filming I finished filming all the two-shots first before going on and filming all of Laura's over the shoulder shots, again to ensure that every time the film changed to an over the shoulder shot it was consistent and always the same. However, I did consider changing the height of the camera in different scenes to add a sense of superiority and to show who's in control and has the higher ground in that moment. After a lot of thought I decided not to do this because the whole point of the film is to put both perspectives on a level playing field and to allow the viewer to make their own decisions on who is right and develop their own opinions, so having any input on their views and perspectives on them would be wrong. Even though I had a third different person to help with filming on the day, it was still really easy to film because everyone knew what their role was for filming - my friend was holding the microphone - and the actresses were so sure and had built and good level of confidence with themselves and the characters they were portraying that it was easy to manage and they had almost nailed the attitudes for the characters. We also got the help of a random customer in the bar. He assisted me and the actresses on what they needed to do to make the scene we were doing more realistic, this could be seen as a distraction and a problem for us when filming but it was a welcomed break for everyone and helped us get back into focus of what we wanted to achieve.
Day 3: completed scenes: all the two-shots and Laura's over-the-shoulder shots for the whole film.


11th April 2018 - Filming day 4
     The final scheduled day of shooting was more relaxed as we finished off filming the scenes that we had left to do as well as recording all the voiceovers that Ruqaiya had to do for the beginning and the ending of the film. We did have to rush it a little bit because one of the actors had to leave the shoot early for an appointment.


14th may - 22nd June - Couldn't film because of the girls' a-levels
     Between the 14th of May and the 22nd of June both my actresses were doing their A-Level exams so we couldn't film any footage for the film. This also limits our chance to do all the re-shoots we wanted to do since one of the actresses goes on holiday on the 24th June and I'm not available to shoot on the 23rd.


22nd June 2018 - Failed re-shoot day because of redesign of venue
     We planned to re-shoot some scenes the same day as the actresses had finished their exams, but when i got to the venue to prepare for the re-shoots, I noticed that during the times we weren't there, the business had completely redecorated the venue. This includes, colour of the walls, layout, theme and furniture. Unfortunately because of these vast changes we couldn't film the scenes needed because of continuity problems. This causes a bigger problem because I found out that there's a scene we didn't shoot and now there's no way to shoot that scene.

Rough cuts

Rough cut No.1:




Rough cut No.2



Rough cut No.3

Unit 3 - M2 - Legal and ethical issues of production

Copyright

Copyright in Film

All products are protected by the copyright, designs and patents act of 1988 – this is the copyright law for the UK. It gives the owner of the product or text to control which ways their material will be used. A product is an idea, visual, or tangible thing that the owner has thought of or created. The product becomes copyright protected the moment it’s made and belongs to the owner until the owner gives up ownership or the duration of the law reaches its due date. e.g the moment a person takes a picture, they own that picture and people have to ask for permission to use that image. However, you need to apply for trademarks (product names, logos etc.), registered designs (packaging, colours etc.) and patents as they aren’t automatically copyright protected. For my film, I have to ensure that I have the rights to use the song in the background as it can be copyright protected, especially since I found it on YouTube.

Duration Time

For films the product is copyright protected for 70 years after the last director, author or composer dies (if it wasn’t released to the public), or 70 years from when it was first released to the public through authorised performance, broadcast or any other form of authorised distribution and exhibition.

Intellectual Property

Intellectual property is a concept that a person or brand has, it’s not a tangible product e.g Batman, and no other companies other than DC and Warner Bros. can use the name and identity of Batman in films unless allowed by the companies that own it. Intellectual property laws stop people from stealing or copying; the names of a business’ products or brands, a business’ inventions, the design or look of a business’ products and things a business writes, makes or produces.

BBFC Rating

My film is a bit hard to pin down to a single age rating because of all the differing topics raised and the language used by the characters. It's a battle between rating it as a PG or as a 12/12A because the film meets criteria for both. In the end I've decided to give "Potato" the age rating of a 12A because it meets in between the two (PG and 12). A 12A follows the same guidelines of A 12 but also states that if an adult deems it suitable for a child under the age of 12 to watch it, they can take them in to watch. However, this doe mean that anyone under 12 can't go watch it alone and will not be allowed to purchase it in a shops. I have chosen to give this a 12A certificate because when initially developing this idea I wanted it to be a 12 because of the discriminatory and strong language used, as well as the topics raised however, after developing it further and filming it I saw how much the script had changed to having no where near as much swearing as I initially thought they'd be as well as not being able to talk about each of the seven topics I initially planned because of time restraint to develop each idea fully, so as a result the reduction to three topics and minimal strong language made me make the film a 12A.

 A big part of my rating was the discrimination section on the 12 and 12A rating page on the BBFC website as I had to carefully consider if the characters were endorsing, but more importantly condemning discriminatory behaviour and language. This is vital not just for my films message as a whole because of the touchy subjects that come up in the discussions but also for the BBFC because if the characters don't condemn the language, it would take the films age rating higher and risk losing lost of potential viewers and therefore, it's impact.

Representation

When thinking about the films characters I wanted to go against the normal casting choices and typical characters you would see in a film. I chose to have two women of two different faiths and sexualities, with differing opinions on almost everything. Sam is a lesbian Muslim girl from a minority ethnic background who strongly believes passionately in equal rights for all but isn't too much into her religion or some of it's beliefs, where as Laura is a heterosexual Christian girl who tries to be as truthful to her fait and is set on believing what the Bible tells her. These two opposing characters are very different because I wanted to create characters that people could relate to in some way or another. They are essentially a representation of society, albeit being a mix bag of each type of person. Making the characters as relatable and realistic with their opinions and views as possible was a big task that I couldn't do alone because I am only one person with my own views on what I believe, so I went around my school and other places to ask the general public what their views on the topics that I would raise in this film, and their responses became what the characters ended up saying, some of it was word for word. Asking people of differing faiths, sexualities, beliefs, genders and ages really helped to make the characters be as realistic as possible. The only people that I think could complain was the men as the only two males to show up in the film are the waiters who have one line and virtually no screen-time between them. However, this was intensional because I wanted to make a film where a male character isn't a lead or has any power. Having two people of the same sex was important to me because I wanted the viewer to see that the characters are very similar, but if I had used a male and a female I think it would've caused a lot of anger with the viewer as they may think one gender was more dominant or stronger than the other. In the end I think the representation was fair because almost everyone was represented.

Permission to film at venue 

Unit 3 - P3 Pre-production materials

Shot List

Recce

Unit 3 - M1 - Justifying content, distribution and marketing methods

Trailer

One way that I can promote my short film is by producing a trailer to sell the product. The trailer will be made after I finish filming and near the end – if not the official ending – of the editing process of the product. It should entice the viewer and target audience to go and watch my short film because of the snippets of video and information I will include in it. The trailer should be approximately 90 seconds considering that its only a 10 minute short film and more than that timing, it’s likely to tell and reveal too much to the audience. The things that I’ll include are the name of the actors, the name of the director/screenwriter, some narration or text because it’s going to be hard to properly interpret what the movie is about just from the film clips. It’ll also need a due date for it to come out.

Teaser

A teaser is some very small snippets of videos from the film to tell the viewer what the product will contain. The snippets aren’t meant to big enough for the viewer to decipher the possible outcome of a scene as that’s the job of the trailer and the teaser comes before the trailer. This will be released after all the film has been shot and likely just before – or at the start – of the editing process. Teasers traditionally are just there to get people talking about a product about their speculations and hopes. The teaser generally shows off some characters and the name of the product and they aren’t too detailed with the film information. Traditionally 30-40 seconds long, mine is likely to be 10-15 seconds long to ensure I don’t reveal too much information. When uploaded to social media or a platform like Vimeo and YouTube it can gain a wide range of attention from potential audience members, especially since it can easily be shared and sent around.

Posters

Although they are slowly becoming dated, I think this is a great way to gain a bigger buzz for my short film. A poster can reach more people domestically than other methods, because if placed in the right public place where you know you target audience will pass e.g. in front of a university and a high school if students are your target audience – you are likely to make people come and see your project and they are likely to watch the thing. Because the poster can’t tell what the tone of the film is going to be, I need to put as much detail into it, this includes the title and slogan of the film as well as pictures of the actresses and the location in the background. The colours I use are the only indication of the tone of the movie that the reader will have so I’ll use darker shades of primary colours like red and blue to match the setting I’ll be filming in and also some green to contrast the red and to indicate the contrast the two characters. I could also have the characters on opposite sides of the poster facing each other to symbolise the conflict and the difference between the characters and their opinions.

Social media

The easiest and the cheapest way to promote anything, social media promotions can reach a wide range of people over a wide space which can create a global buzz. Although this isn’t likely for a product as small or as short as mine, it will get more people interested in watching the film. I will be posting pictures and videos of production on social media to keep people informed and interested in the film as the process goes on. Similar to what some big movies like Central Intelligence did, I’ll try and capitalise the relationship between the cast and crew by posting the videos which show off nature of the film. I know my actresses don’t have the same star power and popularity of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson or Kevin Hart but the people that do see it should hopefully like the chemistry between us and be intrigued by what we are filming. If so they’re likely to watch the film.

Distribution
I would use the New Yorker Films as my distributor as they are the company which released the film "My Dinner with Andre" which has a very similar premise to my film and was one of the films that influenced the idea. The distributor was founded in 1965 and is still going strong thanks to its purchase by Aladdin Distributors. New Yorker Films would be perfect for my film because they have a history of making simplistic and impactful films, which is what my film is and marketing them very well to a wide audience.

Suitability
I think that this film will impress people of my target audience because of its simplistic nature and through provoking and deep messages that are layered through the duration of the film. The length of the film isn't too long, even if I think that some lines of dialogue and sections of it make the film feel like it's dragged out a bit more, it does it's purpose of informing people of differing opinions on topics that can be hard to talk about in a civil manner and this educational factor allows the film to be successful. It is set out in the form of a drama, which can be seen with the use of shot angles, dialogue, setting and structure of the story as it follows Todorov's theory with and Equilibrium, disruption, recognition, repair and then a new equilibrium.

Unit 3 - P2 - Sample materials

Unit 3 - P1 - Proposal