PLANNING : SHOT LIST

SOUND	VISION	ACTOR	PROPS	LOCATION
The family muttering and the sounds of a camera taking a photo.	Establishing shot of family taking a photo.	Protagonist, Sister, Father and Mother.	Camera	Living room
Alarm Clock ringing	Close up shot of alarm showing the time 10.00am	None	Alarm Clock	Bedroom
‘Have you seen mum’ - Alice ‘You know we don’t talk about her in this household!’- Dad ‘Wha..’ (stuttering) - Alice	Alice going downstairs questioning her mothers existence. Her father gives a strong tone back.	Alice(protagonist) Gary (Father)	None	Kitchen
Gasping	Reaction shot of her fathers tone and confused as to her mothers disappearance	Alice	None	Kitchen
Tea Swirling as well as mother favourite music in the background	As Alice runs out see where her mother has gone, she goes into her room where a hot tea is swirling and her favourite music playing in the background seeming her was here recently.	Alice	Tea Radio	Mother old bedroom
Heavy breathing with eerie sound playing in the background making the setting more tense.	As Alice notices her sister is missing from the photo in the previous day. That night a black silhouette of the sister is crawling out from her bed.	Alice Emily (Sister)	None	Alice’s room
‘It’s a nice photo isn’t it’ - Dad (in a creepy voice) ‘Where is my sister!!’ - Alice screaming	Alice goes down to living room to see all family photos down stairs. Looking at photo with herself and her dad. The dad creeps up behind her, admiring the photo.	Alice Gary (father)	Photo	Living Room
Alarm Clock Ringing	Alarm showing its a new day	None	Alarm Clock	Bedroom
Alice muttering	Close up of Alice holding the image realising that she is the only one left in the photo.	Alice	Photo	Bedroom
Creepy music	The title Silent Voices appears before a black screen.	None	None	None

PLANNING : LOCATIONS

•  House = Main Location 
• Dark rooms
• Typical teenage girls bedroom
• Kitchen 
• Parents Room 
• Stairs

Our main location is set in an ordinary, average house. We decided this as our audience will be able to relate which will draw them in to watch more. Similarly we have used typical rooms for the parents room and our protagonists (Alice's) room. However, we have used a dark, eerie images creating a spine chilling scene: when the sister is crawling up from underneath the bed. This will be shown in a POV shot which creates personal aspect of the protagonist. All the other images have resembled similar rooms within the house we are filming in, we got images that are similar as can be. The image on the top left is the actual house we will be filming in. 

PLANNING : SOCIAL GROUPS

I used Pinterest to show our topical social groups for our film, 'Silent Voices'. Pinterest is an easy and simple social media to use and create small visuals to express your ideas. It is a useful planning method when getting our ideas down into photos. We will group our photos together in our  social groups, using photos will give a representation of a realistic idea of what our short film will look like. 

Mothers and Fathers 

We chose this social group to express the relationship between the family and the stereotypical orientation. I have used many photos of young children showing affection towards their parents, this may reflect of the characters younger selves.

Nursing - Mother

The mothers character shows contrast with father figure. Her job connotes and builds a character of the mother, Claire. Nursing shows a caring and passionate side. However, gradually through her years she becomes more distance with the children as she is working over time. In photos I have depicted a nursing outfit, this is very stereotypical outfit which also reflects her caring, warm nature. Once she disappears out of the photo it become an unease setting. The fact that she is a nurse, they are not  people to disappear as they are very reliable and someone who you depend on.

Ethical photographers- Father 

We have also made another blog about the fathers character, researching  and planning about the characters previous job. It is an engaging job to research on which hugely reflects the fathers characteristics. We have used many photos to express what the character has been through as well as his insight of the job. 

Teenagers 
We have chose many photos that we thought we associate to our main protagonist, Alice. We have depicted her to be loving, this is shown through the love of pets. The love of books and the work ethic is shown by studying which represents her age and her characters.

PLANNING : CHARACTERS

PLANNING : STORYBOARD

Story boarding is a very useful way to plan and set out your initial ideas of your project before setting out and begin filming. It becomes a vital part of the process, as you plan and set out the shot types in each scene. This gives you a full picture of lighting, camera shots and sounds when splitting up, as it provides detail throughout each scene. This allows you to go into filming knowing what you want to achieve rather then just making random decisions, which could worsen and make your piece unclear and too confusing.

My group and I worked on our story board which holds the plot and the different camera angles and shots that we are going to use when filming our production. From using this storyboard it helped us structure, form and pre-visualise our motion picture. The storyboard also helped us identify errors at an early stage, these can include incorrect shot types for certain scenes. This helps to reduce disruption during the production phase. Our aim is to engage and hold the audience throughout the whole opening involving visual variety as well as textural. Editing and camera movements can also benefit the narrative to make the structure more clear.

PLANNING : TREATMENT

Title 

Silent Voices 

Logline 
This short film is a bout a teenage girl who experiences supernatural events whilst suffering from the losses of her family members. Every day the girl, called Alice wakes up and finds a family member missing form her family photo in which she keeps on her wall. 

Synopsis

The first scene shows the family getting together to take their annual family photo and this presented through a wide shot which introduces the happy, well rounded family. This then fades out and cuts to Alice putting the photo up on her wall, this is an over the shoulder shot. She is portrayed as happy and innocent. After this she carries out her daily life, heaving whispers behind her creating an ominous atmosphere, and due to this she becomes paranoid and anxious. An extreme close up shows her taking a deep breath in and out, this is then followed by a hard cut and a black screen. 

Suddenly Alice wakes up and immediately looks at her alarm clock to the right of her. Showing a new day, the family photo catches her eye and is confused about what is wrong with the photo. This is then followed by a reaction shot of her realising her mum is missing from the photograph. Startled, she runs down with a panicked look on her face. She sees her dad cooking and confronts him about where mum is in the photograph. He snaps back and shouts "You know not to bring her up, we don't talk about her in this household". Alice then runs up the stairs, past mums room and suddenly stops, she slowly walks back and hears something whispering, slowing she opens the door of her mums room and sees a body shape on the sheet cover, presenting that someone was then recently. She also notices that there is a freshly cup of tea steaming like someone has been there recently. Next shot is Alice running out of the room, whilst slamming the door shut and leaning back on the door panting heavily. 

A hard cut is then used, followed by a close up shot of her again when she wakes up and looks at the alarm clock showing the next day. She also immediately looks at the photo on the wall, seeing that her sister is missing. She's clearly confused and frantically looks at all her other photos where her sisters meant to be, missing from all of them. She looking at it and her dad comes behind her shoulder and says "its a nice photo isn't it". She panics and shouts "wheres my sister, wheres Emily!". He then replies "You've never had a sister, who's Emily?", Alice screams "Shut up dad! I'm not loosing my mind". She then slams her door, turns her light of, jumping into bed crying, frustrated and confused. She then isolates herself by hiding under her covers. Suddenly she can hear shuffling under her bed. We then use a birds eye shot presenting the next scene showing a creepy silhouette of her sister coming from underneath her bed and then gets dragged back in as soon as Alice jolts up. Alice then looks under the bed, and sees nothings there. Finished by a hard cut. Middle of the night, the camera pans downstairs and you see a mug smashing on the floor with the TV and him screaming, showing the dad disappearing.

The alarm goes off and then pans to her face showing a distressed look on her face. She peaks out from under her covers to take one last look at her photo. Showing how its just her left in the photograph. She goes to pick up the photo and sits on her bed looking at it, crying. Talking to herself repeating saying "no,no,no,no". She screams one last time, followed by a floating image of just the background with no one in it. This is then faded out, with the title "Silent Voices" with the sound of someone whispering "Shhhhh" in the background. Fading to black.

Characters
Alice - Protagonist
Emily - Sister
Mum
Dad 

PLANNING : TOP LINE AND BIG QUESTION

Frank Ash is a creative consultant at the BBC Academy. He has taught storytelling and creativity techniques to teams across the BBC and other media companies.

 In the video I have learnt how you might think about appealing to your audience in practical terms. I can do this by telling the audience what the story is, what kind of story it is and who the story is for. He has told us that we need to tell the audience as quickly as possible what the story is and what it is about.

 The Top Line needs to emotionally involve the audiences. Frank ash tells us that a good storyteller should be able to gain the audiences attention with just one line, this is what Frank Ash calls the Top Line. This helps us as we have tried to sum up our narrative in one sentence. Then Frank Ash added in order to hook the audience the writer needs to develop the Big Question. Frank Ash also added that we need to let the audience know what the big picture is.

Top Line - A short film delving into the world around a teenagers life as her family members start to disappear. One by one fades out of the photo until she is all alone.

Big Question - Why am i now alone... 

PLANNING : AUDIENCE QUESTION RESULTS

From my Audience Questionnaire, the results show more males (57.1%) than females (42.9%) took this survey and the majority where under the age of 35 (71.4%). 

The most surprising results I have found is that the majority chose Talk Shows (50%) to be the most influential platform to suede there opinion. The platform that scored the lowest is News articles (14.3%), this question shows a clear divide between social media and the old fashioned newspapers. I will use this information to further extend my social media platforms to engross the majority into my short. 

The results below intrigued me as a unique story line received the most results (50%) and the setting got (0%). This will make me think about our story line to make it engaging as possible such as including twits or leaving my short on a cliff hanger?
The setting having no answers shows its the least important to worry about even though it is crucial within a short, it is still the least effective towards my audiences. 

PLANNING : ADVANCED PRODUCTION INITIAL DEVELOPMENT

We used Canva to brain storm our ideas onto a an A3 format which is clear and simple to use. We will keep referring back to the mind map whilst creating our own piece, this will make sure we are always keeping on the correct tracks , For example reminding ourselves what a thriller should contain. 

We chose our short film to be set in the current year, this is because it is more relateable for audience members and for us it is easier to understand and so no mistakes for mad. Props could be a huge issues if we film in a different era to make sure we had the correct setting, atmosphere and clothing in that year. 

We also had many different films and documentaries that provided inspiration. Most of the examples involve a plot line that uses a stalker. We are thinking we are going to do the same as it creates huge suspension and anticipation which a thriller film contains. 

For the protagonist, who is at the moment planning to be the stalker. We are going to present him to look very scruffy and not well kept, we feel this adds to the sense of tension due to unpleasant features. 

We also decided to create a short film of a thriller. We decided this as we all love watching thriller because it excites us and would love to create our own. Using the plot that we believe will especially draw the audiences. 

We have now decided the plot of our short film. We're making the protagonists a stalker, but we are slowly revealing this throughout the short. This will create suspense and ambiguity which reflects the genre of the film; a thriller. He is the stalker of his long life best friend, this creates realism and personally I believe this makes the film to be more believable therefore more frighting. 

We have decided Props on our up to date ideas to include a Mac Book this is a current prop which reflects on the set era, we will use this for a Face time call. We have also kept the black hoodies and joggers, this is a classic thriller prop which conveys darkness and eeriness. 

We have also chosen a title, 'Happy Life' this is ironic as throughout the film he is very depressed and we plan to use the song 'If you're happy and you know clap your hands.' We intend to use this song as it is a very familiar song and adding this to the protagonists looking dead eyed into the mirror, staring at himself creates an eerie feel. 

Updated Version

We have completely changed our final Short Film idea. We have now chosen to do a supernatural based film. Our current plot, follows a young teenage girl who wakes up seeing her family portrait in the background everyday. She then notices people are disappearing one by one from the image. 

However, we have included a supernatural element into this, we have used inspiration from many films such as 'Back To The Future'. 

We are planning to include many enigmas codes. Engimas Codes to entice the audience in and help move the the narrative on. For examples; a black silhouette of a man who is watching her sleep, this man could be her father. Another element, is when a the teenage girl is reading a book then a man comes up close behind her and whispers "Hello, Alice" making her jump up not looking behind and locking her door, shots of her panting and scared for her life, this will create suspense and ambiguity.   

RESEARCH: CODES AND CONVENTIONS

RESEARCH : BAFTA GURU - SHORT FILMS

RESEARCH : SUNDANCE SHORT FILM 2019

RESEARCH : DIFFERENT TYPES OF SHORT FILMS

RESEARCH / PLANNING : AUDIENCE QUESTIONNAIRE

I designed and distributed an individual audience questionnaire to investigate my target audience's preferences about short films it tailored to our own up coming short film production. Questions that were asked, For example 'What do you think makes an effective short film?' We will collate the answers and use this for our planning when thinking about our context of the short film, to create the most effective film.

I made this through Google forms, I chose this platform as it presents the data both in various formats displaying both qualitative and quantitative data. The use of qualitative data is hugely beneficial as it provides in depth answers rather than a Yes or No answer. Google Forms also is very useful as it is accessible to gather and collate the data that I can use for analysis. My aim when publishing this questionnaire was for further research, this will enhance my planning for my upcoming short film and allow me extend my planning for the type of Film.

RESEARCH : DON'T LOOK NOW

Don't Look Now was voted the best thriller; even though this is an older piece in 1973, the cinematography and screenplay was outstanding. This opening will be useful to help prepare and give editing techniques and cinematography to use. 

The opening slowly starts with the children playing outside whilst the parents are inside leisurely relaxing. The setting has a quick turn around when the young girl down in the back garden pond in her red jacket. Throughout the opening scene the directors use motivated edits. These edits can imply that the parents neglect their children and they are the cause of the incident. One motivated edit that stood out to me was when the young girl was wearing the red coat and drowning in the pond, the parents inside spilled red ink that spread out on a photo he was examining. The colour red suggests death, panic and danger, and this cause him to run outside as he got a eerie inkling. From this, it can be showed to have an supernatural suspension.  

The film cuts between Laura and John and between close ups of the slides which can be used as actual representation of reality. Whilst John observes the slides Laura observes the frozen lake which foreshadows the later death. As John looks at the slides this can be interpreted the fabricated representation of space, this establishes the film's investigation of the gap between perception and reality.  Perception in this opening can be what we see may not represent what is actually there,the photograph. The frozen lake can show that there is only partly represented by what we see.

This concept of representation and reality can be a useful contrast to go in depth within my up-coming short film. It will hugely attract audiences as it isn't common within short films and this will stand out.    

RESEARCH: SHORT FILM ANALYSIS - BLACK HOLE

RESEARCH: EXPLORING SHORT FILM MAKERS

RESEARCH: MARKETING - A QUIET PLACE

A Quite Place Collage 

RESEARCH: UNDERSTANDING MARKETING AND DISTRIBUTION

On the film Distributions website called 'The film space', I watched a presentation by Kezia Williams and Chris Besseling, they are head theatrical distribution at Pathe. Within the presentation they explain what the film distributor has to decide on how they are going to promote and present their new movie to engage the audience. They also need to evaluate how their movie will differ from others that are being released around the same time.

  

Throughout the presentation they discussed the key things need for the marketing and distribution of a movie, this included the USP (Unique Selling Points). There are many key elements that distributors have to think about who stars in the film and what were their most recent films, where was it made, is it based on a well-known book, are there innovative special effects who is the director and what were his/her most recent films, is it a sequel to an earlier hit?

Another key aspect is what hooks the audience. Sub-topics may include visual campaigns, for example: posters, trailers and online clips. Visual campaigns are critical as it is an effective way to help readers to get a lot of information easily. People also are intrigued by visual content as it catches their attention rather than plain text.  

Genre is also a key aspect of marketing as it is shared between the audience ad the film industry, For example a company is marketing a horror film the audience would expect scenes in the woods and isolated houses ect. 

Characters can also be used to engage a certain group of audience. Young characters may only be used to entice the to younger audience, for example Stranger Things have only casted young children and their main stream audience is young teenagers. The audience like well know actors such as Daniel Radcliffe in Harry Potter, this is a clever way to keep the old existing audiences and this is also linked with trilogy movies. 

RESEARCH: SCOOP.IT - SHORT FILM

Scoop.It - Short Film

This Scoop.It shows how popular short films are right now. How easy they are to get out and into the public eye. This is done though YouTube, as it is free and it is very popular on their. There has also been massively popular short films that have been oscar nominated. 

On my scoop.it account, I have linked many posts within my Short Film topic, I have also written detailed analysis on each posts. This hugely helps my research when looking into different examples and evaluating how Short films are presented and what makes a short films engaging. 

This is a link to my Scoop.it account: https://www.scoop.it/topic/short-films-by-georgie-clements-7

RESEARCH: SHORT FILM ANALYSIS - POST IT LOVE

Post.it Love Analyses from GeorgieClements

RESEARCH : WHAT ARE THE FILMS USP?

RESEARCH : WHO ARE THE TARGET AUDIENCE?

RESEARCH: SMALL FILM FESTIVALS

RESEARCH / PLANNING: SHORT FILM ADVICE

RESEARCH: SHORT FILM ANALYSIS - THE MASS OF MEN

RESEARCH: SHORT FILMS AT FESTIVALS

RESEARCH: WHAT IS A SHORT FILM?

I have made an infographic on short films. This gives me an insight on how to go on making my short film, providing research on the basic information on Shorts. I will keep returning back to this page whilst making my film to make sure I include as much detail to create an accurate representative of a short film.

I used Canva to create this post, it is an clear and easy way to create new ways of presenting my information. It is simple to use by editing pictures and the background colour.