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...