On 31st October, in our lesson we started to think about ideas for our short film.
Firstly we confirmed that our audience were 16-20 female/male year olds and we started with the brainstorming process, which just consisted of putting down as many ideas as we could, thinking about what our purpose of our short film would be. Was it to educate? Send a message? Experiment? We decided that the reason for doing this short film would be to experiment as aspiring directors, and if our film sends out a particular message then we are also happy with that.
We then went on to develop our initial ideas and started thinking about the different influences of short films we had seen and how they could influence our own short film. We thought about how we could stick to the brief of inputting something ‘British’ in it, which I found very hard because we had, many ideas but then had to try and change them to adapt to the brief. I was adamant on making a short film which had a great plot twist because to me, that is the thing at the top of the list of making a short film most interesting but when developing out initial ideas we couldn’t think of anything that could contain a big plot twist. Many ideas had practicalities such as one idea where the main character needed to be gay, who could we find that would feel comfortable being casted in a homosexual role? That idea didnt last very long and we had to move on to other ideas. Other praticalities we found were with one idea which we wanted to make. to do with a British theme of Social realism. Though we felt we would fall into the trap of makign the obvious stalker short film that onl has basic camera shots, angles and movements of just following a vunerable girl with audio of "heavy breathing" over the top to create tension. It was quite easy coming down to three main ideas as another praticality of another idea we found was one short film we wanted to make that would be a mockumentary of a Day in the life of our Sixth, which would be for experimental puroses and film the students and Teachers in sixth form to explore what their daily lives are like.Though the main praticality that lead us not to choose to do this was the fact that we knew it would be a hassle to get some people on board or there would be many students who would be silly and mess around.
Out of five initial ideas, we decided that getting a focus group would be a great idea of whittling them down to just three. We had a focus group of about 7 pupils and generally observed as they made comments about each film to make our final decision about the three best ideas for our short film. Here are some of the comments made:
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This was a great help and we were finally left with three diverse and good ideas that matched the brief well:
1st idea: How To Love.
In a relationship filled with terror and domestic violence Katie is in love with her abusive partner. As he becomes increasingly abusive Katie begins to dwell on the thought of staying with her former boyfriend who she actually had loved but left in a moment of stupidity. Her thoughts lead her to think out how her whole life would be with him and finally realises what it is to love: how her boyfriend should actually be treating her and how to love herself. Katie takes drastic action in showing her current boyfriend ‘How to Love’ shocking both him and herself. The film will be for educational purposes, for citizenship while having the theme of social realism which is a popular British theme, tackling issues such as domestic violence. The film will be a circular narrative to put emphasis on the theme of how to love and could have a running monologue from Katie or cleverly done by the former boyfriend. This complies with the brief because of the theme and because of the elements of social realist but Romantic genre.
2nd idea: Unlucky in Love
Two people. Two lives. Two journeys. Tom seems to be having the worst day ever, yet Louise is having the best day ever. Louise gets out on the right side of bed while Tom gets out the left side. As we follow the journey of two young people who live totally separate lives, we see just how different life is for the others around you. As Tom’s day just deteriorate into a day nuisance and misfortune Louise’s day takes fortune in Tom’s misfortune and things just keep getting better and better. Tom looses £10, yet Louise gains £20? The last straw of this day filled unfortunate occurrences is when Tom misses his train for a very important event, but ironically this final misfortune leads to the only good thing of the day: meeting Louise. As they meet, they instantly form a connection and we are thrown into the future of their lives together which shows nothing but great fortune. To keep with the brief of ‘Britishness’ we decided that this film could obviously have the genre of ‘RomCom/Romantic’, probably the most popular British genre around. This film would be for experimental purposes and send a light-hearted message that: things are not always so bad and can turn themselves around. The film would use a series of cross-cutting to differentiate between the two lives of both characters, emphasising how different their day is going.
3rd idea: Poor boy, Rich life.
In a world dominated by money, being Rich is ‘obviously’ the better the option. But in this heart-throbbing short film, David and George are best friends, they are exactly alike and do everything together but there is just one thing that socially divides them: their class. As the lives of both are followed throughout their school and home life it is revealed that being Rich is not the best option after all. David is of the working class background and lives in a poor home shared with his eight brothers and sisters, but his family are everything and he has the greatest support from all of them in all aspects of his life. George, on the other hand is of a high class background, with no brothers and sisters. He has the gadgets, he has all the money he could possibly think of but where is his parents? He is bombarded with notes of money everyday but the only thing he doesn’t have, is the true love and affection of his parents. So, who has the better life, in this tale of class and the true rewards of life? This film would comply with the brief of ‘Britishness’ as the theme would be social realism and it would be educational in teaching people the real values in life.
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