Location video...

Alice and myself decided to film a video talking about our location and the problems that we encountered...

Take One.

Last week we tried to film at the Gateway, which is a converted bungalow on the school site. It wasn't quite appropriate because it is very clinical-looking with it's white walls, and the site was actually in use by the lower school doing homework club, so we were quite easily disturbed which wasn't very helpful however, we still tried to film with the location anyway.
We were also lacking Caitlin who was ill;Jake was playing the cat, George was playing the man, Alice was on set to handle camera shots and angles, I was operating the camera and playing Amelia.
End result: Nothing really went to plan and so we are doing it at Jake's house on Wednesday 26th.

[Video to upload]

SCRIPT FOR MY BEAST FRIEND

This is the script for "My Beast Friend".

INT. HALLWAY. DAY

ED BRYNE enters shot through door way, stops and shrugs and then walks across the frame. Dressed in a black logo t-shirt and cargo green jacket and he is carrying a cardboard box full of books. FOUL-MOUTHED MANCAT FLUFF, sat in large card board box. Dressed in a fluffy grey cat outfit, with a luggage tag tied to him which is labelled ‘Please look after this cat free to good home’



FLUFF

(Struggling to say the words)

Please...Please...Please...

FLUFF

Ed, tell me what’s going on right now or I’m going sick up all yesterdays tuna

FLUFF makes retching sound

FLUFF

Oh No..

ED BRYNE stands up from crouching over box and walks towards camera, tucking hair behind ears as he walks.

FLUFF

It’s that girl isn’t it? Amoeba?!

Your mad. Shes waaay out of your league.

ED

(turns swiftly to face fluff)

This has nothing to do with Amelia. I just want to sort my life out. You know, get rid of some of the dead wood. So, I thought I’d take you to this great, fun place just for cats. Yeah – just until I finish tidying up.

Camera focuses on FLUFF who is curling his claws

ED

(in an over-execrated voice, waving his hands)

It’s called… Pleasure Land.

FLUFF

(humouring Ed)

Pleasure Land? Sweet...But not before time.
 

ED BYNE looks pleased and walks off camera. Door bell rings shadow of AMEILA through frosted glass, opens door. She is dressed in a black coat with a scarf.

AMELIA

I’m so sorry Ed, I know I’m super early! Oh my god –

AMEILA approaches FLUFF, ED BYNE looks anxious

AMELIA

Whos this?

ED

That’s-er-Fluff

AMELIA strokes the real cat FLUFF and picks up luggage tag

AMEILA

‘Free to good home.’

Some monster actually abandoned this..

Fluff becomes the man again. She tickles his chin, whilst he looks immensely happy with himself; shooting Ed a winning look.

AMELIA

..sweet little creature!

AMEILA picks up FLUFF, the real cat. In her arms FLUFF turn into the mancat and pats AMEILA’S shoulder

AMEILA

Well – Fluff, I guess that makes me your new mummy now.

AMEILA rubs her head against FLUFF

FLUFF

(to Ed)

You lying Cu...

The End. Credits Roll.

IDEA!

_______ is a lonely puppet character. He lives in a dustbin in a shed within his human friend's garden. One day he finds a wooden artist's mannequin in the garbage and he develops strong emotions towards it because it, like himself, is an outcast and is lonely. 
He decides to give her a personality and persona with the help of Jacob. Her arm joint is broken which they must fix.
After a while, _______ and his friend do everything together and so he decides to propose because they both fear being alone when they grow old.
Together, they make a wedding dress and have a wedding in the garden.

_______ is the protagonist, Jacob is the mirror, and she is the romance.

Mise-en-scene:
SET LOCATION → Jacob's garden, the garden shed, dustbin.
LIGHTING Dark in the shed, bright (and possibly snowy) in the garden and for the wedding.
COSTUME _______ has no costume in day-to-day life however, wears a tuxedo for his wedding. She wears a simple floral dress once _______ and Jacob have fixed her, and a wedding dress made out of newspaper and tracing paper.
MAKEUP None.
CAMERA SHOTS AND ANGLES Close-up shots, mid-shots, medium close-up shots.
PROPS Trash can, mini scissors, newspaper, tracing paper, bouquet, mannequin.

Possible names - Kozmo, Fuzz, 

Does she have a name? Currently undecided.

Storyboard

Thanks to Alice, we have a storyboard which was created out of screenshots from the short film.

audience research

1. How would you define a short film?

• Audience (3 years old): Good.
• Audience (35 years old): A film that is shorter in duration that a feature film which I imagine is within a defined time frame limit (for example less than an hour?).

2. Have you watched any short films before?

• Audience (3 years old): Cars Toons (Time Travel Mater, Air Mater, Heavy Metal Mater etc.), Day and Night, The Gruffalo, The Gruffalo's Child
• Audience (35 years old): I don’t think so. It is difficult to define whether something like The Gruffalo is a short film. I guess is depends on the time frame limit.

3. What kind of short film would you be interested in watching?

• Audience (3 years old): Animals, cars, fun.
• Audience (35 years old): Comedy or drama.

I decided to ask a wide age range in order to gain an understanding of the types of short films watched and also whether it would affect the results. For example, I found that my 3 year old brother had actually watched more short films than the other audience member, purely because they were either Pixar/Disney related films that are quite popular amongst young children. The spectrum of short films available for adults is a bit more specific and the audience has to actually search for the films rather than them being readily available at the cinema, i.e. feature films. 

The genres suggested by these audiences are very helpful because they will enable me to create a short film which is interesting and what audiences want to watch, rather than something a bit more 'out there'. I found these responses very helpful because now I have decided that I would like to create a film which can be watched by both children and adults. :)

What is a short film?

So the big question for the year is....What is a short film?
"A short film is any film not long enough to be considered a feature film. No consensus exists as to where that boundary is drawn: the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes or less, including all credits". The term featurette originally applied to a film longer than a short subject, but shorter than a standard feature film." (According to the all-knowing website, Wikipedia).

MY BEAST FRIEND

The main problem for choosing to recreate the short film 'My Beast Friend' is the fact that we need to locate a cat costume, the location, a cat, AND SCOTTISH ACCENTS (oh dear). These elements were reasons why we were originally hesitant to choose this opening over 'Get Off My Land', however, I personally didn't like this short film because it isn't a very 'easy watch' and is quite gruesomely predictable. The main reason for not doing 'Get Off My Land' was locating the props, characters and location.

The cat costume for our piece was originally a bit of a predicament, we decided to try and contact the local fancy dress shop, The Dressing Up Box in Attleborough, to see if they had any costumes that were close to what we needed. Alice sent an email and this is the response that we received:
Dear Alice, Sorry no cat like you clip, I do have a grey fur 'donkey' costume which could possibly be customised. When did you need the cat for as I do not have time to do anything to it until after the 21st September as I have a big show to costume.
Sue, The Dressing Up Box

-----Original Message-----
From: Alice Leng [mailto:aliceleng@hotmail.co.uk]
Sent: Wed 12/09/2012 12:05
To: sue@the-dressing-up-box.co.uk
Subject: Rental Cat Costume - A2 media studies project

Dear Sue, I am writing to enquire about the rental of a cat costume. I am currently a student at wymondham high school studying A2 level media studies, and we have been set the task of re-creating a short film, attached is an image of the cat scene we have to recreate. If you have any costume that would be appropriate for us to rent for the re-creation we would be really grateful for a reply and I shall come and see it. Thank you Alice Leng

However, we have chosen to use Jake's black 'morphsuit', my rabbit ears which I have adapted to become cat ears, and George as the character.

Photoshop work...

SNOW WHITE

I have just been working on an idea for a film magazine and so I edited an image of Snow White from 'Mirror, Mirror' (2012) on Adobe Photoshop CS4 and put it against a backdrop of a snowy forest.
This is just a quick draft...
The problem I have noticed however, is that the background that I chose is black and white, which doesn't quite correspond well with the bright colours of the character foreground of Snow White. I think that I will try and use a coloured background, and to tone down the colours of the character so that the difference between the two isn't so obvious.

The Totoro piece that I created is from the poster of 'My Neighbour Totoro'. I removed the background and inserted the string to their fishing rods.

TOTORO

Further fairytales...

Update on fairytales...
I have recently been watching short films and YouTube videos to find a concept or idea that I like. I found a song cover by Alex Goot, Tiffany Alvord and Luke Conard of 'We Are Young' originally by Fun. What I like about the video is that they have added SpecialFX to create little characters, people and instruments. I know that I wouldn't be able to recreate something as professional as this however, I decided to draw out some cartoon characters that could be inserted into a film opening. I drew some pictures of Bambi (Disney character), not to use, but to just establish an idea of woodland/faerie type characters.
I am also quite keen to use Adobe Photoshop CS4 to create my final piece.
[MY IMAGES]



Character Profile

Spencer Hugo Lawrence

1) What is their gender and age?
Male, 28 years old.
2) What is their weight, height, build, colour of hair, eyes and skin? Are they right or left-handed? Do they have any facial expressions, a squint or any disabilities? Do they have a limp or missing finger? Do they wear spectacles or contact lenses? How do they walk or move? Do they have any mannerisms or habits? Do they smoke? What are their attitudes to each of these?
11 and a half stone, 5"10, brown hair, blue eyes, soft golden skin. Occasionally wears glasses for reading purposes, Spencer has a slightly awkward, geeky personality; doesn't smoke but did socially at university.
3) How do they speak? What do they sound like? What pitch and speed is their voice? Any favourite saying or words? Do they use slang? or swear?
Speaks in a fairly low tone and quite slowly, quite upper-class and formal from his Oxbridge education in Maths and Physics. Doesn't swear very often because of his profession.
4) Do they live alone or with other people? Do they have any children? What is their relationship to them? What kind of children are they?
Lives in a two-bedroom studio apartment with his long-term girlfriend/best friend, Maggie. Spencer used part of his allowance from his parents to pay for the apartment, the couple own it and therefore do not pay rent. It is furnished in a fairly modern way, to contrast against the old character of the property. Maggie has also made it more homely by adding a few feminine touches. Spencer has a large, open-plan room with large bay windows in which he does his artwork and graffiti.
5) Are they successful in material terms? Do they have a good job with enough money? Are they worried about their finances? Are they financially independent? Do they like their job? If not, what would they rather do? What are the power relationships in their work with co-workers, boss, or employees?
Spencer and Maggie are doing well for themselves because they both come from wealthy backgrounds and their university degrees from Oxbridge have meant that they have excelled within their professions and are very respected by their colleagues. Spencer particularly admires his jobs because as a high school teacher, he is teaching children at the age that he was when he fell in love with maths, physics and art.
6) Are their parents living? Do they like them? Was their family rich, poor, struggling to keep up appearances? What have they inherited from them, both physically and psychologically?
Spencer's parents live in Pembrokeshire, where they own a country estate; they have wealthy ancestors and grandparents so money is not a problem for them. Spencer has inherited a vast monetary inheritance and also, Spencer's desires to succeed and his work ethic are greatly inspired by his father.
7) What is their nationality? Do they live in their country of origin? If not, why not? How do they feel about this?
Nationality - British
Maggie is of French heritage and ancestry.
8) When they are at home for an evening alone, are they happy with their own company? Do they read books, magazines, newspapers, the back of cornflake packets? What music do they play to themselves? What do they eat? Can they relax? Do they knit, sew, write letters, watch television, revise their notes from an evening class? What are their hobbies, if any? Are they quirky? Are they a collector? What do their hobbies, music and books tell us about them?
When alone, Spencer either paints in his studio or marks school papers. Spencer and Maggie like to dine out at French and Italian restaurants, sight-see top British attractions, and visit art exhibitions. They both like classical and indie music, occasionally attending concerts and gigs together.
9) What is their favourite colour? What is their star sign and birth stone? 
Favourite colour: Navy/red/grey
Date of Birth: 14/03/1984
Star sign: Pisces
Birth Stone: Bloodstone/Jasper

Recreation Project

So, last year we were given the task of recreating the opening two minutes of 'The Hangover'. The time has come again where we have to get into groups to decide upon which short film we would like to recreate; 'My Beast Friend' directed by Ewan Torrance, or 'Get Off My Land' directed by Douglas Ray.
Get Off My Land - http://www.bbc.co.uk/filmnetwork/films/p00gs4yj
My Beast Friend - http://www.bbc.co.uk/filmnetwork/films/p007xb6t
My group consists of me, Alice Leng, Jake Brownbill and Caitlin Robbins.

In order to execute a piece as close to the original as possible, we must take into account factors such as the gender/age/build/physical appearance as well as the role of the characters (in order to really get a feel for the characters we must create a biography for each of the main characters), the mise-en-scene (looking at the location, props, costume and make-up), the sound (luckily for us, by choosing 'My Beast Friend' we do not have the issue of the wind which we had in 'The Hangover'.
The deadline for the project is Friday 28th September (*AAAHHH SO SOON!*).

IDEAS...

I have also been thinking of other ideas that revolve around the hero, villain, mirror and romance; I did this in a group of 3, with Caitlin Robbins and Alice Leng.

IDEA 1 - A Maths/Physics teacher is also interested in graffiti wall art (the next Banksy) however, he does it in an educational way to inspire his students. The villain is a neighbourhood-watch member who removes the teacher's paintings from the walls and is altogether very disapproving. A student in the teacher's class, Neville, is particularly enthralled by his teacher and is also in love with the neighbourhood-watch man's daughter and so his teacher uses his artistic abilities to attract her attention and so the romance of the story is Neville and his girlfriend whom he has liked for a very long time.

IDEA 2 - Valentine's Day is approaching and a young boy is in love with a girl in his class and so he sends her numerous Valentine's cards in the hope that she will understand and reciprocate his feelings for her. However, the boy's bully who also likes the girl decides to pretend that the cards and gifts were from him. The good boy's female friend, who is also friends with the girl, helps her to understand his feelings and they end up happily together.

My favourite idea is the Banksy Maths/Physics teacher and so I have chosen to develop this idea because I believe it to be one that can be well executed as a short film and will explore many artistic and media techniques and technologies.