PLANNING: ADVANCED PRODUCTION INITIAL DEVELOPEMNT

To begin the planning process of our short film we decided to consider what genre we wanted for our short film. Prior to planning our film we did plenty of research into other short films by watching them and reading up on the award winning films. By doing this research we decided that genres such as comedy and sci-fi weren't the type of films that we wanted to make ourselves, however the more dramatic and intense short films such as Mass of Men that we watched had us so captivated and on the edge of our seat that we wanted our own short film to have the same effect. When brainstorming different possible genres there were some that stood out to use more than others. For example the genres thriller and drama gave us more inspiration for ideas than romance did. When discussing the genre, thriller, we had a lot of ideas for what locations we could use for our short film. For example, Thea lives near a lake surrounded by a woody area, this location is a typical convention used for thriller and horror films, so we think that we should take full advantage of this. We imagined this scene where this mystery man could be walking through the woods, if its cold we could see his breath in the air and the ice crunching on the ground, all this would create a very sinister setting and a lot of suspense for our audience. As well as this we wanted to consider the fact that we live so close to such a mainstream city, London, and discussed if incorporating this into our film could create a glamorous aspect to our short film. We wanted to tackle and relatable and relevant issue in our film to give it some sort of value and the ability to leave an impression on our audience. From this we decided that we wanted our film to revolve around social media and how it portrays people.

We came up with two different possible plots. The first being a girl meets stalker theme. This idea came about because all three of us had recently just watched the Netflix series Unbelievable, we were so captivated by it that it has influenced our planning process and inspired one of our possible themes. However we also came up the plot of a teenage girl who lives her life off social media. She posts lots of glamorous photos in fancy restaurants and nice dresses. She has a big following and a lot of people envy the life she leads. We want to pick out three different posts in particular and look into a possible darker back story into the girls life prior to taking the photo. We want to rely on using special effects such as emotional music and lighting to make our short film as touching and moving as possible for our audience.

Below is the mind map that we created when throwing around the ideas that we had for our short film including: the effects, props, location and plot.


 

ANALYSIS: POST IT LOVE

ANALYSIS: RUSSIAN ROULETTE

ANALYSIS: HIGH MAINTENANCE

ANALYSIS: THE MASS OF MEN

Made with Canva:

RESEARCH: FILM WEBSITES

RESEARCH: FILM MARKETING

On the Film Distributors' Association site, I watched a presentation by Kezia Williams, head of theatrical distribution at Pathe, on how distributors work to create a successful marketing campaign for each film. After watching the presentation I decided to investigate the different aspects of a marketing campaign for the recently released film, The Joker. 

In Williams presentation she explained that in order to even begin marketing the film the key themes and the hooks of the film need to be identified so that the selling point of the film can be established. Once the distributors have identified what is going to excite and interest their target audience then marketing strategies can be decided, this may be by reading the script, or these factors may only be established once they have seen the finished film. The selling point of the film may be the cast of the film or the fact that it's going to be a blockbuster film with advanced visual effects. 

The reason I chose to research further into The Joker's marketing strategies is because it is obvious that the distributors have gone through all the stages that Williams discussed in her presentation. For example the films distributor is Warner Bros, meaning the audience immediately knows that they are in for a quality blockbuster film, and this is made obvious. As well as this the film has a thought provoking element in it that may trigger an emotional feeling for the audience, and this aspect is a very good marketing strategy that the film has taken advantage of. 

To display my research I decided to make a collage displaying the different elements of marketing such as the films website, poster and trailer. The film has managed to take on every method of marketing to make it impossible for the public to miss hearing about it. Their social media pages on Twitter and Instagram, for example, are very active with new posts everyday showing that the distributors want to be very interactive with their audience, and this ultimately does lead to the film getting more attention and more people wanting to go and see it. 

There is an interview on YouTube of Joaquin Phoenix On Jimmy Kimmel Live, a very popular talk show. From this method of marketing the target audience can get to see the star of the film in a more informal and personal manner, if the audience grow to like the actor then they will want to see his work in the film. 

One aspect of The Joker that drew a lot of attention from the media, was the link to mental illness that the film has. This aspect brought in both praise and controversy for the film, either way it got people talking about the film therefore making others want to watch the film so that they can join in on the discussions.

RESEARCH: AUDIENCE QUESTIONNAIRE

I devised an audience questionnaire because I wanted to get some more information on what is going to be my target audience for myself and my production team before we make our short film. I created my questionnaire on GoogleForms because it meant that it was easy to access and share to a range of my peers and different age ranges to collect diverse answers. I was able to collect data that I will be able to present in both graphical forms and words, as I asked questions that yielded both quantitive and qualitative data:

RESEARCH: CODES AND CONVENTIONS OF A SHORT FILM

RESEARCH: EDINBURGH FILM FESTIVAL ADVICE