Research Dossier

I have researched online for different places to enter my short film into a competition and i have found a website called "Blue Cat Screen Play Competition". This is where i will be entering my short for competition.

Here is what there website logo looks like.

The main reason i have decided to go with this competition is simply because blue cat is a great competition for young writers who would like to be found as screenwriters and develop their skills. Blue cat offers opportunities to every young screen writers such as myself. It works by a writer submitting there screenplay into the website and blue cat will pick winners which will be entitled to a prize, in this case money. Also another good thing about blue cat is that the winners original screenplay will be out for others to see.

Just like any other competition there are obviously rules that everyone must follow.
Here is a list of rules i have taken from there original website.

  
Obviously there are other rules that we must follow too, such as how to enter the competition, the cost, and also meeting the deadlines. Again i have found this list on their website.

 Looking at the entry deadline for this competition is very unlikely that the time i have is enough to write my script and have a final draft by then. However i am determinate to submit my script into a competition so i will have it ready to go for next year competition.

Before starting to write my own script I decided to have a look at someone else script to analyse. This is just to ensure I am doing the writing properly. I went to BBC website and went on the writers room where i have found a lot of scripts to choose from when examining. I decided to go with a script from Mark Brotherhood, named "Worst Year Of My Life Again".

Script example from The Writers Room (evaluation):

Outer presence:
This is seen as the exterior of the character. This is what creates the firsts impressions of the character and its surroundings. We are not given many outer presence on this script but we can find a little of it at the start of the script. looking at the script and Alex actions we are given the impression that Alex is not very old, i would say on his 13/14 years old. And by the name we assume that its a male.

Inner presence:
The inner presence is created by the characters interior, an example would be their attitude. We are given some inner presence from the start in order to get us involved straight way. The writer tells us about the shooting covers which already tells us a little about his attitude and gives the impression that something is about to happen. The he tells us that Alex has "a big grin on his face". This is already getting connected to the characters feelings. It shows us that he is happy for some reason or he is in a good mood. The fact that the writer tells us that is a special day already lets us know why he is so happy.

Context:
The writer immediately starts with a context by describing what Alex has on his room. He tells us about the "calendar alarm clock" which tells us the the exact day of the year. We also know about the bed and wardrobe and the upturned plug in which Alex steps on it. We also see a radio in scene which then starts playing and announces a something very important.

Dialogue:
From the script above i particularly like this bit of dialogue:

It is a short bit of dialogue but i think it says a lot, especially about our opening character "Alex". The fact that Alex wakes up all hyper and and jumpy gives the audience an impression that he is happy and something especial is about to happen, however we as an audience don't know what it is. When reading this peace of dialogue we already start to have ideas. Alex anxious reactions to the dialogue gives makes it obvious of whats happening. Without the script say we as an audience get the feeling that it is Alex's birthday. It is then confirmed to the audience that it is Alex birthday when Samantha wishes him happy birthday.

Here are two examples of my favorite 10 minutes short I have found online.
This is a 10 minutes short presented by iQlik Movies. It is called "7 Minutes, Every Second Counts".


This is a shorty story of a normal hard working man who had his daughter taken as hostage. He then faces a series of challenge in which he has 7 minutes to do each one of them. His last challenge was to suicide however when he was about to his daughter comes running to him with a letter from the kidnapper who explains why he has taken his daughter. The reason was simply because the man had had an accident where he was driving drunk and killed the kidnapper's daughter. The kidnapper wanted the man to fell the pain of losing a child.

Act 1- The set up: We have an establishing shot of a man fixing his motor bike. From the first shot the audience can already tell that the man is from a poor country, because of the old styles motorbikes and cars, and also the poor living conditions such as tends and dust in the air. As the opening scene starts we also hear the man's  mobile ringing at the same time.

Plot point 1- This starts from the moment the man picks up the phone and finds out that his daughters life is in trouble. Because of this we now know that this man will be the protagonist of the story and the man behind the phone is the antagonist. The man gives him seven minutes to complete a task otherwise his daughter dies. Based on this information we get the feeling that the film will be an adventure film where the protagonist has to go through series of problems to accomplish something.

Plot point 2- This is when he gets to the last stage of his adventure to find his daughter and realizes that he might not ever see her. Once he finds out the antagonist once again calls with more sets of information he has to follow. This time he had to kill himself by jumping from the bridge.

Act 2- Confrontation: This is when the man was standing at the top of the bridge bracing himself to jump in order to complete his last task. He was confronting the antagonist by completing his adventure.

Act 3- Resolution: When he was just about to jump his daughter runs to him calling for his name. He grabs her and ensures she is safe. She gives him a resolution letter in which explains why this was done to him.

Again this is another ten minute short in which i quite like and enjoyed watching. It does not have anything to do with what i actually intend to do but i think the background story is strong and powerful. This ten minute short is called "10 minutes" by Ahmet Imamovic.

This ten minutes short is set in two different locations, it begins in Rome where a tourist is looking to get his photos printed in 10 minutes. He then goes out to have a cigarette. We then cut to a different set, this time in Sarajevo. The story there is about a young boy who goes out to get some water for his family. While he is out the city is attacked, by the time he returns home he goes sees the horror of his all family dead. What makes this story so powerful is that 10 minutes for some is long time, for others is short time. The time it took the tourist to have a cigarette, it was the same amount of time that killed hundreds of people. A lot can happen in ten minutes.

Act 1- The set up: On this short we have two set ups in different places. First we are shown Rome back in 1994. We as an audience we see a tourist taking pictures and wanting to reveal them. We are then taken into a different set in Sarajevo where we see a poor family living in the middle of war. Buildings and roads are all destroyed. Based on the date

Plot point 1- This is when his parents get him to go out and bring some water fro the family so that they could eat.

Plot point 2- This is when the story changes pace from slow to fast. Everything was fine and all of a sudden the boy has to face, bombs, gun fires, and grenades. There town was under attack.

Act 2- Confrontation: This is when the protagonist, in this case the boy faces or confronts his horror. He runs home in the middle of the war to find out his family had all been killed.

Act 3- .Resolution: This story ends much different, we do not see a resolution for the second story about the little boy however we cut back into the first story where the tourist is given his photo that had been done in 10 minutes. At the same time that the town was all destroyed.

Audience research:
Having done all most of the research and gathered enough information to start writing my own ten minutes short i only had one more research to take in consideration, which is audience research. I first dropped down ideas about my ten minute short. I then resumed my idea into a page long pitch. I then pitched my idea to my class and teacher. We then discussed good and bad sides of my idea, we also look into whether this could be made in a 10 minutes short. My story is about bullying, however because the characters are around 11 years old demographically my primary audience would be around the same age, both male and female. Because bullying is so common today at such young ages psychograpically I think most of my primary audience will be able to relate to the story.  Getting feedback from audience such age was pretty impossible for me. However because the story was about bullying at young age some people around my age who had experienced it before could relate to it and give feedback. The feedback i got from my class was enough to get me started.

Themes, location and characters:
When witting up my script i did take in consideration that I may not be able to make this as getting hold of the characters, themes and locations would be not impossible but improbable. My story is based in London, however i could still film most of the scenes around my area as they mostly happen indoors. One of the problems is that my story involves a whole class of 11 years old in middle school. I would have to film at a middle school with students from that school around that age, during my college time meaning it is also their school time too. This would be very improbable. Another scene is set at a hospital room, again I would find this very difficult to do as i would have to find a free room at a hospital and get legal permission to use it. When writing it i did take in consideration that i might of been able to get permission to film at a near by hospital called "James Paget Hospital". Other scenes were set in places such as houses, I could use my own house to do this. And parks, i could also use a park near by as we have plenty around Great Yarmouth, such as Saint Georges Park.

My idea
I originally got my idea for the story from a book that i came across when i was still in Portugal. I must of been around 10 years old and at time it was one of my favorite book although there was a collection of them around 8 different book that one was my favorite. The book is called "Cherub- O Recruta", This was written by Robert Muchamore. When i red this book it was in Portuguese however i have found a copy of it online in English.
It was not the whole book that influenced me into writing my story, it was just a short scene that had happen early in the book where it demonstrates that bullying is never acceptable and can sometimes end up bad for both the bully and the person being bullied. I found this scene quite touching as I knew a person who had gone through a similar situation.
I done some research online and have found that bullying is very common at young age, it tends to start at around 8 years old sometimes even earlier than that. Children all around the world start suffering from bullying at young age. Bullying can vary, it maybe be physical, verbal, social exclusion and even rumor spreading. My idea is to show young children that bullying can result in bad situations that they may never had though about, or even had intention of it happening in such way.

With my story i am hopping to reach into most children heart and reduce the number of bullying. It is said that 70% of all children have experience bullying in some way. And also 1 million kids suffer from bullying every week. These figures are ridiculous especially for such a young age. Knowing this influenced me a little more into writing a story that may bring good in children while they are still young and innocent and reduce bullying.

Single Camera pre production paper work

Here you can find all the paper work we came across in order to produce our ten minutes short and be able to place it on YouTube.

Location Recce 

Location Release 

Budgeting

Props and Costume List

Production Schedule

Talent Release

Risk Assessment

Story Board

Single Camera Production Techniques

In this blog post I will be writing about single camera productions. I will explain about the camera and how it is used, how the lighting is affected in single camera productions, the sound track/dialogue and the editing. I will then go into further details and explain about the single camera genres and formats. At the end i will talk a little about the multi-camera techniques and how this is different from single camera. I will talk about the advantages and disadvantages of single camera to multi-camera.

If we reflect back to moving images whether you are using single or multi camera production it is never easy to film as both techniques do come across their issues. However some people believe that the use of single camera production is not always as good as using multi camera production. Lets focus now on single camera production.

How is the camera used and the footage shot?
As you may be able to tell the name "single camera production" says it all. When doing a single camera production every scene is shot with only one camera and most of the time exactly the same camera throughout. Although this is only done with one camera you can still gather amazing shots from different angles and different distance. This means that the actors will have to repeat the same steps over and over again as one scene can be shoot multiple times from different angles and distance. This means that the camera itself is moving however the set and the actors are still at the spot. Because of the repetitive reenacting and shots, the single camera production tends to take a longer period of time to complete.

How is a single camera production lit?
When it comes to lightening a lot of producers actually prefer single camera production as the lightening is easy to sort out for just one camera as each scene can be lit individually. The single camera production lightening is done by a method named " 3 point lighting system". Basically the lightening is done using 3 sets of light. Two of these will be placed besides the camera one on each side focusing on the subject. These lights are normally called "Key and Fill light". The third light is what they call "back light", and this is placed behind the subject to clear out any shadows. This light is not seen on the footage.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of sound in single camera.
Just like the lighting the gathering of audio for a single camera production is is good and flexible. The reason for this is because of the various amount of time the scene is shot. Meaning that there is a various amount of audio that is gathered too. When editing the editor has a variety of choices to pick from audio. For example they can pick the best footage visually and combine it with the best audio as long as it fits.

When it comes to film production the most common device used for this is the boom mic. This is a directional mic which is mounted on a boom mic and then placed just out of the view from the camera. The reason a boom mic is so good for capturing sound is due to the insulation around the mic preventing the vibrations from surround to be captured. The only complicated bit about using this mic is controlling the distance from the character and the mic very carefully. This kind of mic is a great choice to film outdoors where wind and horrific ambient sound tend to be a problem.

In single camera production a really good technique used to make the audio fell less jumpy and awkward is extra record. The producers tend to start recording the audio a little earlier then what is meant to and at the end they carry on recording for a little longer. This is good simply because when it comes to editing they can cross fade the audio of the same scene gathered from different shots. By doing this the audio will sound much more fluid with no awkward jumps.

However there is a disadvantage when capturing audio in single camera production. When doing this they are only using one camera meaning the there will only be one mic recording the audio. This is a disadvantage because a single mic will not capture as much audio and ambient sound as three, four or more mics would. Although in single camera production there are various amount of audio to choose from when editing there are less good choices of ambient sound to pick as there is only one mic involved in every shoot.

When it comes to dialogue there is not much problem as the footage can be looked back at and the dialogue can be recorded in the studio an then embedded in post production.

Multi-camera productions tend to use various amount of mics. These mics tend to be wireless an they are normally tapped onto the actors clothes. Some are hidden in different places of the set. Other mics are normally seen on camera, for example shows like, x-factor and Britain got talent. The reason being for the use of so many mics is simply because when there is an error with the audio it is much harder to correct it in multi-camera production as many of them tend to be live.

How is a single camera production edited?


When it comes to editing in single camera production it is necessary that time is taken into consideration as this normally takes longer than multi-camera editing. The reason being is simply because each scene will have a massive amount of shots taken. The process goes by taking a master shot of the scene which opens the scene from a wide and long angle, these are then followed by various shots from various angles. Some people tend to keep what is called "Shot logs" so that they keep track of the shots taken and the times it has been taken.  The editor has to have his work area well organised so that finding and picking the right shots for the right scenes is easier. In multi-camera production footages can sometimes be edited live as there are multi cameras from different angles. This is useful simply because the editor controls and chooses which camera we see at time.



5. Single camera genres and formats.
There are a load of different genres in film, TV shows, etc. However when filming with single camera genres tend to jump it automatically. For example using a single camera would be more beneficial to film a horror film. This is because with the use of only one camera we can control the lighting better, the angles and also the actors. We can go right up to the actors with the camera as there are no other cameras filming. Close ups on a subject is really good as it will give the viewers that exciting, mysterious, dramatic feeling alongside with building tension. This gets the viewer more involved with the film as it gives that personal feeling with a subject. Other genres such as thrillers and crime dramas are in the same area as horror, it benefits from the use of single camera and most times it is actually better to only use one camera for these.

A genre that would benefit more from multi-camera production rather than single is comedy. The reason for this is simply because we have more cameras to be able to catch all of the actors natural reactions to a certain event. If we were to do the same with a single camera it would be much harder and time consuming as we would have to stage everything once again and re-do the shoot from the angle we want. Soap opera is another TV genre which is normally filmed using multi-camera production.

Alongside with the genres there are a few formats that go with single camera productions.
The most common formats in single camera production are series, serial and single drama. You may think you do not know any however Im sure that you have came across all three of these at least once.
"CSI" would be a great example of a series. This is when the program is based around the same central characters, ran episodically with a different story line and episode every week.
A serial is similar to a series however at the same time slightly different. A serial also runs in episode for an amount of time, some serials may never end, at least in your life time. However instead of having a new episode with a different story line the story in a serial develops with time. These would be soap opera such as "Emerdale and Hollyoaks". An example of a common serial would be "Pride and Prejudice".
The last one is single drama, this is different then the other twos simply because a single drama is more like a short film. A single drama normally tells the whole story in one single episode. The minimum length for a single drama is 5 minutes. A great example of this would be "A short stay in Switzerland". It also won the 2010 BAFTA.

7. Multi-camera techniques 
Multi camera technique is very widely used in many films and television programs. Most cases it would be very difficult to film a certain scenery with just one camera. This is because it would be impossible to cover all the action happening. An example of this would be sports such as football, rugby and basketball. The fact that there are so many players on the field and all at different points at the same time makes it impossible to film everything that is happening. In order to do this various cameras are set up in different places and angles. Other example of television programs that are filmed using multi camera are talent shos such as X-Factor and Britains got talent.

Multi camera are mostly used when the filming is done live so its slightly easier to edit as it goes along. It is also used when a scene can not be filmed again without creating a continuity error. Films such as action films where there are many things happening at once may not be able to be re-shoot so multi cameras are placed everywhere to cover every angle and catch every detail needed to edit.  

Using multi-camera has its benefits, it saves time as the amount of shoots needed to be retaken will be reduced due to the various amount of cameras planted, Another benefit is that there will be less continuity error as there are cameras everywhere and many shoots will not need re-takes.
However the bad side of using multi-camera technique is that when it comes to lightening it is much harder to lit the whole scenery and make sure that the lightening is consistent throughout every camera. A second disadvantage to this would be the transporting of equipment. Having more cameras means you have more to carry with you to the scenery.

Single Camera Production Diary

9th February
We were given our groups at the start of this week. I was put with Ed and Jamie. We then sat together and read each others script and had a discussion about and in which one to shoot. After reading we also took in consideration if the script is actually possible to shoot, if we can get hold of the scenery, the right props and costumes and also similar characters. At the end of the lesson we decided we would do Ed's script called "The last laugh".

10th February
Next day we immediately started to work hard on the pre production, we started to do our paper works. Ed and Jamie took control of the story board as I had not been well to attend every lesson. When i came back I started to do the rest of the paper work such as risk assessment, talent releases, location release and location recces .  As we did this we realized that some of the shoots would not work so we took out a few scenes and added new ones to the script. We did this for the rest of the week.

23th February
After our week off we started to organize and decide where we would be shooting, we then went out and took photos of these places. We used the week to also finish on the story boards as these were quite long and hard to do.

2nd March
Having all the paper work done and dusted included the story board we had to start filming. We used this week to start filming the scenes which were easier and faster to do and at the same time flexible to do in lessons. Throughout out the week we went to Jamie's to record some of our footage. In the same week we also went to my place and used the creepy room to record some of our scenes.

9th March
We started to use the lesson time to edit the bits we had already recorded the previous week, we did not do any filming during lessons in this wee simply because the rest of our scenes happened at night time so we would have to wait until it gets dark so we filmed after lesson times around 7/8pm.

12th March
It is almost the end of the week and the deadline is on the 13th March. We will not be able to meet this deadline as we still have some filming to do and everyone in the group are only available on the following Monday.

19th March
Luckily we were given more time to finish and edit our short film. However today is the last day we have on this bit of work. Ed, Jamie and I have worked really hard editing and adding all the effects to make our work look better. We topped it up with some sound tracks from incompetech. We also use after effects to do the final bit which was our title and also our credits.