Pare-Ata Netana
CDM 354
Short Film Production (Fiction)
Starting my CDM 354 Unit, I am beginning the planning for my final end-of-year project: planning and filming a short horror film. This is a group project. For this particular unit, we are learning and analysing themes within film and particularly horror, as well as discussing ideas for our own film.
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We discussed narrative structure and its importance within film and television. When planning a film, movie creators use beat sheets to properly structure their storyline. A movie is usually split into three or even four acts, which is then split even further into plot points that are crucial for a well-structured storyline. To help envision how almost every film follows these rules, I chose one to review, splitting the entire plot of the film into a beat sheet.
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Next, we discussed about characters. Character development in film and television is the journey on which the character goes on, and how this journey changes the character along the way. A well-written character is one where you can clearly see how the character has grown from the beginning to the end of a film/tv show. For example, a character that is kind, good and innocent at the beginning of the narrative, may end up as the villain by the end. Of course, this is quite an extreme example of character development, and some character's development can be much more subtle. To show this, I chose a character from one of my favourite tv shows and answered some questions that help to explain the character development of this character over the course of the series.
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Once these analyses were completed, we began to switch more towards the 'horror' element of this project. For this project, me and my classmates formed into groups of around 4-6 people. Our first task on this topic was to come up with our own individual ideas for a horror film, and then pitch it to our group. Whilst there were those that already had preconceived ideas for a horror film, I began this task with no clues as to what to create my horror film idea about. So, I started by searching for inspiration, through watching short horror films, and finding interesting images that might inspire me. I found that Pinterest was especially helpful, and I managed to come up with an idea I was happy with, and I created my pitch from there.
SHORT FILM PITCH
Following on from pitching my idea to the group, we came together to discuss which ideas we liked, and which one/s we would like to go forward with for the horror film we will actually be creating. After much discussion, we came to the conclusion that there was an idea from one of the members of our group (Maddy), that we liked the most. However, there were definitely some changes we wished to make.
Maddy's original idea was about a girl getting stuck in a forest that, unbeknownst to her, is home to a group of creatures that 'mimic' humans, so that they can slowly take their life force and replace the human as a direct replica of them. The film would be about this character's struggle as she tries to escape these creatures, but ultimately gets captured and replaced by one of them.
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The main change we discussed was the setting. Whilst a forest was an understandable location, we simply felt it may be difficult to film in such a remote place such as that, especially when it came to powering equipment and possible unforeseeable weather changes. So, we decided to take inspiration from my horror film idea, using the corridor, and expanding on it, so that the film was set in a hotel. Obviously, we understood that finding permission for a place to film would be tricky, but we felt that due to the sheer amount of hotels in Bristol, if we asked around, we would find somewhere that'd give us permission to film there.
SCRIPT DRAFTS
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Now we could start creating the scripts. First, we all sat down to discuss the narrative structure of our plot, what scenes we wanted to include etc. After establishing what we all wanted, we were now able to write the script. We made multiple drafts to show the progress and evolution of our scenes, ending up with a total of 5 drafts, until a change of plans meant that a sixth and final draft had to be added.
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We also had to have our script read and reviewed by another team, who gave us advice and feedback on our idea:
PEER REVIEW
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After scripts, we were tasked with individually creating a visual treatment for my group's horror film. A visual treatment is a way to show what a movie is about, without having to read through the entire script. Using images alongside a log line, synopsis and character briefs as well as any other details that may want to be included.
VISUAL TREATMENT
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It was after this stage that we began to realise that having our horror film set in a hotel may not be possible, as every place that we had tried to contact about filming had said no. So, instead we decided to compromise and change our location to an Airbnb, so that it would be easier for us to find a place. We went back and changed our script, creating a sixth one that ended up as our final final draft.
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NOTE: Despite changing our location, we did not recreate our visual treatments, as we felt that all the information was relatively the same, except we had it set in a different location. This is why the visual treatment above still mentions that it is set in a hotel.