try and make story visual by using objects and actions
mind change - not painful enough
not clear about jumper in script
end - how serious is it? needs to be more clear
I agree that the moral premise isn't quite there yet, we need to develop this further so that we can identify what the attitude is and what we want to happen in the film, the mind change needs to be more painful and the script needs to be clearer for our audience while keeping in mind that the film needs to be visual.
I have visited the Crime Museum Uncovered where I learned about the history of crime and popular crimes such as the Millennium Dome Heist and Great Train Robbery and how the criminals were caught - my interest in crime was sparked when I sat on a jury for a high profile robbery case. At the museum I found out about how criminals and their activity was recorded, I learned about the process of court room sketches; also the process detectives go through in order to solve a crime. I believe it gave me an insight on the 'right' side of the law. I watched numerous films and read numerous books that contrasted with this, they gave me more an insight on the criminal's perspective of the crimes and their reasoning why, for example Charlie Seiga's book Killer - his family was involved in crime, so he was exposed to it at a young age, Seiga says that he saw his older brothers with 'flash gear' and decided he also wanted that life. The questionnaires we conducted gave an insight to what our peers thought about crime, it also showed us how naive and brainwashed by the media some of our audience can be. We interviewed a 'Copper' about how the criminal justice system works and his views on them, which was interesting to get an opinion on the 'right' side of the law without any pressure, and the similarities to how we felt about the same issues was refreshing and helped us solidify our ideas. We also conducted interviews on each other which helped with learning about each other's experiences with crime and our opinions on crime and using it to our advantage and again solidifying ideas for our project. As a group, we have decided to create a short film with two characters reflecting how we feel about crime and when we think it is acceptable for our moral compasses to change, we want to keep it as a domestic issue. We need to finish our production planning and then go into shoot and post production, we also need to finish our advertising campaign. Our project is about finding our limit of our own moral compass in terms of theft.
dialogue sounds mutual - play around with placement
a lot of exposition
is the 'i'm sure if you say you're sorry it'll be okay' enough of a turning point
I'll miss you??
I think the keyboard thing is what symbolises the relationship between Dawn and Lila, Dawn is being annoying and starts the fight, Lila retaliates, they both bicker and Lila shuts it down as she is the eldest. I also think it is childish and light hearted and honestly my favourite part from the Caught in the Act original script.
However I agree with the dialogue and the lines - we need to think of the moral premise more in depth as that's where the problem lies now, once we find it - it'll be easier to write the dialogue and find a point where it becomes painful for the characters to change their decision.
I agree that the moral premise doesn't reflect what happens in the script, the script was rushed in order to just to write and get something down - needs to be changed to fit the script more
I agree that Georgie and I are good at writing domestic issues in our scripts, as previously seen in Caught in the Act - we need to alter the script to fit to what we are good at and can do well
I agree that the dialogue is very 'on the nose', it needs to be more subtextual in order to fit with the age range of the characters in the script and also to make it more interesting for the audience - again, we need to develop the script to accommodate subtext - stick to what we know and are good at
I agree that the ending wasn't what Dawn's character would've done - needs to change, she shouldn't 'let go'
I know that the first draft of the script was rushed, I think the gang stuff overcomplicates the storyline for a short film and we need to remove that aspect and make it simpler for the audience to understand. Now that Georgie and I have had a chat about the script and where we think we should go from here we can write a second draft we will change the moral premise and stick to domestic issues in the script, develop the dialogue for subtext and alter the ending - in our last script Georgie and I felt a strong connection to the characters and the scenerio they were facing, however with this script I don't feel it and I think we should work towards that connection goal.
It was suggested in feedback that we should look into the London Riots.
Research into the London Riots further proves the reasoning why I initially didn't look into it - the riots were caused by an unjust death in the black community by a police officer who claimed the boy was armed when he was not. While the riots did include theft or 'looting', it was in protest rather than an organised robbery/burglary that was not provoked.
However, I thought that the stereotype of young teenagers in black hoodies is relevant in crimes that involve theft such as the London Riots and is something that I think should be subverted in my film as I don't personally identify with black hoodie gang members.
I decided to look at my last project (before FMP) and pick up from the feedback that I needed to improve on, to ensure that my FMP film was the best it could possibly be.
I looked into Propps character types
From this I learned that I need to apply some of these archetypes to my characters and how they can apply to other films; I also think I have learned that my work needs to be really visual, and to rely on stereotypes as well as subvert them.
From the Caught In The Act project, the lighting was criticised heavily, therefore I looked into lighting and how to light my characters in scenes so that the lighting can reflect the mood I'm trying to create, as well as help frame the shot and focus on what I want the audience to look at.
I also looked into colour theory to also help reflect the mood I intend to set in my short film, however this will be used in post production mainly as we plan to slightly tint the film to a slightly blue shade, to reflect the trust and stability in the relationship between the characters, but also hint on the sadness and depression the characters are feeling.
From previous projects I have found that my storyboards haven't been the best they could be, I looked into a few tutorials and basic symbols and signs that are followed to help make my storyboards more easy to read and follow on shoot. The tutorials have also helped with my time management and to create a shooting schedule and shot list to help use the time on shoot more effectively.
We wrote a questionnaire in order to get other interpretations of crime within our target audience.
I found it a struggle to write the questionnaire as I wasn't sure what I wanted to be answered, and how to word the questions so there would be none of my biased opinion on the audience. 1. 3/10 NO 7/10 YES – only 3 shared what it was (when they were under the age of 7 – didn’t know right from wrong
2. 9/10 NO 1/10 – Depends
3. 2/10 NO 8/10 YES
4. dying/end of the world/ taking back rightfully theirs/ starving /needing to survive/ 4/10 said never
5. money/selfish/’no choice’/desperation/ peer pressure/ social / love
6. when you don’t need what you’re stealing/ the value of what you are stealing/ crisis/ hurting someone/ 2/10 unsure and 2/10 said never
7. London riots/ hatton garden x 3 / 4/10 said no
8. 3/10 yes 7/10 no
9. prison/ fine/community service/ 10 years/ depends x 2/make up value of what they took
10. depends/ happy (providing they get away with it)/ on edge/ guilty/ paranoid/ powerful
11. mask/ bald/ scar/ facial disfigurement/ rough/ dark clothing/ hoodie/ black/ teens – early 20s/ gang member
What I learnt:
Heavily reported news dictates what people know/remember
Audience have harsh view of crime - possibly dictated by media coverage
Audience are also unsure about how they feel - crime is a grey spectrum
I think it would be beneficial for this project to interview ourselves, as this project is about our own opinions
I think that this entire week has put me behind in my project - I previously already felt pushed for time due to the Easter Break and not being able to meet up with Georgie to talk about our own research and ideas - I think that this would have been more beneficial if it had been a 1 day project rather than a week long project.
I think the best part about this project was talking about our FMP's with the graphic students and giving each other ideas for research and things to look into, this project also taught me that there are different methods I can use to get to my end result.
Feedback:
experiment with font types
experiment with placement of font
like the use of colour
like it's simplicity
To improve:
I think that this series of photos is a simplistic but effective idea - the primary colours represented the naive side of crime and the youth and the tertiary colours represented the seriousness of crime and higher levels of crime. To improve I would experiment with backgrounds, font types and font placement, I would also experiment with drawing on the handcuffs as I think it doesn't look as sophisticated photoshopped in.
From this project I learnt that, I should always consider colour in my work, especially this FMP project, also to experiment with font types and placement in my advertising campaign with the posters we produce.
By the end of this week I hope to have accomplished the following.
What I have learnt:
working in a group is hard - one person is motivated and the other one isn't. I have found it really hard this last week as I feel like I am beginning to nag.
There is not much time left, and we need to get a move on with our project and what way we decide to take it
Personally, I found this performance to be really confusing, I think that in order to understand what was going on I had to know about the performance beforehand. In terms of morality (the theme for my project), it relied on the doctor to help his obviously mentally ill patients, which he didn't as he force fed them and let one of them kill themselves.
For my own film I think I need to make it very clear to my audience about who the characters are (by perhaps only having a few character, or having clear binary oppositions), also I want to keep the storyline clear - as I don't want my audience to be confused and stop paying attention to my short film. Watching this performance has made me realise the importance of my screenplay and the cinematography - my short film needs to be clear and visual in terms of the plot and the characters.
I travelled to where the crime was committed for the first time after Jury Service and it was really interesting seeing the places in real life rather than photographs that I had seen for the duration of the trial. I think this put in perspective for me what it takes to commit a crime and the planning that must've gone on in order for this crime to take place, which in turn gave me inspiration for my film.
Georgie and I visited an exhibition at The London Museum: The Crime Museum Uncovered.
The Crime Museum itself isn't open to members of the public, but members of the Metropolitan Police Force and helps train detectives by showing them what crime was like in the past and how detectives solved the case. Two exhibits we looked forward to seeing was the Dome Raiders and Great Train Robbery.
I found the exhibition to be quite busy, there was a lot going on as well as it was a popular exhibition. It showed a vary of crimes and from a wide range of years. I enjoyed the court room drawings, as it reminded me of my time on jury service - from the exhibition I found that courtroom sketchers have to take notes on what people look like and then draw them away from the court. I also liked the 'mug shot' cards that had a lot of detail about the criminal - which gave me the idea of presenting our advertising campaign for our short film as a crime case, including mug shots of the actress, maybe even police interviews and court room style drawings.
From this I learnt about the history of crime and what methods detectives use when solving a crime - which will be helpful for my screenplay and advertising campaign. I plan to use the courtroom style drawings and mugshots in my advertising campaign for my short film. More importantly, I think I learned what it's like to be a victim and people's interpretations of victims and criminals - especially from a 'right side of the law' view, which contrasts with my research into books and documentaries from the criminals perspective.
'A victim of crime is not a film, a video game, they are a victim of crime for life'
Crime stories show the rules that people expect others to live by, we tell each other what is right and wrong and the common rules we have to live by in this city
After discussing ideas in a group crit - myself and Georgie found our ideas were very similar and that we had worked well together in Caught in the Act, we decided to become a group. I am confident that in this project we will work together well.
From working with Georgie I hope to learn how to work better as a team and share roles rather than taking over, and to use each other's skills to make the best possible outcome.
What each of our roles are:
Me: Screenplay writer, storyboards, cinematography, production planning
Georgie: Screenplay writer, Editor, sound, website design, photographer (for posters and campaign work)
