How does the final version of your short film differ from the original idea you had, and were there any complications?
To begin with, we had the idea for our short film all worked out and perfect, but when we filmed it didn't quite go to plan. Even before the filming, we had to change locations for the benefit of the actors who had prior committments. So we didn't end up filming in Jubilee Gardens, we filmed in Crystal Palace park, which was still just as picturesque but it wasn't what I'd imagined in the first place. I think this affected our shot ideas as there were too many different places that didn't look much like the scenes on our storyboard. We managed to get around this, but the bigger problem was the fact that we ended up working with two young children.
I've now learnt not to work with children again as I don't think I have enough patience for it. They wouldn't do what they needed to do, after saying they would. Originally we were actually going to only use one child, but her sister decided (as we were filming the first shot) that she wanted to join in as well, but a few shots later she decided she didn't want to do anything else, so we had to try and work around that.
The props stayed the same, as we'd planned on using Barbie dolls, and the costumes were the same generic costumes for the children and mother, although neither of the children had their hair in pigtails, and the makeup on the mother for the black eye was really poorly done. The script was another major change from our original idea, as the children did not co-operate enough to even build up part of a conversation. The most we got from them, speech-wise was a couple of sentences, and a few shots where one of the girls made the toys 'say' "I hate you" over and over again. This really didn't help convey the message we were trying to get across, of children not realising that domestic violence is bad, it barely even got the point across that the film was even about domestic abuse!
Due to this change, we decided we should add an alternate storyline about one of the children, in the future, being in the same situation as her mother was. She would be moving in with her abusive boyfriend, and after finding her old dolls, she would be thinking of memories from when she was younger, with the original footage becoming her memory. This also didn't work out, as our actress cancelled on us at very short notice with an injured leg, so as a last minute resort, I made a very short stop motion animation with the dolls on their own, showing the 'mummy' doll sitting happily and the 'daddy' doll pushing her off of a box, yet she was still smiling because of course she is a doll.
What was your role in the pre-production, production and post production?
In the pre-production of Dolls, I was the one who had thought of the idea and written the synopsis for it, so I tried my best to explain it to Sam so we could plan and organise our film with the storyboarding, location research, character research, etc between us. We started off by assigning each other different tasks, but we ended up helping each other with them anyway, so it was just like working together.
Overall, I thought the whole of the pre production went really well, as we were both able to find the perfect locations, props and actors. It was only during the production that things began to go wrong, like the change in locations, and then the change in characters (going from one child character to two).
During the filming itself, Sam and I shared the jobs of camera operator and director, and I think I preferred being the camera operator as it meant that I just really had to film the shots to the best of my ability, instead of sorting out where the actors should be. I found it really difficult to talk to the children and try to get them to co-operate, so I tried to stay doing the camera work, as I thought Sam would be best at communicating with them, as they're his sisters. I think I did a good job of being camera operator as I got most of the shots I wanted, and we managed to shoot our entire shot list with extra shots.
Unfortunately, when it got to the post-production stage of logging and capturing, and putting together the footage we had, we came to realise that we didn't have enough of it to make a story that made sense. I was doing most of the editing and asking Sam what he thought of it, and if he thought anything should have looked different, and he did also edit it a bit as well, but i dont think he was that into it, so I did the best I could. We were going to film several shots for an additional storyline and record a voiceover to add some depth to the film, and to help it to make sense, so I planned a script for the voiceover, and Sam tried to find us an actor that could play an older version of one of the children form the original footage.
We planned to film this and record the voiceover, but the actor, Jess, cancelled on us at the last minute because she had injured her leg and been in hospital for it. This left us with very little time before the deadline, and no additional storyline to add to our original footage. I recorded myself saying the voiceover, as I thought it might be helpful, and I also created a little stop motion animation with the dolls that I thought we could split into chunks and play the chunks at different intervals in the film. I thought this would be a good idea because it shows that we know how to use another technique as well as filming and recording voiceovers, and I think it works well.
What would you improve and what do you like?
If I had the chance to re-do my short film, I'd definitely be a lot more prepared, and not leave anything until the last minute. I'd plan things more than once with back-up plan ideas in case something were to go wrong. I think the thing that I'd most like to change after going through the whole production process, is probably my original idea. I'd prefer to have chosen something that didn't involve children in it, and that was a lot more simple to portray.
If I had to change something about the film I've already done now, I'd probably have taken a lot more picture for the stop motion animation, as it can seem a bit jumpy in places, but it wasn't very easy to keep the dolls upright on their own.
I like the really long final shot where the mother and children are walking into the distance, and the whole shot fades, but it gives the effect that the mother and children are the last things from the shot to fade. This wasn't done intentionally, we were originally just messing around with the effects to see what worked and what didn't work, but I thought it definitely worked, and the slight blur was enough to remind me of a memory drifting away, so we kept it for our final shot.
How does the piece conform to short film codes and conventions; think both in terms of technique and content?
To begin with, we had the idea for our short film all worked out and perfect, but when we filmed it didn't quite go to plan. Even before the filming, we had to change locations for the benefit of the actors who had prior committments. So we didn't end up filming in Jubilee Gardens, we filmed in Crystal Palace park, which was still just as picturesque but it wasn't what I'd imagined in the first place. I think this affected our shot ideas as there were too many different places that didn't look much like the scenes on our storyboard. We managed to get around this, but the bigger problem was the fact that we ended up working with two young children.
I've now learnt not to work with children again as I don't think I have enough patience for it. They wouldn't do what they needed to do, after saying they would. Originally we were actually going to only use one child, but her sister decided (as we were filming the first shot) that she wanted to join in as well, but a few shots later she decided she didn't want to do anything else, so we had to try and work around that.
The props stayed the same, as we'd planned on using Barbie dolls, and the costumes were the same generic costumes for the children and mother, although neither of the children had their hair in pigtails, and the makeup on the mother for the black eye was really poorly done. The script was another major change from our original idea, as the children did not co-operate enough to even build up part of a conversation. The most we got from them, speech-wise was a couple of sentences, and a few shots where one of the girls made the toys 'say' "I hate you" over and over again. This really didn't help convey the message we were trying to get across, of children not realising that domestic violence is bad, it barely even got the point across that the film was even about domestic abuse!
Due to this change, we decided we should add an alternate storyline about one of the children, in the future, being in the same situation as her mother was. She would be moving in with her abusive boyfriend, and after finding her old dolls, she would be thinking of memories from when she was younger, with the original footage becoming her memory. This also didn't work out, as our actress cancelled on us at very short notice with an injured leg, so as a last minute resort, I made a very short stop motion animation with the dolls on their own, showing the 'mummy' doll sitting happily and the 'daddy' doll pushing her off of a box, yet she was still smiling because of course she is a doll.
What was your role in the pre-production, production and post production?
In the pre-production of Dolls, I was the one who had thought of the idea and written the synopsis for it, so I tried my best to explain it to Sam so we could plan and organise our film with the storyboarding, location research, character research, etc between us. We started off by assigning each other different tasks, but we ended up helping each other with them anyway, so it was just like working together.
Overall, I thought the whole of the pre production went really well, as we were both able to find the perfect locations, props and actors. It was only during the production that things began to go wrong, like the change in locations, and then the change in characters (going from one child character to two).
During the filming itself, Sam and I shared the jobs of camera operator and director, and I think I preferred being the camera operator as it meant that I just really had to film the shots to the best of my ability, instead of sorting out where the actors should be. I found it really difficult to talk to the children and try to get them to co-operate, so I tried to stay doing the camera work, as I thought Sam would be best at communicating with them, as they're his sisters. I think I did a good job of being camera operator as I got most of the shots I wanted, and we managed to shoot our entire shot list with extra shots.
Unfortunately, when it got to the post-production stage of logging and capturing, and putting together the footage we had, we came to realise that we didn't have enough of it to make a story that made sense. I was doing most of the editing and asking Sam what he thought of it, and if he thought anything should have looked different, and he did also edit it a bit as well, but i dont think he was that into it, so I did the best I could. We were going to film several shots for an additional storyline and record a voiceover to add some depth to the film, and to help it to make sense, so I planned a script for the voiceover, and Sam tried to find us an actor that could play an older version of one of the children form the original footage.
We planned to film this and record the voiceover, but the actor, Jess, cancelled on us at the last minute because she had injured her leg and been in hospital for it. This left us with very little time before the deadline, and no additional storyline to add to our original footage. I recorded myself saying the voiceover, as I thought it might be helpful, and I also created a little stop motion animation with the dolls that I thought we could split into chunks and play the chunks at different intervals in the film. I thought this would be a good idea because it shows that we know how to use another technique as well as filming and recording voiceovers, and I think it works well.
What would you improve and what do you like?
If I had the chance to re-do my short film, I'd definitely be a lot more prepared, and not leave anything until the last minute. I'd plan things more than once with back-up plan ideas in case something were to go wrong. I think the thing that I'd most like to change after going through the whole production process, is probably my original idea. I'd prefer to have chosen something that didn't involve children in it, and that was a lot more simple to portray.
If I had to change something about the film I've already done now, I'd probably have taken a lot more picture for the stop motion animation, as it can seem a bit jumpy in places, but it wasn't very easy to keep the dolls upright on their own.
I like the really long final shot where the mother and children are walking into the distance, and the whole shot fades, but it gives the effect that the mother and children are the last things from the shot to fade. This wasn't done intentionally, we were originally just messing around with the effects to see what worked and what didn't work, but I thought it definitely worked, and the slight blur was enough to remind me of a memory drifting away, so we kept it for our final shot.
How does the piece conform to short film codes and conventions; think both in terms of technique and content?
Our film contains only three characters and an interesting, quick storyline. When we are finished it will be roughly 5 minutes in length. These are ways it conforms to the codes and conventions of short films. A lot of short films are also made to raise awareness of issues or to portray a more realistic story rather than to glamourise stories that have been done lots of times already. Our film will conform to short film conventions by raising awareness of domestic violence as well as telling the story of a character who has first witnessed and then experienced it.
How have the short films that you have studied/researched influenced your own production?
One of our influences was from the short film Mud Boy which included a scene in which a young girl is playing with her toys, making them argue like her parents. This formed the basis for Dolls, our film, as we took an idea like this and built a story around it. The film was originally just going to be about a child/children making her dolls argue, but this has changed a lot since we first thought of it, and I'm glad it has changed otherwise I think it would look a bit too much like a stretched out version of the scene in Mud Boy that inspired it. We have looked at a lot of other short films and seen that they really only have a few main characters or less, which we've tried to reproduce in our film. There were also some quite interesting slow zooms in some films we saw, which we tried to replicate in a couple of shots of our film.
What were your other influences?
Also, there are often news stories on television or in the papers about domestic violence which are normally from the woman's perspective, as she is normally the victim in the stories portrayed in the media.
There is also a song that I know called 'Face Down' by a band called The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus and it's lyrics seem to be about a girl who is being hurt physically by her boyfriend. These are the lyrics to a verse and chorus from the song:
"Cover up with makeup in the mirror
tell yourself, it's never gonna happen again
You cry alone and then he swears he loves you.
Do you feel like a man when you push her around?
Do you feel better now as she falls to the ground?
Well I'll tell you my friend, one day this world's going to end
as your lies crumble down, a new life she has found."
The video shows an abused young woman, hiding her bruises, trying to live her life with a seemingly invisible force trying to destroy everything around her.
Who is your target audience and how have you reached them?
Our target audience isn't really a specific audience as it should be, Dolls is aimed mainly at women over the age of 12 (kind of like a 12 or 12A rated film), as it is to raise awareness of violence in the house and hopefully it will urge people to speak out about things they have experienced or witnessed. It focuses on the female perspective of domestic violence which is happening to two different aged women, so that is why it would be best for younger and older female audiences
Where would you exhibit your short film?
I think first we would put Dolls onto a video sharing website such as YouTube to see how many views it would get, as YouTube is more popular than other sites, like Vimeo, to most of our target audience. On YouTube, the people who watch it can leave comments and feedback which could be helpful in the future. We could also enter it into a film festival, such as 'exposures 2011' which is a unique film festival in Manchester that showcases the work of students across the UK to the audience in a cinema. Not only would it give a sense of accomplishment and pride to have our film shown on a cinema screen, the film festival also gives an insight into how the TV and film industry works. 'exposures 2011' accepts works of any genre that are under 30 minutes long, as long as they are made by students studying at a UK institution between August 2010 and July 2011.
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