Protagonists Costume - Holly Stone

Protagonists Costume

In order to achieve the transition shot we wanted to show the passing of time with our characters football training, we had to change her costume. To do this, we simply changed her sport/football shirt during each shot. Below are the variations of the costume change our character uses (in order).

Her main costume for the filming on the Recreation Ground was wearing this black shirt.

She then changed to the red shirt seen above.

The third shot was taken with the blue and black shirt above.

And the fourth shot was with a blue and white shirt.

Weather-Related Problems - Laura

Weather Problems 

Due to a  lot of our filming being outside we've been having problems finding a time to film when it's not raining. There has been a number of occasions where we've had to cancel filming due to the weather.

Filming Location - Holly Stone

Filming Location

We began filming some transition shots and our graphic match today (28/10/14) for our short film. In order to do some of the filming, we had to find a field which provided goal posts. As we all live locally around Burgess Hill / Wivelsfield, the obvious choice was the Recreation Ground. We didn't need to obtain permission to use this field as it was open to the public, we just had to avoid disturbing those around us and bumping into the public etc. 

We also had to be sure the field wasn't being used by anyone else, so we got down there earlier in order to assure that we can film. Below are more shots taken of the location;

We made sure that we set the white balance every time we changed the positioning of the camera across the field. 

Filming Layout - Holly Stone

Transition Shot Layout 

For our Transition shot, we had to plan a layout whereby the time/weather/saturation and our characters costume changes. In order to do this, we had to map out exactly where our character had to run to in order to change costume in time for the next shot. The red circles above annotate where the target markers were (in our case, we had to use cans due to lack of sufficient materials for filming). The white arrows indicate the path our character had to take as she dribbles the ball from A to B.

Above are the scrapped cans we used as markers.

I have also narrated a video explaining all of the above in more detail at our location. The videa will be posted below

Name Ideas - Laura Brownlie

Name Ideas 

We have been having a think about what to call our short film. Here's is a few of our fist ideas of what to call it...

  We want to have some relevance to football in our name, but to begin with we struggled to find something that fitted with our film.We rejected some of these names as they give away too much about the film, and other just because they were rubbish. 

Final Film Name - Holly Stone

Final Film Name

"Who are ya?"

The group decided upon a final film name which has a double-meaning related to the genre and what happens within our film. The common football chant "who are ya?" is shouted at players who play poorly or shouted at the opposing team. We intend to take this idea for our short film and use the chant to isolate and single-out our protagonist as she is bullied on the fact she plays football, stereotyped as a lesbian - leaving people to shout at her "who are ya?" suggesting that she is different and nobody can tell who she is.

                                              


Above is an example of the football chant regularly seen in football matches and acts like abuse towards the opposing team. The chant may also come across as intimidating and dominating throughout the match, something we could use and embrace within our short film in order to show the true isolation of our protagonist. The title will be "Who are ya?" and almost acts as a rhetorical question which needs no need of answering.

Poster Idea - Holly Stone

Poster Idea

We have started coming up with ideas for our film poster. As our protagonist is a female football player, we decided to show an interesting divide between her femininity and masculinity, we will divide her sides into two and place them back to back. Below is a drafted idea of our poster, the line illustrating the divide between her feminine and masculine sides.

The body posture of the protagonist is still within discussion, below are some images of people who's bodily posture is an idea we may use for our final poster design. As body posture can suggest the attitude of both the feminine and masculine side.




Although not the same gender, this is one posture we are considering for our protagonist. Having her back to back with her masculine side will show equality between both.

Above is another idea for our protagonists posture. Both her feminine and masculine sides looking directly at the camera. Again this shows equality, but also it displays intense/sharpness of the character.

The third example we have (above) shows one side being more dominant than the other. If we were to use this, our protagonist may have her feminine side looking down towards her masculine side, looking uncomfortable and maybe angry that she has to take bullying for something which is her hobby. Alternatively, we could have her masculine side looking down on the feminine side and smiling that it is the dominant feature within her personality. The ideas could be endless with this particular posture.

Showing a Text message in films. - Laura

Showing a Text message in our films.


As technology increases the uses of text messages in film is increasing.  There has been lots of different attempts of portraying these text messages on screen. This is a technique we want to use in our film I'm going to look at different way it has been and work out which would be best for our film.

The most basic way of showing a message in our film would to film the screen of a phone  letting the audience read it. This is easy to do as all you'll need to go if film onto the phone or screen long enough for the audience to read the messages. This can be very boring for the audience as the shot has to be long enough for for the audience to read so destroys the flow if the film.

This is an example of what the shot would look like if we were to show the messages on the phone. You would have have have the camera on this shot for 10-15 seconds

Another way of showing this could be using a hologram effect.  This make the message pop out of the screen on top of the phone. Although this is a cool effect it has the same draw back as filming on the phone, you still have to have the camera pointing at the phone for a long period of time.

The most popular way of showing the messages on screen is to have them appear either in text bubbles or just by the phone this lets the action continue of screen and the audience to see the messages.

An example of this can be found in the film The Fault in Our Stars here the text messages appear on screen so we can see their conversation.

The most successful TV show to do this is BBC's Sherlock, It was one of the first TV to do this. It Appears on the screen but sometime has a 3D effect and fits in with the background.

This would be the best way for use to do this in our film as the action continues but we still see the messages.

This Video talks about it in more detail.

Character Make-up - Holly Stone

Character Make-up

Above is the rough idea of how our protagonist (Emma) will look facially. Her hair will be tied tightly back and she will be wearing no-makeup to raise the ideas that she isn't into the stereotypical female products & practices. A natural face may also give the audience the impression that she doesn't care about how she looks and wont be such a "girl" about it.

 

 

 

 

Above is an idea on how we intend to change our protagonists hair towards the end. I will update this blog post as we progress into filming, as we will add make-up and I shall video the make-up applicance progression.

Test Text Message - Holly Stone

iMessage Editing Test

 
 Above is an idea of an editing technique we will use within our short film. As our protagonist recieves abusive messages, we intend for imessages to pop up on the screen. This technique is inspired by Sherlock Holmes and will act as its own narriative voice for our short film. 

Initially we used Final Cut Pro to edit the imessage bubble, but we found that After Effects would work better, so when it comes to filming - we will edit this specific idea with After Effects.

Evidence of Filming (Beginning) - Holly Stone

Evidence of Filming

Above is one layout we had in order to create our Graphic Match.

Above is the setting we had for our lighting and camera work.

Above is the beginning of our filming 

One of our main shots is from where the camera is placed (above)

Our protagonists costume 

Evidence of filming 

Another shot of our setting for our beginning of the film

Setting 

Setting 

The Change of Ending - Harry Quilley (incomplete)

After reviewing our Films synopsis as well as our storyboard animatic, we stumbled across a little problem with our ending. Feedback from Marion, as well as little mentions during brief explanations we realised that portraying all these stereotypes of a lesbian in such a way that could offend other lesbians. Even though we never actually say she is a lesbian we are heavily pushing the audience to judge Emma. At the end when she is all suddenly dresses up nice, completely contradicts the rest of the film as she just changes for a date. Which implies she is not being herself and is just trying to impress, which maybe taken in a bad light and make the audience believe that the stereotypes during the film are all falsely used and do not reflect her personality correctly.

Constructive Feedback - Holly Stone

Constructive Feedback of Initial Planning Ideas

In order to get an idea of how our target audience may feedback our film once it is complete, I asked a few people of what they thought of our film ideas. Our target audience is from teenagers to adults, or 16-25 for our film. Below are some constructive feedback screen shots taken from a few peers who were asked to comment on what they thought of our short film ideas.

Our Expected Audience - Harry Quilley

Target Audience

As we intend to have slightly complicated story line, in which younger people may not understand. As we intend to use gender stereotypes, a younger audience may not be able to grasp the plot and how we are using stereotypes to portray Emma as someone she is not. Because of this, we as a group decided our target audience would be from the age of 16 as we believe by the age of 16 we believe  they should be able to understand the use of false stereotypes within our film. The good thing about our film, is that even people over the age of 60 will still understand the stereotypes as it was as common if not more common back then to be regarded as a lesbian just because of how they dressed, or by what sport they played.

We believe it will be suitable to both male and female as both can relate to the film, as the gender can be reversed without the change of opinion towards it e.g. A guy taking part in dance would leave him being stereotyped as a gay the same way Emma is said to be a lesbian just because she plays football and how she dresses. When looking at it from a social class aspect, it is also relevant to them as sexuality has little correlation with social class, therefore they will be able to associate themselves with the film.


As a Low budget short film, the best place for it to be shown would be the Duke or York as it is a independent theater, meaning there will be a better chance of getting in than if we were to try a place like the odion as it is a mainstream movie theater and all the blockbuster movies will be released there.

Health and Safety Considerations - Harry Quilley

With the use of many public places reoccurring within our film, we had to make sure that when we were filming, there was as little healthy and safety worries that could hinder our film. The first and obvious one, was making sure we filmed outside of school time as with a lot of kids running around and us wanting to film in a corridor could lead to an accident, as well as making our film to overcrowded and unable to set the scene we would like for our movie.

 As we intend to film outside a coffee shop, it bring into account the public, which is important that nobody gets knocked or bumped around the camera as it could break.

As well as this, there will be a scene where we a filming high up in a window looking down on Emma, so it is important that if we keep the window open when filming, that the camera is far enough away that it couldn't fall out and land on anyone. We do have a scene where we a shooting a football, so making sure its aimed away from anything or anyone to keep it safe.Other than these few precautions, are film is very risk friendly as we don't involve any over ambitious locations. This means we only have to worry about being in a public area and taken care when in public. 

Once we have a proper visit of each site, and get a full look of anything that could be a health and safety problem, we will take a complete Health and Safety Check.

Sexuality Stereotyping - Holly Stone

Sexuality Stereotyping

In our short-film, our main character is being stereotypically bullied as a lesbian. Although the plot of our story proves that this statement is  false, we still intend to use some resources of what makes a stereotype of a lesbian with our main character in order to keep the audience intrigued and surprise them later on. 

The best way to represent the stereotypical ideas is by using examples of lesbian women, study their hairstyle, body language, voice, clothing and generalize their appearance in order to obtain an idea of how to achieve the same in our short film using Misc en scene. 

1. Ellen De Generes 

Ellen is an American Idol judge and is well known to be a 'gay icon'. She also presents traits of a stereotypical lesbian as seen on the left. Below are where these stereotypes place;

1. Typically lesbians are stereotyped to have short hair - which many may refer too as being masculine. 

2. Her clothing/dress sense is formal/smart yet if compared to other celebrity women, appears to once again be more of a masculine style. Many heterosexual celebrities/judges wear expensive dresses and show off their curves - embracing the female body if anything.

3. Her slouching body posture would be frowned upon as rather masculine too, stereotypically heterosexual women are upright with their posture, sit with their back up and legs crossed, saving their dignity.


How we intend to use the lesbian stereotype for our main character is by costume and make-up (Misc en scene). Below are the ideas we have in mind;

• Although our main actor does not have short hair , we intend to use hair gel/hair spray and tie her hair back into a tight ponytail, leaving no hair on her face. 

• Her clothing will simply vary between football kit and masculine clothes. Masculine clothes being baggy jeans, over-sized t-shirts and hoodies. We may possibly include tracksuit bottoms and trainers too, to raise the masculinity of her costume.

• She will wear no makeup to begin with. However we intend this to change towards the end,

Stereotype and Prejudice Influences - Holly Stone

Stereotypes and Prejudice 

What mainly influences our short film is the idea of stereotypes and prejudice which is within our society. Gender stereotypes is the key element. Gender stereotypes are simplistic generalizations about the gender attributes, differences, and roles of individuals and/or groups. Stereotypes can be positive or negative, but they rarely communicate accurate information about others. When people automatically apply gender assumptions to others regardless of evidence to the contrary, they are perpetuating gender stereotyping.

In an overview of Gender stereotyping, the following rules below apply to what the typical stereotype is; 

• Traditionally, the female stereotypic role is to marry and have children. She is also to put her family's welfare before her own; be loving, compassionate, caring, nurturing, and sympathetic.

• The male stereotypic role is to be the financial provider. He is also to be assertive, competitive, independent, courageous, and career‐focused; hold his emotions in check.

This stereotype of only men being allowed a competitive, assertive and career-focused attitude is what effects the way people look at women who try to acquire a similar view and aspiration for their life.

How does this effect our short film? 

Our main character is going to display traits of both stereotypes. These stereotypes are going to be picked upon by her peers and those around her during the film. The two sociological categories our character will fit under include; 

• Androgyny - This means the blending of feminine and masculine attributes in the same individual. In this case, our costume for the character (Misc en scene) and her hobby (football) blends with the fact she is female, and towards the ending of our film - her costume shows that she is also extremely feminine (Misc en scene). 

• Androgyne - Or in our case - the androgynous person, does not neatly fit into a female or male gender role; she can comfortably express the qualities of both genders. This will be seen when our character as she dresses up for a date at the end of the film, but throughout doesn't care about her appearance. 

Evidence of Location research - Harry Quilley

Our Location Research 

When thinking of suitable as well as ambition locations to get the best location for the shots we require to make our film as good as it can be. After going through our scenes from our storyboard, it was clear we were going to require space and permission to film in public places. After thinking over a few important scenes, we decided we need to find a location that gave us a real school like feel, with a long corridor that can lead into a match on action to a classroom as well as having lockers on the side, so we decided to get in contact with downlands community school to ask if we could use their premises on a day or too, to film our a scene where Emma is receiving some abuse down the hallways. After speaking to them, they have agreed to let us use part of the school out of hours to film our scenes.

As well as the school, we require a cafe/restaurant where two friends can meet together, and we can make it to out to the audience that the meeting is a date, when actually they are just meeting as friends. After sending out a few request's, we are still waiting for replies from Costa and a individual business in hassocks as they both are on the street and would be very simple but effective to film as we can get a variety of shots to choose the best from. We also may use Haywards heath and Wivelsfield station signage just as a establishing shot, we will also use some smaller parts around college as we felt they were not necessary to find outside locations i.e. the changing rooms as it is good area to film in an will be able to film at easier hours than outside locations.  

The final location will be Laura house as well as the football scene and titling in the garden, we felt this was the bets suit as it has room for the football as well as an overlooking window into the garden that allows us to get a higher up long-shot of Emma playing football, other than that we don't intend to use any other locations, just the inside of Laura's house for when her transformation in outfit is complete.

Applying Media Language to final idea - Laura Brownlie

Media Language

Camera

• Range of different camera shots through out the film
• Pan up to reveal characters.
• Tracking shots in the football scenes.

Editing

• We're planning to use a graphic match in one of our scenes, the football is going to be flying in to the goal, just before it goes in to the goal we cut to the kitchen where we'll see the ball roll in through the door.
• Going to use match on action
• Short reverse shot for conversations.

Mise en scene

Costume, Hair, Make up - It is very important for our characters to look right in our film so the hair make up and costume are very important.

• Emma- Baggie shorts or tracksuit bottoms. football tops, baggie jumper, trainers. No make up and hair tied back in a tight pony tail.
• Girls at school - Very stereotypical outfits, fashionable clothing, lots of make up and hair done 'perfectly'  
• Boys in P.E class- College P.E Kit
• Clara (friend she meets in cafe) - T-shirt jeans and hoodie, a little bit of make up 
• Emma (When she goes out on her date) - Shirt and skirt or a dress, something more girly than she's worn before. a little bit of make up (not too much we don't want her to be totally out of character) her hair is down slightly curled
• Dani/Ash (Whatever we're going to call him) - Jeans, shirt 

Props, Settings -

• Location - Props needed
• School - Lockers,  school tables, school chairs, school bags, phone
• Cafe - Phone, Cups/ Mugs 
• Football pitch - Muddy clothes/ boots, Football

Lighting, Colour - Mainly natural lighting or high key lighting.
Body language - Her body language should show that the people at school do not bother her she needs to be slightly tomboy-ish.

Sound 

• Voice over while shes playing football in the style of a football commentator 
• Sound Bridge connecting certain scenes

Apply Narrative to Final Idea - Laura Brownlie

Narrative

We're going to have a linear structure to our film

Bordwell and Thompson

Story -Goes to football training every day, goes to school, Starts to get bullied, continues playing football more bullying more texting e.c.t. Meets up with her friend, goes back to her house gets ready to go out, meets up with guy and has dinner.

Plot - Playes football, Goes to college, Ignores the bullies, meets friend in cafe, gets changed, meet guy out side the cafe.

Todorov

Equilibrium - Her playing football and going about her normal life.

Disruption - Starts messaging Dani.

Confrontation  - The girls at her school find her phone are see that she is messaging this other person.

Resolution - Meets up with friend, get a make over to go out.

New Equilibrium - Meets up with Dani 

Barthes- Enigma codes

Enigma codes - There is one big enigma code, with don't know the gender of Dani (or whatever name we chose for our character) Although it is slightly suggesting that he is a girl, there is still a lot of mystery about it.

Propp

Hero: Emma

Villain: The other girls at her school

Donor: The friend the she meets at the cafe (Clara)

Dispatcher: The friend the she meets at the cafe (Clara)

Helper: The friend the she meets at the cafe (Clara)

'Princess': Dani

Her father: Dani

Script - Laura Brownlie

Script.

Voice Over: Watson has the ball, She shoots and she scores!

At College, - walking down the corridor.
Girl 1: Hi Freak!
Girl 2:Weirdo!

Girl 1- Oh My God what is she wearing?
Girl 2 -  And her hair does she ever wash it?
*both laugh*

Girl 3: [sarcastically] Oops sorry didn't mean to bump you
Emma: *Glares*
In Changing Rooms
 *Beep Beep*
Girl 4: Who phone is that?
Girl 5: Looks like it's coming from Emma's bag
Girl 4: Wanna take a look?
Girl 5: Alright then
They look at Phone
Girl 5: Who's Dani?
Girl 4: OMG I knew she was gay!
After P.E
Boy 1: Nice goal Emma!
Emma: Thanks
*She walks away*
Boy 2: chowwrr She's a bit nice
Boy 1: Yeah shame she a lesbian.
Emma: [Shouting from the door] Oi I herd that Dickheads!!
At the coffee shop
Clara: Hiya
Emma: Hi, It's Great to see you
Clara: Yeah you too, How are you?
Emma: I'm okay I guess
Clara: You guess?
Emma: Well lets just say I'm not the most popular girl in school at the moment, and there's a few rumours
going around.
Clara: Just ignore them you know your better than that.
Emma: Yeah I guess
Clara: So how football going?
Emma: [excited] It's great........ rambles on about football.
*Phone goes off on the table they both grab it Clara gets there first*
Emma: Come on....
Clara: Oooo Dani, Hand on is this who you've been telling me about?
Emma: Give it here!
Clara: Oh My God! Listen to this *she reads out the text* Hi Emma I know this is a bit late notice but do you want to meet up tonight?
Emma: What?! I can't do that! Look at me I'm a mess!
Clara: No you don't, you just need girling up a bit, Which I'll be able to help with, Come one you've not got long until you meet him.
Emma: Thank you so much you're a life saver!
*they get up and leave*
At the restaurant 
Emma: Hi Dani
Dani: Hi, you look great

Storyboard - Laura, Harry

Storyboard with correct (ish) timings.  

Shot Break Down.

 Opening ELS of a Football Field .

 Tracking shot along the field reviling our main character (LS).

 Either over the shoulder shot or POV shot looking forward on to the goal.

 CU of main character looking to to the goal.

 Slow motion ECU of a football being kicked.

 Title sequence - football  flies across the screen reviling the title. this will be followed by two more of these shots showing the main actors.

 ELS of football flying towards the goal,

Ball rolls in from the last shot.

Main character walks in.

 LS getting a drink

 Phone goes off on the table

MCU Looking at phone, the texts will appear on the screen showing the audience what the messages say.

MC going to the door.

ECL picking up bag and football.

MU going through the door.

 ECU Locking door.

 Shots at the train station to show the moving of location (these may not be used.)

 Establishing shot of school/ college

 Entering the school.

 Walking down the corridor people whispering around her.

 CU showing it doesn't bother her.

 CU on a conversation between two girls

 LS in corridor two characters bump in to each other

 CU

CU

Enters Changing room

 People getting ready in the changing rooms

 MLS looking a phone (waiting for a message)

 Leaves room, phone goes off twice. messages appear on screen.

 Two girls look through the phone 

the messages the can see appear on the screen.

 Phone is put back, they leave the room.

LS, a group of people leaving a sports hall.

MCU on a conversation between two boys.

 MLS, slams door.

 

3 shots in a row showing the day going past, the messages form people in her class all flash up on the screen, the very last message is from a friend asking if she wants too meet up for coffee. 

 Shot of Emma entering the cafe

 LS of the two girls hugging and on looker (someone who goes to the school) sees them and starts laughing.

 The two girls have a conversation Shot reverse shot.

 ELS of her legs, you see her trousers drop and her pull on a skirt.

 ELS of Shoulder, we see her pull her top over her head and a new one on
.

 Applies make up, Camera is used as a mirror.

 CU on back of head, takes hair down.

Shot of bottom of the stairs, camera then pans up reviling her out fit.

 Walks out the door (MLS)

 Establishing shot of Restaurant

 Walking in to shot and start talking

Pan up from feet to head.