Looking at past students’ FMP work, it’s clear that it takes a lot of time and thought to reach the highest grade of a Distinction. We’ve been shown websites from similar students around the country and have discussed that taking initiative to make the best content is one of the most important aspects of the project and filmmaking in general. This has encouraged me to produce good content and vast research in different areas to expand upon what could be a simple idea to begin with. I will be looking into less obvious avenues to do with psychological film, like specific editing techniques, complex character design and more experimental film styles, which I think will make me think of different ways to show a narrative; an example could be layering sound, including Foley and dialogue, making us perceive the situation they’re in as real and create a sense of urgency:
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The extreme difference the Foley and environmental sounds have made to this clip really shows the importance of them in establishing a mood and sense of reality. A viewer might not believe a situation in a movie is really going on if the sound design was barren, but by adding small creaks, wind and clanking of metal objects really brings you into what you’re seeing.
From this, I will be recording Foley during shots without audio as well as separate audio recordings in order to capture each part of the characters’ or props’ movements so I am able to layer them during post-production. The clips above show that the crew most likely recorded separate ‘room noise’ or ambient sound for a while, adding wind too, to blend each shot together and have created a continuous sense of reality for the intense cold weather. As my short film will be centred around a sad atmosphere, I think, from watching the clips, it’s important for me to capture extra sounds such as the wind, possible rain and overall tone of the interior and exterior filming locations in order to successfully bring the viewer into the scene, rather than only relying on the visuals.
This week I am working on refining my concept and writing up a complete proposal as well as rationale. Mindmapping and mood boarding has helped in the development of it:
The mindmap above shows the first plot concept after deciding on the psychological thriller genre. I’ve realised that most of this would not be possible due to Covid restrictions, so I have adapted this story into a more simple, yet more thorough idea requiring just one actor. This consists of a following a young woman’s process of being alone on her birthday as we simultaneously see items and actions that make us become more aware of her casual attempt to cover up a possible murder – the exaggerated message being, ‘Everyone experiences loneliness. Maybe some prefer it’. It might even be more reasonable to cast the character as someone who is in my ‘bubble’, being the students in my class, rather than a student in the acting department as I will be filming inside my house and the garden. Restricting the amount of various people that the cast and crew may be in contact with will decrease the likelihood of contracting and spreading Corona virus, which is a large concern to me when at the production stage. Doing so means the casting is restricted and the character will not be what I have initially planned. Although I would have loved to create a film around a young woman and her experiences with loneliness, targeting more towards a female audience to relate to, I don’t believe the character being another gender will impact the message and might even just widen the audience by not disclosing what their gender is.