Evaluation

Our short film has turned out to be very different to how we first planned it. To start with, we changed the location of the film from Jubilee Gardens to Crystal Palace park. We had also planned to film another scene which would future one of girls in the future when in her early 20s when she was moving in with her boyfriend. We would then find out that she was a victim of domestic violence now just her mum was. This would have added a lot more depth to the film, however we don't have this scene in our film as our actress couldn't make it into school.

Despite the difficulties and complications which I've mentioned above, even though are film could be improved in any ways, it contains a number of different shots and does adhere to short film conventions: it contains only 3 characters and is a few minutes in length.

When planning the idea, we thought the film could be used in schools to help bring awareness of domestic violence. Our main influence was the film "mudboy" in which a young girl discovers somthing she shouldn't at the end of our garden and there is also a scene in the film where she is playing with 2 dolls.

3. What were your influences? Music videos, films, news story, personal incident?

One of our influences was scene from a film called “Mud Boy” which is about a young girl who discovers something that she shouldn’t. The scene features the girl playing with a toy in each hand and they have some sort of conversation together.

How does the piece conform to short film codes and conventions?

Our film does conform to the codes and conventions which you would expect from a short film. When finished it will be roughly 5 mintues in length. It only contains 3 characters and contains a an interesting storyline.
A lot of short films are made to help to give awareness of something and our film is an example of this as it gives awareness of domestic violence.

Where we are up to

We have made a number of changes to our original ideas that we had. To start with, we filmed in a different location (Crystal Palace Park) as it was eaiser to get to in the time that we had. We then also used two girls instead of one as each child could hold a doll each and thi would look better on-screen.

We have decided that we are also going to film additional footage which will help to give the film more depth. This fottage will also have a voiceover within it. The storyline which we have gone with is that about 20 years in the future (when the girls are in their early-mid 20s), one of them is moving in with their boyfriend and while see is packing her things, she comes across and dolls andhas a flashback in which she remembers the time when she went to the park.

The girl is now also a victim of domestic violence, just like her mum was.

Music for the film

Sam found someone on youtube who write music and puts videos with his compositions on onto the site.

We have contacted him to ask if we could have permission from him to use some of his music in our film as it seems very suitable for it.

Below are some links to some of his videos:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foTbpUCV2BU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpH1XigoHD8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kqo1qT6ry18

How our editing is going

At the moment, we have quite a few things on our timeline. However, following on from some advice from Mrs Matthews, myself and Sam have decided that we are going to have to record a voiceover and film some additional footage.

The plan we have for the footage is that we’ll film someone who is playing the part of one of the girls, but in the future when they are grown up. The girl would be packing things into boxes as her and her boyfirend are moving in with each other. While packing everything away, she comes across her dolls (the ones which we see the film) and this sparks her memory about when she used to go to the park with her mum and sister when she was growing up. We also find out that she is now in a violent relationship and is in a similar situation to her mum when she was younger.

We have started to plan the storyboards for this, but still need to think about who we are going to use as our actress.

Last lesson, we also started to do some research into what music we wanted to have in the film.

How our filming went

When it came to the filming, we made the desision to film in Crystal Palace Park instead of Jubilee gardens. We filmed here as my mum wouldn’t have had enough time to get back from Jubilee Gardens to pick up my younger brother from school. Crystal Palace park was also chosen as it has lots of things to offer, such as: a park cafe (where we filmed outside of), ponds, lots of open green spaces and statues of dinosaurs and other animals.

Originally we planned on just having one of my sisters in the film (Molly), but when it came to it we thought it would be a good idea to use both of my sisters as having two children playing with a doll each could work better on screen.

For the scene when the dolls were fighting, we did have a script for the girls to follow, but as you would expect it was hard to them to learn and repeat every single detail. Due to this, we decided to let them in a way improvise and we gave them a few ideas of what to say.