The Bad side of the Half Truths
Synopsis for my film:
When Lara finds a comment under her Instagram post, judging her on her weight, she starts to become more self conscious about her weight and what people think about her. Days are passing by, can she stop the judgmental thoughts before they start to affect her physically?
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This film is my first solo film - I didn't collaborate with any other filmmakers on this project.
The project was commissioned by DNA (Trafford College's in-house content creation brand). The project was to create a film between 3 to 5 minutes long, with the theme being 'the impact of social media on young people' and why to use it responsibly. The target audience for the film is Generation Z, but even more specific ages 15-21.
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There were lots of unforeseen setbacks during the making of the film. While doing the filming I only needed two days to film, the first day of filming was only postponed once, but the second day of filming was postponed 5 times, which gave me a week less than I wanted to do the editing. Though it was postponed many times, it was a good experience for future projects, that I need to have a backup plan in case the actors can't make it, the setback also allowed me to get in some test shoots (lighting test shoots) which would have took a lot more time if I hadn't done them before the day of filming.
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As I developed ideas for my film, I came up with different narratives based on different disadvantages of social media. My final idea is based around low self-esteem because of social media. I came up with the final narrative for my film through my own personal experience based around social media (I have not experienced all of the scenes that happened in the film, but about 2 or 3 of them were based around personal experience), I chose low self-esteem because of social media because I was able to add my own personal experience to it so it isn't all fake, to make it seem more realistic.
Just like my previous two projects I created deadlines (deadlines for small tasks during each stage - pre-production, production and post production) and a schedule to follow to keep me on track to meet my final deadline. For the filming equipment used during production, I didn't use any equipment instead I used two phones to record (through my research I found that phones were the most common way for people to access social media) so I decided to record the film , using phones, to recreate the effect social media has on people, as a phone is the most used device to access social media. I also used two tripods, which I bought off of amazon to put the phones in.
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This is showing my pre-production and production preparation.
I made surveys, call sheets, mind maps (idea generation), script annotations and lighting test shoots.
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This is a storyboard showing the different acts in the film, I created more in depth storyboards later on which went more in depth into shot types, sound, camera movement etc.
Like previously mentioned, I developed multiple ideas for narratives based off different disadvantages of social media. When developing these ideas I used apps like Miro to mind map my ideas.
I sent out surveys to get feedback from my target audience to get an idea of how long they use social media, what apps they use on social media, how they access social media (device they use) and more. The feedback i got from this then informed specific details in the development of my film narrative. For example, most people said they access social media via their phones, and so I made sure that the characters used their phones to do that as well.
Having the characters in the film use the same device, app etc. as the target audience, will make the audience relate to the characters more. The theme of the brief is 'the impact of social media on young people' and why to use it responsibly, so if I can get the target audience to relate to the characters in the film then that will help to get the message across, which means I have achieved my brief.
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This project also took a lot of planning and preparation during the production stage. Just before the first day of filming I went to the first location and did a test shoot to make sure my shots worked.
I did a separate test shoot in preparation for the second day of filming, though due to the second day of filming being cancelled multiple times I was able to do extra preparation before it actually took place.
For this extra preparation I did a lighting test shoot. In the second to last act, the lighting was going to be dark, and so I needed to make sure that the actors could still be seen on camera even in the dark. Through this test shoot I found that they couldn't be seen, and so I turned on some LED lights that were in the room, and went through the different colours till i got to one that suited the darkness I wanted, but was light enough for the actors to be seen.
However, this use of lighting did lead to some problems while editing, as one of the actors looked really red, so in the future I would have to film in light (regular light) use a dark effect over the top, then change it to a different colour if I want a specific colour (like red).
Another bit of extra preparation I did for day 2 of filming was figure out the camera placement. As I wanted to have multiple cameras on while filming to reduce the amount of time the actors have to go through the scene, and also to make editing easier as there will clearly be some continuity through the shots as the hair or the way they are sat will be the same if I am using footage that was filmed at the same time.
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The post production and distribution for the film went well, even though I ran into some problems with sound from a piece of footage, and the lighting from a scene, I managed to get round those - mainly through experimenting with effects and colour.
Part of the script for the film, when annotating the script I mentioned how I wanted parts to be edited (effect, composition, colour, transition etc.) or type of clothing actor should wear, or actions actors should do.
This was my preparation for my camera set up for day 2 of filming. The squares (numbered) are where I will have the cameras (2 cameras) depending on the script, the circles are the 2 actors in the act (act 5).
To watch the final cut of this film use this link:
https://youtu.be/rDjlTrAzjR0
