Filming Progress

When planning my short film I thought that I had covered many of the problems that I was going to face, however once filming started there were even more things that I needed to think about. Although I did only have 4 girls and one boy acting my film finding times when everyone was free was hard, I used students which meant they often had other work to do or comminements which lead to filming talking a little longer to complete than I had thought it would. However they were taking part in my film as a favour to me so I was patient and planned in advance as much as I could, I also tried to take as little of their time up as possible.


Due to film during school time it meant that the hallways were never completely silent, this then caused some scenes to need to be re filmed as you could hear background noise. Although I have left a bit of background noise of lessons taking places because if the  scenes were completely silent it wouldn't get a realistic perception of what a school environment truly was. When filming after school teachers were often leaving for the day which meant that filming had to stop once again in order for them to be able to walk through the corridor. Due to people being in the surrounding areas of the film taking place my actors become slightly shy which meant that I had to wait for the people that stopped to watch what 
was occurring to leave. 

Scenes that I've filmed and changes that have taken place:

When creating my story board and planning out my scenes I knew that I wasn't going to stick to it exactly as when filming starts to progress there are things that you realise done make sense which means that it then needs to be changed in order to make sense.
From this part of my story board I have filmed the middle section of it, as the first part of it takes place in the woods which I am going to be filming at the weekend due to it not being on school grounds. The middle scene went pretty much as I planned however I didn't get the girls to get up and pack their bags up together as I had already filmed the next part of the scene where they don't have their bags with them. Once filming had finished I realised that I needed to have a transition shot from the girls being in the classroom to them then walking down the corridor which I am going to be adding in after. They also left their school bags in the classroom which then doesn't make it look strange as to why they don't have them in the next scene. I'm still going to be adding in a school bell as a transition between the two scenes to show the detention has finished and thats the reason they have left. 

Most of this scene stayed the same however due to being filmed in a corridor that is used a lot this scene was one of the longest to film. I also changed a lot of the camera angle being used as I didn't want to just have one shot of the girls walking towards the camera. I've also cut the scenes together so that they changed when the girls are having conversation with each other so they you can see the facial expressions that they have as the conversation changes. When Hannah Is talking about Megan and who she is with the camera angle is going to be from over Hannah's shoulder as this is what the girls are going to be able to see themselves, this also prevents any of the conversation that Hannah and Aaron are having to be heard. I then changed the camera angle to face the girls as Megan walks off to that you are watching them as she leaves. 

This was one of the very first scenes that I filmed which meant that it took longer than usual as I was still getting used to them camera angles that needed to be used and how high I needed to have the tri pod in order to be able to see everything that I wanted to be in scene. When filming Emily and Lilly talking I used point of view shots. I knew that this would take longer to edit so I asked them to leave a pause between each line that they were saying to allow me to be able to cut the scenes together without what they were saying over lapping which would make it sound abrupt and not smooth like they are having a conversation. I filmed all of the talking from one angle and then filmed it once again from the opposite angle which meant that they had to have the same convosation twice. I then got rid of the lesson scene as I wouldn't have been able to film Hannah during one of her lessons as once her lesson finished everyone else's would also finish which would lead to the corridors being to busy to film in. Im going to add in a transition scene off another school bell like I did previously or film a corridor when it is lesson change time to show that the school day has ended and thats why she is leaving school. 


This is the scene were Hannah and Megan start to have a discussion about the text messages that Hannah has been receiving, I was going to film this outside as Hannah was leaving school from the bottom gate however this would not have worked for many reasons, Due to the fact I was using the microphone on the camera it doesn't have the best sound quality which means that all the audience would have heard was the wind rather than the two girls having a conversation, the wind would also prevent the girls from being able to  concentrate on what they are doing as their hair would be blowing everywhere. However the one problem that did occur with the location that I did film this scene was the space was very empty which caused an echo in order to overcome this I might get rid of the audio on the scene and get the girls to do a voice over of what they have said. This would lead to the speech being as clear as possible however I will have to ensure that the words match with what the girls are going to be saying on the screen. Due to not filming the scene outside I also got rid of the transition scene of the car. Due to being a mystery and to make the film less predictable I decided to change the story line which caused the next few scenes to be different. 

Throughout this scene Aaron is meant to be following Hannah and he was the one that was meant to kill her, however I changed this and made Lilly follow Hannah which meant that she was the one that kills her. Hannah sends the two girls a text saying SOS... which is why Lilly is there looking over Hannah with no questions asked however she was the one following her into the woods the whole time. Due to Hannah having headphones in she is unaware of the fact that Lilly is following her. In order to make it clearer that Hannah has died I have included a brief scene into the film of Hannah on the floor. The shot then changes to the same one that was shown at the begging on the film.

Locations and recce

Due to being a short I didn't want to use lots of different locations, here's a lost of the locations that I plan to use:

• School - Classroom, corridor , common room and stairs 
• My house - bedroom 
• Woods

School-

Due having a large amount of my film being filmed in a school there were not masses of safety features that I needed to look out for as schools have many of their own safety features already in place. The main thing I had to look out for was other students being around during filming times to ensure they didn't knock over the tripod that the camera was on. When Hannah is walking down the stairs and leaves out the school she needs to ensure she doesn't fall down the stairs due to concentration on what is coming next. When leaving school I want Hannah to do this with a lot of sass however she needs to ensure she doesn't get hit by the door. 

My house -

When filming at my house I want to film a shot from inside the wardrobe so need to ensure that nothing falls on me and I can actually get out once filming has finished. We filmed in my bedroom which doesn't have any many safety features that needed to be thought about. 

Woods - 

Out of the three locations that I filmed in the woods was the location that I had to think about the most. There were many different things that could have gone wring putting the safety of my actors at risk. Due to filming in the winter and outside is was extremely cold so all of my actors are going to be wearing coats and as many layers as possible, Lilly is also going to put tights on as she is wearing a skirt. Do to filming in a public place rather than my house or school there are going to be a lot more people around that we won't know so will have to be more aware of our surroundings, at school would could leave our bags on the side and know that they would be there when we got back however when in the woods anything that we take out with us and to stay with us at all times. The majority of people who will be out walking dogs which meant that we didn't get to close to them incase they were as friendly as we would hope they were. When getting deeper into the woods which is where the last scenes of my film are going to be film phone signals get lost a lot more which means that I am going to film these scenes as fast as possible. 

Call Sheet

Planning my Fifth Scene

The fifth scene is going to be the last scene of my short film which means that the film has to come to a conclusion, due to the film being mystery many of the things that have occurred throughout the film need to have a brief explanation as to why they occurred. The scene is going to carry on from the last part of my story board to show the shocked expression on Hannah's face as she turns around and sees Aaron however the audience still wont see who he is as this will remain a mystery.

Following from this I will show a long shot of the woods with a scream and gun shot sound put over the top which will allow the audience to understand that the person who was following Hannah and talking to Megan has killed her.

The last scene that I am going to be filming is going to be show at the very start of my short film also with flashback lighting added onto it also. Hannah is going to be lying on the floor dead with Lilly and Emily looking over. I was going to have Megan in the background of the scene however I'm going to have her text the two girls saying 'I tried to stop her....I tried to stop him from hurting her'. I was also going to have the girls receive another text message with Aaron being in the back without a phone in his hand, however this would become very confusing for the audience very quickly as it may not have been as clear as I have thought it to be.

Script:

Emily: This wasn't....
Lilly: She hates us but would never go this far

Text message

I then want the scene to zoom out and come to end with the text message dissolving off the screen.

Planning my Fourth Scene

The fourth part of my story board is going to be film in two different locations which means that it is also going to be filmed at two different times. The first part of the story board is still at school however at the exit rather then in the school building like the rest of the film. This part of the scene is going to include Megan and Hannah having a disagreement. Megan is going to be trying to stop Hannah from going to the woods like the text message told her to, Hannah is confused about how Megan knows about the text message causing her to walk in a rush. Before Megan is able to follow her she receives a text message herself from this mystery person, the writing of the text message coming up on the screen. Once Megan has finished she is going to catch up with Hannah to try and stop her one last time. Hannah cuts her off as fast as possible and walks off in a hurry. 

The transition between the two scenes is going to be Hannah walking into a road without looking, the focus of the camera will then change to be a car speeding past the same area. I will then edit another car driving past in the dark where the woods are to show the change in location. Due to the fact Hannah didnt look into the road as she drove past it will create a sense of suspense as it will look like the car has hit her. 

The next scene is going to be Hannah and Aaron walking towards the woods. The camera angle to going to be a point of view short of Hannah walking to show the she is being followed, Im then going to change the angle to be behind Aaron to show both Hannah and Aaron in the shot walking, Hannah is going to keep looking behind he shoulder however everytime she does Aaron isn't here. Hannah gets the feeling that she is being followed which leads to her texting all of her friends SOS, text message writing will be shown on screen in order for the audience to be able to see what Hannah is texting. As they get deeper into the woods Aaron is going to make a noise Hannah will turn around and see who he is.

Script: 

Megan: Hannah stop you can't do this 
Hannah: Where did you even come from?!
Megan: Don't listen to the text its not safe please just listen to me 
Hannah: How do you know that I've got a text and what its about 
Megan: I can't...its hard to explain 

Megan gets a text message and Hannah walks off 

Megan: Hanna please just stop and think about what you are doing 
Hannah: I can do what I want in life leave me alone, and don't follow me again. 

Ideology and Representations

In media the ideology is looking at the ways in which the media text has an influence of the audiences and actions. The audience watching or reading the particular media text will read into what is being shown in different ways.
Examples:

• If women are being shown throughout the film just as much as men and they have the same amount of power this is representing the fact women are equal to men. 
• People that work hard throughout their lives and put as much effort into everything possible have more successful outcomes than someone who has not done anything.
• When ever we see people shopping they are always happy or with other people which gives positive connotations of shopping.
• When ever two people are showed to be in love or a relationship they are always just as attractive as each other. 
• The main characters also always have the most up to date fashion sense.

These are just a few of the ideologies that are shown throughout film. My film shows that women are the same as men if not more powerful in society as there is one male character in my film however he does not talk and is the actor with the smallest amount of screen time. The main three girls are shown to all be wearing fashionable clothing, they are also all wearing the same lipstick. Rimmel 107 as this is in fashion for the time of year the filming took place. 

The representation shown in a media text is the way that a certain message is being portrayed. The easiest way for this to be done is to show stereotypes. Old people are seen to be boring or do typical things like knitting or being slow at things like talking or walking around. Social classes are also easy to show as the rich are going to be able to have the best of everything however still aren't always happy, however the poor are shown to be struggling with the little that they have however are happy with what they have. The main stereotype that is shown throughout my film is the blonde girl is the meanest as during many teen films like mean girls and wild child the main mean girl is blonde which Hannah is. There is also three girls 'bulling' one other person. 

Planning my Third Scene

The next scene I am going to be filming is the third part of my story board. The location of scenes is still going to be in school. The film continues on to see the three girls walk into the common room where Megan should be however they look around in confusion as she's not in there. Im going to be filming this scene during frees which means that the common room isn't going to be completely empty however I will need to ensure the people that are in the common room wont disturb the scene. The girls are going to be stood together with Hannah slightly in front of the other girls in order to show her dominance in the scene and the control that she has over the other two girls. 

As Hannah goes to leave in a rush for a lesson she receives a text message, I am going to edit onto the screen what the text message says in order for the audience to see however Hannah is going to leave without showing or explain to her friends what the text message says. As Hannah leaves Lilly and Emily have a brief conversation about what they think Hannah's text message would be about and if this other person that they have seen with Megan knows about their secrete and if it is going to get out.  

The scene will then change to Hannah being in a lesson, I am going to try and film her while she is in one of her science lessons as that is when I have frees. I am going to use a point of view shot to make it look like she is being watched while she is in her lesson. At a separate time I am then going to film her walking down the stairs and out of school, I wont be able to do this once she has finished the lesson as the corridor is going to be filled with students due to everyones lesson finishing. As Hannah walks out of school Megan is going to come out of no where, while Hannah is walking out of school all of the shorts are going to be point of view shorts to be it look like someone is still following her. 

The three girls are chatting amongst themselves as they walk into the common room: 

Hannah: Ummmm wheres she gone?!
Emily: She's obviously in here, she wouldn't have been able to leave without us seeing her. 
Hannah: Well Lilly this was your idea where is she?!
Lilly: Just because it was my idea is doesn't mean I'm going to know where she is. 
Emily: The girl just makes no sense in life. 

'Hannah's phones goes off' 

Emily: Who was that? 
Hannah: Nothing important, I'm late for lesson ill see you both later 

'Hannah leaves' 

Lilly: That was definitely one of those text messages 
Emily: Do you think that person with Megan knows what our secret is?!
Lilly: I don't know but we need to find out who it was as soon as possible 
Emily: I feel like Hannah is starting to hide more and more from us
Lilly: I know, she would never usually leave without telling us what the text message was
Emily: I hope she does tell us whats going on, I guess we should go to lesson also before we are late. 

Planning my Second Scene

The next scene that I am going to be filming is the second box on the first line of my story board. This scene is all of the girls being in detention. The scene was originally going to a lesson, however I don't have enough people to take part in the scene in order to make it look like a lesson as it would look strange if their was going to be a lesson with only the four girls in the room, hence why I've made it look like detention as it makes more sense to only have the girls in the room and no one else.  I am going to film this scene during school time in a media lesson, as when I am in a lesson the 4 girls taking part in the scene are all going to be in frees or the media lesson with me meaning that they are going to be free to film. The classroom that I am going to be filming is isn't in a loud and noisy corridor meaning that there wont be lots of distractions occurring around the actors.

The three bullies are already going to be sat down together having their own conversation with Megan walking into the room after. While this occurs they are going to stop the conversation that they are in and watch her as she sits in front of them making her feel intimated as it will be a three against one situation. Hannah will then point at the fact that she wouldn't be in the classroom with them as she's not welcome. Emily will then comment on the fact that its her fault that she's the reason that they are all in the detention, however as Megan tries to talk they all talk over her and the bell rings. This leads to Megan leaving the room as soon as possible and the other girls picking up their bags all in sync and leaving together.

The first camera shot is going to be from the door of the classroom as they girls talking and looking at something on Hannah's phone, this will be a point of view shot almost as though someone is watching what the girls are doing. The shot will then changed to the corner of the classroom as Megan walks in quickly changing to face the girls in order to watch the reactions that they have on their faces. The rest of the scene of the girls talking will then be filmed from the side in order to get all of the girls in the scene. The scene will then cut to the bell ringing in order to show that the detention has finished.As soon as the bell goes the camera shot will go back to the girls and be a tracking shot of Megan walking out as soon as she can after the bell. The camera will the change back to the girls packing up their bags in sync and walking out together.

Following on from this scene will be the scene I filmed first of the girls being on the corridor talking about Megan with Aaron and Megan having a conversation.

Script:

All of the girls are going to be in conversation between themselves looking at things on Hannah's phone. As Megan walks in the all stop what they are doing and watch her as she sits down.

Hannah: Ew. Why is she here?!
Emily: Considering she's the reason that we are all sat here she's got oem confidence actually turning up.
Lilly: It wasn't actually all her fault that we are here, we never actually saw the person that set the alarms off we just got the blame for it.
Hannah: Yeah but don't forget that she's the reason that we were all standing next to the alarm.
Megan: I wasn't the one that made you do anything though, you all just blame me for everything? You know that if I could stop all of this from happening and stop all of the text messages I would, I'm on your side not against you.
Hannah: Are you sure?! We all know that you were the one that sent us the text it came from your phone....

Bell goes and Megan walks out as soon as she can

Emily: That's so typical she rushes off as soon as she starts to stand up to us.
Hannah: She just needs to leave this school already, as soon as she does everything will be so much easier and everything will go back to normal.
Lilly: It does sound like she is actually trying to be nice to us thought guys, we cant just blame her for everything that gone on when we don't actually know who it is ourselves.

Planning my First Scene

The first scene that I am going to be filming in the second part of my story board. I am going to start my filming after school on Friday as that is the first time that all of my characters are going to be free at the same time. The location of this filming is going to be on A Floor after school which means that all of the corridors and common room are going to empty and quiet with a few teachers around who wont be making masses of noise.


The three girls are going to be walking down the corridor with Hannah leading and Lilly and Emily are by each side of her. Hannah is going to be dominating the conversation to show that she has the most control over the two girls. The camera shot is going to be a long shot of the girls walking which is a tracking shot as I'm going to be following the girls with the camera as they walk towards me. the scene then progress on to show Aaron and Megan having a conversation towards the end of the corridor. This shot is going to be a point of view shot as it is going to be filmed from the perspective of the three girls, the audience is only going to be able to see the back of Aaron in order to keep his identity unknown.


The scene of Aaron and Megan is going to have the sound of the girls talking over it as they are wondering who he is and why Megan is talking to him, this will prevent the conversation that Megan and Aaron are having to be heard. Lilly is having a conversation with Hannah about how they should start to be nice to  The camera shot is then going to change back to the tracking shot of the girls once this happens Aaron is going to disappear and Megan is going to start walking towards the common room. The girls then start to follow her.


As I want to film more than what I need so I wont be short of footage and will need to film the scene multiple times in order to ensure that it is going to look the way in which I want it this is all I am going to film. It is also going to take me longer as I will have to get used to the way in which the camera work.

Script: This is going to be a rough script, its an outline of what I am want my actors to say however they don't need to stick to it word for word it will change as filming goes on.

Hannah: I don't get why she is trying to be nice to us thought, she needs to realise that she's not one of us and never will be.
Lilly: Do you not feel like you are harsh for no reason sometimes like what is it that she has actually done wrong.
Emily: We don't like her, never have and never will.
Hannah: Who's she talking to?!
Emily: She doesn't have any friends, it must be a teacher.
Lilly: Just because we don't like her it doesn't mean that the whole school hate her, he's in school so must just be a student.
Hannah: What's going on with you, why are you all of a sudden loving her
Lilly: I'm not loving anyone I just think we need to stop being horrible to her for no reason, we don't have to like her just be nice to her in life, at the end of the day she still knows our secret.
Hannah: We all said we would never mention that again but okay I'll try and be nice to her but I'm not promising anything.
Lilly: Well she's going into the common room now so I guess now's your chance to start being nice.

Intertexuality

In order to get idea towards what had been done during pervious short film of my genre I look at scenes of other teen drama// mystery films. I blogged about the typical camera shorts and features are used in mystery films as this gave me an insight into what I should be applying to my own short film. After watching the teen drama and mystery films I was able to use some of the same features which means my films contains intertextuality of previous films of my genre.

Intertextuality is where a media text has shown similar features that have come from another text. In media texts that have been created the inspiration has developed from another media text that has been seen. The inspiration for my media text was Pretty Little Lairs and Mean Girls. The mystery part of my film came from Pretty Little Lairs as throughout the series the girls are receiving unknown text messages, there are also many crimes and killings that occur without any explains as to why. The person who has commented the crime is not shown until a few episodes or series after however due to mine media text being a short film I had to have a closed ending where I showed who the killer was. Another typical convention of mystery films is showing the location in which the murder is taking place with a sound effect rather than showing the actions taking place themselves, I've done this where the picture of the empty woods is shown along with the sound of the scream and gun shot over the top. Throughout Pretty Little Lairs things always end up having many different twists and turns throughout the series which is why I wanted Lilly to kill Hannah rather than 'Black Hoodie' or Megan as that is what would have been expected. 



As well as looking at Pretty Little Lairs for inspiration I used typical teenage films like mean girls and wild child. This is shown through the bitchyness that the three girls have all together and the ways that they are horrible to Megan. However within the clique of three means girls there is typically one girl that isn't as mean as the other two which throughout my film was Lilly. Lilly was the able to stand up to Hannah as much as she could throughout the film however Emily would also side with Hannah over her which made Lilly give up with what she was trying to say.

Teen drama

As well as being a mystery film, by short film also falls under the genre teen drama. Teen dramas are typically watched by teens due to being highly relatable, teenagers can be very judgmental which means that everything that has been included in the scene will be judged by the audience watching. This includes everything from the ways in which the actors have dressed, the style in which they have done their make up and the language that is used.

Teen drama is a quite a new genre as it first started during the early 1990s as TV series like Beverly Hills and 90210 were aired on Fox. Due to these two series being such a success producers saw that they should start producing more shows of a similar genre to them, as they were appealing to start a large audience, the demographics that the teen drama has had previously been ignored by producers. Before teen dramas had come around the genre in which appealed to teens were sitcoms. During most TV dramas they include a soap opera element to them which means that within the story line
there are more than one problem occurring that will then go on to be solved. The most typical storylines for teen dramas are dramatic ups and downs that occur within friendship groups and with the current romances that actors are pursuing, these events are all typical events that an average teenagers would face in their lives also however the TV series will be showing them with a lot more drama behind them.

When teen dramas started being aired that was not the name they were first given, one of the first shows that appealed to a teen audience was 'Never too Young' which was aired from 1965 to 1966'. As time started to progress a younger audience started to find it easier to be able to related to the shows that were being broadcasted during the daytime, this was occurring during the 1960s to early 1970s. Another popular show that aired and become a success was 'Love is a Many Splendored Thing', this was then followed by two more shows during 1973. 'All my children' and 'The Young and the Restless'.

During prime time many of the shows that were aired tired to also gain a lot of attention to a younger and more teenage audience, with many more adolescent characters being added.  Examples where this occurred are TV shows like, 'Eight is Enough', 'Family', 'Little House on the Prairie', 'The Waltons' and 'James at 15' however that wad very short lived. One of the longest running teen dramas was Grange Hill which was a British produced TV series, the series ran from the late 1970s into the late 2000s, it featured teenagers in a school setting which is a similar scenario to my short film which shows that the idea I have gone for is successful.

The WB network was created in January 1995, the main target audience of this was teenagers. Within three years of the network being created TV shows like 'One Tree Hill' and 'Gilmore Girls', The shows gained a large fan base from teenagers that watched them.