Specialist study
Presentaion
Red Riding Hood Story
When designing my costumes I wanted to try and create a theme of red. The idea behind the red was that it would symbolise 'danger'. When doing research for spike a lot of stories are about guy spiking girls. This is also what you get as an answer if you ask people. When talking to my family I found out that no females have been spiked but 4 males had. This was quite surprising as my family is rather large and it was the opposite of what statistics saying. This made me want to create a film about spiking from the perspective of a female spiking a male.
Having a female automatically created a sense of innocence. Then having her do the spiking created a whole new dynamic. When trying to figure out how I could make it work I was doing research by looking online and talking to people when somebody said that is sounded like 'red riding hood'. After that conversation I was working on it and I was trying to understand the resemblance. This is what I realised at the wharf with the equivalent to my male character and little red riding hood herself with same as my spiker. However the red cloak was used as innocence and then in mine it creates a strong powerful underlying message.
Having a female automatically created a sense of innocence. Then having her do the spiking created a whole new dynamic. When trying to figure out how I could make it work I was doing research by looking online and talking to people when somebody said that is sounded like 'red riding hood'. After that conversation I was working on it and I was trying to understand the resemblance. This is what I realised at the wharf with the equivalent to my male character and little red riding hood herself with same as my spiker. However the red cloak was used as innocence and then in mine it creates a strong powerful underlying message.
Tales of the unexpected
Tales of the unexpected influence my ending massively. When watching it with my family I would always be so sure of what I thought would happen at the ending however something would always happen last minute causing the engine to suddenly change. ( Hence the name ' tales of the unexpected') I like the unexpected spin so I thought that I could make it work with my film.
YouTube Videos
WASP_ Andrea Arnold
Wasps is about a young single mum 'Zoe' and her four young children.
When watching this and trying to understand the techniques of using a DSLR on it there are many things you have to think about. These are key themes, typical characters, how it was shot and the editing techniques that were used.
The short film is set on a council estate in Andrea Arnold's hometown of Dartford. The set is a filthy, dirty council estate filled with apartment blocks and houses cramped next to each other. The key themes in this are love and family set against a background of poverty. Zoe wants to go on a date and have a good night out but has the struggle of having no one to look after her four kids who are all quite young and not old enough to look after themselves.
Key themes create a structure to your short film as they are basically the building blocks of creating your final piece. Love and family as the themes in this film create an underlying conflict in ‘Wasps’.
As viewers you are almost watching another story within the story itself. This was really interesting to understand and analyse as just by thinking about the themes of your short film you can create so much more depth to it. The whole short film was filmed on DSLR without using any steady cams or gimbals, this gives the whole film a very rustic look as the dirty council estate also adds to the cheap low-budget feel that the film has. The main actors Natalie Press and Danny Dyer were both in the very early stages of their career, meaning that they would not have been very expensive.
The video I used for inspiration 'wasps' was taken down for copyright reasons however here are some screenshots to show the styling of it.
When watching this and trying to understand the techniques of using a DSLR on it there are many things you have to think about. These are key themes, typical characters, how it was shot and the editing techniques that were used.
The short film is set on a council estate in Andrea Arnold's hometown of Dartford. The set is a filthy, dirty council estate filled with apartment blocks and houses cramped next to each other. The key themes in this are love and family set against a background of poverty. Zoe wants to go on a date and have a good night out but has the struggle of having no one to look after her four kids who are all quite young and not old enough to look after themselves.
Key themes create a structure to your short film as they are basically the building blocks of creating your final piece. Love and family as the themes in this film create an underlying conflict in ‘Wasps’.
As viewers you are almost watching another story within the story itself. This was really interesting to understand and analyse as just by thinking about the themes of your short film you can create so much more depth to it. The whole short film was filmed on DSLR without using any steady cams or gimbals, this gives the whole film a very rustic look as the dirty council estate also adds to the cheap low-budget feel that the film has. The main actors Natalie Press and Danny Dyer were both in the very early stages of their career, meaning that they would not have been very expensive.
The video I used for inspiration 'wasps' was taken down for copyright reasons however here are some screenshots to show the styling of it.
I, Daniel Blake
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Dead Mans Shoes
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Sorry we missed you
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Natural Lighting
Not a lot of moving shots to focus on characters. very people based-people framed carefully. togetherness- long shot ordinary British street |
rural locations- travelling a distance- CALM
stationary camera- actors causing movement were supposed to be looking at them if the camera was moving then you'd be looking at the location/ something else. moving shots- flashback/ activity- fast paced, a lot going on- PANICKY |
Character Driven- focus on characters.
warehouse-cogs in a machine, wide shot, moving class jobs + environments work van- British working class symbol (if in America it would be a pick up truck) |
Films about social realism
Codes and Conventions of a film are really important, this is something that I have to remember when creating my final piece. They are what create the film giving it that final look where it all comes together.
Location - need to be simple and 'accomdating' to all different types of people and communtities.
Mise en scene - Not over the top, typical things that you would see in the locations used.
Lighting - basic and extremely natural.
Camera angles - Varied to show variety but not too 'artisic/cinematic' as it wont fit with the styling of social realism.
Actors - They need to be realistic and an ordinary person because if you use somebody who is famous or well known then it takes away the realism from the film
Location - need to be simple and 'accomdating' to all different types of people and communtities.
Mise en scene - Not over the top, typical things that you would see in the locations used.
Lighting - basic and extremely natural.
Camera angles - Varied to show variety but not too 'artisic/cinematic' as it wont fit with the styling of social realism.
Actors - They need to be realistic and an ordinary person because if you use somebody who is famous or well known then it takes away the realism from the film
Spiking research
https://www.google.com/search?q=statistics+of+men+getting+spiked+compared+to+women&rlz=1C1GCEB_enGB997GB997&oq=statistics+of+men+getting+spiked+compared+to+women&aqs=chrome..69i57.20681j1j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&safe=active&ssui=on
https://www.google.com/search?q=statistics+of+men+getting+spiked+compared+to+women&rlz=1C1GCEB_enGB997GB997&oq=statistics+of+men+getting+spiked+compared+to+women&aqs=chrome..69i57.20681j1j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&safe=active&ssui=on
https://www.alcohol.org/guides/spiked/
News Stories
https://www.itv.com/news/tyne-tees/2021-11-25/it-hit-me-like-a-sledgehammer-man-spiked-with-a-needle-in-newcastle
Research
This is some research that are gathered in the beginning processes of the development of my idea. This helps me because it gave me more of an indication of what direction I should be going in with my film. I decided to compare males against females because I thought that it would give me more than understanding two different experiences that each gender has had. The surveys were sent out to all different ages and different characters of people say that I got a wide varied response. The first question I asked was 'what would drive you to fight or attack someone' overall the response I got was that it would be because of self defence or if the attacker had done something to a close family member or close person. This is the answer I was expecting to get because I don't believe that anybody would just attack someone for no reason.
The next questions I asked where 'have you ever done something in the heat of the moment?' and 'what was it?'. From the responses I got I can see that more females have done something in the heat of the moment compared to males. I couldn't understand why this was so I had a look at what sudden response was to see if that would give me some indication. When looking at the reasoning the majority of the female response was verbal where as the male response was more physical. This suited the common statistic that women have more control in their actions then men.
Following on from those questions I asked how they felt after doing that action. From the responses I got it showed me that females felt guilty for lashing out then males did. The male responses more than they felt good after and then buzzing or that even made them feel relaxed.
The next question I asked was a trial for what I wanted to call my short film. It was ' what do you think of when you hear the word SPIKE'. I decided to do spike because I thought it created a sense of mystery to what the meaning of it was. This was well reflected in my responses as I got a varied opinion. The majority of ones that stood out what danger and alcohol. Which created the right tone that I wanted towards my film.
My final questions were 'have you ever been spiked?' and 'what happens?'. When looking at the answers I got it was quite surprising because 100% of females had not ever been spiked however 31% of the male response had been. When finding out what had happened it was more of the 'traditional' drink spiking way but it was still interested to find out about.
The next questions I asked where 'have you ever done something in the heat of the moment?' and 'what was it?'. From the responses I got I can see that more females have done something in the heat of the moment compared to males. I couldn't understand why this was so I had a look at what sudden response was to see if that would give me some indication. When looking at the reasoning the majority of the female response was verbal where as the male response was more physical. This suited the common statistic that women have more control in their actions then men.
Following on from those questions I asked how they felt after doing that action. From the responses I got it showed me that females felt guilty for lashing out then males did. The male responses more than they felt good after and then buzzing or that even made them feel relaxed.
The next question I asked was a trial for what I wanted to call my short film. It was ' what do you think of when you hear the word SPIKE'. I decided to do spike because I thought it created a sense of mystery to what the meaning of it was. This was well reflected in my responses as I got a varied opinion. The majority of ones that stood out what danger and alcohol. Which created the right tone that I wanted towards my film.
My final questions were 'have you ever been spiked?' and 'what happens?'. When looking at the answers I got it was quite surprising because 100% of females had not ever been spiked however 31% of the male response had been. When finding out what had happened it was more of the 'traditional' drink spiking way but it was still interested to find out about.
I confirm that the work on this website is all my own and does not include any work completed by anyone other then myself, except where clearly stated otherwise, and that sources have been appropriately referenced.