pre production diary

the first thing i had to do for pre production was look into the client and what Sunderland culture was about, this taught me about different parts of sunderland's culture and helped me understand what the sunderland culture exhibition was, this didn't cause me any problems as it was just some research into the brief and what i was meant to be highlighting and showing the client in my final product

the next thing i had to do was to come up with an idea for my project, i decided to use the brief to give me a bit more freedom and creativity with my ideas, i decided to come up with the idea to do a short horror film but set it in Sunderland and using local aspiring actors from Sunderland, the accents and the setting would really display that my project really was from Sunderland, this way i had the freedom to be able to write a horror short film and get more involved into the genre that made me first want to do media, this way i could make a horror like i've always wanted to since first starting in media.

after i had an idea of what projects i wanted to do i had to research different existing products, i researched existing found footage horrors such as blair witch project, paranormal activity, and rec. the reasoning for this is because found footage films always have such a unique sense of realism, where as some horrors, while scary and lasting in the media industry, have a fabricated feel, it doesn't feel real in the way that found footage horrors give, it also allows me to use the very same unique cinematography technique used and seen in the blair witch project in which the director of cinematography gives the cast the cameras, give them a brief script and have them improvise most of the film, this gives off natural, raw reactions and acting which you can't achieve through traditional acting methods, because of some technical errors i had lost the original power point of my presentation, i tried to fix the error in different ways that i could but unfortunately i kept running into the same issue

after trying different fixes and getting the same result i decided the only solution to this problem was to redo the power point from scratch, i tried to write it the same as the last one but with some slight changes

 before i gave my pitch however, i had to work on some research for my audience, find out if my local audience would be in the age group of 16-25 as the client's brief had stated, i had to figure out what found footage movies they had seen, what they think if my idea and what genres of movies they have seen so i can narrow down exactly how to go about making my project as i wanted it to be enjoyed by both the target audience and appeal to the client, the client is who i want to impress by following the brief but that would be a waste of time if the audience hated the final product

audience research

once i had my power point re-written, and i had my idea i started planning how i'd execute my idea, what the budget would be, what equipment i would need, but before that i needed to produce a pitch to show a focus group to get my idea green lit before i execute any further planning, i created both a power point pitch and recorded me presenting my pitch and getting feedback and most importantly whether or not the focus group think my pitch is good enough to green light the idea

pitch

pitch presentation

once the idea had been greenlit i had to go on to planning my project, first i had to write the script and draw up storyboards, due to errors, weather and other events that conflicted my different re-writes i eventually finished a script that was good enough for everyone to get to and it was easy to schedule hours of filming, after writing up the script i had to go through all the logistical paper work that comes with products in the media industry, while boring, they're a crucial part of the process as they ensure the cast and crew's safety, allow us access to properties for filming and make sure that the cast can't drop out of their roles last minute.

i had no problems with this process of the pre production as not a lot can go wrong when writing up the paper work, the biggest problem i had was finding the cast to be in my short film and get them to sign the contributor release forms

contributor release forms

location scout and location release forms

risk assessment

the last thing i had to do before starting the production of my project was to design some posters to promote my short film, i drew up some ideas for my poster design, i decided to go with these designs as i thought these 3 were the best out of the few i drew up as well as matching the theme for my idea and having a better horror theme to it, i sent them off to a focus group and received some feedback on each to see which one of these posters will make it to the production stage

poster designs

the feedback i received said, that they liked the design for poster #3 as its the most detailed and it fits the horror theme the best, design #1 was too basic and the #2 design was as good as #3 but they prefer number #3

with this feedback i knew what poster would be going into the production stage with the short film, with the pre production finished i was ready to start my production