Shoot Planning

Shoot Dates:
  • Half term break (as agreed by group)
  • Tuesday 26th February (Groups 1)
  • Thursday 28th February (Groups 2)

To make sure you are ready for the shoot, have collaborated with your production team and prepared for your own production role you should complete the following tasks as a group and individually:

Rehearse your actors and block the scene(s).
  • This will require you using a phone to take photos of the blocking.
  • The cinematographer will be taking photos
  • The sound designer / editor will be doing one of two things:
    1. Working with the cinematographer to place the actors on their marks
    2. Working with the actors to discuss the action & behaviour, their lines and mood.
Test your ideas.
  • Cinematographer: test (framing, DofF, filter, lighting, lenses…)
  • Sound Designer: practice Foley recording or editing / composing temp tracks.
  • Editor: test edits / colour correction.

This should be done for independent study and your ideas should be based on examples taken from your shared vision document.

Shot list for all scenes.

This is the job of the cinematographer & editor

Production Meetings
Risk assessment for your shoot(s).

Short Film Pre-Production

The Pitch

You will have half a lesson to work with your teacher on presenting and developing your idea.

You need to bring the following to the meeting:

  • The Logline
  • Shared Vision Slideshow

During the meeting you will have an opportunity to discuss your inspiration for the short film and explain the specific camera, editing & sound design techniques you wish to use.

The outcome of the meeting should be a shared creative intention that you can then adapt to reflect your production role.

The meeting will be filmed, so that you can review the discussion, creative intentions and next planning targets.

You will also need to discuss the narrative shape and the individual scenes in your short. Once agreed, you will need to complete a step outline for each scene.

The Step Outline

Once you have got a more visual idea of your short it is time to start developing it in more depth and detail, considering what will happen step by step and what we SEE and HEAR how the scene will unfold.

Use this document to develop this for each scene. Once you have completed this you should start plotting out your short step by step using an extended step outline for each scene.

This work should be shared among the group with each person being responsible for drafting at least one step outline document, which they then bring back to the group to discuss.

If you have a director they have final editorial decision, if not, you will have to reach a compromise in the group.

The Animatic

An animatic is an animated storyboard. Images from the storyboards are brought into an editing program and are cut together with the correct timing and pace of the film. An animatic should include basic sound effects, dialogue recordings and temp soundtrack.

What is it used for?

Similar to storyboards, animatics are used for pre-visualizing the film before production starts.   This is when you first get a sense of the pacing, the rhythm and the progression of your film.

We are not going to draw a complete storyboard, but will use a combination of drawn and found images to complete your animatic.

It will be the job of the cinematographer to find stills for the animatic and the job of the editor to cut them together. The sound designer will also put together a multi-track mix of music, dialogue and sound effect.

You can also use titles if you can’t find an appropriate image. These will be helpful in giving you a sense of timing. You could also use some images from location scouting.

An Example Animatic

Production Report Part 1 – Development

You need to start developing your production report.

This is a 2,000 word report which will be submitted in 5 sections:

  1. Development
  2. Pre-production
  3. Production
  4. Post-production
  5. Reflection

The content of this report is worth up to 2/3 of your final mark for the collaborative project. There are no extensions on deadlines. We have to submit your film and the report to the IB by the end of this term!

This means you must submit the report in stages in order to get feedback.

Full guidance on the production report can be found here.

The first deadline is next Friday 25th January.

The production report will be submitted in two equal sections. Please complete the first 400 words on:

1. Creative work in my film production role (200 words)
  • You should also discuss why you chose your particular role and what you hope to bring to the project
  • Then, you should discuss how have you drawn inspiration from the work of film makers, specific (named) cinematographers, editors, directors and sound designers.
    • What specific techniques (micro) have they used to convey meaning within their work?
    • You should attempt to cite at least two specific films / shorts and use screenshots from those shorts.
2. Collaboration with my core production team (200 words)

This section should reflect back on how you developed your idea and then how you worked as a group to refine and shape your shared vision.

  • This should include discussion about the brainstorming process.
    • What if…
    • Interesting Characters
    • Stories from the news, anecdotes, jokes…
    • Inspiration document (location, prop, sound, costume)
  • You should also discuss how created a group contract and identified the tasks within your role as well as your collective responsibilities.
  • Describe and discuss your shared vision (the slide show) and how the group idea took shape.
  • Finally you should conclude with your groups creative intention.
    • This will be clarified and agreed in your pitch.
Help & Reminders

The blog post on development is here

Aside

Ethical filmmaking

The guidelines from the IB are very explicit in terms of ethical guidelines.

Therefore your work for this assessment task must not:

  • damage the environment
  • glamorize the taking of drugs
  • inappropriately reference socially taboo subjects
  • incite or condone intolerance or hatred of others
  • include excessive or gratuitous violence
  • make reference to, or represent, explicit sexual activity
  • Avoid situational advertising & branding

Short Film Development

Guidance on the collaborative project.

This is the detailed information from IB Central Command on the collaborative project:

Your preferences for the project.

Please complete this Google Survey to help your teacher put together the core production teams, which will be groups of 2 or 3.

The Formula

Your Idea

Everyone in the class needs to bring one ‘simple idea’ for a short film by Monday 14th Jan.

Some ways in:

A Simple Film Inspiration Task

Take a copy of this document and choose the following:

  • A location
  • A sound – Freesound.Org
  • An item of clothing
  • A character

Prepare a synopsis for your individual idea:

You should present your idea for a short film using this document.

Group Agreement

You need to clarify who is going to take on which roles in the core production team.

You must also complete a group agreement document which clarifies your roles and responsibilities.

A Shared Vision

You need to start creating a group vision and start developing your creative intentions. It is much easier to develop a shared vision using images. So you need to create a collaborative slideshow / mood-board with images of:

  • Characters
  • Settings
  • Props
  • Costumes
  • Colours
  • Compositions

Take a copy of this slideshow and use it to compile all the inspirations and ideas that you have for your short film. Some of this will be completed individually the first two slides will be completed by the group

The Production Report

Here is guidance on how to write your production report.

You should write the first 400 words of your production report.

  • 200 words on the creative work you did in development in you film role.
  • 200 words on the ways in which you collaborated with you production team.

Some Essential Reading

Raindance – 7 Tips for Writing Short Films

Comparative Script – Feedback

These are the assessment criteria for your comparative video essay…

Comparative study (SL and HL) Marks Total
A Task components 12 32
B Comparing and contrasting 12
C Assembling the comparative study 8

In the light of focus group feedback, we have decided that we will offer feedback on either:

  • A draft of your script, or…
  • A draft of the video essay

This represents the final (reflection) feedback you receive and will be the last formal feedback you will get from your teacher.

We have also decided to extend the final deadline for the video essay to Friday 18th January. This means you will be able to get peer feedback on criterion C from your peers on:

  • The extent to which you, assemble the comparative study in a clear, logical, audible and visually appropriate manner?
  • The extent to which you, support the work with accurate subject-specific terminology?

This peer assessment will take place in a single lesson during week 1 of next term (9th – 11th January)


Feedback on your script

Before you get feedback on your comparative video essay script you must complete a self assessment.

To do this you should highlight your script:

Criterion A (Red)

  • Sections where you demonstrate knowledge and understanding of the components selected for study (the area of film focus & two films).
    • This should include the cultural context of the selected films and the student’s justification of why these films were chosen for the comparative study.
  • Your research sources, quotes and explanation of those.

Criterion B (Blue)

  • Sections where you compare and contrast (key scenes from) the selected films, making links to the chosen topic?

Targets

You should write a brief comment at the end of the script and also set some targets for improvement

Preparing your comparative essay script

Drafting Your Script

By the end of this week (Friday 7th) you must have completed a first draft of your script. This will probably be in the form of a rough essay.

If you have followed the planning document we introduced last week, it should look something like this:

  • Introduction, justification and context
  • Comparative Point 1
  • Comparative Point 2
  • Comparative Point 3
  • Comparative Point 4
  • Conclusion

It is essential that this draft is completed by Friday, ready for some peer feedback.

The Read Through

You will all complete a read through of the script and get some peer feedback on the key assessment criteria.

The groups will be 3 or 4 strong and at the beginning you as author will allocate:

  • A timer and someone to count quotes & references to key scenes
  • Someone to listen out for structure and the degree to which you are answering your own question.
  • You will read your own script aloud

You should all use the assessment document to focus the feedback.

You should complete notes as you read through and gather your peers’ feedback at the end on how you could improve your work.

Visualising The Script (Independent Study)

Once you have received your peers’ feedback on the draft script you need to redraft based on that feedback and convert the essay into a script that will run alongside visuals from the two films.

You should consider the following: At a FAST talking speed (160 words per minute) you are limited to about 1,500 words! I used this website to calculate speech speed. You should test your reading speed by recording you reading out a 200 word section of your essay on your phone, find out your talking speed (remember audibility and clarity are assessment criteria) 

Use this document to drop in sections from your script and screenshots from key scenes + time codes. You must observe the word count limit and based on your own speech speed test you may need to amend this down.

THE MAXIMUM DURATION IS 10 MINUTES. THE EXAMINER WILL STOP LISTENING AFTER THAT TIME!

Structure

Before we start scripting the essay we need to develop a structure that allows you to illustrate your research, understanding of the whole films, their context and how these big ideas and revealed in the cinematic style (micro).

So, recap what you have learnt so far:
What have you learnt from your research into:
  • Genre & Style
  • The film movement
  • The film theory
How does this learning apply to your 2 films (macro):
  • Representation of character,place and events
  • Use or challenge to conventions
  • Narrative & themes
What have you learnt about your films’ contexts
  • Social
  • Political
  • Historical…
How you link these big ideas (context and research) in the films’ micro:
  • Screenplay (lines of dialogue and structure)
  • Directing (blocking, characterisation, intention and style)
  • Cinematography (lighting, framing, movement & composition)
  • Editing (rhythm, style, pace, positioning…)
  • Sound (diegetic and non diegetic)
Planning Part 1

Take a copy and complete this structure document.

The more specific you can be the better. So include quotes, key scenes, characters, themes, micro examples

Your Research

Proposal

Please complete this Google Form to outline your initial ideas for the comparative project.

Recording Your Research

Over the next week in lessons and for independent study you must conduct some independent research into:

  • Your film focus
  • Your two films

You need to aim to find approx 5 research sources that helped you understand your film focus and analyse your own films/sequences using that approach:

These sources should include:

  1. A quote from the teachers’ research notes.
  2. Reviews of your films
  3. One Book
  4. Magazine articles
  5. Websites
  6. Other video essays

This research must be recorded and referenced using the Harvard System.

One way in which you can record this research is to use a slide show, with a slide per source. Here is a slide show template you can use.