Production Schedule.

Date: During the term holidays – 24th Feb – 11th March

Location: Laurens house.

Order of day:

10am; Meeting point at Laurens house. Here we will dress our actors approiately, run through the scenes with them etc and begin filming. We will start by filming shots of the husband (Taylor) leaving the front door and then continue with a fe shots of him walking down the road and getting into he’s car. We will also film the beginning part of the film which will be Betty (Bethan) getting out of bed and getting dressed
1pm; We will have a break and have some lunch and then get on with filming again.
2pm; We will film some more, getting the same shot lots of times and trying different shots out on the same scene etc.
4pm; We will sit down and look back over the footage and if we feel anything can be made better or we think or something else to film to add more effect we will either film it then or arrange another day to do this.

Roles:
Lauren & Jade will both be filming and directing.

Props:
Some sort of suit ,which will be supplied by Taylor as he’s already got one. Some 1950’s housewife clothing supplied by Bethan. Ingredients for Cake mix. Birthday banners etc. Some cleaning products, a hover etc.

Characters/Actors:
Taylor; He will be playing the part of the husband. We will dress him in a suit and restyle his hair to a side parting etc. This will create a 50’s look even though were in a modern environment.
Bethan; She will play the wife, Betty. Dressed in a 50’s long skirt and a 50’s looking jumper with an apron on over top and wearing slippers, this will represent the housewife look that was shown during our research of the 50’s erior.

Shot list:
1st Shot – medium shot of Betty lying in bed with her back to her husband whilst he’s doing up his tie, the camera pans from being on betty to being on her husband.
2nd Shot – Close up shot of him kissing betty on the cheek and it zooms out to him walking out of the door.
3rd Shot – Extreme close up of the clock on the wall (9am)
4thShot – Medium shot of betty sitting up in bed stroking the dog then she gets up to get dressed.
5th Shot – quick panning shot of Betty walking from the bedroom into the bathroom.
6th Shot – Close up shot of the bathroom handle then the camera zooms out to reveal betty in different clothing.
7th shot - Medium shot of betty cleaning the cooker
8th Shot – close up of the hover then the camera moves up to shot betty hovering.
9th Shot – More various shots of normal cleaning things; dusting etc.
10th Shot – More close up shots of the clock showing time passing.
11th Shot – Betty making the cake, this will include different angled shots etc

Contact list:
Lauren Wheeler;
Mobile; 07885271357
Address; 53 Thorpe Close, New Addington – where the shooting will be held.

Jade Gray;
Mobile; 07812995527

Actors contact details
Bethan Harrison; 07940748453
Taylor Kennard; 07776201910

Synopsis.

The tale of the Lady & the cake; by Lauren Wheeler and Jade Gray.

The tale of the lady and the cake is a short silent film set around the 1950’s. Based around an old married couple who share a positive but typical relationship. The husband is your typical 50’s man who works and brings the money in, and the wife who is none the less a typical stereotype for women who stays at home and does housework and cooks etc.

After years of the same well known routine, the wife begins to let herself go and therefore a strict diet is put into order by her husband who is concerned for her welfare..

It’s the day of he’s 45^th birthday and after many birthdays together, nothing changes and just like any other day he gets up and goes to work whilst betty stays in bed to awaken and do housework. Its 9am and after Bettys husband has gone to work she gets out of bed and plans her day to get dressed, to do housework and then to bake a cake and have a mini celebration for her husbands birthday when he returns home.

This all goes to plan but meanwhile whilst waiting for her husband to return from work Betty gets very impatient and after making the cake feels very hungry but doesn’t want her healthy lunch that her husband prepared for her. As the clock ticks away Betty gives in and eats one slice of cake, feeling disappointed in herself she comforts herself by eating more until theres none left and her husband returns home to find her sitting next to the table with all cake around her mouth and on the table.

What will happen to their marriage? Will this be the end because Betty betrayed her husband? This fast pace black and white short film is bound to have you in fits of laughter.

Inspiration Week; Follow your heart.

Through looking at a few different pictures on an A4 sheet we come up with a short story/film called Follow your heart;

A young girl called Vanessa is a ballerina and has a highly religious father who is strict due to her not having a Mum. Vanessa loves butterflies and one day her gold fish starts talking and tells her to follow the butterflies that she can see. She does this and the butterflies lead her to a book that is in her house, she starts to read the book and after a few pages she finds a key that was hidden in it. The butterflies fly off again and lead the young girl into the middle of a field where a chest of drawers are there. She uses the key to unlock it and finds a letter addressed to her from her mum. Vanessa begins to get a bit chocked and a voiceover begins to read the letter out loud so that the audience understand what the letter is.

Inspiration Week; what is a story?

We brainstormed what we thought a story was and included, this is what we come up with;

- It can be fictional/ non fictional

- Biblical stories i.e. bible

- They have a beginning, middle and end

- Structure (equilibrium, disequilibrium)

- Fairytales

- Settings/locations

- Themes

- Series of events

- Plots/dilemmas

- Characters

- Educational

- Plays/scripts etc

- Stories through history

- Greek mythology

Inspiration Week.

During inspiration week one of our tasks was to write down a name and job of a male and then to continue it on by passing around your sheet of paper and writing other scenarios etc. this is the story that was given back to me;

'William Patel is a dog groomer,

Gretchin is a boot polisher,

They both met by chance at the annual meeting for the Jack the Ripper appreciation society.

'I cant play with you any longer, it hurts'

She falls over and gets up only to release an unpleasant smell.

She instantly falls in love with him and they live happily ever after...'

I feel that this exercise was useful and helpful because it was a way of getting our imaginations working and getting us in the mood for writing a short story for our short film.

We are the Lambeth Boys.

We are the Lambeth Boys is a free cinema/protest documentary and it presents working class people, back in the 1950’s, living their everyday life’s. Being an experimental documentary following a group of lads, who supposedly weren’t meant to act like they were being filmed, it has inspired today’s documentaries such as ‘The Family’ because its just about a working class family going there day to day life.

Berlin Horse;

The Berlin Horse was one of the first experimental films to be presented to a niche audience. I feel that unless you are in to art and Avant Garde ect that it is very hard to stay focused as its just replayed shots of a horse running round in circles, the only change are a couple of camera shots and the colour which represents the art and the message behind it. However it could be argued that it may have gripped its viewer due to the extent of music and visual footage that didn’t really have any relevance.

Production, Exhibition & Distribution of Shorts.

Like mainstream films, short films follow a structure; Production, Exhibition and Distribution. However because of low budgets and niche audiences the stages aren’t as complex as they may be to mainstream.

Production
Young aspiring directors will browse for a production company that is willing to produce their short film due to the low budget that have to abide by. This is why some production companies specialise in shorts to. An example of this is the production company ‘Silver films’. The short film About A Girl was produced by silver films.

Exhibition
As mainstream feature films are exhibited in cinemas because of large chain deals and huge marketing budgets short films are generally only exhibited at film festivals. There is an advantage to this as any awards the short might gain from short film festivals will be what employees might look for. Directors will also begin targeting smaller festivals with their work in order to use awards from such festivals as a factor to be recognised else where.

Distribution
For mainstream films, distribution is how films will make profits; after box office sale, DVD’s and merchandise sales. The lack of any kind of profitable distribution in short film does not pose any threat to the industry although there is some proof of short film collection DVDs. Short film distribution is through online websites such as Youtube or Vimeo, some sites specialise in distribution of short film such as Depict; a website that showcases only micro shorts (less than 90 seconds in duration).

Video Activism.

Video activism is an opinion of a group of protesters that try to grasp views, interest and shock of the public by creating videos of things such as animal cruelty etc. Video activism came around during the fame of Shorts and was created by a group of protesters that were made to shed light on something they specifically protest against. The idea is to portray things such as animal cruelty in a bad way so that we think it’s a bad thing to and then protest against it. But sometimes things aren’t as bad as they portray them to be.

Film Festivals.

Film Festivals are one of many opportunities for young aspiring directors to show off their work and a place where employees might go to look for such new fresh directors.

Sun dance film festival;

Sun Dance is a film festival dedicated to showcasing new and exciting short films in innovative platforms.

Sundance started in 1978 in an effort to attract more film makers to Utah. The festival takes place annually in the state of Utah in the United States and is the largest independent cinema festival in the USA. It was founded by Sterling Van Wagenen

The festival is held in January (21st-31st) and is a very global event and showcases for new work form American and international independent film makers. The festival comprises competitive sections for international drama and documentary films, both feature length and short films.

You can submit your work to the sun dance festival by filling out an application form on line on their website http://www.sundance.org/applications.html. As this years event is only just over it doesn’t say much else about submitting your entry etc.

Encounters film festival;

Encounters Short Film Festival celebrates new talent in filmmaking and provides a platform for emerging filmmakers to screen their work. Encounters is the title for two of the UKs leading film festivals, now combined. This running festival began in 1995 as Brief Encounters which was originally envisioned as a ‘one off’ event to mark the centenary of cinema. As it proved so popular it is now an annual event.

Encounters takes place in Bristol UK around November time. To submit any entry’s for this film festival you have to sign up to receive their newsletter and then you receive information about when deadlines are etc.

Avant Garde; Maya Deren.

The concept of Avant Garde refers exclusively to marginalised artists, writers, photographers etc. These composers work is not only opposed to mainstream commercial values but often has a social or political edge. Avant Garde is also referred to as experimental film and is a type of film created by film makes who wish to experiment. In some ways they could have been compared to short films equivalent of Fnew wave ’La Nouvelle Vague.’ This is because the innovative ideas and experimental process of making a film are very similar.

The short film industry always struggled to compete with Hollywood mainstream but however unlike mainstream films Avant Garde found a niche audience who regarded the films as art. A well known director the experimental scene was Maya Deren. She was a film theorist as well as an Avant Garde film maker. Deren directed many experimental films in the 1940’s to 60’s and displayed a highly individualistic sensibility towards short films.

Talk about ‘Meshes in the Afternoon’