PRE-PRODUCTION: PROJECT EVALUATION

The pre-production unit has been one of the most detailed pieces of work I have ever had to work on. At the start of the project back in September, it seemed daunting that I was going to be writing a script that was forming the basis of both my own as well as Laura and Katies work. As a group in the summer, we met up to discuss potential ideas for a film, this was really important for us because through I am the writer, I wanted to make sure we had a starting point for  film that interested and engages us all. We all used the 2018 film Adrift as our inspiration, we loved the unexpected plot twist that came with the film and this was where our story began.

The first thing that I think went extremely well in this project, is the research that I undertook. In the past units I think I may have skimmed over research a bit too much, especially when creating a story. Simon advised us to focus on a key theme to research that would help to formulate our idea. At first I wasn't sure how researching trauma (the topic we choose to move forward with) would help me to write a story, however as I completed this research I began to see just how much, and how important research is. Trauma can be defined as 'a deeply distressing or disturbing experience', the idea of how distressing something can be to a person is what I focussed my research on. I explored how a lot of people who experience something traumatic, go on to have elements of mental health issues. The biggest example of this that I found was death, death is an extreme loss that can have extreme long lasting effects on a person. The Mens Mental Health forum explores how many people who experience traumatic events go on to suffer with PTSD, depression and schizophrenia. It was here that I managed to explore the idea of hallucinations. Hallucinations is a common symptom in people that are suffering mental health problems as a result of the death of a loved one (a traumatic experience). This research really informed me well and it helped me to piece together a story that I wanted to tell. Further research regarding mens mental health is where I found my character. 36% of referrals from doctors to mental health services are men, (noted from the Mens Mental Health Forum in 2016), this is an extremely low number and is reflective upon a common societal issue, men holding in their emotions and 'suffering in silence'. This idea gave me the character of the story, it needed to be a male so that I could create the extra layer to the character, how a lot of men do not want to speak about their issues because they feel intimidated. This research was integral to me as a writer and a producer and I believe it is one of my biggest positives to come from the unit. The statistics that I have touched upon in my previous posts, as well as the information I obtained from Mind In Maidstone, a local mental health charity that I spoke to regarding their processes of helping people, really helped me to create a character and a story that is factually correct. 

Also at the start of this project, I created a schedule for us all to follow. As a producer, I wanted to make sure we all had our own roles covered, so that in the last week of the unit we could come together with all of our work and bring the pre-production together perfectly. For me, looking for cast and crew, as well as scouting locations and completing paperwork, it is very time consuming. Pairing this with the roles of a writer also meant I needed to balance my work well and consistently. The schedule I created meant that we all knew what each other was doing, and that certain jobs that required a lot fo time to complete were started within plenty of time. I think this is one one the positives on this project for me because it was an effective way of planning, for myself it meant I
started looking for cast and locations early on in the project before a 2nd draft of the script was even done.

In terms of the locations, I secured Mote Park very early on. I knew as this was a public location, that I needed to confirm this asap, so I began contacting the Kent Film Office. At first, I looked into Haysden Country Park, a park I used in a previous project. Myself and Laura went to view this location and decided that because there wasn't a suitable pathway, we wouldn't be using that location. I found Mote Park on the Kent Film Office and decided to go for a recce with Laura. We found a suitable bench and pathway that would be perfect for the scenes that we need to film, Laura loved the location also so I filled in the application form. After completing the insurance documents and risk assessments I was given a filming permit for Mote Park. This is definitely one of the positives that has come from this project, securing such a big and important location for us so early on in the unit helped me in planning and saving time for other locations, as well as for the director for planning shots etc. The second location that I needed to find was a school. I thought this was going to be a struggle to get access too because of the disruption of pupils, so I decided that we need to film this on  a half term break. I emailed multiple schools in the Medway area, I have been to one of these myself and I know a few people that work in different ones, so I knew what schools we should aim to film in. The Victory Academy, replied to me saying they may be able to accommodate us and would let us know. I thought this location would be really good for us, as it has been renovated recently so it is very new, clean and modern which is the kind of look and tone of the other locations. My research informed me to always have a back up plan as the producer, so I have decided that we will use UCA Rochester Campus in the event that The Victory Academy cannot help us, or drop out. We know we will be able to get access to UCA Rochester so it helps us to know that we will have a back up.

The final two locations that I needed to secure were a street and a house. The house needed to be a clean, tidy and modern house with minimal decor. We scouted a few different houses and I decided that a house in Allhallows, who we got through mutual friends, would be the ideal house. The layout of the downstairs is perfect for what we need, it has a front door with the living room at the back, perfect for our scenes where Julie watches Marlo storm out of the house, and the kitchen/diner overlooks the garden which is exactly the layout we need for our scene of Marlo in the garden. This is strength in the project because it matches the action that I described in the script. When writing I envisioned what the locations would look like, for me this is the one that looks most like what I imagined so I am really happy with it. The last location was a street for our death and memorial scene. We decided to use Mote Road which is near Mote Park, logistically it was really helpful for me, it meant we could film there in the middle of Mote Park filming as we would be waiting for it to be dark in Mote Park anyway. Something I really focused on when choosing this road was the health and safety aspect. This road has a long grass path following along adjacent to the road and path, it separates the road from the path and so as long as film on the path only, we will not be anywhere near the road and it will be as safe as it can be.

In this project, I completed a lot of research on both producers and writers, to help inform me on the decisions I made within these roles. Out of the industry experts that I looked at, I found the work of Jason Blum most interesting and engaging. He focuses mainly on producing horror films with a low budget, but returning an immense project. His attitude towards filming and being a producer, is to provide all of the necessary requirements that a director needs, and letting their creative work flourish around the framework he provides. This is the ethos that I tried to adopt when being a producer and I think this is a very successful part of this pre-production unit. With the cast for example, I took on the role of communicating with them and setting up the advertising, I filtered through the quality actors and let Laura choose from the self tapes that we were given. Laura could simply choose who she was most comfortable with, because on the shoot it is her who will be directing them so she needs to be happy with the decision made. The same can be said for the research I undertook on writers, the most interesting one I looked at was Jordan Peele, the acclaimed writer of Get Out. This research informed me to create a good plot twist at the end of my script, as well as adding in subtle hints throughout that didn't give it away but could be looked back on by the audience as an understanding of what happened.

I considered our schedules very earlier on in the unit. A strength of this was the fact that I understood the need of the public and the settings of which we were filming in. We are filming in a school in half term week, because that is when it is not full of students and will cause the least disruption. However, we are also filming in Mote Park, a public playground that would be very busy during the half term week we are filming. I made the decision to film this the week before half term, it is the best course of action for our production so that we aren't impacting any of the general public, and so that the general public are not impacting us. I've had these dates mapped out since the start of the project, therefore it has really helped me in setting up the locations and casting. Also, I believe I did well in in creating a budget that created allowances for certain aspects that couldn't be confirmed. For example, the travel for the cast will be coming to London. The train tickets from all London Central stations are the same price, with London Underground costing about 2-3 pounds per journey to get to these. Therefore, as this was not yet confirmed, I made sure to budget 5 pounds per day per person to allow for these extra costs. 

There are some things that happened in this unit, that I can learn from that were not as successful as the above points. From a scripting point of view, I learnt the important of proof reading scripts and leaving yourself enough time to do so. Some of my draft scripts had some grammatical and spelling errors, they are easily sorted but I was not leaving myself enough time to proof read when handing draft scripts in, so this is something I would make sure to do next time. Furthermore, I would place a greater important on fundraising for a project. In terms of the budget that I completed, we came in at about 30 pounds under, which was great. However, about 5 weeks before the end of the unit I asked Laura to set up and post a Go Fund Me page on our social medias, this was to extend our budget so that we had more freedom on filming days, for example we are currently filming on 4 days with 2 back up days, if we have to go onto the back up days we will most likely go over budget. We will have to either put in more of our own money or I will have to reduce some of the money that is set aside for certain other parts of the budget. Whilst it was a strength that I managed to budget us within our limit, I think next time I should explore more fundraising options. If I would have looked it up earlier, we may have got higher fundraising amount which overall would help us in other aspects, such as if we do need extra filming days.

Furthermore, I underestimated the producer statement in this project slightly. In the end I have written a good statement that explores my research and explains my reasonings, however it was stressful to write such a huge piece of work in a short amount of time. If I had started to think about this piece of work earlier on in the unit, not necessarily writing it earlier but planning it and bearing it in mind when completing other bits of work, it may have been easier to write. With my statement I had to consolidate all of my research into this document and explore it, which meant going over it all again and preparing to include it within my statement. 

PRE-PRODUCTION; PRODUCER STATEMENT

Copy of Producer Statement (On website with pictures):

The role of a producer is one that oversees a production in its entirety. A producer is there during the pre-production phase to organise the shoots, oversee the budget and complete all of the necessary paperwork, among other tasks. During the production phase, a producer will be present to make sure it all runs smoothly, and the work of the director, cast and crew can flourish successfully. Finally in the post production stage the producer is an active player in making sure the needs of the film as well as deadlines, are met in the final edit. My role on Unspoken is the producer, I have helped to find all of the correct cast and locations, scheduled everything and created and oversaw the budget completely. 

Jerry Bruckhiemer, a very famous American producer explains how important it is to understand

the themes and the characters within a story. I made sure that for this project I had thoroughly

researched the chosen topic and theme, and made sure that I completely knew what the

\characters we were creating were going through. Bruckheimer’s method of work informed me to

understand that you need a simple but detailed flow of research, it helps to make the rest of your

work, including the locations and casing, a lot more viable and fitting to your story. The inspiration

for Unspoken, came from the viewing I had of 2018 film Adrift, by which the main character

hallucinates her dead partner the entire film. The idea of a character hallucinating a loved one

was very intriguing to me, I thought it very innovative to create a final twist in this way, revealing a

character dead in the final act. This led my research in the direction of grief and trauma, focusing

on the effects these experiences have on a person. I began to look at different case studies, and

contacting mental health charities to find out the different symptoms that people can experience

when suffer the traumatic loss of a loved one. In a study taken by PsychCentral, 52% of people

experience hallucinations up to 12 months after the death of their loved ones. Personally, I think

this is a startling figure and something that isn’t recognised within society. From this research, I had the story I wanted to create, but I didn’t quite have the character. Further research revealed how the issue of males speaking about emotional and mental health issues is extremely low, for example a study undertook by the men’s mental health forum identified the fact that 34% of men would be embarrassed to ask for help from the mental health services that are on offer. This research made it clear to me that in order to make this a viable and important story, I wanted the main character to be male. 

As I was the writer of Unspoken, this informed and had an effect upon

the decisions I made as a producer. In terms of writing, the best advice

I followed from research in terms of writing, was to begin writing straight

away. As a writer you have many ideas in your head, and it helps to

formulate those onto paper as soon as possible, as this helps you to

see what works and what doesn’t, in terms of the narrative. My research

of Jordan Peele made it apparent that when writing your script, if you’re

planning a big plot twist at the end, you should do your best to make it

not obvious throughout, but so that when you do finally reveal the twist,

it was obvious all along. This confused me slightly, as I wasn’t sure how 

I make subtle plot twists that didn’t make it too obvious, but would make

sense by the end. I took inspiration from Fight Club and the writings of

Jim Uhls who injected subtle scenes of a character who didn’t exist to

pop up or flash on screen, some audience were not to notice this, but

the ones who did were left confused and unsure why this character

flashed up in the middle of the screen. This informed my decision to

change the script slightly, which later had an impact upon my work as a producer. I decided that I wanted Nova, our character who is being hallucinated, pops up in the background of a classroom scene. After consulting the director, this will be filmed very subtly and to some be very unnoticeable.  As a producer these scenes are the type I will have to have extreme focus on all of the finer details of the scene, I need to make sure the classroom is full of other students, wearing similar uniform to Nova so that she doesn’t stand out as we would like this to be very subtly. 

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As the producer, I made the decision that I needed to organise the budget at the beginning. I wanted myself and the production team to have equal expectations of what the budget would be, this meant that going forward we would all know what would be logistically possibly. I began by researching budgets and what those include, before I set the total costs I wanted to be fully aware of what I needed to pay for. Aspects such as travel and food were items I am familiar with costing and have done before, however costs for costume and props, as well as post production such as songs and sound effects, were aspects I hadn’t touched upon before. Research on budgeting informed me well, I knew that I wouldn’t be missing any important aspects out. In terms of budgeting there were 2 key decisions I made that had a big impact upon our production. Originally I decided that myself, Katie and Laura would be putting £200 in each, bringing our budget to a total of £600. From this I started to cost out train tickets from London, as this is the general area that our cast would be coming from. Train tickets in and out of London are a massive expensive, I looked at pre-booking the tickets to see how cheap I could get them, as a producer I want to reduce costs as much as possible as to not hinder the production any way.

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An aspect of the producer role is fundraising, this is something that I started to think about when I was budgeting as I knew that we needed to try and extend our budget if we had the need to. As this is a student production, I decided that a Go Fund Me page would be the best route to follow in order to increase our budget. This is something I have used before, I recognise that this allows us to advertise the project, explain and elaborate on our reasons behind the story and generate some interest on social media. The Go Fund Me page has so far been successful for us, helping us increase our budget to a £710 budget. A lot of producer research that I completed advised to over budget where possible. It will always be better for a production to have money left over than to need more, therefore I decided, where possible, to include ‘extra allowances’ in each section, preparing for any situations that could arise. For example there can often be disruption in travel arrangements, especially when coming from London, therefore I have allowed an extra £5 per person per day to cover any disruptions that could arise. 

Location scouting was a big part of my role. As I multi-skilled on this project being the writer and producer, it was integral for me that we got the correct locations that worked well for the script as well as logistically. Unspoken has four main locations that needed to be sought out. The first was a park with a long path on it, I decided to look for this on the Kent Film Office. One that immediately popped out to me was Mote Park in Maidstone, the photos displayed demonstrated an idyllic park with perfect benches placed in front of a lake. For me this matched exactly what the script needed, it is a big space perfect for a production with minimal disruption and it has exactly what the script needs in terms of a park, bench and a path. I decided that this would be the best location so I contacted the Kent Film Office and managed to obtain this location after completing the necessary insurance documents. The second location needed is a school, this was the location that I thought would be the hardest in terms of access, so I made sure to have a backup plan just in case we couldn’t find a school. UCA Rochester Campus is the backup that I decided to go with because it is a ready made educational location that we would just need to dress to make it look like a secondary school rather than an arts college. I emailed multiple schools in the Kent area, however a lot of these wanted to charge on average £25 an hour, something our budget unfortunately wouldn’t allow. Currently, there are 2 schools within the Chatham area that are in the process of deciding whether we can film or not, so as these may not get back to us for the deadline I have decided to book a classroom in the UCA Rochester Campus. As a producer I knew I needed to get the next best thing for our production and I am certain that the campus is that, we know we can gain access that will not greatly affect our budget and we will have to make sure the room is dressed appropriately to look more like a school than an arts college.

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​The third location needed for Unspoken was a house. Visually, I knew the house needed a boys bedroom with a minimalistic design. Marlo’s bedroom has to visually look a mess at the beginning of the film, transitioning into a clean and tidy space by the end. We need a bedroom that really embodies this and allows us room to be able to really mess it up and create this atmospheric and chaotic bedroom. Myself and Laura reeced many houses in Medway, as we are both from the area we are in contact with lots of different people who are able to help us out. In terms of the bottom floor of the house, we required the living room to be a separate room at the front of the house, allowing for the action of the very opening scene. These were the main two things that myself and Laura had to consider when choosing the perfect location for our house. The house we have gone with is really effective in having the exact layout that we need, the layout that I as the writer and producer had envisaged in my head. This is also a location that comes to us free of charge due to knowing the owners through family. The fourth and final location that I needed to find for Unspoken, was a street that we can film on. This was to show Nova’s death scene as well as where we will film her memorial. I researched how to obtain permissions for this because I was unaware if I had to contact the council or other relevant filming authorities. Through my research I discovered that as long as the council knew, as well as any residents that could be disrupted, filming on a street is completely allowed. Myself and Laura began driving around Maidstone in attempt to scout the perfect street, I suggested looking around the Mote area as I knew it was a quiet residential place, it was here that we found Mote Road. Mote Road is a perfect road for us to film on, the path is edged a good distance away from the houses and the road is separated by an open grass patch that runs concurrently with the pathways. As a producer I knew this would be an ideal location because it would cause the least disruption to the public as it is not directly near any houses, it also still borders on a busy road that fits the description in the script. For this location I again obtained permission by contacting the Kent Film Office and completing the necessary documents. 

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As I have previously discussed, this is an issue based story that is derived from aspects of today’s society. Immediately, I knew the target audience for Unspoken should be young people aged 16-30. Firstly, as I have discussed within the inspiration and the research behind the film, we are aiming to touch upon issues within society such as men’s mental health. We would like the audience to resonate with the character of Marlo, he struggles to talk to his mum about the issues he is facing and this is something seen a lot within society and specifically young males. My research detailing that only 36% of doctors referrals to therapists and other mental health services are men, this is a startling number and it is due to the fact that less males seek help for the issues they are facing. In addition to this, Marlo is balancing his mental health issues with the realities of adulthood, he has to choose his university and make decisions about his future. This is one of the main struggles Marlo has in Unspoken, he is grieving and the traumatic experience he has been through means that he doesn’t want to make these decisions about his life and his education, he tries to put these off as much as possible. This is why I have decided our target audience should be younger people in general rather than just males, our main character is a male because the issue of men’s mental health is the one topic we are focussing on, but I firmly believe that all genders will be able to relate and resonate with the character of Marlo. 

I have also decided to choose a secondary audience of parents for Unspoken. I spoke with Mind in Maidstone, a mental health charity who explained to me that it is common for young people’s parents to approach the charity looking for help and exploring their worry for their child. Julie is a character that we created who embodies the idea of a worried single parents, every scene she spends worried about Marlo and she is the one who he ultimately opens up to about his feelings and emotions. Parents watching Unspoken would be able to relate to this idea and this is why I have decided to identify parents as our secondary audience. I made the decision that we would look at film festivals as the platform for Unspoken. I have understood from my research that the viewing habits of younger people, who are our target audience, have drastically changed. The amount of 16-24 year olds watching broadcast TV fell 33% from 2010-2016, this demonstrates how younger people are using an increased amount of devices such as laptops and smartphones, using online streaming services such as Netflix, Amazon Prime and even YouTube. I used this research as my considerations when choosing the platform of Unspoken. Whilst I thought the actual content of Unspoken, would fit with the BBC Three brand, touching upon young people’s issues within society, I ultimately decided the format being a 15-20 minute film just doesn’t ft on the platform. Therefore I have decided on two film festivals going forward that will be out Platform. The festivals I have gone with are called Encounters Film Festival and The UK Film Festival. Both of these festivals aim to combine young filmmakers work with the work of industry professionals, they are events that look to give young and emerging talent a chance at their first public screening. For us a production company it would be a great opportunity to show our work and see how the audience as well as industry professionals take it. Specifically at The UK Film Festival, there is a dedicated and separate student short film category, previous winners have been drama shorts that have very powerful messages behind them, such as previous winner Gold Fortune. In terms of an online platform the film will still be uploaded to YouTube, which will be advertised going hand in hand with all of the marketing and branding of the film, I am certain these are the best choices for the platform of our film.

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To prepare for my role as a producer, a key piece of research that I undertook was on producer Jason Blum. I took great inspiration and advice from the work of Blum, as a produce Blum likes to create all of the elements necessary for the filmmaker to make all of the creative decisions that they need to; ‘Get them all the materials they need and leave the creative driving to them’. This is an ethos that I decided I really wanted to follow in this project, I want to be the type of producer that takes away the stress of scheduling, budgeting and other logistical tasks, anything that can take away from the creative flow I wanted to have a hand on. There were 2 key decisions and aspects of the production that I created in order to enforce this ethos. Firstly, I created for the team and I, a pre-production schedule. This detailed all aspects of the production with dates to either start or complete this by. This was really effective because all members of the group could see what each other was doing, I also found it equally helpful for myself, as I was writing script drafts I needed to make sure I was on top of aspects such as casting and locations. Laura could see from this that I was on top of these integral parts of the production and there wasn’t anything hindered. 

Secondly, after any piece of work I completed that was relevant to the group, I went through it with them to make sure it worked. For example the schedules, which I will discuss further in the next paragraph, I ran through with Laura to make sure she was completely happy with the time I allotted to the filming of scene. Between a producer and a director there is the possibility for a conflict of interests, the producer will want to have the filming done in the best but sometimes quickest way possible, especially when travel arrangements have a big hold on the budget, however it is the director who will have the say over how much time they need to film each scene. As discussed, I wanted to have the attitude that everything I did would make the directors life as easy as possible, therefore going through the scheduling with the director means both parties will be on the same page, for me it gave Laura an opportunity to let me know if I had scheduled too much or too little time to a scene and I could rectify that from this. 

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Scheduling is one of the most important parts of a production, 

every single person involved including the runner’s, cast right 

down to the director needs a schedule. Across a 2 week period, 

I have schedules 4 definitive filming days followed by 2 potential 

back up days that we will decided on the day if we require. There 

are 3 main issues and considerations to think about when 

scheduling, decisions need to make sense in terms of logistics, 

you do not want to over work your cast and crew, but you also do 

not want to waste time resulting in potentially wasting money. The

New York Film academy had a great resource that pointed out 

some tips to take on board when scheduling. Overall there were

two key points that I decided to apply to Unspoken. The first was 

to start off with an easy first scene, it helps to build confidence 

both in front and behind the camera and helps to put the entire 

production a bit more at ease . The first scenes we will be filming 

are simple, non-dialogue scenes, I made this decision because 

it will create a sense of momentum for the day as we move on throughout the scenes, starting off with simple but moving forward to more complicated dialogue heavy scenes. Secondly, it was advisable to film as chronological as possible. I decided that though it isn’t entirely, we will try to film as chronological as possible because it will get a better end product from the cast. Filming in this way helps the cast to really get in to their characters, they will feel much more like the character which should evoke the best quality performance.

As ever, logistics have to come in to play when scheduling also. We are filming in a school, they require us to film during half term because this is when the school is least busy and we do not have to worry too much about causing potential disruption to students. However we are also filming in Mote Park which is an extremely popular public playground, therefore this informed me to film the week before half term as half term will be very busy and we would face a lot off disruption If we were to film that week. Having to film across 2 weeks is something that I think is a positive, it has allowed me to schedule back up days throughout the weeks. Whilst myself and Laura are very confident that the timings I have allotted to each scene is the perfect amount, I want to make sure we have locations and cast booked for back up filming days that take place 1-2 days after the original filming’s, this way the cast and crew are still in the motions of the film, being in tune with the dialogue and the camera work rather than having longer filming breaks throughout the weeks. I also made this decision because in the days between our filming days, myself, Katie and Laura can review the footage and decide whether any reshoots need to take place. 

All of the producers I had researched, including Jeff Sharpe, who likes to base the material he creates upon source material and Greg Berlanti, who produces TV but makes the exception to produce film when they have issue led topics, were interesting for me to note the reasonings that producers have behind their work. These producers have a good grasp upon all aspects of their projects, as a producer should, because they’re extremely passionate about the project. Unspoken is a very important story for me because it represents more than just the story that is being shown, the decisions I have made within this production will ensure that it has many layers, our 2 different sets of audiences that I have identified will be able to identify multiple societal, personal and real life issues from the narrative. I hope the decisions that I have made help to create a film that represents these in a factual, engaging and just way. As a producer, I organised and communicated with the cast and potential applicants. I had an idea of who I wanted the cast to be in terms of looks, but ultimately I needed to leave the decision up to Laura who is the one directing them on the day. Following from the ethos I discussed previously of Jason Blum, I provided Laura with self-tapes of potential applicant so that she could decide. To get the best product on the day, Laura needs to feel as happy and as comfortable with the cast chosen as possible. 

PRE-PRODUCTION; ALL SCRIPTS

Now that I have completed the final script, I have uploaded all of the draft scripts to show the development between all of them. I am really happy with how the story has changed and been adapted along the way. The first script I completed was not something I was happy with and I knew I needed to work on the formatting. The research that I undertook helped me to understand what I needed to do to make a better script, following advice from Laura and Simon, as well as coming up with new ideas myself, has helped me to create a final script that I am really happy with, and really excited to take into production next year.
Final Script:



Drafts:

PRE-PRODUCTION; CASTING AND CREW

Casting has been quite an important part of my role. We have advertised the roles on Mandy.com and StarNow, so that we could get the most amount of applicants as possible to choose from. I began to realise that we were very limited on Mandy.com, this is where I had a look around and found StarNow, a website that is very similar to Mandy.com but gives us an opportunity to reach a wider amount of up and coming actors. I made the decision multiple times to re advertise the roles, though we had some applicants, we all weren't happy that we had found the perfect people for our role. The way in which we wanted to audition was through self tapes, a lot of applicants have a really good showreels, so we thought self tapes would be the most cost effective and quickest way for us to see some material from our applicants.

In terms of the choosing process, I would show Laura the director and Katie the showreels and self tapes that we had received, we would all have our opinions but Laura, being the director, is the one we left with the overall decision. Confirmed Cast:

1) Marlo - Marlo was our hardest character to cast, he is obviously our main character and one of the key characters in our production. We had a few self tapes sent through that weren't what we wanted. We re-advertised and got it down to two applicants, we felt that one gave a better performance in the self tape, but didn't look the part as much the other applicant. In the end I left the decision up to Laura, it is her who will be directing the actor on the day so I wanted her to feel as comfortable as possible with the choice that we had. Laura decided to go with Liam Wright-Airs.

2) Nova - Darcy Keeble-Watson. Darcy was our first official confirmed cast member, she has a lot of experience in starring on stage and she currently takes a drama degree. We saw Darcy's self tape and we thought it was the best one we received. I emailed Darcy offering her the role and she was very excited, we are currently in contact with her regarding production dates.

3) Julie - Julie was am interesting decision for us. Originally, Julie was a small part in Unspoken, so the person we had a few applicants in mind about taking on the role. However after some very interesting script changes, Julie became quite a main character and so I wanted to re-evaluated who we had. Within the last 2 weeks, I re-advertised the role, and found Angela Harvey. Angela's showreel was exceptional and we really liked it. Angela managed to get us a self tape in a very quick amount of time, which again was exceptional. We offered Angela the role and she delightfully accepted.

4) Mr Shipman - Mr Shipman has been confirmed for a while also, the role is taken by Mike Kelson. Mike got us a self tape really quickly, Laura specifically liked the facial expressions he used during the audition so we picked him to take the role.

All of our cast I am currently in deliberations with over dates, hoping to have them all 100% locked in and confirmed by the deadline.






After following some advice from Simon, we had a change of who we would be crewing on Unspoken. I wanted to find someone who was interested in the roles we were to put them into, rather than just someone who wanted to do it. An interest in the role is key for us in helping to make a successful short film. After speaking to a few different people, we asked what role they would like to take, so that we know they are fully interested. Our confirmed crew is:
-Aurelija Klydiaite; Director of Photography
-Logan Picot: Sound
-Michael Coppard: Filming Runner

PRE-PRODUCTION; LOCATIONS UPDATE

Currently, with the script changes that I have been doing, there are 4 locations that we will be using. Some of them I have had to get into contact with the Kent Film Offices and others I have had to get into contact directly with an organisation. Our 5 locations and their updates are as follows:

Email I sent to Schools 

1) School - The school seemed to be our hardest location to find. From the start, myself and Laura decided we would UCA Rochester as a backup, so we always knew we would have a location. However, the reason we didn't want to have to use UCA is because we would have to do a lot of scene dressing to make it look like an actual school classroom, we would like to look as authentic as possible. I began but getting myself and my team to email our old schools, we are all local to the area so hoped one of our 3 secondary schools would be able to help up, however we were yet to hear anything back. I then expanded the search to most secondary schools in Medway, I emailed about 7 school offices, explaining what we were doing and what we needed. Luckily, I had two schools email me back, explaining they may be able to help us but they need to get confirmation from their head teacher. As it turns out, being from the area, I actually knew the two people who had replied to me through neighbours. I have been told that I should receive an email on Monday 3rd December confirming the location.

2) House - As the writer, I was visualising exactly the type of house that we needed. We needed a room that had minimal furniture, and room to make it messy. At the start of the script, the room is messy and covered in rubbish, but by the end it is completely clean, tidy and spotless. I wanted a room that had minimal furniture and lots of floor space, so that we could really accentuate this change of cleanliness throughout. Again, as we were from the area, we took advantage of this and asked people we were close too if we could recce their houses, we went and took pictures (as shown) to decide what house would be the best fit. I also looked on Air BnB, thinking we could find a place to film at that would also accommodate our actors, however on asking the hosts they explained they couldn't allow filming in their houses, so we had to abandon this idea. The house that we have gone with, has come to us free of charge, it has the perfect bedroom allowing the director to really mess it up for the filming, and it has the perfect downstairs area because of the placement of the kitchen in respect to the door (within the script, a lot happens in the kitchen which we need to be out of sight from the front door where something else takes place).

3) Park - As the producer I began my search for the park using the Kent Film Office. Previously, I have used Haysden Country Park in Tonbridge, this location is an open space field, myself and my group went to Haysden again to recce and see if this would be suitable as I knew we would be able to get permission to film here, however we needed to confirm that it was suitable for our major project. After the recce and discussions, Laura (director) and I decided that Haysden would not be suitable for our film, we needed a field with a long path on it, the path is one of the two most important features of this location that we need and so we decided against this location.  I found Mote Park on the Kent Film Office website, After doing a recce with Laura, we knew that Mote Park was the place we wanted to film. It is a large area with huge space and scope for us to film in, it has benches dotted along a river which are perfect for us. I applied for this location through the Kent Film Office, giving them the dates we would like to film and filling in the insurance forms. Currently, I have received the filming permit for this, and am awaiting an invoice to pay the cost of £33 for a risk assessment.

Filming Permit

Mote Road, Maidstone

4) Street - As i have added in a lot of new scenes featuring on a road, there was now a new location I needed to find, which was a road. This will be the place where Nova dies and where her memorial will be held. In terms of the type of road we need there is two things that I need to consider, firstly it needs to be safe in terms of health and safety as we will be filming very near the road. Also, it needs to be wide enough to accommodate the type of memorial we need to dress. Myself and Director Laura drove around Maidstone in a bid to find the perfect road, luckily we found Mote Road, which is very close to Mote Park, one of our other locations. Mote Road has extremely wide paths, with wide areas of grass separating the path and the road. Filming here means the least disruption as possible to residents, because there houses are a fair distance away from the paths, but it also means we have quite a main road, with a good amount of traffic to accommodate to the background in the script. I have applied for a permit for this through the Kent Film Office and I should be receiving permissions within the next few days.

PRE-PRODUCTION: FINALISING THE BUDGET

I have now completely finalised the budget for Unspoken. Recently, I suggested to Laura that we set up a GoFundMe page, in order to gain some fundraising money to help us with our budget. At the start of the project, as a group we decided we could all put in £200 to fund the project. At the moment, we have £110 as donations from out GoFundMe page, whilst this is till open and could increase, I decided to work with a £710 budget as the total. I am going to go through each aspect and talk about how these decisions came about and how I have evidenced them. The documents I am going to submit for the unit and put on the pre-production package, is an excel spreadsheet with a table of the budget and citations explaining certain aspects, as well as a word document that contains a number of figures (labelled in the spreadsheet) that are photos of my evidence.

1) Costume - Costume is a big part of our budget, we need our main characters to be wearing very specific clothings to make the script work. In January, I plan to speak to my confirmed cast and confirm if they already own any items of clothing that we need, however in terms of this pre-production package, I have outlined and costed every piece of clothing, this way if the cast do not own any of the pieces of clothing that we need, we have already costed it so it will not effect our production in anyway. Marlo and Nova both attend school, so it was very important that they wear smart clothes that fit a sixth form uniform. We also need another outfit for Marlo that is more casual and comfortable for when he is at home. Mr Shipman is the only outfit we haven't costed, as all he needs to wear is a suit (as he is a teacher), the actor we have for this we know has this already. Julie also we need to wear a more casual outfit, so we have costed jeans, jumper and boots. Our total costume costs come to exactly £170.

2) Travel - Our travel is another big part of our budget. 3/4 of our cast members are going to be coming from London and this is a heavy expense. The price of a return ticket to Maidstone from all central London train stations is roughly the same price. The only difference in prices is if the ticket is purchased and used before or after 9:30, because it is a busier period the tickets are more expensive before 9:30. The schedules that I have created allow me to see which cast members are needed at what time, so that some of the days we can get the cheaper ticket used after 9:30. i have included on the budget how many tickets need to be purchased (For example Marlo we need for all four days, 3 of which before 9:30 so I have costed it as £28.25, and one day later which is costed at £13). I have evidenced this through pictures of the national rail site showing how much each ticket costs. The actor that we have playing Mr Shipman is our one character who lives in Kent, we are only using this character once and he will be driving down, so we have agreed on a £10 contribution to the petrol he will be using. I have also included an extra allowance for each person, I have used an average of £5 per person per day extra, to allow for any overcharged as well as London tube journeys that they may be using to get to the London train stations. Our total travel costs come to £286.50.

3) Props - As I am the writer as well as producer, I knew exactly what props we would need. A lot of our props will be housing decor that we already own, there are 5 main props that are integral to our story that I have costed/found for free to make sure we have them. Firstly, we need an engraved pocket watch, I researched online and found an Etsy seller who we can buy one for at a cost of £20. Moreover, we need a dummy phone as in one of the scenes Marlo slams his phone down and smashes it in frustration, I did some research online on this also and found a website that does this for us, for the cost of £3.36 we can get a dummy iPhone XS. 3 more important props include a bottle of vodka, textbook and letter, there are props we already own or can hand make to save the budget. I have included this on the budget to demonstrate that I have thought about them, because they are integral parts of the plot, but I have put a £0 cost next to them. Our total prop cost £23.36.

4) Food - Food is included in our budget because we have quite long days of filming, we need to make sure that we feed the actors and crew as much as possible. For the cast, I have identified an average meal cost of £6 per person. For me this is quite an overestimate, we are going to have help in creating homemade meals, both sandwiches and hot meals, to bring to locations for the cast and crew. Homemade means we will most likely come in under budget on the food aspect. I have included an extra £60 allowance for food which means we have a total cost of £126 to provide food for all cast and crew over the 4 days. We will go to a supermarket and use the money to buy food to create the meals for a cheaper cost overall.

5) Locations is one of our lowest cost sections of the budget. Mote Park we have to pay £33 for a risk assessment to be done by the council, but all of other costs are coming to us free of charge. This has really benefited us so that we can apply more money to other sections. Mote Road, where will be doing street filming is a public residential street therefore with the permissions from the council it is free. The house we will be using is through family, therefore again this is free. The school, that we are still waiting to be confirmed, is also going to be free as we know someone who works there. In the case that we cannot confirm the school, we will be using UCA Rochester Campus which is again a free location.

6) The last area of the budget we needed to consider was the post production. We have a music composer who will be composing our music for free and copyright free, however I am skeptical to put 0 pounds as a value against our post production costs, I would like be prepared for the need to pay for something, so I am going to be putting £40 as a safe guard for if we need to pay for any music, sound effects etc in post production.

The total left in our budget is £31.14. I am hopeful that in January, we will find that the cast own somme of the clothes that we have budgeted so that this will save us money. I am still aware that in January, we may have the following changes with
-Travel
-Equipment; Laura has noted that some of the scenes may be filmed with an iPhone XS Max instead of a Panasonic camera, which means we have to buy certain rigs etc

PRE-PRODUCTION: RISK ASSESSMENTS

Risk Assessments are an integral part of our production. Whilst on previous projects I have completed these many times, I thought I would do some research on them fist. The BBC page had an interesting article on risk assessments, outlining their uses and reasonings:
'A Risk Assessment is a structured way of thinking about how an activity or situation that is going to happen at some point in the future might cause harm to people, to periphery or to the environment and thereby helping you to identify measures to prevent or minimise the risk of this happening. Think of it as a safety planning too'

Risk Assessment Examples

-The law requires a suitable and sufficient assessment of the risk sot health and safety arising out of our work activities in order to indent the measures needed to comply with relevant safety regulations
-Should be done in order to present any significant risks in the foreseeable future
-The earlier it is completed the better as it gives you time to communicate the findings to the cast and crew and prepare
-If you are on a shoot and there is a significant change/high new risk introduced, you should revisit the risk assessment process to evaluate whether it is safe to continue the filming or not
- You must take the tie to systematically look at your activities, decided what hazards they present and asses the risk of people being exposed to these hazards
- The final step is to find waits to eliminate or control the risks

For the Pre-Production package I am going to complete 4 risk assessments for each location, I will complete all aspects of the forms so that when it comes to the production stage next year, I will just need to get them printed and signed. The following are the completed risk assessments (minus the signatures and full equipment list as this will be added both for the deadline and the production.

Day One:

Day Two:


Day Three:

Day Four:

PRE-PRODUCTION: CALL SHEETS

Now that I have created the preliminary schedules for our filming days for Unspoken, I thought it would be time to create a template for the call sheets. I will create a basis for a template, so that I can fill the details in easily, when I have all of the confirmed dates, names etc and anything else that will needed to be included. In looking online, I have found the following items that need to be included:

Exemplar Call Sheet

1) Date - at the top of the every call sheet, in a clear and coherent way should be the date that the filming will be taking place.
2) Transport Information - Whether it is for cast or crew, it needs to detail how they will be arriving to the location, whether that is making their own way, or being collected by a runner.
3) Title - Title of the production, clear and coherent with the date, cast could have multiple shoots going on at similar times so it is important to display the title of the production clearly
4) Weather - Include the predicted weather, this helps with everyone knowing what to bring in terms of sensible footwear and clothing, as well as the crew being prepared with the equipment if it is raining on an outside shoot, for example.
5) Nearest Amenities - It is helpful to include the nearest supermarkets, hospitals, taxis/train stations and police stations. The cast and crew will be coming from all over the country so this is vital information for them.
6) Scenes to be shot - Detail what you plan to film on the day so that the cast and crew are fully prepared and ready to go.
7) Names - List who it is for, give them specific details for their script, what time they are arriving and wrapping.
8) Call Time - Arguably one of the most important pieces of a call sheet, should be front and centre detailing the time off arrival

A lot of call sheets that I have looked at, include the schedule within that. With mine I have decided to do that separately, in a bid to attach it to the back of the call sheet. This means before the time of filming, I will send each cast/crew member a filming pack with the call sheet and schedule all in one. I will be designing a table, that explains for cast when each cast member will be arriving, breaking and wrapping. Similar to my research on the scheduling, I drew out a design before creating it as a word document. I have decided to make a template, so that next week when I have all cast, locations and other information confirmed, I can easily fill them in.

PRE-PRODUCTION; SHOOTING SCHEDULE

As we are reaching near the end of the pre-production unit, it is time for me, as the producer, to start the shooting schedule. Firstly however, I need to research the topic and look at what a shooting schedule should look like. Things that a shooting script need to include:
- Dates of filming
- Start and Wrap times
- Actors needed
- Addresses
- Scenes to be filmed

Research Tips
- Plan to film in chronological order as much as possible, this helps the actors really connect with the arcs of their characters, subsequently the performance you get from them will be better
- Try and start off with an easy scene first, it will help build confidence in the cast and crew that will help to carry them through for the rest of the shoot days
- Put milestone/exciting scenes in regularly in order to keep excitement up
- Maximise locations and their availabilities

In terms of creating my schedule, I have decided to create my own. I looked into certain apps that create schedules for you but I think that because this a student film is quite unique, I think the formatting will work better if I design it myself. First of all, I drew out the schedule on a piece of people, I labelled the different boxes in order for me to visualise what it will look like on the paper. I wanted to make it as a template so that I could use it for each different shoot day. I added the cast and crew at the top of the page, in order to make that an important statement so that everyone on the production knows exactly what days they are needed. I then created a small key for the addresses/locations used, as some of the days we will be using multiple locations I have labelled them location A and B.

On the table detailing the actual schedule, I have timetabled it for every different goal we need to reach for the day. Using the different scene descriptions as what we will be filming I have timetables each one for each location. I have also scheduled in regular breaks to make sure the cast and crew are are well rested to keep up momentum throughout the day. I decided to use the time, description, who and where as the headings of the table as these are the main things everyone will need to know. After i hand drew the table, I then created it on a word document, and filled it in according to day one of filming. There are some gaps in some of the schedules, which is where I will be confirming addresses etc, and when the director has completed all of the story boards and shot lists, I will add these in, this will help us to be more specific and clear about what we want to film and when. I have completed one for each shooting day, four in total, and will be updating these throughout the next two weeks as we finalise everything for the rest of the project.

PRE-PRODUCTION; MAJOR SCRIPT CHANGES AND DRAFT 4

After sending out our draft 3 script to Simon, we had a meeting about the story and where it was going. The following is a list of feedback from Simon based on draft 3:

Small Problems 

-have a look at some scripts
⁃not formatting it correctly (scene headings)
⁃new room = new scene
⁃too much detail that’s not important e.g. we need to see that Marlo is in his last year of school somehow
⁃is the outfit description important?
⁃quite long and list like
⁃Marlo, a 17 year old school boy lounges in his den. his teenage life surrounds him. somehow he manages to pick out a university prospectus from the mess and it sparks his memory
⁃his room is a mess but the house is tidy
⁃mom does well in her job and everything is in place/tidy except his life
⁃look at how characters talk to each other/round things
⁃contemporary story needs contemporary features
⁃pocket watch present, make it something that works in present day format e.g. heirloom
⁃empty school, put either a caretaker and kids in to make it believable
⁃populate with people to make the school active so the audience doesn’t question the scenario
⁃scene 3 is a way of showing emotion <- MORE OF THIS
⁃scene 5 is 2 scenes not one

BIGGER PROBLEMS

⁃scene 6 ‘everyone’s asking me what i’m going to do’ placed incorrectly to bide with story
⁃think about Marlo as a character, what he was like before
⁃essentially, our story is: Boy walks to school, talks to a girl. Boy walks back from school, talks to a girl x2 and then boy walks home, talks to a doctor and then is okay.
⁃good scenario but we need to see the effect on him and think about how we can dramatise stuff, what he learns etc
⁃if he did well at school, show that he’s not doing as well now
⁃lashing out, getting into trouble etc
⁃look at character of nova “perfect person” but is she a negative force on him now?
⁃is she the one that doesn’t want to let go? “i won’t be able to see you anymore”
⁃going to uni was an important thing
⁃commit to scenes and characters in your story
⁃how does the acceptance manifest himself, how can we show this
⁃need to see the stages of the effect
⁃use mr shipman as an important character? submits his application at the last second
⁃play out drama through doing stuff
⁃less dialogue and more pictures
⁃ritual to show time passing

After this, myself, Laura and Katie went to brainstorm ideas. I had the idea that I wanted to change it from an open day at a university being what Marlo was trying to avoid. I thought it would be better if an interview letter came through the post in the morning, firstly because it creates more jeopardy and more of a timeline to the story and secondly because it feels a lot more visual, both when writing and filming for the director. The second idea was to elevate Julia's role, she is the mother of Marlo and to involve her in the script more is something positive. After speaking with mental health charity, it is often that a family member tries to help a loved one who may be suffering and this helps us to push that message through within the script. We decided to get rid of the flashbacks and dream sequences completely because we can suggest the ideas that they were suggesting in other ways. For example I brought in the idea of the engraved pocket watch from his father who died when he was young, as an idea of symbolism that would be a recurring idea throughout. 

Also, I came up with the idea of bringing in an 'Unknown Figure' to the script to talk to Marlo when he visits Nova's place of death. When I watch film and TV, i really enjoy narratives that are left slightly unanswered and allow for the audience to create their own meaning in their head. After speaking with Laura, this 'unknown figure' will be shot in a particular way which will not show their face, I want it to be an enigma to the audience so that they can decide for themselves if this figure is a real person in the street speaking to Marlo, or a figment of Marlo's imagination. The final major change of the script, is the reversal of Nova's character. I have turned her into more of a negative/unknown character, she dies after arguing with Marlo, telling him she doesn't want him to move away for university. This creates more of a catch 22 situation because though the audience will be sad because Marlo is grieving, they will also slightly dislike her character because of the way she treats Marlo. 

As per previous post, I researched other scripts to make sure that my format was correct. I found that my scene headings were wrong as well as the day/night aspect. It also helped me to read other scripts because I got to see how these scripts are written and I gained inspiration, mainly in terms of how to describe locations and characters. I am really happy with draft 4 of the script, I think I have done well to completely turn the entire 16 page script around, by changing main aspects of the narrative with my group and also rewriting it in its entirety myself. Now I hope it is at the stage where just certain aspects need refining, rather than anymore dramatic rewrites or story changes because my group and I are really happy with what we have now. I am still considering adding in one final scene involving Nova and Marlo, to give the audience a sense of closure on the two characters relationship, but I will see what feedback comes my way first.

PRE-PRODUCTION: SCRIPT RESEARCH

After having some feedback from Simon regarding the script and its formatting, I thought it would be a good idea to have a look at a few scripts and see how they format themselves and compare it to mine. I decided to look at 'The Truman Show', looking at how it is formatted and how it is written. These are the key points I dug out to help me:
-include location descriptions at the start of each scene, it helps to set the scene to the audience and also makes it a lot clearer and visual for the reader, and when talking about the characters actions it makes it a lot more easier to explain.
- Use of (O.S)-On Screen to denote that a character is speaking but only their voice is heard you cannot see them
- Use of full stops in the scene headings, after the scene number, int/ext and after day or night
- Don't be afraid of small scenes, when writing I tried to avoid any scenes that were small because I thought that they were wouldn't help the story, but in reality they help move the plot along in ways that dialogue can
-Use of paragraphs to separate the action that is happening on screen.
- Capitalisation of characters names
- Use of parentheses above the dialogue, I was previously using it below the words.

This research helped me in other ways too, reading through the script made me see the type of language that they use, which i can adapt to use in my own ways. I was always unsure on how to write some actions because I am used to writing essay style but this is quite different, phrases like 'We see' are something I use a lot in my drafts because it helps the audience to visualise what they are seeing on screen. I have also looked at the script for The Conjuring, though it is quite a different genre from both 'The Truman Show' and Unspoken, I thought it would be good to have a read through and see if I notice anything different about the scripts.

-Use of 'Continued' on the bottom and top of each page, unless the start of a new screen
-Use of scene headings on to signify time period and place (very specific to genre)
-Use of (V.O) (voiceover), similar to the use of (O.S) but for a character that isn't involved on the scene
- Use of '--' when a character interrupts another character
- Use of much shorter sentences and descriptive statements eg 'Keeps Staring'

The most interesting feature of this script is the use of shorter more descriptive sentences, they are a lot more to the point and not filled with words. The script is quite dialogue heavy but it really works for this type of genre. This research will help me a lot in writing draft number 4 of Unspoken, I need to adapt my writing into a more script style, be descriptive but not overly descriptive. I also need to come up with a stronger narrative arc, as Simon said, the story is there and it's good, but so far what we are doing with it isn't cutting it.