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.