PRE-PRODUCTION; LOCATIONS UPDATE

As the producer, I am in charge of making sure the correct locations are all booked out for what and when we need. These locations and their updates thus far are as follows;

1) A School - originally I had a school in mind, a local primary school that I already have permission to film in. However after discussions with the director we decided that this wouldn't really fit our shoot as the room probably wouldn't be dressed suitable enough for the age range of our characters, with it being a primary school. After this decision, Katie, Laura and I all emailed our old schools that are all local, however after a few weeks we are still yet to hear back. I have now found quite a few schools that are on the Kent Film Office, this is normally a much more concrete and definitive way of getting a location so after sending these applications off I am much more hopeful about this.

2) A House - For some of our scenes we also need a house, this is probably our easiest locations because we all have houses available to us to use and dress how we please. With this we have decided to use a relative of Laura's house so that we are using a different house to ones we have used before. This specific house fits the structure that we need a lot better as well, including the placement of all of the rooms.

3) Dream Sequence - The dream sequence is going to be a basement in Katies house, for the location we just needed a dark room that we can use lighting to create certain atmospheres so after we all went to view this we knew it would work perfectly.

4) A Park - This is our main location where all of our important and most dramatic scenes take place. After some searching on the Kent Film Office, I decided it would be a perfect location because it features a long path all around with benches dotted along the way. I applied for this through the Kent Film Office and was replied with some insurance and risk assessment forms to fill out, further to this we also have to pay £33 for the councils own risk assessment to be done. Myself and Laura went for a recce also, we both took photos of the best parts so we know exactly where we want to film. As the director Laura was really happy with the location, there is lots of space as well as a lot of benches that are quite secluded with scenery so I'm really happy with this location.

PRE-PRODUCTION; TUTORIAL WITH BETH TURRELL

Today we had a tutorial with freehand producer Beth Turrell. We went in to pitch our idea to her and explain where we were at in terms of the progress of our pre-production package. I was really happy with the feedback that we got from Beth, I feel as though it made us as a group realise how prepared we are with our project, so far. Obviously we will continue to work at our current rate but it was good to hear that we are being organised and on top of everything. We explained to Beth our story as well as other production elements such as the budget, schedule, casting, and locations. Laura also went through the different cameras we are considering using as well as the test shoots, and Katie spoke about where we are at with the marketing/branding. The main feedback we got from Beth, was to nail a strong pitch to explain the narrative of Unspoken. As I explain the narrative I have always felt as though it is difficult and complex to talk about due to the different narrative strands, Beth suggested that I try to simplify this by creating a small pitch that would explain the narrative in a small and simple way.

Simple Pitch; A psychological drama following a grief stricken teen and his journey after a traumatic event, leaving him stuck between his future and his desires.

Simple Synopsis; Marlo is a 17 year old boy in his final year of sixth form. As he goes through his day to day life he deals with issues such as paranoia, anxiety and panic attacks, whilst he feels unable to speak about the issues he is facing with most people, his girlfriend Nova is his beacon of light as she comforts him throughout. Marlo's mother Julie and teacher Mr Shipman are they to help him even though they often get dismissed, they worry about his future as the deadline for university applications looms closer and closer. Will he come be able to open up, or will his issues get the better of him?

Katie has also been working on all of the branding and graphics for Unspoken. She has created both a poster and a title sequence using a theme of smoke to create a ghost-like feel. I really like the branding of it all so far because I think it helps to create and reinforce a theme throughout that we are all happy with.

PRE-PRODUCTION; DRAFTING SCRIPT 4

After Draft Three, Laura had a few more suggestions after storyboarding. These changes are more visual than dialogue based because as her and Katie were storyboarding they realised that there was a lot of scenes that could be changed to fit the camera better. The following are the changes that she has asked me to change on the script;

Flashback Change: Marlo puts the prospectus in Julie's lap. She’s confused at first and Marlo opens it for her √

Detail Change: Marlo leaves his bedroom after seeing the prospectus √

Detail Change: Marlo grabs the pocket watch from the side, instead of his coat when leaving the house √

Change the last part of Scene 2 to say how they smile when they see each other and then “embrace as they greet each other” to make it more logistical than embracing and then looking into each other's eyes. √ 

“He starts tapping his finger against the side of his leg” to "opening and closing the pocket watch" whilst they are walking instead 

Change “We see MARLO in the bathroom coming out of a cubicle, he looks side to side checking if anyone is in there with him.” to "We see MARLO burst into the bathroom and stands in front of the mirror shaking. He puts his hands on the basin and looks up into the mirror" √

I think I am now really happy with the script, after doing my research on the formatting of script I know that it is almost there in terms of the format. As I've said previously I am now really happy with the ending and the overall narrative structure. I think I have followed Simon's advice correctly by using the characters and their actions to create mood and tone but also move the story along without so much dialogue. 

PRE-PRODUCTION; AUDIENCE AND PLATFORM

After our next tutorial with Simon, we were given some more concrete ideas and things to think about for our project. Particularly with my role being quite prominent in the pre-production stage, Simon suggested I think about the following -

-Why? in the script, look at the script and make sure there is background and reasoning to every part EG why is this character there? why did this happen to this character? etc

-Begin organising both the cast and crew and gathering those together

-Look at and decide the audience and platform

First of all I would like to look at the audience and platform. Audience is something that I think even as a group we have known from the start. Unspoken is very issue based, we are tackling something that is a big talking point within society at the moment so for us, we know we want this to target the people that this issue is affecting most of all. Our story is about young people, in our instance young men, being reluctant to talk about their mental health and using the help that is on offer in our society.  This is why I would like us to target young people 16-30 years old. The research and statistics that I have looked at previously all point to how this issue affects this age most of all, so I believe it only right that this is targeted towards them. In terms of audience classifications we would be looking at more achievers and aspirers, people more geared towards society issues who would be inspired or effected by our drama in any way.

I have also looked at the viewing habits of the people we are trying to aim at, as this would help us to understand the kind of platform it would need to go in in order to reach this target audience. An Ofcom study discovered that a teenagers and young adults are watching a third less broadcast TV on traditional sets than they were in 2010. This demonstrates a shift to many online platforms such as Netflix and Amazon. This happens across even young adults as a recent episode of Blue Peter was announced to have had a 'zero' audience rating.
- 16-24 year olds watching broadcast TV fell 33% between 2010 and 2016
- The average viewer watches 212 minutes of broadcast TV a day compared the 114 minutes a day that 16-24 year olds are now watching (according to Ofcom)

Ofcom's report announced how viewings on different devices and platforms such as Netflix and BBC iPlayer, are becoming increasingly popular, whilst no age is determined it suggests how people who are at a 'pre family stage' in life are specking on average 2.5 hours a day watching demand TV. Another platform that is becoming popular is YouTube, channels boasting millions of subscribers are achieving views comparable to mainstream TV channels.

Other useful statistics -
- Young people ages 16-24 spend 27 hours a week on the internet
- Twice as much as 10 years ago
- Spends 2.5 hours a week 'online while on the move'
- Compared to the increase from 30 minutes in 2005

I'm certain with this project that going for this audience, we need to go for an online platform like YouTube. It is where a lot of this target audience watch TV, it is accessible on multiple devices such as phones if they are on the move, or even TV if they are more traditional with their viewing habits.

In terms of a more wider platform, I wanted to look at some different short film festivals that we could submit the film to. First of all I wanted to research a few different short film festivals, look at what they look for in applications and previous work to see what would be the best fit for Unspoken.

 Encounters Film Festival

Encounters film festival is the UK's leading short film, animation and virtual reality festival. It aims to discover, support and develop new talent in filmmaking by providing a platform for emerging and established filmmakers from around the world. It continuers to be a unique meeting place for industry professionals and budding filmmakers. As well as being a short film festival it presents a diverse selection of special guest Q&As as well as high level masterclasses and workshops. The festival celebrates the creativity, diversity and impact of short film.
2018 Winner - the short film that won the 2018 awards was a 16 minute film that was about two boys in a surface mine who 'sink into a seemingly innocent power games with Mother Nature as the sole observer'. The jury commented that it has an agonisingly tense narrative and arresting visual style.
I think this could be an interesting film festival to look at entering, the way that it's aim is to incorporate work from both new and professional filmmakers is really appealing to me because it would help us a lot both in terms of networking and also as budding filmmakers. Currently awaiting the launch of the 2019 awards website to look at the details of applying.

UK Film Festival
The UK Film Festival aims to champion great films but in particular is seeking work from those filmmakers who might not yet have had the chance for a prestigious public screening of their work. Screening in London, it celebrates the cultural diversity of films made in the UK and welcome films from all over the world. Some of the films that have submitted have even gone on to become Oscar nominees and winners, as well as connecting new filmmakers to industry including television exposure by leading British broadcaster Channel 4. I like the sound of this festival because to has a dedicated student film category, a lot of the films I have looked at that have been submitted are quite issue based so I think Unspoken would be a good fit for this. Student Short films are a £25 charge.

London Short Film Festival
London Short Film Festival has been recognised as the premiere UK showcase for cutting edge homegrown and international short film. It strives to provide a platform emerging talent alongside the established with a 16 year old soft spot for independent films. Over 500 films are screened every year,  curated from a 2500 submission list. This festival also runs many competitions, for example they created a competition 'Try To Make A Home Out Of You' which touched on characters happy places and was described as a 'powerful selection of short films'. Submissions for the next one is again closed at the current time so this is something I would have to revisit.


I feel as thought these types of festivals are the type we need to be looking at for Unspoken. They all aim to create a harmony between new talent and established professionals which I think is a really good idea. It allows us as filmmakers to learn our craft and also see how our own film would be received. The UK Film Festival is one we know we can definitely apply for as soon as Unspoken is shot and edited, and the others I can look at further when their next festivals are announced.

PRE-PRODUCTION; CHOOSING A DEMOGRAPHIC

Part of my role as a Producer on Unspoken, I need to make sure we know exactly what platform we are looking at for the film as well as our exact target audience. Firstly, I thought I would do some more research to look into audience categorisations so I know exactly who we should be aiming for.
-Defining a target audience is about the returns you want to get from a piece of work
-Focus on establishing a clear empathy with the audience that you want to serve, this way you know what the audience are feeling and the work that you do within a project is trying to evoke these feelings.
-Have a theme and try to express this through your audience, it must be a theme that appeals to them.

Those are the main points I think link well with my choosing of the audience for Unspoken, found from the Independent Film Office articles. Unspoken is a film that touches upon two main themes, mens mental health and trauma. We would want to focus on young people aged 16-30 as our primary audience, the males watching our film will relate with the character of Marlo and the issues he is facing and well as resonating with his fear of speaking to people about his issues. As I have previously discussed in my research, men are using mental health services far less than women, and male suicide is at an all time high because of mental health issues. The females within this age bracket will be targeted through the narrative of future plans and educational decisions, a time in a young persons life can be stressful when they have to decide their future plans. Marlo is not only struggling with his grieving and mental health, he is being pressured into making decisions about his university choices when he doesn't want too and everything his getting on top of him, the females within our audience will be able to resonate with this as well.  A secondary audience will be parents, Julie is a character that is crying out to help her son. Every scene Julie spends being worried about Marlo and she tries her best to get him to speak to her. This is something all parents will be able to relate too, the idea of needing and wanting to help their child, and so I believe that parents will also be a good secondary audience for us.

PRE-PRODUCTION; SCHEDULE UPDATES

From the original schedule I created a few weeks back, I have edited to better schedule out the cast, I think the original one rushed the process of casting and didn't leave us enough time. I therefore have changed this and this is reflected in the following schedule. I have also colour coded it so we know who is in charge of completing what and by when, as well as when a task is complete and has met the deadline.

Task:	Date Completed By:
Set up Casting Calls for Main Cast	Tuesday 16/10/18
Begin Location Scouting	Wednesday 17/10/18
Script 1st Draft Complete	Friday 19/10/18
Test Shoots	Tuesday/Wednesday 23-24/10/18
Test Shoot Edit Complete	Tuesday 30/10/18
Script 2nd Draft Complete	Thursday 01/11/18
Begin Storyboarding	Wednesday 07/11/18
All Cast Self-Tapes Sent	Monday 12/11/18
Script 3rd Draft Complete	Friday 16/11/18
Character Profiles Complete	Friday 16/11/18
Potential Cast Auditions	Friday 16/11/18
Crew Confirmed	Tuesday 27/11/18
All Locations Confirmed	Thursday 29/11/18
Cast Confirmed	Monday 3/12/18
Costume Design Confirmed	Monday 3/12/18
Final Script Complete	Tuesday 4/12/18
Call Sheet/Risk Assessments Complete	Thursday 6/12/18
Storyboards Complete	Thursday 6/12/18
Budget Run-through and Confirm	Friday 7/12/18
Trailer/Title Sequence Complete	Friday 7/12/18
Marketing/Branding Complete	Monday 10/12/18
Final Pre-Production Deadline	Tuesday 11/12/18

-      Everyone

-      Conor/Producer/Writer

-      Laura/Director

-      Katie/Editor

-      Completed Work

PRE-PRODUCTION; CAST AND CREW UPDATE

In terms of our castings, we have been advertising on Mandy.com. We put all 4 characters, Marlo, Nova, Julie and Mr Shipman. We were surprised to have quite a few responses fairly quickly as we were worried that it would take a while to find some people, so that was great! After the initial applications, I sat down with director Laura and Katie and we went through the applications together. I wanted to do this so that i could make notes on the actors and who we needed to contact, and so that everyone else could have an input in looking at the potential casts. There were quite a few applications that we felt were not suitable for the role because they didn't fit the character profiles, so as we went through I was noting everybody's names and locations with a comment describing if we felt they didn't fit our character profiles, or if we would like a self-tape for them. Some of our applicants didn't have a showreel, so we've asked everyone for a self-tape, using draft 2/3 of our script so that we can decide fairly from there. We will most likely be completing auditions after this stage, so we can make sure our actors work well together. The only instance where we may not need to complete auditions, is with Marlo, an actor we have all previously worked with on our 'Riverdale' project. We were really happy with this actor previously so when we receive the self-tape we will fully decide.

Potential Cast List

In terms of crew, we always knew we wanted to work with our previous year groups in roles such as sound and director of photography. I thought it was important that as the director, Laura was instrumental in choosing who she wanted to be the DoP. What we have done, is as a group sat down and looked at the 2nd years previous work on their 'Directions' Unit. This allowed us to look at pretty much everyone in action as a DoP/Camera Op, we have a few in mind who we would love to work with so now I just need to contact these people to get these confirmed. In terms of sound, there isn't a lot of previous work we can go off, so I think what would be best is to speak to and ask some of the other year groups who has a firm interest in sound and would like to gain more experience through our shoot. I think this will mean we should get someone who is reliable because they will have a genuine interest in the role.