Little White Lies: Magazine article details

This press shows details from Issue 71 of LWL, featuring the film Call Me By Your Name. These important details are things I want to use in my own magazine double spread.

Poster research/influences

In order to construct my poster, I researched into posters for other short films that I liked so I could not only understand the crucial features of a poster, but also what differentiates a poster for a short film to a poster of a feature film.

I began with the posters made for Bertie Gilbert's short films. For most of his short films, he has a very similar layout, and uses stills from the films rather than separate press photographs. 

I liked that for Let It Be the font is flipped sideways, which is something that personally I see very rarely. 

For Rocks That Bleed, I loved that he used stills from the film that had some movement in it: it makes the viewer quite uneasy, especially when coupled with shots drowned in red. It means that the font really stands out against the movement. 

In his posters, he usually just includes the title, the billing block, release date, and 'A Bertie Gilbert Film'. For the second poster, he includes a film festival award with the laurel wreaths surrounding the text, and the names of featured actors in the short film.

Below is the poster for Wes Anderson's Hotel Chevalier.

This short film was a prequel to his feature film The Darjeeling Limited, so it was released alongside it at cinemas. As it wasn't marketed in the same way as his feature films do, the poser is naturally much more paired back. I still felt that this was relevant for my research as it thought that this is a beautiful photograph, and frames the actors well, is edited with a grain effect that reflects the classic style of the Paris landscape, and the colours are really striking. For my poster I want more detail on release dates etc., but I still really liked the way this poster was put together.

Below is the poster for The Darjeeling Limited. This is most likely not the main version of the poster that was used in advertising, but is again a much more paired down version, similar to how you would market it if it were a short film. I particularly liked how they used the brown frame and featured the film festival awards.

This is the poster for Mahalia Belo's 'Volume'. This is an incredibly strong still from the short film, and I really like how they have positioned the film festival awards and the film title. 

The structure for my poster will be most similar to the Rock That Bleed poster, as I am keen to include lots of detail on the cast, film festival awards and a billing block, without overwhelming the poster. I will not include a tagline that is frequently used in feature film posters, as after my research I can see that this is very rarely, if ever, used for a short film poster.

Soundtrack development

I have commissioned my friend Eliza to soundtrack my short film, and we are both really excited to develop it together.

We have had many long conversations about the atmosphere of each scene and how the music can support it, and we have both suggested existing soundtracks that we think would fit the tone of the film and we would like to use as a basis upon which we can develop the themes.

I specified that I wanted a theme during the flashback scene for Jack and Rachel that returns at the end in piano, and showed her my soundtrack tests video with other specific ideas and my original soundtrack blog post which included clips from Manual Cinema.

Below is the document that Eliza initially created with two different options for the soundtrack. It is incredibly detailed and includes a developed list of existing soundtrack influences and precise moments from the second rough cut where the soundtrack will change, or fade in and out.

Soundtrack tests

This video about 'How Pixar uses Music to make you Cry' really struck a chord with me: it helped to emphasise the importance of establishing themes and how can have great emotional significance when used again at another point in the film. 

I therefore used this premise as a basis upon which I could build my own soundtrack. 

I wanted to:

• establish a theme during the flashback scene (scene 3)
• return to that theme, paired down to just the piano, in the last scene when Rachel announces she's leaving, and walks away (scene 5).

To test these ideas out I used some of my favourite Pixar soundtracks over my second rough cut to see what effect this had on the scene. I think the result was very sentimental and emotional. 

In addition to this, I also used the American Beauty tracks as suggested in my earlier Soundtrack post and my animatic. In the soundtrack I would also like:

• Hopeful music for the moment that Alfie tells Jack that Rachel isn't worth his time. I want this to feel like a 'realisation' moment. 
• Swelling music, reminiscent of the Jack and Rachel theme (but not the theme in its entirety), for when he sees her at the photobooth again (scene 5)

Below is the video I made with the soundtrack tests.

Locations on shooting days

Filming schedule v.2

Here is the updated film schedule. 

When filming on October 25th, we only ended up filming scenes 2 and 5 and as everyone was limited for time that morning, we decided that instead of pressurising ourselves that day that we would film scene three two weeks later. This actually worked really well as we weren't panicked for time and my friend Alice was able to help with the sound. 

We also had problems with filming at Jonah's house on Sunday 29th, so we also rescheduled for 1st November. 

Filming schedule v1

Here is my filming schedule for half term. As you can see from the colour coding, my friend who is also making a short film is also using Roddy as one of his actors, so I had to make sure that we both weren't needing to work wth him on the same day. 

Casting

Below are the people I have cast for the short film. I am really excited for them to be a part of it as they are all really talented actors who are all good friends of mine and are also reliable and loyal.  I think they will really bring the characters to life. 

Roddy- Jack

Izzy- Rachel

Joe- Liam

Jonah- Alfie

Certification Update: PG

While drafting my final script, I realised that this short film doesn't need a 12 rating. Use of language isn't as necessary as I thought it would be: I thought it would add something in tense moments or to emphasise something in Alfie and Jack's conversation, but in reality it just didn't fit.

Therefore I want the certification for the film to be PG, though of course, as previously mentioned in my other certification post, this short film is not targeted at a younger audience, that PG films are usually associated with.

After looking at this definition on the BBFC website, I am certain that this is the most appropriate certificate for the film.
The page includes several categories that go into more detail on why a film may be given this certificate, and I can guarantee that my film does not have any drug use, sex, discrimination, nudity, language or violence, and contains very little, if any, threat or potentially dangerous imitable behaviour.

Script v.2

Animatic

Here is the animatic for my short film, using images from my storyboard drawings. I have tried to make each shot the approximate length that it will be in the final cut.

I have used some of my own diegetic sound (at the train station and the opening dialogue), as well as the typing sound effect that come with the editing software, to give a rough idea on the ambient sound for each scene. 

In addition to this I have used several tracks from soundtracks composed by Thomas Newman that fit with the tone of each scene, fade in and out exactly how I want them to and are cut to the correct duration to, again, get a feel for what my soundtrack will sound like when friend Eliza composes it especially for the short film.

The tracks I have used are:

American Beauty:

Angela Undress

Blood Red

Any Other Name

A Series of Unfortunate Events:

The Baudelaire Children

Storyboard

Font ideas

Below is my prezi showing my research for fonts for the film, which will be really important as I plan to use the same fonts for my my poster ancillary task as well.

I have analysed the fonts from the title cards of short films I have already looked at, and then researched similar fonts in a website called dafont.com.

For the moment I have used the default film title 'photobooth' (a name I'm still deciding on) to see how each font would look with the same word.

The final font(s) will be decided when I have some footage from my film to experiment with. 

                      

motif of my short film: old and new technology

Both old and new technology will be used in my film- Jack uses an old home video camera to film Rachel, they both use a photobooth which produces an analogue version of a photograph that he keeps in his room, and Jack uses a computer and social media sites to try to find Rachel years later. Old technology is associated with Rachel, a memory in the past that is held in analogue form: it seems much more nostalgic, like the way you feel when you look at old photographs of past holidays with family and friends. Without her, this feeling is not there- Jack uses social media to find her, and even checks his smartphone briefly when he gets to the station. This use of digital technology is often a much less personal form of communication as it can instead just isolate us from the people right in front of us, which is shown when Jack is transfixed by his screen and barely looks at his friend Alfie walks into the room. 

Location recce- the station

This is a short video I shot on location at the station that I am hoping to use for scenes 2, 3 and 5.

You can see the photobooth in the corner of the room that will be the recurring motif in the film. 

I particularly like that the colours in the station are cool toned and stark, with a mixture of natural and strip light. The waiting area with the screens is particularly bright, while the tunnel that takes you up to the platform (1:27) is much darker, so I think I will use this when Rachel walks away with Liam at the end, leaving Jack in the bright white waiting room. 

Shot influences

Here is a short video I edited showing specifically scenes from feature length/short films that I am particularly inspired by for certain scenes, conversations and shots in my short film.

I have included parts from the first draft of my script alongside the clip from the film in order to show the style, tone, and camerawork my short film will be inspired by.

Shotlist