Research

 Researching My Role

As my idea was the one chosen for our project, I have been elected director. 

A director is someone who: controls a film's artistic and dramatic aspects and visualises the screenplay while guiding the technical crew and actors in the fulfilment of that vision. 

Described by the website Career Explorer the director is in charge of the three areas of film making: pre-production, production and post-production. 

An important distinction to make is the different between a director and a producer. 

• A director controls the film's artistic and dramatic aspects
• A producer initiates, coordinates, supervises and controls matters surrounding funding, hiring and distribution 

The director works with the producers and casting directors in pre-production, director of photography and first assistant director in production and editors in post. 

The Prospects website describes the different responsibilities for a director to include:

• Reading scripts
• Work with writers
• Select actors with the casting directors
• Monitor rehearsals
• Direct actors during filming
• Select locations during filming
• Hold meetings with key departments
• Agree the budget and schedule of the film with the producer
• Supervise all creative aspects of production
• Work with the editor on the final visual product of the film
• Select music for the final film and/or work with a composer
• Build and develop a network of contacts
• Maintain contemporary technical skills
• Have an awareness and knowledge of emerging industry trends

The ScreenSkills and Prospects website outlines particular traits a director needs to have to excel in the role:

• Leadership
• Imagination
• Arts knowledge
• Knowledge of production
• Staying calm under pressure

• Creative flair
• Initiative and problem solving ability
• Excellent communication
• Diplomacy and sensitivity
• Motivational and leadership skills
• The ability to work under pressure
• Excellent time management skills
• Attention to detail

Some of the most famous directors include:

• Martin Scorsese
• Steven Spielberg
• Quentin Tarantino 
• Alfred Hitchcock
• Christopher Nolan
• Tim Burton

And some of my personal favourite directors include:

• Greta Gerwig 
• Olivia Wilde

In order to prepare for my role I have listened to podcasts where these two directors talk about their creative process, this has helped me focus on mine and consider what it is I like from their films. 

One particular point that has stuck with me was shared by Greta in a interview where she talked about colour palettes and how each of the characters in Little Women (2019) had their own palette. Colour was also used to differentiate between the childhood nostalgia of the flashbacks and the cold harsh reality of the future. 

Research for the Script

 Following the space/drama theme, I decided to write about the end of the world and have an asteroid hurtling towards earth. For this to be realistic, there was a few things I needed to research. 

Firstly, what size of astroid would be required to end the world. According to the website Futurism, scientists estimate that "an asteroid would have to be about 96 km (60 miles) wide to completely and utterly wipe out life on our planet". John (our lecturer) recommended that in the news report I used in the script, I used a reference to highlight the size of this, for example, 'the size of Texas'. Following further research, I struggled to find any significant object or location that was 96km wide. Eventually, I decided to make the asteroid 364km, the same length of the River Thames. 

Furthermore, another important element to the script is how the characters are told the world is ending. According to an interview with a scientist (here), NASA is constantly on the look for suspicious objects and would alert the world if there was anything of concern. In my story, however, the characters are not told until the last minute. This is for dramatic effect and the structure required for the short length of the story. Sadly, there is not time to tell this part of the story but I like to think that the scientists kept it under wraps and many had their own conspiracies that it was happening, like Edgar. 

In my story, the characters are told via radio announcement and on their phones and computers. I tried to find an answer for how we would be told but as it is yet to happen there is no clear answer. Most suspect an emergency broadcast on our televisions, etc. In this Quora thread many theorised if we would be told. Some argued that the government would not tell us until 24 hours before as to reduce chaos. Others argued that it would be a secret impossible to keep under wraps. One argued we wouldn't be told purely because professionals would be looking for a way to survive the disaster. For my story, I like the believe the latter, the government did not announce the end as they were searching for a way to fix it. This resulted in the 'one minute to go' announcement. 

Each of these decisions led to the creation of my finalised script. 

Researching the Genre

 The genre of our film is a Sci-Fi dystopian text. This genre was not deliberately chosen but automatically formed from the 'Space' brief we were set. As a result, I believe it is important to research the genre and decide which conventions I want to subvert and adhere to and why. 
According to the website Masterclass, Sci-Fi conventions include ideas such as: 

• Time travel
• Teleportation
• Mind control
• Space travel
• Fictional worlds
• Government control
• Environmental destruction
• Technological control
• Survival 
• Loss of individualism 

Although the article referring to novels, I believe the genre transfers very well to film and the conventions are mostly the same. Our film does not include many of these elements, which leads me to believe our film is more dystopian than Sci-Fi. Ultimately, I feel the only Sci-Fi element of our story is the space theme and world-ending meteor. As this is a core part of the plot and visual elements of the story I believe it has enough influence to describe the film as Sci-Fi. 

Following this more dystopian approach, some of the conventions outlined by Masterclass, include: 

These are all elements which, had the film been longer, would have been fleshed out in the story. When writing the script I had my own theories on why the meteor in the story hadn't been announced to the public, however, due to the time limitations of our brief this is not something I felt could be explored well enough in the story. 

The main dystopian element within the story is the idea of survival. The plot follows four individuals in their last minute on earth. It explores morals and reflecting on how you've spent your life. Although they do not fight for survival, the story shows this continuous comfort ripped from them in a moment of panic and fear. 

The element of technological control is not something I included as the story takes place only a few years from now, I wanted it to feel as though the story could be taking place now. Therefore, the use of advanced technology would diminish this. 

Similarly, with the other elements, the story does not take place in an advanced dystopian society like many popular dystopian stories do; such as The Platform (2019) or The Hunger Games (2012). This led me to decide not to write in these elements. 

On a practical note, often Sci-Fi dystopian texts include many special effects, due to our lack of budget and time-frame, this was something I chose not to include. 

Ultimately, considering these genre conventions helped me shape my story and write it in a way that was visually interesting and practical. 

Researching Short Films

 I've found through my research that typically when discussing the roles that occur within a film in an article or interview it is referring to feature length films. As our film has a time limit of 3-5 minutes, I felt it was important to research short films to build my understanding of what my group were creating. 

The Oscars define a short film as: 

A short film is defined as an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes or less, including all credits.

The nominations for the 2021 Oscar shorts include; animation, documentary and live action. On average, the nominations run at a length of 19 minutes, which allow short is still considerably longer than our time limit.  Regardless, the idea of squashing down a narrative into a smaller time frame is still relevant. For me, this is the main struggle when it came to writing the script for our short film. 

On the website Screen Craft, nine tips were outlined to help filmmakers with short films. Some of these included:

• Be realistic about what you can achieve 
• Create a compelling cinematic experience 
• Take responsibility but don't dictate 

These tips affected how I wrote our script. Being realistic led me to think about our genre and how we could conform to the iconography on our lack of budget and experience. This led to my decision to focus on a more dystopian survival theme than Sci-Fi. 

I also spent time considering how to re-work the narrative to fit within the time limit. Typically, stories have a clear three-act structure, however, I felt this would be rushed and undeveloped if I tried to write it into our film. Instead, I created an integrated narrative switching between the perspectives of different characters. This gave a clear plot to the story whilst showing the audience more information in a short period of time. 

Representation of Elderly People in the Media

When researching films elderly characters were featured in, I found I had not seen many. Some of the ones I had seen included:

• King Lear (2018), a story of King that goes mad 
• Coco (2017), a fun story but still about death 
• Up (2009), a quite atypical representation of elderly people

I studied King Lear at English Literature A Level and we discussed the King's madness and insanity frequently. We considered illnesses such as dementia as well. The representation of elderly characters as mad or unstable is not uncommon. 

I really enjoyed the film Up and the presentation of the characters. Following this, I wanted my story to have a similar Pixar/comedy feel to it. 

We live in a very ageist society, frequently we are advertised products to reduce ageing and are force-fed images of young and 'perfect' bodies. Any ageing marks or spots are photoshopped away and ageing is seen as something to fear. This is all down to our capitalistic society, by fearing something, money can be made. This is something I became particularly aware of during the pandemic, worrying that I was losing the 'best' years of my life. 

I strongly believe the media requires more representation for elderly people that are not just stories about loss and sadness. We should not fear our later years but be excited for them. This belief inspired my story and the characters within it. Although they do conform to some conventional tropes e.g. hearing difficulties, I wanted the story to show that fun and exciting things can happen at any age.