Actor Profiles

Actor Profiles:

For my two main characters, I needed to find 2 young males. Originally, I had chosen a fiend who looked a lot older than he is. He also is quite tall and has facial hair which also made him look older. This particular person would of been perfect for the role of my protagonist, however, due to unforseen circumstances he was unable to take the part of this role.

Luckily, I have another friend who can take the role of my character, Vittorio Falcucci. He is 20 years old and also studies TV Production, he is tall and has dark hair which once again fits the role - however he doesn't look old enough to be my main characters dad which is a down fall however I have to work with what I have.

For the second character, I need someone who looks quite young and dresses casual. For this person, I have chosen Chris Sarmiento, he is a 20 year old male who is also dark, yet not as tall.

Both my chosen actors are very reliable which means we we all be able to work well together. 

Camera Workshop

Camera Workshop

 

For two weeks, we have been working in groups in a camera workshop with Fergus Moloney. Fergus taught us how to use Sony EX Cameras along with all the basics of setting up a camera - for example;

-White balance

-Audio levels

-Focus/auto focus

etc.

 

We also got taught on how to use the buttons on the camera such as 'Peaking' and 'Zebra' to help us get sharp focus, and sort out the colour on our camera.

 



After Fergus taught us how to use the tripod, camera, microphones and lights - we was set a task to practice for a few hours. Throughout the day in our groups we had to set up a camera on a tripod and record a short scene - each of us held a different responsibility in the group. One of us would hold up the Rode microphone, another would work the camera and listen to the sound, another person would sit in the chair and be interviewed by the 4th member of the group. We kept changing roles so that each person would get a chance to get used to each piece of equipment and know how to use it. We also learnt how to use the clip on mic's, however when the Rode mic is placed directly above the actor it can be more beneficial as it picks up sound clearer.

 

Overall, the camera workshop was a huge help - Fergus not only taught us how to use the camera and other equipment, but also told us the different camera angles and shots we should use.

Character Profiles.

Further overview of characters. 

Character 1:

Name: Ben

Age: 18

Occupation: Student

Hobbies & Interests:

Personality: Highly OCD, lives in an overly clean and tidy flat which is dominated by females as he lives with his mum and sisters. The only male in his life is his step dad, Danny. Ben is a quiet teen but very enthusiastic and bubble around friends and family. Ben enjoys playing video games and seeing his friends.

Looks: Dark hair, neat hair and not too tall. Ben has a very casual dress sense and doesn't try to fit in with the crowd.

Character 2:

Name: Rick

Age: 33

Occupation: Unemployed (On the side work/dodgy)

Hobbies & Interests: No occupation, sleezes around not being able to find a starting point to fix his life. Drinks around the clock in his flat by himself, has no real hobbies or interests although back in the day used to play guitar in a band but got involved in drugs and alcohol.

Personality: Very selfish and arrogant. Rude to people he isn't connected with and is very lazy, however deep down wants to change his life around and wants the best for his son.

Looks: Dark hair, stubble and quite tall, wears comfy clothes such as jogger bottoms and when he goes out wears baggy jeans and a hoodie and beanie.

Screenplay: THE MEETING (Draft 1)

Ruby Rogers Screenplay: THE MEETING

NARRATIVE THEORISTS

Tzvetan Todorov.
Todorov suggests that most narratives start off with a state of equilibrium in which life is normal. The normality is then disrupted by an outside force, therefore either a new equilibrium is produced at the end of the narrative or the previous state of equilibrium is resolved. This is called a linear narrative.

Equilibrium > Disequilibrium > New Equilibrium

Roland Barthes: The Hermeneutic Code.

Barthes suggests that when elements in films are unexplained or confusing - it raises enigma and questions for the audience therefore keeping them hooked wanting to know what's happening. Barthes suggests that the audience aren't satisfied until all loose ends have been tied in a film - this is called the Hermeneutic Code. 

Proposed Idea: The Meeting Synopsis

Here is a draft of the synopsis to my story so I am able to start my script based around the ideas I have so far.

''Being told you are adopted on your 18th birthday isn't a typical day to day routine. However a naive teen was told just that. In this modern day drama, emotions and strain is forced upon an impeccable family. Determined to unite with his biological father and desperate for a male figure in his life, he takes it upon himself to achieve this goal. With high expectations on the young boys shoulders, he expects to be greeted with love and care - however his father is the complete opposite of him. How will a bubbly, OCD, happy male react when he meets a arrogant, drug abused male who he thought he would be looking up to?''

Screenplay practice: Lost In The Woods

After being shown how to use Final Draft and the way it is formatted, we was set a task in pairs to create a screenplay of our journey to University. As our group live at Halls, we all take 2 busses a day which meant we had a lot to talk about. We dramatised our story a lot to keep it interesting, but based it on us all getting lost on the way to University that day.

The Meeting - Pitch

After a long day of development work and changing around ideas, I have come up with a 24 word pitch that my 10 minute short film script will be based around.

Pitch:

''A dramatic story about a naive young teen, determined to meet his biological father. But will it all crash when the two opposites collide?''

After discussing my pitch with the class I am happy with my pitch so far, it doesn't give too much away about the story and leaves the audience questioning what could happen and what the change could be in the story. 

The Meeting - Development Day

Throughout the past week I've been thinking of ideas for my short film. I thought of a lot of different possible stories including somebody waking up from a coma and meeting another character, to somebody going missing and finally being reunited with a loved one. Weighing up the pro's and con's of my ideas and the one I believed in most for this particular brief, I decided to go with the idea that someone is meeting there biological parents for the first time. I decided on this idea as I knew I could highly dramatise the scenes and push a lot of emotions and feelings through both narration and non narration sequences. I also thought about the goal and change of my idea and how I could create a twist ending to what the audience may think could happen to what actually happens.

To develop our ideas further, we was set a 'Development Day' task. This would be so that each individual could pitch out their idea to a small group; we would all then give honest critical feedback and help each other out on what else could be added or taken away from the idea. We each started out with a piece of paper that had our ideas on which I've shown below.

Development Day:

Idea Facts

Student Name: Ruby Rogers

Genre: Comedy Thriller Drama

Location: The scene starts with a split screen of the two characters bedrooms, the camera would then cut to them living their everyday life routines, with the idea of showing how different both characters are. The two characters meeting location would be in the living room.

Characters: Unsure on the genres however I want either a mother and son or a father and son.

Example; (genders aren't definite yet)

CHARACTER 1: The father (Rick) is very uptight and stubborn. He is scrubby, untidy and unemployed, however he earns money by doing dodgy jobs and living off benefits. As a person the Dad doesn't care too much about anyone and can be very moody. Living by himself leads him to be quite an isolated and lonely man. The father is a heavy drug abuser and doesn't take care of him self at all - believing there isn't anything wrong with him and that he would change for no body.

CHARACTER 2: A very bubbly naive teenage boy (Josh, around the age 18). Highly OCD and takes care of himself very well. Living with all females all his life has led him to have quite a feminine soft side to him, which pushes him to want a father figure in his life when he finds out he was adopted as he has always known he's not fit in with friends and family all his life.

Goal: The son wants to connect with his Dad and thinks they will both bond and be able to have a strong relationship. Longingly waiting to meet his father, the teen has built up very high expectations of what meeting his Dad is going to be like and hasn't considered the negatives at all as he's built up such a beautiful, happy picture in his imagination of the day they meet. 

 Problem: The Dad is a drug abusive man slob who has a lot of problems and is the complete opposite of his son, who is a loving, caring, OCD neat freak. The two don’t get along and the Dad only meets him so the son stops nagging him to meet through sending many letters to him. Both characters soon realise they are the complete opposite of each other. One of them needs to change before starting a father/son relationship could even be considered.

 Change: The son realizes his father isn’t the man he expected him to be and begins realizing that the family he already has is all he needs.

The Idea: A young boy discovers he was adopted at birth when he turns 18. Being in such a close knit heavily female family, the boy realizes he might need a father figure in his life and wants to trace his biological father and try connect with him. As he is so young and naïve he has a high expectation that when they meet for the first time it’s going to be perfect and his Dad is going to be a successful kind man who will take him under his wing. However, both characters don’t get along and don’t relate to each other at all.

After development day. 

After creating the ideas for our scripts, we was put into a group of 4. We then each took it in turns to pitch our idea to everyone and share ideas and thoughts on what we could change.
The development day really helped my idea as although I had written only one idea down, I also told the group one of my other ideas. However, the group said that the adoption story was much stronger than meeting someone online. The group also said I should use subliminal messages to show the boy looking back on photos so that when he meets his Dad and shows the photos again, the audience will automatically remember - this idea was taken from the film 'Soft' when the baseball bat is slightly shown towards the beginning of the film which we don't particularly take note of, however we then see it used again when the boy takes it and remember seeing it earlier.

My group also helped me change the location for my story as originally I chose the living room to be the main location, however, I think that basing my story in a kitchen would prove to show more isolation and interrogation as they can be sat opposite each other at the table. I haven't yet decided if I want the location to be the fathers kitchen or the son's as using the fathers location could show how badly he lives compared the young boy's sparkling OCD home. I also think it would make more sense if I use the fathers location as it would make more sense than the father coming to the family home.

The Meeting: Ideas

IDEAS

As I have a lot of different ideas for my story, I have decided to note them all down and transfer them onto a Prezi which I have expanded on. Creating a Prezi helped me to see all my ideas infront of me and look at the strengths and weaknesses of them all whilst also looking at what the goal and change will be in each of the stories. I also looked at each idea, making sure I had a start, middle, and end to the story.

Below is the Prezi I have created which shows all 4 of my ideas...

Group Task: The Meeting

From studying what screen writing is and the ingredients needed to create a short story which will include a start, beginning, end and will have a change - our set task has been to pair up with somebody in our class, and use materials we are given to create a short story. We were each asked to chose two random characters and a location. We would then set our story around these and it had to be under the title ''The Meeting''
After watching the Paul Haggis 2004 film, 'Crash' I realised that the brief ''The Meeting'' could be interpreted in many different ways.

Myself and my partner Mark, chose to pick two completely different personalities, yet chose two that would be able to connect to create a story.

Our two characters:

1. MINOR CELEBRITY
2. PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR

Location:

1. PRISON

CHARACTER PROFILES:

Minor Celebrity:

M/F: F

Age: 21

Name: Crystal

Profession: Minor celebrity. Established herself from being on Big Brother, known for having a fit from not winning. 

Personality Traits: First of all, we wanted to create a character that was very stereotypically 'girly' and followed mainstream society. We wanted the character to be completely the opposite of our private detector and to be very stuck up and always gets her own way. Our character doesn't have a role model to look up to and has begun speaking to the wrong groups of people, leaving her to be very dependant on others and become rebellious. However, during creating the character profiles, we decided that it would be interesting to have a back story to our character, so that when the two characters met we would be able to find out the true meaning of why Crystal is the way she is, which would bring the two characters closer.

Private Investigator:

M/F: M

Age: 40

Name: Dave

Profession: A dodgy private investigator who chose his career over his family.

Personality Traits: Very passionate about his job, however ignorant towards everyone else which has pushed him to loose relationships with his family and friends including his children and wife. The investigator is extremely stubborn when admitting he is wrong and is very independent, thinking he doesn't need anyone else in his busy life.
The first character I worked on creating was the private investigator character. I wanted to create the impression of a seasoned, tough old ex-police investigator, deeply passionate about his work- to the extent of leaving his family and friends behind to pursue his occupation. The theme of this entire story would have been the importance of family and being there for children, and the change we wanted to show in this story was the investigator's attitude towards his own family, after meeting with the celebrity character.

Theme of the story:

For two opposite characters to meet as the private investigator is caught trying to find out information about the young minor celebrity after she's been caught doing dodgy things. The minor celebrity will explain about her non existant relationship with her father, allowing the private investigator to realise he needs to be there for his daughter more as he doesn't want her to end up like the minor celebrity, alone and turning to dodgy deals.

Change: 

The private investigator realises that he needs to step up and stop putting his work first, therefore going back and re building a relationship with his daughter.

A News Pitch

After looking at the ingredients of a pitch such as the characters, locations and snappy words, our task for the week was to look at an article in the news and create a 25 word pitch for it.

I found my pitch on the Daily Mail, here is a link to the actual post:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2430201/British-hero-mall-massacre-Ex-Royal-Marine-handgun-saved-100-lives-terrorists-ran-amok.html

Here is my pitch for the story:

''As the public panicked for safety from a series of terrorist attacks, a heroic off duty member of the SAS stepped in, saving 100 lives after discovering a local mall being sabotaged''

I found the pitch hard to write as on the daily mail they already had wrote a short sort of pitch above the story. However, I read the story fully and decided to focus on one character that had being 'heroic' as I would be able to base the pitch around them and what they did to encourage the audience to want to read on.

''Soft'' Pitch

Soft - Simon Ellis (2006)

After watching a short film called 'Soft' directed by Simon Ellis, we had to create a 25 word pitch that would be able to entice an audience into watching the short film, whilst not giving too much away.

As a group we first discussed short snappy words which could explain the short film. We chose words and sentences such as; dramatically, modern day drama, relationship, hard-hitting, events, intensity etc.

Here is the pitch I came up with after watching and analysing the short film.

''A hard hitting modern drama between a father and son, who's relationship dramatically changes after a period of events occurs in a small town.''

After discussing this with Simon and the class, we agreed that my pitch was a bit too wordy and could of used a question at the end to encourage the audience to wonder what could happen.