Creation of a Short Film : Characters Costumes...

As my film is a silent film, alongside the music the visual elements are of great importance and one element of the mise-en-scene which is the costumes is one of those visual aspects that I put great thought into. Below are my two main characters in the costumes of which I chose for their characters to wear, as within my film the time scale is just a single day I did not have to use a range of costumes which made it a littler more easier and meant I could put more time into choosing these pacific outfits. Below is a break down of the costumes of which I chose :

Jenny Harper's Costume

Black floral dress. Black waistband. Black cardie. Black opaque tights. 



This is the outfit I chose for the character of Jenny played by Hannah. Jenny herself at the start of the film, is living a typical day to day life of which consits of 9 to 5 office job within the heart of London. I therefore needed to have a costume that demonstrated this role, however during the film she discovers shoes different shoes which open her eyes to a new way of living, and makes her reflect on her own happiness so I also needed an outfit that was adaptable and would also look right with a variety of different shoes. I chose the floral dress, it is one that my actress Hannah actually wears for work of which she works within an office environment, and put it together with black opaque tights and a black cardie overall I feel creating the visual image of a working female, yet by using the floral dress also demonstrates to the audience that the character also has a more softer and delicate side to her personality. Within my film one of the most important objects for her costume is the shoes which she comes across and wears. To start with I chose navy high heels, highlighting the business woman my second shoes which I used for the park location were light brown vintage brogues and the third pair of shoes which was used for the bridge location was plain flat black pumps.

Liam Wood's Costume

Dark navy chinos. Navy coat. Orange scarf

 

This outfit I chose for the character of Liam played by Edward. Liam is the mysterious male, that provokes questions arising within the audiences mind as to whether he is the one leaving the shoes, whether him and Jenny know each other, what the relationship between the two are. I decided to use navy as the main base colour, and by adding the orange scarf added a splash of colour and individuality to the character. By using navy as well it is not the same as the main colour scheme of black and white for the character of Jenny, however there is an element of foreshadowing as it the use of navy ties the male character to the female character through the use of her first navy shoes.

Creation of a Short Film : My Actors and Actresses...

I have decided to construct a few mini fact files about the actress and actor who were the central throughout my film, demonstrating the fundamental reasons of why I chose them particular to play the key characters. :

 

Hannah. 27 years old

Jenny Harper. 26 years old
 

Why Chosen = I chose to use Hannah firstly because she lives and works within the business sector in London, in turn she has first hand experience of the demands of city life, the hectic rush hour, the tired feet from the heels. My actresses understood how my protagonist character lives life in a motion, how life in London is so fast paced it can just pass you by without noticing the small details of the city culture. Practically as well to use an actress that live in London means that there is no cost for transport to the city, and off course a flat to borrow! I also felt that Hannah had the acting skills in order to portray to the audience the journey the character goes on, through different shoes she discovers not only about a different strand of society within London but also about herself and how life should not revolve around work and money, but around happiness 

 

Edward. 24 years old

Liam Wood. 28 years old
 

Why Chosen = I chose to incorporate a character that throughout the film brings the audience to ask questions and adds in turn a level of mystery. Who is he? Does he know the Jenny? Are they in relationship or merely strangers? Is he the one leaving the shoes, if so why? This character is one that opens Jenny's eyes to the culture of London, to happiness that is brought with life. I chose Edward to play the character of Liam because I felt he portrays a very open nature, also because he is actually in a relationship with my other actress Hannah I felt that there would already be a feeling of a connection felt on camera. For practical reasons as well I chose Edward because he lives in London there is no cost on transport, which is very important for my £0.00 budget!

Creation of a Short Film : Character Biography...

 

In order to create memorable and intriguing characters , and most importantly believable characters, I must ensure that as the writer I know my characters inside-out, back-to-front, that I know every high and low of their life, their habits, morals and little quirks. Therefore I have taken on board the template of questions I created early on in the year in order to allow me to construct a biography of my key characters, allowing me to understand why my character behaves in a particular manor, why they wear a particular garment and why they react towards another in a certain way. In order to create my biography I decided to use publisher and create a mind map, I could of created a straight for word processed sheet of answers however it order to make it visually more interesting and ensure I use a range of computer soft wares I thought publisher was the way forward, above is an image of one of of the four bigraphies I created, hope this gives you a little taster into the mind of my characters, what makes them tick and what makes them flip!

Character Work : Creating a "Big Brother" Character...

So as with my last posts, I hope I have showed the importance that a character is to a short film, it is after all in many short films the character that drives the plot (example = in 'Said Susan' it is Susan's annoying personality which drives the plot) especially within my idea where I am not using a specific narrative, the characters are of key importance. Therefore for a final close to our character exploration (and a bit of fun on a Wednesday sixth period), we were set the task of developing to characters, one which we would hate to be in a lift with and one which we would like to be. We then through inspiration of the "big brother" audition tapes where for once being quirky, annoying, sexist, plastic ect. can let you have your five minute of fame, developed a Big Brother audition tape on a character which we could incorporate into our short film, but would you vote to watch these housemates?...

 

Character Work : Example of Character Biographys...

Throughout the last few lessons we have been focusing on characters, and how it is not the story that creates a character but a character that creates a story (example = 'Big Fish' (Tim Burton, 2003) which is an example of how the story was created from the life story of the character Edward Bloom). In order to make a believable character, one that has the ability to drive a plot, we must create a character biography, allowing us to understand the character, why they behave in a certain manor, what their motivations are behind an act and what drives them through life.

Within class we also were set the challenge of taking the characters we had created and putting them within a interview situation, where we could explore our characters more. Nicole, Caitlin and myself (and a little help from our last minute recruitment actress, big thank you to Lizzie!) decided to create a radio recording based on the life of Karen. We decided to take a more comical path, by creating a dating show (where the presenter asks the guest to describe themselves then gives a phone number for people to call if they are interested). The reason why we decided to do a radio show was also for practicality, we were given the task of creating our piece in an hour, therefore we did not have much time to recruit an actress, therefore we luckily found Lizzie who was on a free and willing to help however she most definitely did not look 40, so we thought the best path was a radio show where all that would be needed was a woman's voice.

Character Work : Biography of Potential Characters...

In order to create memorable and intriguing characters , and most importantly believable characters, I must ensure that as the writer I know my characters inside-out, back-to-front, that I know every high and low of their life, their habits, morals and little quirks. Therefore I have constructed a template of a few key questions, to ask in order to construct a biography of my character, allowing me to understand why my character behaves in a particular manor, why they wear a particular garment and why they react towards another in a certain way.

General Details
Name :
Age :
Birthday :
Weight :
Height :
Hair Colour :
Eye Colour :
Contacts or Glasses or None :
Disabilities :
Right or Left Handed :
Nationality :
Sexuality :
Smoker :
Marital Status :
Favourite Colour :
Religion :
Occupation
Life
Day-to-Day Routine :
Habits :
Morals :
Phobias :
Living arrangements :
Family :
Education :
Personality
Dependent or Independent :
Description of Voice :
Hobbies :
Emotional State :
Likability :
Life Plans :
Position in Story
Goals and Achievements :
Development Throughout :
Audience Feelings Towards Character :
Relationship to Other Characters :
Character Type (protagonist/mirror/antagonist/resolution) :

Below is an example, of a short character biography
Name : Karen Harris
Age : 40
Height : 5"6
Hair Colour : Thick, wavy, long chestnut brown
Eye Colour : Dark brown
Disabilities : No
Right or Left Handed : Right handed
Smoker : No
Religion : Christian
Nationality : British
Marital Status and Family  : Karen met Simon 20 years ago when he bumped into her at a busy platform causing her to spill her coffee over her cream silk blouse, after a thousand apologies he finally persuaded her to let him make it up for the ruined blouse by taking her to dinner, five years later they married in the small church in the centre of Karen's home village, however her husband Simon suffers a heart attack on the tube on the way to work at the tender age of 45 leaving Karen a widow at 39 years old with two small children. Karen is a mother to Molly aged four and Luke aged Seven. Karen was brought up in a small village 20 minutes from Canterbury by her mother Kathy
Smoker : Karen does not smoke, having only tried one cigarette at the age of 14 she promised after much coughing and spluttering she would never touch another one again
Nature and Likability : Karen is gentle natured, she works as a nurse at The Royal London Hospital however she is only part time, working the days that Molly attends nursery, she is family orientated, however is still independent and ensures she has time of not being labelled as a mother, wife or nurse instead just "Karen" when meeting up for her coffee and cake catch up with her friend Anna
Living Arrangements : She lives in a three bedroom family home, over the years they have re-furbished the house, it now has an open planned kitchen/dinner with patio doors out to the small yet adequate garden, the living room holds two big baskets filled with children's toys, both matching however one in blue and one in pink. The house is clean, however has the homely feel, with children's pictures scattered over the fridge, and bright stripey kitchen bowls and plates. Financially they are able to live comfortably, with her husband Simon being within the banking industry.
In her free time Karen enjoys reading romance novels, and has treated herself to subscribing to good food magazine one of her life's small luxury's, she enjoys relaxing in the evening when the children have been put to bed to some TV and a glass of red wine, as a family they try to have most evening meals together

Character Work : The Hirachy of Characters in Film...

Three dimensional characters are one which are intriguing, they catch the audience's attention but also can be related to, and a writer the aim is to create these three-dimensional believable characters. All characters have specific functions in order to fulfil, and their is a basic hierarchy of characters within film:
Main Character/s
In most cases the main character is the progtatognist of the story and it is through conjunction with them that the story progresses (for example on Shrek, he is the main character as well as the progtatognist). The protagonists is the character that the audience focuses on, in most cases it is there point of view that the audiences experience the story through, the character must be believable as it is the one that the audience most identifies with, overall it is their outward motivations and goals that drive the plot. The main character is seen as the most memorable character, below is a link to a video created on what makes a character memorable and how it can be portrayed within film:

Secondary Characters
These are the character that interact with the protagonist, therefore have a significant effect on the main character. In many films the secondary characters play the roles of the mirror, antagonist and romance however it can sometimes be the protagonist for example in 'Rain Main' (1988), Dustin Hoffman plays the main character of Raymond however it the secondary character Charlie played by Tom Cruise is the protagonist as the story follower his journey of going from a self-seeking business man to an unselfish loving brother

Minor Characters
These are the characters that add atmosphere, deliver message, open door and generally hold the role of contributing the world of the story

Character Work : The Brainstorm of Ideas...

Within our AS course we focused on the first interpretation of characters, and how the opening two minutes of a long film can allow the audience to start to derive their own ideas of the main characters for example we focused on how we personally interpret the character played by Lester Burnham in American Beauty). In today's lesson we advanced on our characterisation work, firstly we looked at how every film demonstrates a beginning, middle and end however the narrative may not be linear, for example in the film 'Brick'  starts in the middle then goes to the beginning then to the end. We then focused more on characterisation, we looked at 'Shrek' which as a film followes a linear narrative and is a good example that demonstrates the break down of a characters, most basic films demonstrate the four key characters; the protagonist (hero), the antagonist (villain), the mirror (side-kick/buddy) and the resolution/romance.

 

When focusing on Shrek we can break down the characters into these four key roles: 

 

Protagonist or Hero : Shrek

Mirror or Buddy : Donkey

Antagonist or Villain : Lord Farquad however also at parts Shrek's own self-doubt

Romance : Princess Fiona
Within Shrek the story line followes the Shrek who is the protagnist , to start with his main aim to get his swamp back, however when he goes to Lord Farquad (antagonist) to ask for it back, he is told that he can have it if he saves the princess and brings her to him (as Lord Farquad wishes to marry her). However as the story continues the twist starts, as Shrek falls for Princess Fiona (the romance), However when Donkey (the mirror) sees Fiona turn into an ogar, he believes that Fiona and Shrek blong together, when Dinkey and Fiona are chatting Shrek over hears Fiona talking about herself however he belives that in fact she is talking about him when she says "hideous, green and ugly", and at this stage it is Shrek's own self-doubt that makes them fall out. However Donkey saves the relationship by making Shrek see that he has mis-understood, another issue than arises as now Fiona and Shrek wish to be together however Lor Farquad stands in the way between true happiness, and it is not untill Fiona reveals her true self that her and Shrek can be together, and they live happily after ever...(well untill the next crisis!)

 

We were then set the task of enforcing our new knowledge of the role of characters in films by coming up with a few short film ideas in a small group that demonstrate clearly a protagonist/mirror/antagonist/resolution, so off me, Caitlin and Nicole went into the sunshine to get our thinking caps on and try to think as much as we could outside the typical box! We decided to go more down the comical side for our two ideas as when creating a short film, many of the most successful films are comical
Idea One
As valentimes day is fast appraoching, a young, timid and small boy (the protagnist) has since reception been in love with the beautiful, cleaver and musical girl that sits infront of him (the romance) however he does think such a girl would love a boy like him. However his bestfriend (the mirror), decides that the best way for him to show the girl his true feelings, and too see if she feels the same is to send her a card in the school "love box" every day for the fourteen days prevous to valentimes day. However he is not the only one in love with her, and his greatest rival, the school bully (the antagonist) also likes her and when they girl recieves the mysterous cards he pretends that he is the sender. Whilst the timid boy is to scared that the girl will reject her if he tells her the truth, hides the fact that he is the true author behind the cards however it is his bestfriend that plays cupid and ensures that the girl understands who is the true sender behind the cards. The happily ever after ending is that in fact the girl has always been in love with the small and timid boy that sits behind her, and the boys recieves the valentimes kiss he had been dreaming of!
The Protagonist : Author (timid, he lacks confidence and victim of bullying)
The Antagonist : Jack (over confident and popular, however is also a bully who is in all the sports teams)
The Mirror : Rose (author's bestfriend)
The Romance : Florance (beautiful and cleaver, she is musical and kind)
Idea Two
Inspiring childrfen that maths is cool, the hardest task for a maths teacher to do - however this maths teacher takes education to a whole new level when he becomes the next Banksy, graffiti wall art + maths calculations = a whole new sort of education, to insipre the young minds of today. However now all of the community agree with this "new banksy" and the neighbour-hood watch man goes around in the day painting over all the new art that has been added by night. All the teacher wants to do is insprire the children, however the more he paints the more that is destroyed, however in the end it is the neighbour-hoods daughter that shows him that the art is not vanadalism instead it is amazing, by gaining her B through the calculations she sees on the walls that surrond her.
The Protagonist : Mr Waller (a highschool maths teacher, he has a passion for art and the aim to insprie young minds that maths is not always the boring subject)
The Antagonist : Larry (the neighbour-hood watch man, he sees the art as vandalism and is jealous that it is recieving so much praise)
The Resolution : Tilly (the daughter of Larry, she has struggled with her maths for years and the chance of  getting a C in maths seems so distant however she is inspried by teh graffit resulting in her getting a B)