Fiction 'Blur'

This blog explores the significance of my role as a producer throughout our fiction project 'blur'. I am going to discuss how my role created the success of our short film and how it could have improved.

Entry 1: Job Role

My responsibilities as a producer was prioritising the groups organisation. It was a key factor to keep up to date with scheduling, deadlines with pre-production and making sure plans run smoothly. Any problem solving was my responsibility and ownership. With regards to organising, I also needed to make sure our plotline and script remained in the regulation code of legal and ethical considerations. This involved overlooking paperwork to ensure everything is counted for, I conducted research of how we could appear ethical with a sensitive subject.

I contributed a lot towards the team, both creatively and technically. I prepared the creative initial idea of our short film. After pitching it to the group in our early stages, everyone was intrigued of how it would work with the script. I had already encountered how this would connect with the structure of the narrative and provided dialogue. Through meetings, areas were adjusted with everyone's creative input. Having a team made the project more successful and creative. We all achieved a lot from this experience and was proud of the end result.

During pre-production, I conducted risk assessments analysing the safety of the procedure of filming. I booked out equipment and remained organised. I worked on the proposal and treatment, pitching the concept of our short film scene. I conducted consent forms for the cast and gained permission to film on the 'Daniel Defoe' property due to negotiations and agreements through a written statement. I conducted a lot of technical paperwork that was important for the team. Producer's are known for the important documents and not the creative side. However, I think from adding creative input during meetings made my job feel a lot more interesting. I enjoyed being involved in the creative aspects within storytelling as our team crafted around my idea and made it big.

I worked on casting alongside Jack Hewitt where we split the responsibilities between us. In the end result, Jack managed to find the extras for our production. It was also his responsibility to find the character of Deecan whilst I looked for the character of Abbie and Abbie's friend. Based on the struggles to find Deecan, I managed to find someone fitted for the role with previous experience in student short films alongside Abbie's friend. Abbie's character was the main focus, regarding the facial expressions and emotional attachment towards the viewers to reveal her character and the response we are expecting. So it was very important to find a suited role with professional experience comparing to the rest of the casting. Due to job ads online, I found a young independent woman who previously has professional experience playing a character in the hit show 'My Mad Fat Diary' on two episodes. She sent over an audition video and was looking for experience to build up her show-reel. Before this, i tried sending out casting posters in all 70 mail boxes within Daniel Defoe halls but gained no responses. The group was very happy with each casting's outcome so I did this successfully by planning prior to the character profiles. It gave everyone a visual sense of who we were looking for. I kept in contact regarding costume and makeup and scheduling. The team all decided on the clothing style in a meeting to represent her personality. When looking at what she had owned we transferred images of the clothes to decide which one would work best. I also did this through Marcus Stonell and Fran Newton, playing Deecan and Abbie's friend. I sent over scripts and had a run through with Marcus Stonell rehearsing days before the shoot so his character was perceived in a clever and accurate way.

Entry 2: Progression and Improvements

From being producer in both documentary and fiction projects, I had the chance to explore the role I wanted to step into for my future career. This gave me opportunities to see what areas needed professional adjustments to create a better working environment for surrounding crew members.

Due to experience, I found it difficult working with unmotivated directors who didn't pull their weight physically on film shoots. From choosing who we worked with, I had the reassurance of knowing I had previously worked with the director for 'blur' before in multi-camera. I trusted his work ethic and felt comfortable within the working environment. So this helped with previous issues I experienced.

Based on this, I had realised that a weakness of mine was over stepping my role when other roles weren't committing to their responsibilities. This could have been dealt with differently by motivating the individual to improve on their work ethic. During fiction, I feel I improved more by reducing the limit and knowing the lines I cannot cross. I still need to improve on this as I lacked this on the day of shoot when the director wasn't present. Actors often felt confused as no direction was given. My input helped the actors feel more comfortable and aware. However, it is not my responsibility or my role. To become a more professional executive producer, I need to focus on these areas more in depth to fully commit.

As a producer, I treat each crew member as a team. This really helps the progress of teamwork and individuals feeling valued. However, my leadership needs improving regarding strictness when crew members miss deadlines. This reflects on schedule changes, film date changes and this made my paperwork time consuming. It effected contacting the 'Daniel Defoe' accommodation services changing dates and constantly updated schedules.

Entry 3: Professional working practice

Getting consent to film on the 'Daniel Defoe' premises involved some legal issues I needed to keep on track of by making sure I follow the procedure accordingly. I needed to brief all cast members on the fire exits, and brief the cinematographer on no branding shots. Branding of the halls could cause misleading conduct and a breach of contract. Branding could also approach the company receiving misleading and bad publicity. These negotiations between the accommodation services and myself allowed us the permission to film, whilst following the agreement. I was prepared for the filming being shut down if the noise level is not kept to a minimum. It was dealt with in a professional manner between two parties and didn't have any conflict on the day of shoot.

The design of the scene worked really well corresponding with my contribution towards ideas of the representation of visuals for the production designer to consider through LED lights. During the beginning of the scene, Abbie and Deecan are seen on opposite sides of the party. Abbie only has one light behind her, filled with a soft colour whilst Deecan is surrounded by mixed colours along the rest of the party. This represents how left out her character is feeling. My job role as producer combines with the production designer by collaborating representation for the visual concept, regarding the character interpretation for the viewers.

The character of Deecan is expressed by consistently being surrounded by red lights representing danger and anger. And the shot of it sat whirling around behind his head is a fantastic correlation to how he is feeling in the scene. It clearly reveals the story of it being his first time doing anything like this. This helps correspond with the sound effect of the door locking at the ending, subtly representing the switch in his head turning his humanity switch off. All of this representation of his character is shown well in his awkward and nervous tone of voice during the dialogue scene.

Abbie's character had a different light however at the beginning and ending of the short film in the form of a red filter. This doesn't represent the same qualities it did for Deecan based on the level and positioning of light. It wasn't in a particular place like behind his head, it covered the entire screen. The red represented her nervousness and panic. The tone changes from the beginning and ending to separate these two meanings.

All of this reflects on showing the story, not telling which is why I think the restraint of the script was a great learning curve and experimental to focus on character interpenetration. From this point when everyone was clear with how we were going to shoot our fiction, it was clear what was needed to research. I assigned research jobs as well as general research individually and offered a guide of what that includes so everyone was clear with their job roles and as a team, we were aware of what we needed to accomplish together as one.

Entry 4: Research

For a producer to understand the roles of their crew members, the role indicates understanding those roles in depth for the responsibilities to provide reasonably. During my research, I looked at each roles interpretation whilst looking at my own. This helped to further create reasonable schedules and a creative input during meeting discussions. I didn't do this during documentary so comparing the two, I have improved regarding the level of professionalism in depth. I have explored wider aspects, prioritised how every subject represents a meaning. This built up how well I understood everyone's individual roles. This made a better leader and a better story.

Looking at a sexual assault story is a very touchy subject. During initial ideas and analysing the scripts affect on viewers, we needed to avoid many representations that could occur. One being uncomfortable to watch. This could be based on the lack of effort put into acting roles or the script going too far with too much content. Other representations could be viewing Abbie's character as weak or responsible for the assault. Due to these representations, we needed to have a firm background for the character with every shot analysed carefully before filming officially. We focused on the actress Josie Mccormick's facial emotions during the conversation scene to express how she is feeling, switched from how Deecan is coming across to her in a vulnerable state. This is also backed up by the introduction of the scene with Abbie stood outside smoking a cigarette. This reveals her background and how she feels nervous going to this house party whilst stood alone.

Without avoiding any negative and conflicting responses from the viewers, I felt the assault scene should be left to the audience's representation of what happened that night. I didn't want to reveal the assault visually as it is what has made important plotlines misguided from big productions. The director had other ideas which could come across as too much for a viewer to watch, relating to the TV series '13 Reasons Why' and other examples. It is quite explicit and difficult to watch as the audience. It needs to be built up very carefully. So the best opportunity for success was to leave it to the viewers.

To research this subject, I watched a lot of sexual assault scenes in films, television programmes and short films. I looked at various genre's, one being horror as it is quite common in these plotlines. I looked at 'I Spit on Your Grave' (1978) and 'The Last House on the Left' (2009) because the scene generally has a massive comparison. It is clear to see that the 2009 movie had inspiration from the 1978 classical. It was shot in the same scenery using the woods, it shared a similar amount of people involved in the scene and the character's portrayal. The reason I looked at horror movie assaults compared to not being relevant to our drama genre is because you never feel sorry for the victim. The audience mocks the female character's during the murders. However in sexual assaults within the genre, it apples the opposite response.

Majority of the time in drama's; the audience consistently feels sorry for the victim because the story tends to reflect on their life in a profound way. I looked at the movie 'Trust' (2010) and '90210' (2008-2013), A teen drama series. Compared to the violent torture in the horror movies I looked at with the girls crying on the floor, this genre looked at the different aspects of a story based on this subject. In the 'Trust' movie, it was about a younger character which automatically brings on a sympathetic response from viewers, purely because of her age. If it was a young adult, the viewers would judge differently. And the scene was shot in a different way basing it on her accepting the assault and viewing what she is seeing. It's her perspective and she thinks she is in love with him and is unclear of what's going on. Yet, in 90210 it contains again a brighter scenery choice than the horror movies. The location choice was at a school relating to the young age demographic with a teacher. The effect of the character is different compared to the rest because of how people would think, it relates to viewers thinking it's her on fault for many reasons like crying wolf. But these stories happen in real life and these awareness stories which also occur in soap operas don't necessarily need to contain awareness messages at the end of an episode for help lines or being shown to students in school like the videos they make particularly for that reason. So, within our project I aimed to bring the awareness in a subtle way without making it branded as an awareness video. We wanted the audience to learn how easy it is for drinks to be spiked, genuinely for our target audience age range.

Regarding drinking awareness, I researched the statistics of students sexual assault and drink spiking before pitching it to the class. I found that ages before 18 have the highest popularity of sexual assault. And before a woman reaches the age of 25, 80% are sexual assault victims. Nearly two third's of assaults on campus lead to serial offenders. This shows, the story is worth telling.

Not only sexual assault, but drink spiking is also presented as the biggest meaningful message in 'Blur'. Because it is what leads to the sexual assault and students will accept drinks from anyone. I watched a YouTuber's video where he went around the city and filmed himself spiking stranger's drinks, just to show how easy it is to do so. It's proving a point which is clearly what the public want to address if they are willing to make videos about the issue.

Using this source of drink spiking awareness pack, including two DVD file folders containing statistics and useful information regarding the awareness. It consisted relevance towards laws and ethics of presented the issue across to the public. As we weren't creating an awareness video, just expressing the issue in a fiction project. Majority of the information didn't reflect on what we were trying to accomplish. However, it gave a great insight of the factual content.

Aside from secondary research, I conducted primary research. Using 'SurveyMonkey', I created an online survey to the public. This was an opportunity to find out what our target audience think about the general idea. This was a reflective approach to further find out both what works good and bad about the content. We received a good combination of responses which worked well with progressing our creative ideas.

Entry 5: Teamwork

As a team, everyone contributed through brainstorming but could have been more interactive with their assigned pre-production. People didn't meet their deadlines even with reminders from me personally. The communication was consistent and everyone worked well with one another. It was a comfortable working space to be apart of and was welcoming to all considerations. Everyone contained 100% attendance to meetings and discussions. We mainly met up in Daniel Defoe to reflect on the visual idea of the location. It helped creative thinking and we had a video call when meeting up was a complication.

The motivation was 100% from everyone for making a successful short film. However, the lack of work ethic due to lateness in deadlines would have made a better final result due to organisation. If everyone met their deadlines, the production would have run quicker. As a producer, I was proud of everyone's work in the end result. We showed initiative and worked well as a team. The positioning of angles used with depth of field was to a professional standard. The lighting motorisation was organised with myself and Daniel Roberts consistently guarding them, the door and the wires to ensure the risk assessment works.

Craft and Technology was very helpful to learning the set up of lighting which I worked on during set up. It was useful being aware of the wire organisation and positioning. The editor had visual ideas of a montage scene after the spiking. Andrew Hill's lecture in montage sequences such as 'Hot Fuzz' gave me a clear idea of what to expect. Having shots used that signify the meaning of what is happening in the sequence is very beneficial to the viewer by showing, not telling. It represents what we are trying to accomplish well.

During editing, my role was to change any necessary shots to avoid continuity through positioning in shot reverse shot and making sure the lighting changes appear natural. We decided to have flashing effects on the lighting to avoid complications. This blended with sound, conducted by Daniel Roberts. Overall, the job roles were divided equally and had it's own individual purpose. Without teamwork, the scene would have been unsuccessful and would lack representation.

Overall, the correlation of our group effort was the best of our ability. My job role was very beneficial towards the project and I feel I was a big part of the group. My management skills were up to a professional standard whilst committing full responsibility for the technical and creative side of my producing role.

Bibliography:

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S Caven (2017) Google Drive - Blur - Characters - Profiles [online] Available at: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0By14qP_PrmpFWmFNblU4X25hWlE

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S Caven (2017) Google Drive - Blur - Characters - Casting [online] Available at: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0By14qP_PrmpFZEZCQnFyWXVLNGs [Accessed 7 April 2017]

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