Unit 8: Developing a Creative Media Project Production - Tasks 1, 2.1 & 3: Pre-Production Diary

My Short Film Idea

Throughout our time on the course, since the beginning, we have always been reminded to start thinking what we would, potentially, like to do our short films about for our end of year projects.

I think I am very creative when it comes to creating and developing ideas and stories but, for this project I did actually find it really hard to set my mind onto a specific idea. For months, I kept jotting down ideas, a lot of them being very different to each other, whether they were a personal, coming-of-age story about friendship, or a period piece set in the '80s, or a crime/thriller about a serial killer on the loose. So, I had a lot of conflicting ideas, I think this is very much down to me being a fan of all types of genres and not just a specific one. I like a lot of films, especially those that have very interesting and exciting stories that keep the viewer guessing till the very end of the film. There were definitely a lot of conflicting ideas that were all from entirely different genres.

All I knew was that I wanted to have a film with female characters as the focus as I knew many people in my class were wanting to have male leads in their films. I also wanted to have female leads as I know there are some really strong female performers in the Performing Arts course, and with a good story and good writing, hopefully with good direction, they would be able to showcase more of their talent. Having women as the main characters of a story was also really important to me as I believe that women never get to have as much screen time as men do, and never truly get to truly show their potential, skills and talent when embodying a character.

I had definitely been watching a lot of films that starred women in them, at this point Greta Gerwig's adaptation of "Little Women" had just been released. Gerwig's variation of bringing Louis May Alcott's novel onto the big screen again was, what I believe, perfectly executed and gave so much more warmth and heart to the story. What really made it perfect was the strong performances from the cast, especially the female actors, including Saoirse Ronan (Jo), Florence Pugh (Amy), Laura Dern (Marmee/Mary), Meryl Streep (Aunt March) and many more. What Gerwig does well is that she humanises the characters, she doesn't stereotype how men and women should be, especially the character of Jo who is a feminist and doesn't want to give into how men perceive and view women. I am also a huge of Gerwig's film "Lady Bird" (2017), which was her directorial debut, a film about a girl called Christine (played by Saoirse Ronan) who goes by the name 'Lady Bird' who struggles to fit in and complicated relationships with her friends and family. Again, it is another story that humanises all of its characters and makes them more realistic and relatable to an audience.

"Lady Bird" received 5 nominations at the 2018 Oscars that included Best Original Screenplay, Best Supporting Actress, Best Actress, Best Picture and Best Director. Greta Gerwig is the fifth woman to ever receive a nomination in the Best Director category, as well as the first woman to get nominated for a directorial debut. But, sadly, Gerwig did not win the award, beaten out by Guillermo del Toro for "The Shape of Water". "Little Women" also received 6 nominations at the 2020 Oscars including Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Music Score, Best Supporting Actress, Best Actress, Best Picture and Best Costume Design. Gerwig was snubbed for Best Director and the only award the film won that night was Best Costume Design. This is definitely a huge issue with not only the Academy Awards but the film industry in general, not allowing female filmmakers to be recognised enough for their work, as well as not allowing women to get the chance to create and tell their own stories.

So, keeping this in mind and watching more films with female leads and by female filmmakers, it wasn't until the beginning of the year where I finally had my mind set on one idea. I can't exactly remember when I first actually thought about my idea but it was roughly around the beginning of awards season. Just watching so many talented women getting snubbed really angered me as there were so many brilliant films and shows by talented women, that also included talented women, and not getting the recognition they deserve. I know the film and TV industry is already very competitive but, amongst women, it must be even more competitive as they all try really hard to be able to get their stories made. I did start to think more about what it must be like trying to become an actor as a woman, especially with a lot of the films nominated at the Oscars this year mainly only having men in them ("Joker", "The Irishman", "1917", "Ford V Ferrari").

I do remember one night when I was in bed, I just started thinking about what it must be like to try and make it big in the entertainment industry which then spiralled into thinking about those who struggle to get anywhere. So, I grabbed my notebook and started to write down my ideas and thoughts. I started thinking about whether the main character of the story should be a struggling singer or actor whose main aim is to try and get famous but, I then decided to stick with an actor as there have been many films out recently about singers and them trying to achieve their goals (e.g. "Bohemian Rhapsody" and "Rocketman"). I really liked the idea of showing someone who works so hard to try and achieve their dreams and goals, yet get nowhere, whether that be not fitting the image for the characters they audition for or not being talented enough.

I had been watching a lot of TV shows and films at the point where there was a lot of competition between women, mostly for popularity, fame or success. For example, I had started watching "Gossip Girl" (2007-2012) at this point and understood that the main characters, Serena and Blair, are always at war with each other about who is more important and popular. Another show that I was watching was Netflix's "GLOW", a favourite of mine, where the two main characters, Ruth and Debbie, are always fighting because 1. Ruth slept with Debbie's husband and 2. Debbie is more successful than Ruth, Debbie was able to get a hold of acting jobs before she became a full-time mother, as Ruth always struggled to be able to get something, and still never really did. It's not until they both are hired for the show "GLOW" (Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling) where they try to work together but they still feel threatened by one another because of their past but also, because they both want to make it big on the show. So, when I thought about these particular shows and the types of films I had been watching, I definitely wanted the struggling actor in my story to have something similar happening to her about trying to rise above someone else who was their competition. I also feel like a lot of the time for women, we do try and compete with others when it comes to a career, and understanding how competitive the acting world is it felt right for there to be a massive conflict between the lead character and this "enemy" that she is trying to exceed.

I decided that after this actor has been on yet another terrible audition (how the film starts) that she almost gives up her dream of acting, until she meets someone new who could potentially be her friend and help her into the industry. This character would definitely be much higher up than the main character as she is everything the struggling actor wants to be but isn't able to become. But, when the struggling actor tries to befriend the up and coming actress, as well as trying to ask for help to get an acting job, she is immediately rejected and left alone. Then throughout the course of the film, I wanted to show the decline of the character's mental health as she doesn't ask for help, as she has no one to speak to, and is resenting ever asking the up and coming actress for help. But, because she never got help from the actress, she starts to become obsessed with her and stalks her social media pages, seeing everything she is doing and how well her career is going for her. Throughout the film the struggling actor still gets nowhere and starts to become an alcoholic as she wants to numb and stop all these thoughts about the up and coming actress but, as she still keeps getting these thoughts, she drinks more and more and becomes addicted to alcohol. She is also struggling in her normal life as she is unable to keep providing for herself as her mental health takes a toll on her normal jobs, that she doesn't like. Then a year after they first met, the actress has won a big award, like a BAFTA, for Rising Star, which the actor becomes jealous by. Then go to the next day, or a few days later, where the actor has had another bad audition and feels like completely giving up, so she goes to a bar to drown her sorrows in alcohol. When she goes to the bar, the now accomplished actress is also there with her friends to celebrate her recent accolades. The actor doesn't want to see or hear her anymore so she goes to the bathroom. As she is in the bathroom, alone, the actress then comes in, on the phone to her agent, saying she has been cast in a big Hollywood film that will probably land her an Oscar. After her talk on the phone she then freshens up, notices that the struggling actor has been staring at her the whole time, she then asks if she wants an autograph/picture, completely forgetting the woman she met only a year ago. The struggling actor gets agitated, starts to bad mouth the actress and says that she doesn't deserve her career, as well as how she ruined her life for not helping her out. After this huge fight, the actress gets scared and tries to leave but the struggling actor then loses it and doesn't know how to control herself and ends up murdering the actress. Then I thought it would be good to make a montage full of news clips discussing the violent murder. After that, the struggling actor would then be seen waiting to go into court. She is then taken to the courtroom by police officers, when she enters there are many journalists and fans of the actress, the room is chaotic. The struggling actor then starts to cry but also starts to laugh at the same time, looking as if she has just won an Oscar, and in her sadistic mind she now thinks she's famous.

Original Rough Notes (making notes of the idea)

The film is very much about what can happen for women when they don't speak out about their mental health and keep their feelings bottled up inside, as we now live in a time where it is ok to say that you may not be doing well with your mental health and being able to get help for it. The film also discusses obsession and jealousy and how they can be a very toxic concoction, especially for women in this instance, as well as how fame and success can really change a person once they have got their mind set on that one, and only, goal.

After creating a rough idea for the short film, I then started to think of names. I wanted it to be something that linked back to what happens in the film, as well as highlighting the key themes and issues. I came up with a lot of titles including "Rip Her to Shreds" (name of a Blondie song about how women are seen and spoken about in the media), "Golden Filth", "Fade Away", etc. I felt a lot of these names didn't fit the dark and harsh tone of the story, so I was stuck for a while trying to thing about the name of this untitled film. After struggling with what to call the film, a title name sprung to mind:

PRIZED OBSESSION

This was only a working title for a while as I didn't know if it fit the film, as well as not thinking that that would be the official name of the film. After thinking about the meaning and how it links to the film, it stuck and became a short and snappy name for the film. I thought this was also a clever title as the main character in the film becomes obsessed with an up and coming actress, who also starts to receive accolades for her work.

Before getting started on writing the script, I now needed to think of the names, personalties and characteristics for the two leading roles of the story.

The main character of the whole story is the struggling actress, as she drives the story along and we see awe life in her eyes. She is a complex and conflicted character, maintaining her innocence throughout the whole of the story, making viewers (and myself as the Writer) conflicted on how we should perceive this character. With that in mind, I wanted her to have an innocent sounding name that people may not think has much "star quality" about it. So, I decided to settle on the name Josie Hunt, the name, Josie, sounding quite sweet and simple but her last name, Hunt, being symbolic towards her hunting like style for trying to find and land a role in a film/show. As well as the, Hunt, being symbolic towards her obsessive nature with the up and coming actress. As I started to get more into the mind of Josie, I then started to think about what she truly thinks about herself and how she may come across to others. So, because she is someone who wants to be a big star, to be like her golden age idols (Marilyn Monroe, Audrey Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor, Grace Kelly, etc.) she believes she needs a big and boisterous name to help her break into the industry. She only ever feels comfortable when she is being someone else, acting through life and putting a mask on, so for her to be more confident she believes she needs a different identity to help her create a career. So, her professional name, her disguise, is Florence Taylor-Grant. I thought this sounded very Hollywood-esque (with one of her last names, Taylor, being derived from the Elizabeth Taylor's own name), as well as sounding sophisticated. Though after the second draft of the screenplay, I then decided to scrap the masking identity as I wanted to focus on Josie and the decline of her character throughout the story, and I think the whole name changing and swapping between the two would take away from her trying to be herself and trying to be confident in her own skin.

I then just needed to think of a name for the up and coming actress. This name didn't take as long to create and think about as it did with Josie's name. So, I came up with the name Willow Matthews. It's a name that sounds very pretty and quite sophisticated, also sounding like a name someone glamorous and famous would have. The name, Willow, is a name that means 'slender' and 'graceful' as a Willow tree is known for its slender and graceful branches and leaves. The last name, Matthews, is quite a popular last name in the UK and it fit along with the name, Willow.

Once I had the brief story thought up and noted down, the title of the film and the names of the characters, I was then ready to start learning and creating a script.

Pre-Production Diary

Tuesday 25th February 2020

I had just come back from my half-term holiday and was now ready to get into the start of creating my short film. Our first few weeks of lessons would be on scriptwriting, so that we can have a great outlined story and understand the plot of our films and be able to work from our scripts when filming. This was something I was very excited about as I love creating stories and I think one of my strongest points is writing scripts and stories. A lot of the projects I had worked on throughout the course, I had written the scripts for them and really enjoyed coming up with stories and ideas for those certain projects.

As I had missed the lesson the day before and missed on the introduction to scriptwriting, I got filled in and worked on what I missed.

I learnt that to every story/script there is a 3-Act structure, on how a story plays out:

The set up - This is the introduction to the story, meeting characters, their setting, and some type of situation or incident occurs. This situation is the driving force of the story, causing the introduced characters to get to Act II and need to figure out what has caused this situation.
The confrontation - This is the middle of the story, this is where characters start to learn a bit more and start to unfold how the situation was possibly caused, as well as these characters needing to get over hurdles to lead them to more clues and, hopefully, the answer. This is the largest part of the story and shows us the truth colours of characters, as well as understanding what their fate could possibly be in the last act, Act III.
The resolution - This is where we find out what happens to all the characters involved, as well as understanding how the situation was caused at the beginning and why it happened. This ending can either be joyful or upsetting.

The 3-Act structure is a really important structure to follow when creating any type of story, so I needed to keep reminding myself about this rule when it came to writing my own script for my film.

After learning about the 3-Act structure, I then also learnt about six-word stories. These are forms of short stories that only use six-words but, these words are able to form a story/narrative in the readers mind of what the possible outcome could be and conjure up a story in their own head. One of the most famous examples of this is by Ernest Hemingway "For sale: baby shoes. Never worn". This immediately creates a story in your head and trying to create some sort of context to this short sentence. But this use of six-word stories is a great way to create a brief summary for your own film and help create a story that you will be bringing onto its feet, onscreen.

Learning these theories and structures to help develop and create a story was very useful as it really helped me think of how to place all the elements of my story into each act, as well as trying to understand how to condense my story down. This also helped to try and not overcomplicate my story as the six-word story should help with trying to explain your own story briefly, as well as not overcomplicating everything that is going into each of the 3-Acts.

Wednesday 26th February 2020

In this lesson we learnt about how to create pitches for our film that would be up to a professional industry standard, or try to be as professional and appropriate as possible. A pitch is one of the most important parts to creating a film as this is when you need to see your idea, as well as yourself, to a studio that have possibly taken an interest in your film and you as a filmmaker. So, to present our ideas and yourself is important to being able to continue with the development and creation of your film.

We were told our pitch should be no less than 3 minutes long and should thoroughly sell our idea/film, mainly proving that we can work around problems by considering any challenges and situations that may arise during every stage of production, mostly have a planned and well thought contingency plan. We also needed to make sure that when we present our pitches, we must always refer back to the audience and how they will enjoy our film, what they would like to see from it, and also what they will learn from it.

We needed to make sure to highlight all the points from our script, using the 3-Act structure, including characters, settings, motivations and challenges the characters are involved and thrown into, etc. First, we would have to start with a teaser pitch, which is a 3-sentence pitch that briefly explains our film, giving them a snippet of the genre, premise and understanding of the film. It's important to include a teaser pitch as it hooks the Producers and allows them to take an interest in your film and want to definitely learn more about the story and what will go into the production of the film. After presenting the teaser pitch, you would then move onto the story pitch, where we explain our film in full detail. Again, you will need to highlight everything that will be in the story such as:

The characters - Are they the hero? The villain? What are their goals?
The conflict - This is what drives the main character/characters through the story as they need to resolve the situation/issue that has arisen. Is/Are the character/characters at risk? What's the reason as to why they are fighting to resolve it?
Pivotal events and emotional turning points - Moments the audience will be shocked or entertained by when they come across it
The conclusion - Will the conflict be resolved or not?

The key to presenting all this and allowing the Producers to have a bigger interest in your film is how you present the film, the more enthusiasm and knowledge you have for your film, the more the Producers will be interested in both you and your film.

After learning about how to create our pitches for our films, I then created a Pinterest board to help me with finding inspiration for my film and to help elaborate and create more ideas for my film. It was also good to create a Pinterest board for my film as it helped me more with certain aspects to put in my pitch like photos to show examples and inspiration for characters, costume, hairstyling, makeup, etc, and to help me think more about each and every element that goes into creating a film that would need to be spoken about in my pitch.

'Prized Obsession' Pinterest board: https://pin.it/6hQ5Hg3

Friday 28th - Saturday 29th February 2020

As Kelly wanted our scripts to be in by next week, I decided to try working on my script more and hopefully try and get the first draft of it finished, ready for Kelly to read and give feedback on for improvement.

I do have to say, though scriptwriting is one of my favourite parts about creating a film and is one of my strongest points as I love to create stories, I did find the process quite challenging almost to the point where I really struggled with it and didn't know what I was doing. Before I actually started to write more of the script and start really getting into the film, I created a short and brief outline of the story for me to work from.

As well as working from a few notes I had made over the half-term.

I think one of my main problems was I was still quite unsure about a lot of the story with it still being very much a work in progress. I had my main characters thought out about thoroughly, Josie and Willow, but the story to finally put into a script format wasn't ready and thought out well. So, this was a definite struggle for me.

Once I finished my first draft, it came to around 40-42 pages long. I know this is intended to be a short film ranging from 5-15 minutes long but as I was struggling with the story, as well as trying to narrow the story down, and each time I tried to shorten it down I felt important parts of the story were being cut out and that I wasn't being thorough enough with visual description and dialogue. Writing short films were something we were still learning and to jump straight into writing a script without all of the knowledge to properly write it was difficult for me and I felt I needed a bit more time on. So, I thought it would be best for me to just write all of the script, see how long it comes to, and then ask Kelly about what isn't necessary to the story that I could cut out and chop the script down.

Once finishing the first draft I still felt there was a lot that could be improved, as well as me not really fully believing that this was a great script even though this was my first attempt at a script. The only scripts I had wrote before were for our previous projects, that were much shorter in length and none of them really involved any dialogue, whether non-dialogue was part of the challenge or I just decided against dialogue. I find dialogue to be one of the most difficult parts for writing a script, mostly trying to figure out if it sounds natural and if someone would actually speak the way that you write it. We had also only just started our script writing sessions in class, with Kelly, and hadn't got onto learning to write dialogue just yet so finding the best ways to write dialogue was hard for me. I have read many scripts before but I have never really understood how screenplay writers always make their characters speak to one another so naturally and entertaining for an audience. So, dialogue writing was something I still needed to learn and would hopefully be something I could get help with when needing to write my second draft.

I also found it quite hard to write the script as my teachers really know my idea yet as they wanted us to create our ideas on our own and thoroughly plan it and think it out ready for us to pitch to them. I did find that good that they let us be imaginative as possible without help yet as these films were just our own for a bit before they gave feedback and helped us on improving it but, I think it may have been better if I had gone to my teachers and asked for some help on how to approach writing this script, first asking their thoughts about the idea and ways I can improve on the story and have a little help with just starting the script.

I think one of my biggest problems as well was, I started to get nervous about writing the script, which I shouldn't have really but trying to write for our biggest and most exciting project yet was quite nerve-wrecking for me and caused me to become anxious about my ability to write. Once I got nervous to write it, I think it then caused the story/script to go off the rails a bit, with so many conflicting plots and ideas springing to mind whilst writing and it ended up being a pretty bad script. Also, as I was writing I was making a lot of it up as I went along and cramming ideas in which made the script become boring or just not make any sense as I then didn't know where I was going with the story, so having a thorough and in depth outline of the story before writing would've been more useful for me. All I wanted to do was show my full potential at writing but as I got nervous about everything to come with the film, and mostly worrying about people not liking my idea, the script ended up being terrible and me being quite upset with my ability to write.

Monday 2nd March 2020

In this lesson we had another scriptwriting lesson, where we learned more about building and creating stories, as well as starting to create characters and how to create a character arc for them throughout a story. We did some group activities, both in small groups and working as a class, to develop and continue each other's story creations, as well as elaborate their ideas and build up their characters and plot.

After working on that, I then started to work a little bit on my pitch, I didn't end up doing a lot of it as it was near to the end of the day and we had worked on group activities for the whole day.

Tuesday 3rd March 2020

We did another scriptwriting session, mostly focusing on creating and developing characters. We were are asked about our favourite characters from films and TV shows and broke them down as to why we like them and how we may relate to them. After listening to everyone's opinions we then moved onto creating characters and breaking them down, aspect by aspect. For us film students, we were asked to breakdown our main characters, from our own films, to understand them more and to also help us for when we would have to write our second draft and also to help us visualise them when it came to casting actors, as well as to help us for when we would finally create a character breakdown for our pre-production work.

After doing this task, I again tried to work a bit more on my pitch but, again, ended up not doing a lot of it as we had been doing character work all day. Before I left college, I handed my teacher, Kelly, my first draft of my script telling her why it was quite long and the few problems I came across when writing it.

When I got home, I did some more research about the main theme of my film, that being 'Obsession' as I wanted to get a better understanding of the mental disorder and to be able to write and create Josie in a much more natural way.

Wednesday 4th March 2020

On this day I was finally finishing off my pitch and putting in the last final touches. I mostly needed to add pictures and gifs to help my teachers, and class members, understand and visualise the story even more. I even added a few mood boards onto my PowerPoint to show my inspiration for the film and also show the inspiration and qualities of Josie and Willow. This took me all day to finish as I put in a lot of detail and tried to pitch my film as thorough as possible.

Thursday 5th March 2020

Me and Amiliyah came in early in the morning to show each other our pitches for our own short films, this was to help each other to fix a few mistakes and to also improve and elaborate on certain aspects we would be speaking on in our pitches. We both also came in early so that we could present our pitches to each other, practice a little before we got onto pitching our ideas to our teachers. In this time, I also finally did my proposal, this wasn't too bad and was done quite quickly as I had all my pitch finished and was able to use that to be placed into my proposal for my film.

Proposal

I haven't done pitches that much before and, when I have, I have usually done them with other team members. But as these are our own individual projects we had to pitch on our own, so I was very nervous about this and because of this I went first.

Pitch

I think my pitch could have gone a lot better, as at the end my teacher, Kelly, did really like the idea and thought it had a lot of potential but there were a few plot holes in the story. That problem was due to me as I got very nervous to present and when speaking about my idea, I wasn't being concise enough when telling my story. I also felt like to pitch was going on for too long and ended up rushing through a lot of the story and my plans and ideas for the film. Another note I got back was that the characters ages in the story didn't make sense, as this felt like an issue that would happen to adults rather than teenagers turning into adults. Again, this was a problem for when I was figuring out the film originally as I thought many of the actors, on the performing arts course, looked quite young and wouldn't pull of playing someone who may have just got out of uni and was becoming an adult. So, I wrote the characters much younger for this reason. Kelly also stated that the story needed to be much grittier between Josie and Willow, so having them possibly have some sort of history/background would make the story much more intense to an audience. The meeting between the two originally didn't make sense to Kelly and she said felt unrelatable. I did agree with Kelly on this massively as I had not really thought of this issue before and it made much more sense for a long-winded feud to create so much tension and aggression between Josie and Willow. But the feedback was good and the only thing now was Kelly just needed to read my novel of a script and give feedback on how I could improve the story.

On the night, when I got back home, I did end up watching a few more films to give some ideas on now possibly creating a history between Josie and Willow. There were three different films I watched (one I had seen before and had some inspiration from already, and the other two I was new to).

The first film I watched, and had already seen, was "Heathers" (1988) starring Winona Ryder and Christian Slater. This is a very dark film that follows the story of Veronica Sawyer, a teenage girl with a popular status as she hangs out with the most popular girls in school, all called Heather. Veronica has many problems with the leader of the pack, Heather Chandler, not being able to tolerate her mean and horrible behaviour. This is until she meets the new boy at school, J.D. (Jason Dean) and starts to develop a crush on him, which then turns into a relationship, though things take a turn for the worst as she starts getting mixed up with him. "Heathers" helped with thinking of the type of setting Josie and Willow should be in at school, with maybe Josie being like Veronica, just wanting to fit in and get help from Willow with acting and becoming popular, as Willow would be like Heather Chandler, running the group and the school and having everyone fall at her feet. This was still a work in progress as I still hadn't fully got feedback on the whole script and story itself, so I just started to make notes again and plan more about Josie and Willow and their type of feud.

A film I hadn't seen before but finally got the chance to was "Eighth Grade" (2018) starring Elsie Fisher. The film follows a young girl named Kayla and how she copes with getting through her eighth grade of school. She is a shy, an introvert and lonely as she finds it hard to make friends and maintain and relationship at home with her dad. We find out very early on she is only confident when she makes videos for YouTube and is able to speak to the camera on her phone about her worries, problems and how to overcome them. This gave some inspiration on how to create the character of the younger version of Josie, as she struggles to make friends and is possibly bullied by the people in her year/school. She also is a very hopeful person as she tries to pursue a career in acting and make a go of it, this is similar to the confidence Kayla feels when she records videos of herself speaking about certain thoughts and feelings she's having. The film does also touch upon some dark events that Kayla is sadly exposed to and, for being so young, doesn't understand how scary and embarrassing these events are, as well as possibly causing some trauma when she grows up. This was in kept in mind when thinking about traumatic events that Josie may have gone through in school that has led her to become the person she is at the end of the film.

The last film I watched is another film I had been wanting to watch for a while and finally got the opportunity to which was "Booksmart" (2019), starring Beanie Feldstein and Kaitlyn Dever, also this film being Olivia Wilde's directorial debut. The film follows best friends, Amy and Molly, who, throughout their whole time in high school, have worked non-stop to achieve good grades to get into the best universities in the country. On their last ever day of school, the day before their graduation, they find out that many of their peers (those who are popular and only party and don't do work) have also got into great universities (some unis being even better than the ones they have got into). This causes Molly to rethink about how they spent their years in high school and feel a huge wave of missing out. So, to make up for lost time, they are on a mission to go on the biggest and last party that all of their peers will be attending. This is a comedy so this doesn't tend to relate as much to the darker tone and themes of my own film, but I feel the type of relationship Molly and Amy have with their peers is something that can be used for Josie and Willow. As Molly and Amy have always believed that they would never get on with their classmates as they don't have anything in common and don't have the same academic ambitions. Also the realisation Molly has that she worked so hard yet had no fun and people who may not care about school and work as much as her have got the same opportunities and chances as her makes her feel like she has wasted most of her life and will be overcome by people who don't achieve and work as hard as her. This is something Josie definitely feels strongly about Willow as she believes Willow isn't that great at acting and for her to get better offers and opportunities than her, without the heavy lifting, makes her blood boil, both at school and in her adult life.

These were some really great films to have a look at into the treatment of girls at school, this might not be as precise towards my characters as my film is set back in England, as all these films are set in the US and show this glamorisation of American high school life. Though, the characters are relatable and definitely have qualities that Josie and Willow may possess, as well as some other characters in the making.

Sunday 8th March 2020 (International Women's Day)

I got a message from my teacher, Kelly, forwarding me a short film from BBC One's Facebook page called "Leading Lady Parts". This was a repost from a couple of years ago as this day was International Women's Day.

The short film shows many famous English actresses (Emilia Clarke, Florence Pugh, Gemma Chan, Felicity Jones, and many more) auditioning for the leading dream female role. As each audition goes on, the casting directors (Catherine Tate, Gemma Arterton and Anthony Welsh) give ignorant, shameful, sexist and racist comments to the actors, and the comments getting worse and worse as each actress auditions. This was a great short film to get more of an idea on how women are mistreated in the film and TV industry and how much of a male-dominated industry it is.

After watching this short film, I then started to think how this could be placed into scenes where Josie is auditioning for a certain project. This is an issue that is also very important to bring forward in my film as these awful comments are another pushback for Josie and make her feel uncomfortable about her acting rather than confident and bold and excited to take on a new persona for a few minutes. This is also a huge issue as to why we always have such male-dominated films, both in front of and behind the camera, and not allowing women on and off screen be able to have their voices heard and tell their stories the way they want to. So, Josie is very much seen as another struggling actress who is failed by how certain people in the industry view women.

As it was International Women's Day, there were many films and TV shows coming onto the TV about women in any type of industry. But a film that stood out to me and I decided to watch, especially to get more inspiration for my film, was a documentary called "This Changes Everything". This is an amazing look into how women are truly treated in the film and TV industry and understanding how problematic it especially is in the US/Hollywood. Many women in this documentary (Geena Davis, Reese Witherspoon, Meryl Streep, Tiraji P. Henson, Sandra Oh, and many more) speak out about the struggles women face to be able to be great filmmakers in a very male-dominated industry. They touch upon issues of how women are represented in films, what happens when women are at the top of their game and become so successful that they get pushed down again, how female minorities are never seen within films and TV shows, how many actresses are making a huge shift from being in front of the camera to behind it (whether that be directing/writing/producing/etc), and highlighting many more awful issues women face. The biggest message from the documentary is that there is definitely still a lot of change that needs to happen in the industry to allow women to be seen and heard, more specifically to make the industry an equal place were both genders and where all ethnicities are able to work and be allowed to create whatever they want.

Watching these films were great to get a retrospective on the great deal women face in the industry and ways that I would be able to show those situations, problems and faults within my own film. Also, after taking both of the films I had just watched into consideration, I then searched online experiences that actresses in the industry have dealt with when being in an audition and many of them are just shocking, unfair and intolerable. For example, when Dame Judi Dench was much younger and auditioned in front of a big, unnamed, Hollywood director and was told "Well, it's been very nice meeting you, but I'm sorry. Not this film. Probably not any film. As you have every single thing wrong with your face". Dench is now 85-years-old and has never let that comment get in the way of her or her career. She is still acting to this day and that comment from that director, though not acceptable at all, never stopped her from moving on and continuing to build her acting career. Another example is Gina Rodriguez, a Puerto Rican-American actress, was told in an audition "We love her. But can she comeback in with a light black dress?" which she replied with that not making any sense towards the character she is playing. She was then told "We need to know if you're pretty enough to be on the cover of a magazine". There were many more auditions that I read about from many more actresses who are very much in the spotlight of the industry but sadly many of their experiences are even worse than the examples I have given. These situations and incidents that women are put through in auditions are unacceptable and are something a woman should never have to go through, especially when all they want to do is entertain people and tell a story. So, these audition blunders with sexist casting directors were kept in mind when thinking about the factors of Josie's failure to landing any roles, as well as the decline in her confidence and mental health because of all of these awful comments she has had thrown at her.

Monday 9th March 2020

On this day I got my feedback for my short film script and wasn't the best, as I had expected anyway, though my teacher, Kelly, really did think the film had a lot of potential and the ideas and story were great and she could see them in the script but it was just very hefty, certain little things didn't make sense and it was too dialogue driven. I was mostly just happy that Kelly did like the idea, even when I pitched it to her, and she that she knew that I could do better when it came to writing the second draft of the script.

There was quite a bit of feedback I got back from Kelly but this was all good as it helped me think outside the box a bit more when it came to writing and the feedback helped as a guide on what not to do and what to do better in the next draft. The main feedback, or issues, that I was given was:

Josie and Willow need some history between them (Kelly had stated this after I did my pitch and I fully agreed with her). When the two first meet, after Josie's failed audition, is unrealistic and unrelatable, as well as not making sense towards the future events in the film, especially doesn't make sense about Josie's negative feelings towards Willow in the future.
Story needs chopping down a lot. Some parts of the story are unnecessary and longwinded, so I needed to think about what is important and significant to the story and what isn't. Kelly also said for me to chop the script down to around 18 pages on the second draft.
Dialogue. A lot of it is very long and heavy for a short film and as it is a short film, it needs to be told more through visuals as it is hard to get a lot of dialogue into a short amount of time.
The casting director's attitudes, in my script, are very unprofessional and they wouldn't act like that towards an actor, well anyone, in reality. This was my fault as I did mean for them to be horrible but only in Josie's perspective, as she gets anxious and nervous during auditions, especially when she overthinks what the casting directors think of her. So, she becomes delusional and believes they react to her in a negative way, by judging and making fun of her when in reality they aren't. This was something I would need to specify in the script and also think how I can achieve this when it came to writing my second draft, also this was something I needed to research more and take a look at online.
News report/montage towards the end of the film didn't seem realistic. Kelly suggested to take a look on YouTube at news reports on celebrity death announcements. I ended up scrapping this idea in the end as I didn't feel this part was necessary to the story and was only repeating the events of the whole film.
Character ages don't work (this was another thing Kelly had said about after my pitch and again I completely agreed with her). I said originally, I had made the characters much younger than they should have been as I felt some of the performing arts students, who would be in the film, looked too young to play these characters. I think one of the biggest plot errors was that Josie still goes to university and she would only be driven to finish her studies than get upset over a few failed auditions.

I looked at Kelly's notes in my first draft of the script as well and a lot of them said the same as the feedback she had given to me in the lesson. So, I definitely thought about everything Kelly had told me about the script/film and made sure I kept all of that in mind when writing my second draft of the script.

After getting our feedback, the performing arts students then came into our lesson to hear each of our class's films pitched to them. I think I pitched mine well as afterwards, once the performing arts students had listened to everyone's pitches, they had to go over to the person who's film they are most interested in and quite a few of the students came to me. This was a good chance to get more feedback and opinions from an actor's point of view, as well as being able to answer any questions they have about the film, an opportunity for them to hear more about your film and also to read through a bit of the script. I had also told the students about the feedback Kelly had given to me and some of the definite and potential changes I would be making to the film and its story. But I felt much better after this as I got to show myself, as a filmmaker, towards the actors and showed my enthusiasm for the project. I also felt much better about going into writing my second draft as the actors had helped me focus on what should be kept in the story and how to elaborate and think a bit more about certain plot points, as well as adding more depth to the characters.

Once I got home, I wanted to have a bit of a break from all the work and went onto Netflix to find something to watch. As I was looking through Netflix, I then found a film that sounded interested and also related to my own film. The film is called "Ingrid Goes West" (2017), starring Aubrey Plaza and Elizabeth Olsen. The film follows a mentally unstable young women named Ingrid Thorburn, after being released from a mental health hospital she goes back to her "normal" life by spending all her hours scrolling through social media until she learns of a social media influencer named Taylor Sloane. Ingrid is enticed by the influencers seemingly "perfect" life, when she decides to comment on one of her pictures and gets a slight response from Taylor. Ingrid then decides the best way she can obsess over Taylor and start living a life like hers is to move to L.A. and try to befriend Taylor. Once Ingrid moves to L.A., she visits all the places Taylor posts on her social media accounts, certain shops and restaurants, as well as getting a complete makeover to mimic Taylor's style and look. After days of Ingrid being in L.A., she ends up bumping into Taylor in a shop, follows her home and kidnaps her dog. Once Ingrid sees Taylor has posted about her missing dog online, as well as put up posters around town, she goes to her home and gives her dog back. This causes the two to start a growing friendship and throughout the film we start to see the cracks slip through as people get in the way of Ingrid's friendship with Taylor and her intentions are revealed. I wish I had come across this film before I started my first draft of my script as this film shows how women become when they are obsessed with someone, as many of the films and shows I had watched were mainly men being obsessed with a young girl and becoming outrageously violent and villainous. This film shows how a woman can become very insecure and doubt themselves once they become obsessed with a person, especially when they don't want to do anything violent but become great friends with the person. Towards the end of the film she does start to become a danger not just to Taylor and her friends but herself. In this films case, Ingrid is a lonely girl who just wants a friend, a you learn in the film she lost her only friend who was her mum. So, the isolation and loneliness Ingrid feels is normal and when she sees Taylor online, she only sees the good and fake parts of her life and doesn't see her failing marriage with her husband or relationship with her toxic and disturbed brother. I felt watching this film was very helpful to get another perspective on how obsession can affect a woman and how they would possibly deal with trying to put off the obsession or trying to keep up the obsession without getting caught. I could also see my main two characters as the two leads in that film, Josie being Ingrid and Willow being Taylor, so from watching that film I drew a to of inspiration from those characters, as well as the characters around them, and kept their characteristics and personalities in mind when it came to writing the second draft.

Tuesday 10th March 2020

On this day, I didn't start writing my second draft just yet as I wanted to do more research and hopefully start to plan and outline all of the story before writing my script. I did research on:

Drama schools in the UK - I had a look at drama schools as when I thought again about the ages of Josie and Willow, I decided to have them aged in their mid-20s as they have both left drama school and are now trying to start their careers in acting. I already knew about RADA (Royal Academy of Dramatic Art) in London as that is one of the top drama schools in the country, so for Willow to study there when Josie wanted to so badly worked well. For Josie I wanted to find a drama school that isn't as well-known as RADA, doesn't have to be a bad drama school just a school that no one really talks about. I had a look at a few and landed on Manchester Metropolitan University as I didn't know they taught theatre studies there and for Willow to also think that makes it more surprising when Josie tells her that she has studied acting there.
Award shows - Willow winning a BAFTA a year after meeting Josie wasn't realistic and didn't make much sense, also a year is a long time to jump forward to and it just didn't really work out. So, I needed to try and find an award show that was held at the end of the year so that I could only show that a few months had passed (showing Josie's decline in her mental health and failure to get an acting job). I remembered seeing a post from an actor called Josh O'Connor ("The Crown", "God's Own Country", "The Durells", "Only You") winning an award at the end of 2019 for a film called "Only You", where he won a BIFA (British Independent Film Award) for Best Actor. I then had a looked at the BIFA's to see if they had a category similar to the Rising Star award at the BAFTA's, there I found they have an award called the Most Promising Newcomer, winners of the award are Sam Adewunmi (in 2019 for "The Last Tree"), Jessie Buckley (in 2018 for "Beast") and Naomi Ackie (in 2017 for "Lady Macbeth"). This award ceremony is usually held at the beginning of December each year and I thought this would be better for Willow to win beforehand and then possibly be in the running to get nominated for the Rising Star BAFTA.
Jobs actors usually have on the side when they aren't able to benefit themselves from their acting work - This was mainly for Josie as she is unable to get anywhere and needs another job to get her a bit of money as she still goes for auditions. I decided a job working at a bar would be the best fit for her, as well as later on as her obsession starts to progress, alcoholism is a huge part of that obsession as she wants to get rid of the negative thoughts, especially thoughts about Willow, and for her to get easy access to alcohol and trying to hide this addiction and obsession worked well.

I did make a small start on my second draft but didn't do too much as I still had a bit more planning to do with figuring out scenes before I could start actually writing the script. But I felt much better in myself and my work and I actually felt this story was going somewhere. My idea had changed a lot from the original draft and idea but I was liking where this new story was going and that it started to make more sense and was becoming more interesting as I was building it up.

Wednesday 11th March 2020

In lesson, we learnt and started working on writing a media CV so that we can give these to other students in our class to see what job role they would like us to do during the production of their own film. This also helped to understand the type of CV we need to create when we want to get jobs in the industry and in the future.

I also started to do more research for my film, mostly on auditions like how to introduce yourself, your manners, how to act around the casting directors, etc.

Once I got home, after the lesson finished, I started work again straight away, writing notes for my film and also starting to outline the film and scenes in a bit more depth and detail. I knew all the notes I wrote may not get used but they were all much better ideas that I could work well from, now I had thought about my film a bit more and making sure it made sense and that it was a great story that people would be interested and entertained by. I think this also helped that I was more enthusiastic and devoted to the film and I was much more excited to write the second draft than I was with the first.

After finishing the notes, I was then ready to write all of my second draft. I felt a bit more pressure to write the second draft as my first one wasn't the best and I felt that this was now my chance to really show that I could write to the best of my ability and use all of my imagination and creative to create a great story with great characters.

I had kept a couple of scenes from my first draft still in the script (those being the opening scene, Willow's murder and the ending scene), just changing some of the dialogue and description around to fit the story and make it much better. But, the rest of the script, all changed. I got more creative and knew where I wanted the story to go the further, I got along with writing, as well as becoming more confident and comfortable in my writing and the script.

I think the script went really well, me believing that it was actually good (which I don't think about a lot of my work) and me believing Kelly would be much happier with this script.

Thursday 12th March 2020

I handed my second draft into Kelly when I first got into college, it was quite a busy day as my course had been helping out with the performing arts students, as well as creating a promotional video for all the creative arts courses for college. But, later on in the day, Kelly did start to give it a quick read and just before I left, she told me is was much better than my first draft. This made me feel a lot better in both myself and my work as I did feel more confident in the new script but didn't know what feedback I would get from it, but luckily Kelly liked it so far and I was just hoping she would like the rest of the story.

I think another thing that made me feel so much better was that Kelly knew I could push myself to do the best I can and create the best possible story, as well as presenting my scriptwriting and storytelling skills and being as creative as possible. So, now I was feeling more excited about my film and hoping that it would all be alright now that these huge changes and improvements were made.

Monday 16th March 2020

On this day, we were warned that all of our final projects may not get picked as there was a bigger crisis, not only happening in our country, but the world. We were told about the seriousness and severity of the coronavirus and we were unsure of what the rest of our academic year would look like. This was very worrying as we all had our hopes up of being able to do our films as this is our biggest and final project of the year. But, we were told not to worry too much and to get on with doing our pre-production work, as getting all of our pre-production sorted out now would make us ready to film whenever we come back in case we were told we couldn't come back to college as soon as we would hope.

We were asked to make a start on our character breakdown paperwork, this was something we had briefly worked on before in one of our scriptwriting classes but we needed to create a better version of it, that version being on a Word document. Before I could get started on this, I wanted to make sure that I had my main characters thoroughly planned out and that I knew what they should look like, their personalities, characteristics, etc. So, to help me plan the characters of Josie and Willow, I created two separate Pinterest boards for each character to get inspiration for the two and to also help me build up these characters.

Josie Pinterest board: https://pin.it/4NojmKq

Willow Pinterest board: https://pin.it/6NGZC5R

Once our lesson was over, we were told that we would hopefully find out about what will happen with our films and our time at college tomorrow as we are all still uncertain about the coronavirus and we don't know what will happen next. But we were told it was just best to keep working on our pre-production as then we could get all the planning out of the way and have it ready for filming.

Tuesday 17th March 2020

We found out a bit more on this day about what will be happening with college due to the coronavirus. We were told that we will probably be closing as many people in the UK were getting infected and that virus was spreading very rapidly. So, this was definitely very worrying for us, especially after Boris Johnson's statement saying that we should continue going to college even with the virus spreading.

We had a talk with our teachers, Danniella and Kelly, about the situation and what may possibly happen as we were all still very unsure what would happen next. But, as a possible outcome, we were told that we should still prep for our short films in case we do come back soon and we will be able to do a hand full of films, as we won't have enough time to do everyone's. We were also told to not get our hopes up about it as what is going on is on a global scale and is very serious as many people had passed away at this point from the virus, so the look of us coming back after a few weeks, even a month, didn't look realistic and was very slim. So, this was definitely very disappointing as my class had all been really excited to get onto creating these films, especially as our final big project of the year, but sadly we all knew that we weren't going to be able to do them as soon as we wanted to.

As we are a Film and TV course, we were also learning about how much of an impact the virus was having on productions of film and TV shows, with many being shut down in the middle or beginning of production to stop the risk of cast and crew spreading and getting infected by the virus. There have also been many films release dates being pushed back in theatres to either the summer or the end of the year, especially huge blockbusters that people had been highly anticipating for a long time. Many cinemas have also been shut down, again, in case moviegoers are at risk of getting infected by the virus. So, the film industry has been hugely impacted by the virus, causing many studios and businesses (like cinemas) to be in the danger zone for trying to keep up finances and earning money. It is quite scary to see how much the industry you want to make a career in has been affected by the virus, as well as changing where we see cinema forever as streaming services will be dominating online if we go into lockdown. After this pandemic, cinemas may never recover and everything we watch will probably have to be online. This is deeply upsetting as going to the cinemas is one of the best pastimes and the only true way to really fully experience a film, so to know that they may possibly have been killed by the virus is devastating.

For the rest of the day, we started to work on our scene breakdowns for our short films, where we take each and every scene from our film and construct every element that will go into the production of that scene. We didn't do as much on this as I think everyone was a bit shaken up about the news and not really getting our heads around what is really going on. Most of the day we spoke about what could possibly happen, as well as many people leaving our class as they felt anxious about the whole situation which is understandable. Even though we tried to get through work, again we mostly spoke about the future for film and what will likely happen to films, TV shows and cinema, as well as trying to make everyone feel safe and not get too anxious over the news of the world. It's just terrifying that we won't really know what to expect from all of this but we need to hope that everyone will hopefully go back to some type of normality.

Wednesday 18th March 2020

So, we continued with what we were doing the day before, filling in our scene breakdown sheets for our short films. It did take a while as I have quite a bit to film for my film in various locations but I was able to finish it all off. The only parts I didn't fill in were some locations for certain scenes that include the bar and the bar bathroom, as I am still unsure where I will be filming those scenes. I also didn't fill in the dates when scenes will be filmed as we are still unaware of when we will be coming back to college, and if we will even be coming back to college this academic year. But everything else I was able to fill in and in as much detail as possible, mostly to help me remember my original thoughts and ideas when we do eventually go back to preparing for these films.

Thursday 19th March 2020

This was our last day of college before having to go home and self-isolate, due to the coronavirus. We were told that we would hopefully be coming back towards the end of April or the beginning of May but, we don't know much as no one else does and we don't know how much of an impact the virus will have on our education and projects. We were also told in case we do come back; we would only be picking a few short films to create as we wouldn't have enough time to do all of them now.

So, we were told when we are self-isolating to keep working on pre-production for our films as we never know when we'll be coming back and, if we don't come back until year 2 we will do our short films at the beginning of that academic year with all of our planning and prepping done and ready to film.

Monday 23rd March 2020

Our task for the day was to finish our media CV's and send them off to Kelly.

I got my feedback as soon as possible with Kelly saying it was all perfect but only to change the wording of when I speak about "The Dark Knight" recreation scene, where I had repeated the word 'original'. But, apart from that the CV was good.

Tuesday 24th March 2020

The day before Boris Johnson announced that the UK will be on lockdown due to the coronavirus and that we all must stay at home and wait for further instructions on what will happen next. So, we were now aware that we wouldn't be able to do our short films until the following year when we, hopefully, go back to college and start year 2. For now, we were told to have a small break until we figure out what we were going to do for work at home, this was mostly just going to be pre-production work for our short films, as well as doing some fun tasks to advance our filmmaking skills.

This is definitely a scary time and I feel as if we are living in some crazy plot from a movie. So, we are not sure when we will get back to some type of "normality" or how long it will take when this is, hopefully, all over. It may take a long time but it's good that we are able to do more work to take our minds of what's happening at the moment and trying to keep creative.

Tuesday 31st March 2020

On this day, we were asked to start working on our character and casting breakdowns for our pre-production work.

The difference between a character breakdown and a casting breakdown is:

Character breakdown - Is where you explain everything about each and every character, in detail, that has some type of purpose in your story and helps drive the story along. This document also includes dialogue for performing artists to learn for a certain character to use for their audition, whether this be a self-tape or an audition in person (in our case a self-tape).
Casting breakdown - This is a document that is for your performing artists to see what role they would be interested in and see who they would like to play. This document includes explaining each and every character and if they are interested in playing a particular character, your communication details are placed onto the document so they can email you about the role.

For the day, I only worked on my character breakdown as I have quite a few characters in my film, whether they are major role, a minor role, or a minor supporting role (background artist) there are many involved.

After breaking down every character in the film, I then started to think about what dialogue from my script I could use for different characters. I was finding this quite difficult as there are many characters in my script that don't really have many lines and creating dialogue for them is quite hard to think of. It wasn't to hard to think about dialogue for the major and minor roles but it was finding the right pieces of dialogue to give to the actors so that they have something good to work with and can give their best performance for me. So, I left this for the rest of the day to think more about tomorrow when I started to work on my casting breakdown as well.

Wednesday 1st April 2020

I continued with the work I was doing the day before, now trying to find dialogue to finish off my character breakdown. I only couldn't think of dialogue for most of the minor and minor supporting roles as only a few of them do have a few lines, although they do have an impact on Josie and her story. So, I only put dialogue on the breakdown for Josie, Willow and the Casting Directors. I chose a couple of scenes with dialogue for both Josie and the Casting Directors, as there is a huge change between those characters from the beginning of the film to the end of it. For Josie, I wanted to pick her most emotional scenes to allow the actors auditioning to really show off their emotional range and how well they can act with the direction I have written for them. As well as the Casting Directors, there will be a few in the film and each Casting Director is different from the other, so giving two different scenes where something different plays out in them is good to give an actor as they can show how comfortable they feel playing a Casting Director who is either neutral and calm, as oppose to someone who is really horrible and sort of takes advantage of their job. I only picked one scene for Willow as I feel that's the most we see from her character, as she starts off in very high spirits and as the scene plays out, she becomes uncomfortable, vulnerable and scared.

A lot of the dialogue I have chosen is from scenes with other actors, so there are lines from other characters within that scene and what I have placed in the dialogue for the actors to use for their auditions. The reason I have kept those parts of dialogue in is so they can understand what is actually happening within the scene and how they should react and respond to the other character. As well it can be helpful for actors to have someone else behind the camera to help read out the lines to them so that they can act it through as well as they possibly can. But I think I picked some great scenes for the actors to work from, as well as adding a few more lines for the Casting Directors.

Finishing the Character Breakdown

After finishing the character breakdown, I then moved onto the casting breakdown. This wasn't as hard to do as I just had to explain my film again and explain all the characters briefly, as well as trying to market this well towards the actors.

Casting Breakdown