Visual Aesthetics, Mood & Tone

The house that we our filming the entire short in is quite a white washed house and gives quite a cold appearance due to its high ceilings, large rooms, white walls and cold colour palette. Because of this the visual tone that will come across will also be quite cold and almost bland. This is similar to in the film Silver Linings Playbook, filmed in a normal American neighbourhood, a lot of the backgrounds are quite plain and and bland. This film is an example of how a film can have these kinds of locations yet not come across as a very cold and depressing film.

An idea taken from Jacques Audiard's Rust and Bone is from the sequence where Marion Cotillard's character finally comes out of her house and the sun breaks through the clouds. The use of flares is very heavy meaning that the frame is filled with light, so much that is blinds the audience. This exaggerates the feeling that she has finally got out of the house and she's overcome by it all. This is an idea we could take for when Emma leaves the house towards the end of the film. She comes outside to take a break from it all and to enhance the difference between her life inside the house and outside it could work well to use flares as if her going outside is like a new beginning. This also helps make the audience believe that she may be walking out for good. This filming idea does require it to be sunny on one of the days that we film and since we have to film in October (or later in the year) it is quite possible this won't be the case. If is isn't sunny we will experiment with the exposure and other techniques to give a similar effect.

 

TB

Colour Design in Film

COLOUR DESIGN IN FILM

Colour in film is not all about style and aesthetic, it is also often used in such a way that symbolises different things, a director who is known for doing this very successfully is M. Night Shyamalan. His most famous film for doing this is The Sixth Sense, in this film the colour red is used to warn the audience that something ominous was about to happen. The audience however is not so aware of this until it is explained to them, it isn't obvious when watching the film yet subconsciously the audience will associate the colour with bad things. Shyamalan uses the colour red to indicate a connection with the world of the dead.

The film Lady in the Water, also a Shyamalan film, uses the colour of the heart-shaped swimming pool that changes from blue to black as the mood in the film changes. This is also a recurring theme through the film using the bright blue colour to invoke certain moods.

An idea for a recurring theme we could use in our short film was not a colour but an object - the rubiks cube. We had an idea where the boy could always have the rubiks cube in his hand throughout the film and then when he has his meltdown he loses it, however it could also be a device his mum uses to calm him down.
TB

Narrative Audience Feedback

We spoke to some potential audience members, a 30yr old, female actress and a 34yr old, male, director.  We chose to speak to these two individuals because they are part of our target audience and obviously have experience in casting and acting. In the interview we asked them about our narrative.

They thought;

"I like the narrative, it's simple but effective which is imperative for a short film. I think you need to get clearer ideas and structure, at the moment it's a bit … hazy"

"if you make the motifs like the cereal or something clearer you'll have a better continuity"

"My favourite thing is the simplicity, I just think it's really sad, the poor mother, it makes you want to know what has happened and what happens next, it's great!"

From this we've taken that they liked the simplicity and that to make the narrative better the clarity of images and scenes needs to improve. We will make the 'motifs' like the Rubik's cube more obvious and symbolic.

2| So Far

So far, we've managed to interview a focus group and summarise our plot, characters and overall locations.

We have a clear idea of how it'll look and how we want to put it together. The storyline is very simple and hopefully will create tense atmosphere throughout the film. We should feel at the end of the film like this circumstance is an everyday occasion that the mother cannot escape and that Jack simply can't help his emotion and has a mind far younger than his actual age.

Theo & I are continuing with locations and recce's this week. We plan to summarise our audience research and create a summary of information and how we have adapted our film to it.

By the 30th October we plan to start filming, and do the whole film within a few days as it's all filmed in the same house.

HH

The Narrative

ACT1

1. Child (Jack) on stairs bumping down like young children do when learning to walk, at each step his clothes change, showing that this is a daily routine.
2. His mum (Emma) is setting up the kitchen table, aligning cereal boxes and neatly setting a place for Jack to sit at.
3. He is sitting at the Kitchen table surrounded by 7 very neatly organised cereal boxes, meticulously he picks a certain amount of grains per box and places them in his bowl. He then pours the bowl until it reaches exactly half full. He stirs twice clockwise with his spoon and thrice anti-clockwise then licks the spoon to check its ok. Then he begins eating.
4. All the time Emma has been moving around him doing her own morning activities. The scene is played at an increased speed but filmed in two motions, it will seem that the boy is eating at a normal speed but that Emma is moving far faster around him, appearing in and out of the shot. Wearing a dressing gown. This is to show how long it takes him to eat his cereal.
5. Now Jack is standing staring at something out of shot of the camera, the camera rotates 180* to show a large lego sculpture that the boy walks towards and begins to add more pieces, slowly picking the pieces from a colour coded box and adding them precisely, not forcing them on but placing them definitively in their correct location. 
6. Emma leaves the kitchen in background (out of focus) and goes upstairs, Jack is on the living room sofa, and pulls a Rubik's Cube out of the cabinet. There is a close up on his hands and the Rubik's cube is completed in 20 seconds. 

ACT2

1. Jack is sitting on the sofa watching TV, (discovery channel). Mum, Emma is in the office at the front of the house, busy taking a conference call. We see photos on the windowsill of her and jack, her at work and her with friends and just of jack. 
2. Jack sees the cube beside him on the sofa and smiles, he gets up and the camera follows him out of the kitchen and to the office. 
3. He tries to show Emma the cube but she pushes him away briefly, trying to focus on the call, she types whilst speaking. 
4. Jack starts to freak out and Emma realises, sighing she hurriedly to calm him but is busy talking.
5. The voice on the phone asks 'Sorry is this a bad time' She has to switch between Jack & conference call but can't handle both.
6. Jack pushes the phone out of her hand and it falls down the small stairs. She gives up and focuses on him to calm him down. She takes the cube and tells him how impressive it is. 
7. She puts the planet earth DVD in the DVD player and the TV rises out of the cabinet. She sits him in-front of the TV and makes sure everything is working.
8. She goes to her desk and looks over photos, chooses photo of her in her youth with friends and work colleagues. Picks it up and goes out to the front of the house. Leaves the front door on latch.
9. She lights a cigarette and leans by the front door,  just holds the photo to her chest. 
10. As she goes back into the house she picks up the milk bottles from outside the house and closes the door. 

HH

Alternative Graphics

In the film Black Balloon graphics are used in the first few opening shots of the film for added affect, and to tie in with the credits. They seem to reflect the views and behaviour of an autistic child, seeing everything simply as it literally is. This is a common symptom of autism for example they often struggle to understand metaphors (e.g. its raining cats and dogs) as they tend to understand them literally.

These graphics are very subtle but add another dimension to the film and highlight the main topic of autism.

TB

Locations

These are photos of the house that are the areas that we would use in our film. The first photo is of the kitchen table where the boy would eat his breakfast, the stairs would be used in the opening sequence, and the sitting room for where the boy would have his meltdown.

The style of these spaces are very minimalist and open which will help when we are trying to set up simple, open and well composed shots in act 1. The more colourful sitting room will also work well for the boy to have his meltdown in, as we hope to use colour to help show the boys confusion and anxiety.

We aim to show through our film the life of a normal middle class family, who happen to have an autistic child. This is important as we don't want this family to be seen as a "special case", but rather that they are the same as any other family but they have the difficulties added on of having to look after an autistic child. I think that using this house and these rooms will help to give the feel of an average middle class family.

Overall I feel that these locations will work well because they will make it easier rather than harder to film, and they will help set the tone of the film.

TB

Emma, the Mother

HH

Narrative Ideas

ACT 1

1. Child on stairs bumping down like young children do when learning to walk, at each step his clothes change, showing that this is a daily routine.
2. He is sitting at the Kitchen table surrounded by 7 very neatly organised cereal boxes, meticulously he picks a certain amount of grains per box and places them in his bowl. He then pours the bowl until it reaches exactly half full. He stirs twice clockwise with his spoon and thrice anti-clockwise then licks the spoon to check its ok. Then he begins eating
3. All the time his parents have been moving around him doing their own morning activities. The scene is played at an increased speed but filmed in two motions, it will seem that the boy is eating at a normal speed but that the parents are moving far faster around him, appearing in and out of the shot wearing a dressing gown then a suit etc. To show how long it takes him to eat his cereal
4. Now the boy is standing staring at something out of shot of the camera, the camera rotates 180* to show a large lego sculpture that the boy walks towards and begins to add more pieces, slowly picking the pieces from a colour coded box and adding them precisely, not forcing them on but placing them definitively in their correct location. 

ACT2

1. It's now been established that the boy has some kind of OCD or mild form of autism from the meticulous acts we've seen in ACT1, in this first scene we see a young babysitter enter through the front door, roughly age 18/20, but noticeably younger than his parents. The child awkwardly greets the babysitter, and watches his parents leave. It's apparent that he has become tense from the babysitters presence and her overly friendly, patronising tone. 
2. He sits very still at the central isle of his kitchen, watching the babysitter made his lunch. She is a very messy cook, she leaves everything out on the sides and re-uses the pan for several different foods. Each time she creates more mess, he twitches slightly. 
3. Finally he can no longer handle it and gets up abruptly, moving away from the kitchen, to the living room where he sits crossed legged in-front of Planet Earth or some other wildlife show. 
4. Moments later the babysitter brings over a messy plate of food, the couscous is mixed in with everything and the plate is simply a pile of mush. She leaves the plate in-front of him and goes back to the kitchen to tidy up.
5. The child stares astonished, and then recoils slowly away from the plate, we can see the babysitter out of focus in the kitchen, moving around pans and occasionally taking a sip of juice or shoving bread in her mouth. 
6. The child slowly starts to whimper and cry, only quietly at first. He then starts squirming and screaming. Gradually this becomes more violent until every muscle in his body is tensed and he is almost paralytic in upset on the floor of the living room
7. The babysitter comes running over and is clearly distraught, she has know idea what to do or how to help. She calls his mother, whilst trying to comfort him and rubbing his back. 
8. He is slightly calmer now and the babysitter is hurriedly getting a glass of water for him to drink. She has used tap water in a dirty looking glass cup. 
9. As he sees her approaching with the glass his episode heightens and he begins to return to the fit he had previously been having.
10. His mother rushes in through the door and seeing the plate of food on the floor and glass gets the babysitter to move it and then holds her son. 
11. It takes a good five minutes for the child to finally calm down. At which point the mother puts back on the wildlife program crosses his legs for him. The mother goes over to the kitchen where the babysitter is sitting and clearly looks very upset. 
12. The mother tries to pay her and comfort her, but the babysitter refuses the money and hurries out, apologising profusely all the time. 
13. The boy is now relaxed again and in the final shot we see the opposite of the opening sequence, him climbing the stairs in a different set of clothes each step. 

HH

Focus Group

We gathered a focus group of 6 people to get their views on a short film I had already researched, and to ask a few questions on the plans for our short film.

The short film I showed was An Ordinary Day. Their response to the short was that it had quite a depressing storyline, and this is despite the fact that the short does try to have a happy ending. The group were taken aback by how sad the narrative was at the start, that they walked away from the film remembering this, not the happy ending at all. I deliberately chose this short film to compare their reactions to both happy and sad parts to see which parts they remembered best at the end of the film, and which parts they liked/disliked. They said that they liked the montage sequence at the beginning of the short and that the montage idea worked well for short films. We also discussed the soundtrack of the short and they said that though they thought it was a cheesy piano track it was the only type of music they think would have worked for the film, and the short was cheesy enough by itself so the soundtrack suited it well.

I also asked them about the plans we had in place for our short film. They said that at the end of the film they would prefer to feel uplifted than depressed due to the topic of the short as they wouldn't want to leave the film thinking badly about autism. However if they felt too uplifted and happy about it then it would be far too corny, they suggested the ideal would be a balance.

Overall having the focus group was extremely useful as it highlighted that the feeling that our audience is left with at the end of the film is more vital than I had realised.

tb