Casting and Title Name

Casting Roles:
Protagonist: Artistic Character, teenage student. Defined facial features. Almost insensitive to the environment and others - only a slight undertone.
Helper: Young teenage student, tracksuit etc - not common or lower class character but not of same role to protagonist, jogger etc.
Mother: Motherly Figure.
Child: Young child, boy or female - frustrating and irritating kid etc.
Man on Mobile: Smart Person, businessman or student.
Shopkeeper: Typical shopkeeper, of indian race perhaps as it a stereotype which would be easy to portray to the audience his role.
Extras: Normal People.

Title:
Water - Source of death, everywhere - Required to live.
Ghost - misty, unclear - murky, fear, scary, unknown, other side, limbo, half way - cloudy
Life - Vibrant, warm, movement - tingle. Interactions - people social, talking.

Possible Titles:
Murky Water
Cloudy Sky
Damp Clothes
(dont want to reveal ghost "flashback")

Chosen "The Grim, Grey Sky" some scenes of cloudy sky to be included when relevant in showing characters confusion (reflection in lake/graphic match to first scene/shot) - grey = grim limbo/lifeless
Grey = dull - dead.

Storyboard

The storyboard process is essential as it allows me to plan out every shot, this avoids the problem of being unsure when filming it also lets me plan ahead so that when i address the filming shot list i can organize the process e.g. shooting different scenes in the same location whilst avoiding confusion.
My storyboard:

Art House and Target Audience

Art house is the definition of a genre of film which has an intellectual audience base with a niche audience. An art house film can contain a variety of elements from other genres, furthermore the narrative of the film focuses around the directors thought train which allows the film to explore different film techniques and creativity.
Often an art house film will usually focus on the thoughts and dreams of characters rather than portraying a traditional goal-driven plot, which will often try to relate to some aspect of human nature to continue to engage the audience.

My target audience is anyone that will appreciate an art house film as I intend to create a short film which revolves around a characters revelation of limbo/death.

Editing Style

Art House Style edit:
I would like to incorporate a fast paced editing style at some points throughout my short film. I got the idea for this watching shaun of the dead, where the protagonists quickly assemble themselves to prepare to fight zombies.
The effect is an art house stylised, quick montage which links shots with some psychological meaning and if done well can be visually appealing whilst conveying continuity and/or meaning quickly.

Short Film Idea

Plot: Following a young male that slips and drowns in a lake whilst taking shots for his art/school etc. I feel this section of the plot is the least dimensional in regards to depth, the "slipping into the water and drowning" is pretty loose and may need some improvement so the audience doesn't become emotionally disconnected to the onscreen action.

Throughout the short film I will use a montage of shots back and forth to the 'real life' and 'limbo' in which the character carries on with his normal routines. Perhaps to execute this successfully a distinct editing effect such as a slow misty fade will help the transition. That said I don't want it to be too obvious or dragged out so I will have to experiment and conduct some research to get the effect I desire.

The protagonist (art student) feels real things and can interact with environment, shots designed to not show that the protagonist is dead. A hypothetical situation occurs as "real and happening' but turns surreal. Mum sees the dead child but ignores the "ghost" protagonist. At the end of the short film, after credits there is a short montage of where the ghost has been. Hopefully this acts as a sort of tie up which may hint for audiences to re watch the film.

I developed my idea by brainstorming on paper, I played around with some ideals and plots then when i had my basic idea outlined, i took it into a scene construction. The whole process has helped me to form my idea and gradually build it up. Furthermore my storyboard was influenced by ideas I picked up whilst not actively thinking about it and they just came to me.

However I worry that perhaps I have made it too complicated or difficult for myself to create a succinct and easy to digest short film. To challenge this thought I applied Todorov's narrative theory to my story-line to see whether I comply with these conventions or go against them.

Source: I found a well summarized blog post on Todorov's Narrative Theory and I have decided to follow this similar approach of review: http://merrynbrodiea2.wordpress.com/2010/02/05/todorovs-narrative-theory/

• Stage 1 – Equilibrium   

- This is the on going situation before anything actually happens

• Stage 2a – Disruption

- This is the event that starts the story going and must be resolved

• Stage 2b – Recognition of Disruption

- This is where the characters realise that there is a problem and try to deal with it (often making the situation more complicated)

• Stage 2c – Attempt to repair disruption

-  This is where the damage of the disruption is realised and measures are taken to deal with it

• Stage 3 – Resolution

- This is where the story is concluded by returning to a new kind of equilibrium (different to where the story began)

Stage 1, 2b) My story quite literally plunges rapidly into the "disruption" stage. This goes against the narrative theory as I have bypassed the equilibrium stage. I didn't think to include anything before this, I may look into creating a short scene (30 seconds) of establishing the protagonists role in a peaceful way. e.g. taking pictures of flowers etc. 

Stage 2b, 2c) The story-line cuts back and forth in time/limbo between the protagonist drowning and the ghost going on about his life as if nothing has changed. It is definitely hard to define the line in-between the two but this is my desired affect of ambiguity. Attempts to repair the disruption are undertaken in a slightly abstract way and perhaps subvert typical conventions of narrative in this sense. 

Stage 3) Essentially, the story doesn't wrap things up, however it does end with the protagonist relatively content but his mother distraught. This decision was made to not leave the viewers with any guilt and furthermore the character is fairly disengaged with viewers throughout which enables the story to end fairly sadly without causing distress. In regards to the narrative theory a new sense of equilibrium is created which coincides with Todorov's theory of narrative.

Conducting this analysis is beneficial for me as it helps me to outline what I want to do with my film whilst allowing me to potentially change the order of things that might not work well for the sake of making it easy to watch from the audience's perspective. 

 The brainstorming and scene construction:

Music/Editing: Subvert typical death conventions. Perhaps use happy sounds in worst possible places. (mother seeing dead/missing son.)
I did a character development sheet which helped me to structure the idea and plot however I since have moved away from the sheet:

Mood Setting

Old disc player, sets odd, unnerving tone if mixed with dark scenes.

First 18 seconds is interesting film "style" but it seems this video achieved this by accident.

Take those first few seconds and take that into rest of film. Film style is a possibility (handheld camera style)

Video:

Rico Cluster

Essentially a Rico cluster is a stem of thoughts designed to use both sides of our brain together to make a more effective creation and linking of ideas process.
We use the right side of our brain to create new ideas and thoughts and then the left side sorts and analyses the clusters to put them into order and outline a text or plot.
My Rico cluster regarding some idea stems I had:

Effective use of lighting

Lighting is a key element directly required for good film making, as it is essential in providing the best detail for the camera's. Lighting can also be used to provide mood to the piece, casting shadows over the actors face can be efficient in providing to characters persona's or mood. Shadows are also a great way to bring out the three dimensions in a set, in contrast bad lighting direction can lead to very flat and boring scenes.

Furthermore considering the light levels when filming is important as I discovered during AS media, in which we planned to shoot a night scene and we ended up having roughly 10 minutes of good light at 5pm, with footage afterwards becoming very grainy and almost unusable.

When directing lighting it requires some thought and consideration to provide verisimilitude for the audience, such as using soft key low angle lighting to create the feeling that the sun is setting. Perhaps framing a light source to provide a shadow on a wasll as if the light was entering from a window are some things that if approached correctly can give a scene a better sense of realism and cinematic effect.

Dark/Night time scenes.
Scenes that may need to be shot in the dark can be shot midday as this provides good lighting and is required to pick up the details and definitions on camera. The scene can then be edited post-production to reduce the lighting levels which provides a night time tone to the sequence.

Audience Research Results

These are my results from my questionnaire.
I decided to use both qualitative and quantitative methods for my audience research as I feel they both have benefits.
One criticism of my research is that it is generally limited to my peer group age range which may limit the variety of my feedback.
The major theme I feel that I've gathered from my research is that Art House is a good genre to class my short film as it seems to be a versatile and unique genre.