Finalising res 1

Updated moodboard 

The Questionnaire

To further develop our film we first decided to make a list of all the things we do to be cautious. We talked a lot about it with friends and came up with a lot of ideas but we made a list of ten.

Checklist or rituals we go through in our head:

1. Sending location to friends

2. Holding keys in our hand in a way in case someone attracts

3. Avoid eye contact

4. Keep distance from car/ who’s in the car

5. Cross street to avoid people

6. Take out one earbud when listening to music

7. Be aware of who is around, women feel more safe

8. Keep quiet when walking behind guy/ no attention to self

9. Tuck hair away

10. Be on phone with someone/act like you are

Some other things I definitely do is dressing more masculine and checking shadows/ reflection to see if anyone is following. It has been really interesting talking about this topic with other women, they have all had stories to share. Many of them have also exclaimed “oh I do that too!” when talking about the things we do to make us feel safer. It´s kind of sad but I hope that our film will be able relatable in that way. I hope also it will show to others how we feel.

To decide what to include for our character and things she should have on her checklist, we made a questionnaire for women to fill out, so that they could tell us the thing they do. We got some really interesting answers and it definitely proved that these thoughts are very common for women to have. I think the most common answers to what « rituals » they have or what precautions they take were: taking a taxi/ Uber (which we can’t really do for our film), calling a friend, sending location, dressing in a way that doesn’t bring attention to you (or masculine), staying in well lit areas, and having something at hand to use as a weapon, whether that be keys, pepper spray, water bottle or a heavy bag. This research we did was really informative and definitely helped us define our storyline. 

We also just wanted to make sure that nobody feel pressured or uncomfortable answering any of the questions, so we added something to the description. We also made all the questions possible to leave empty.

We did talk about doing an ethics section for our production pack, but we decided that as our film wont be so graphic or shocking that it wouldn’t really be necessary. We´re still considering if we need to add a trigger warning and/or helplines at the end and beginning of our film.

- Questions for interview

- How safe do you feel when walking home at night?

- Do you avoid going out at night? And if so why?

- List examples of a way you get home that feels safe to you ?

- Do you feel paranoid?

- What are some ways to make yourself feel safe alone at night ? List precautions you take ?

- How does it make you feel when you see a man alone at night ?

- How do u feel seeing a woman at night?

- How’s does all this make you feel ?

- How do you feel with about all the headlines in the news recently?

- What do you think of the fact that we as women have to have these precautions

We posted the link to our questionnaire to our instagram stories twice and then to the Facebook freshers group too. In the end we got 45 answers which we were happy with.

We added the answers we got to our drive for our teachers to see.

Futher research

Walk of shame

Dir. Maisie Buck

A powerful poetic spoken word, about how women are objectified and victimised by men. The film is powerful and relatable to most women. This was recommended to us by Anne, is very relevant to our research.

Hunting grounds

Dir. Kirby Dick, 2015

This documentary was recommended to us by Chloe, so we rented it out for one evening.

The hunting ground is an American documentary about sexual assult on collage campuses, and about how commonly it goes either unreported or simply not dealt with adequately.It was informative but also quiet depressing and shocking.

Relating to us as we are also students, our actor will be a student too.

Barbeque

https://www.jennyjokela.com/Film-BARBEQUE

This animation was also recommended to us by Chloe. It deals with trauma, and the relationship women have to their own bodies. I thought it was quite raw, creepy even, but beautifully made. It’s a very different way to look at our topic, which is similar.  

The winter market

Laura and I decided to take part in the winter marker to hopefully raise some money for our film. We made Christmassy cookies that we were icing until one am. I thought they turned out really cute and we ended up selling all of them, even some of the broken ones. Then we also made vegan banana bread and brownies and non vegan brownies. On top of this I tried to get rid of some of my spider plant babies with small pots, but we only sold one of those. I’m hoping to let them grow more, and once they have roots I can plant them in soil, which will look better for anyone interested. I will try and sell them on Facebook. 

Unfortunately the whole day it was raining so maybe less people came then would’ve normally. Laura and I were getting exhausted by the end of it.

We unfortunately ended up spending quiet a lot on the ingredients, bowls, plant pots, Tupperware and cookie cutters (I think it was around 60 pounds, although some of it we can still use) and in the end we sold enough to make around 30 pounds profit which isn’t much, but is a beginning. We won’t need a huge budget for our film anyway so it should be fine. 

Mainly our budget will be for food for our cast and crew, the outfit of the actress all of which won´t be much. However, the most amount of money we will need is if we submit our film into festivals.

 

 

Test shots and locations

Laura and I have done some test shots on a couple of occasions. We’ve decided on two locations, Laura’s street, and Borellis walk which is like a really small, dark park. It has an underpass that I find creepy and always feel uncomfortable walking though (which is why I avoid it and take a longer way when walking alone in the dark, even if I’m on my bike) 

Photos and videos from Laura’s street:

Photos from borellis walk:

 

We still need to find a third location for when our protagonist arrives home. We thought about my place but were not sure yet. We´re also considering the small park/ pathway at uni as it would be easy for location permissions, but I don´t want to be able to see all the sculptures around there. We took a test video when it was dark:

Timeline and storyboards

The first timeline we made to clear up our ideas. We´ve changed it a bit now and we also realised we forgot to add "send location" which is an important one. I think it´s still useful though, to see the sort of structure we want our film to have.

We´ve defined our story more though since then and Laura is now working hard on the shot list and I´ve started drawing the storyboard from it. I won´t have time to finish it before the deadline though, but at least we will have the beginning.

Futher art development

Laura and I were thinking about the outfit our protagonist should have, and we both thought she should have some interesting costume. However, we couldn´t really decide what exactly, but we managed to bring it down to either a rabbit or an angel. I made these two costume and make up mood boards, and I personally love the angel one, I think the bunny one is a bit boring. We agreed eventually that the angel look is the one we should go with. I´m really excited for it as I think we can make something really interesting out of it. 

 

. I also made a quick mood board for the other people in the film, namely the man who protagonist is highly suspicious of, until he meets with his girlfriend. 

Imagining the make up look

Lighting/ colour studies I made + notes: 

  

C300, Documentary mode + prime lenses

We should film test shoots in January

Fill on actress, small light on camera

Natural looking backlight, headlights, car driving past (we need at least one of our extras to have a car to drive past when we want), battery powered lights for outside

Producing

We finished off our learning agreements and then met up to finish the risk assessments together. We also have the location permission ready to send off.