264MC-Reflection

My role in this film was to be the Producer alongside Chloë, which is one of the biggest roles in the film industry. ‘A producers job demands hard work over intense periods of time (Kellison, Morrow and Morrow, 2013). ‘The producer is generally in charge of the project’ (Kellison, Morrow and Morrow, 2013) so it meant that we had to be involved in every aspect of the project and to oversee, organise, plan and make big decisions.

Producers ‘organise shooting schedules – dependent on the type of producer role and availability of support staff’ (“Television/Film/Video Producer Job Profile | Prospects.Ac.Uk”). The first thing that I started off doing was the Scheduling and find out the availabilities of everyone. What I did was create a table with everyone’s name with the dates on it. The idea was that everyone put down what days of the week people were working or had anything else going on. Neel was the busiest during the week as he worked 4 times during the week whereas Chloe, Reginald and Maria worked weekend. The idea was to try and see what days everyone would be free so we could scout locations and film on those day, which was Tuesday and Wednesday. Furthermore, I created a calendar to see if anyone was going to be busy in the months of March and February. From 24^th till 26^th February our cinematographer Misal went Rotterdam. This meant that we moved the shooting day to 28^th February till 2^nd March as that was the day all the actors and crew were free. Scheduling was vital since it made us more organised, it allowed us to set ourselves deadlines with things and gave us a clearer perspective of the time we had to work around certain things.

One of the challenges that we faced was finding the actors that we needed for the film which included two middle aged actors, which we thought was going to be difficult as they would have likely demanded money which we couldn’t afford. When advertising the casting call we made it clear that it was a student film and that we didn’t have a big budget but we were going to pay for their travel. We wanted to simplify the film as well and the original script had 3 other extras. We asked the scriptwriter to minimise the characters so that the film would cost less and it would save us more space in the car. After posting the casting call on ‘Actors UK’ we got over 10 responses. We asked the actors to come to our audition on 3/2/2017 which only one actor showed up to which was then followed by 2 self-tapes. We felt that it wasn’t enough and created a new casting call and organised another audition on 10/2/2017. We had 2 people turn up to this audition and got two more self tapes. This gave us the option 7 actors for 3 characters. However, we only had 2 options for the character Sean and we weren’t too keen to have either of them. We then went out of our way to find another Actor for him who we were very pleased with. The reason we found problems with the auditioning process was that I feel the actors who are coming from far places don’t feel comfortable turning up for an audition for a film their not getting paid for. Our mistake was that we had high expectation from the number of replies that we received. Next time when we cant pay actors we should probably ask for self tapes as it’s more convenient for the actors.

Producers must know the specific target audience for each of their pictures (Lee, 2016) which should be considered during the pre-production. For example, during the pre production it was relevant when raising money as we created a crowd funding campaign and shared it on many LGBT groups and blogs. Me and Chloe identified this target audience because the story was about two homosexuals, henceforth it would relate to LGBT groups more and they would be more inclined to donate.

‘The budgeting process has a number of important internal and external purposes. It sets the framework for all the decisions regarding the film’ (“An Overview Of The Film Budget | Filmmakeriq.Com”).Therefore, as producers, me and Chloe had to be at the centre of this and plan find a way to obtain the necessary money in a short period of time.My initial proposal was to get every one in the group to donate £20 each so that we could have a £200 budget. However I later discovered that it wouldn’t be enough for our film. Having seen the success another group was having with indiegogo we decided that we would use that site to raise money for our film. We ended up raising $220 with deductions and inflation bringing it down £140. As this still wasn’t enough for our budget we then had everyone donate an additional £46 for the airbnb. This meant that we had a total budget of £800. This was split between petrol, food, travel, airbnb and props.

As the producer ‘arranges the financing and manages the production team’ (“The Roles Of The Film Production Team”) Chloe and me were also in charge of finding a composer. With the music we initially wanted to have music similar in the ilk of Quentin Tarantino movies e.g. The Doors – L.A. WomanOne, “Breakfast in America” and The Lively Ones – “Surf Rider” as inspirations for the sound we were aiming for. In this project we had a slight conundrum since finding a composer was caused a few complication. We spoke to two composers who seemed eager to work with us. However, they later told us that they’re part of a different group now. As we all individually took down details I contacted one as soon as we received the news. We had a composer who agreed to work with us. However, we were due to have a meeting with her and she didn’t turn up and told us she cant work with us because her lecturer has put her with a different group. This meant that had to quickly find another composer quickly which Reginald eventually did.

Overall, this has been a very enjoyable project to work in. The production went very well since everyone in the group had a perfect attitude and work ethic. One important aspect that I learnt in the production phase was that a group works best when ever

Bibliography

Kellison, Cathrine, Dustin Morrow, and Kacey Morrow. Producing For TV And New Media. 1st ed. Hoboken: Taylor and Francis, 2013. Print.

Lee, John J. Producer’s Business Handbook. 1st ed. [Place of publication not identified]: Focal, 2015. Print.

“An Overview Of The Film Budget | Filmmakeriq.Com”. Filmmakeriq.com. N.p., 2017. Web. 27 Mar. 2017.

“The Roles Of The Film Production Team”. Centerdigitaled.com. N.p., 2017. Web. 27 Mar. 2017.M

“Television/Film/Video Producer Job Profile | Prospects.Ac.Uk”. Prospects.ac.uk. N.p., 2017. Web. 27 Mar. 2017.

264MC-Lights Out

Films take the audience to a different world and it’s easy for us to forget the arduous tasks and time it takes to make them. ‘Lights Out’ however is a unique example of a hugely successful short film, which took little time and money to make. Lights Out Short is a 3-minute short Horror Movie Produced by David F. Sandberg and Lotta Losten which is about a women who is about to go to sleep turns the light off. When it’s off she sees the silhouette of women in the dark and when she switches it back on is gone. She keeps turning it on and off and it suddenly appears in front of her. The silhouette woman continues to haunt her as the lady is in the bed and the film ends with haunter appearing as a monster and switches the light off.

There are three Stages To Every Project – Pre-Production, Production and Post-Production(Camp). The pre-production is where the creators of the film start thinking about how they’re going to make the film after creating the concept and story. This process involves mostly the script writer who creates the story. In Lights Out the person who created the idea was the producer and director David F. Sandberg. I feel that he did a great job in coming up with this concept as it’s creative and very effective yet very simple. Moreover, the film did a good job ‘exploiting our fear of the dark’ (Chang). This consequently, created a strong visceral impact on the audience.

Sandberg revealed that he only used ‘Blackmagic cinema camera with Tokina 11-16 lens. Zoom H4n with Rode Ntg1 mic. A paper lantern from Ikea. A 375w photo bulb. A Chinese knockoff redhead light from eBay. A Manfrotto tripod. A home made dolly with PVC pipe, a piece of shelving from Ikea and skate wheels’ (“What Makes A Movie Scary?- Now You See It • R/Horror”) .

One of the most fundamental aspects of filmmaking is having a budget to make the film come to life. In order to create this the producers will need to raise money. After raising the money they have to work with the director and production designer to consider what needs to paid for and what needs to be bought or rented for the film, which is followed by a budget list. The producers have to pay expenses such as props transport, food etc. In the case of ‘Lights Out’ it’s considered a ‘no budget film’ as David F. Sandberg revealed that “It cost zero dollars” to make

(“‘Lights Out’: The Horror Short That Could”) . Furthermore, ‘the couple amused themselves by making short horror movies at home’(“‘Lights Out’: A Scary Swedish Short Spawns A Summer Hit”) so filming in one location made the filming process easier.

Sandberg came from an animation background(“‘Lights Out’: The Horror Short That Could”) which he put into use. For example the shot where we see the monster, Sandberg used his wife’s face but digitally altered it to make it look like a monster(“Lights Out (Making Of) [HD]”). Here he could have done this using make up however it would have cost more money to buy the tools to create a realistic face to scare the audience. Furthermore, he already had a skill which he put to use to create a realistic and scary face for the monster.

In addition to that, finding actors is another vital process. In the case of lights out, the only actress was one of the producers of the film Lotta Losten. This eliminated what could be considered a daunting process of finding and auditioning an actor as it can cost a lot of money. In this case of this film the acting was free and producers should try and cut the cost of the film if necessary.

The emergence of digital media outlets such as YouTube, Vimeo has opened up a lot of opportunities for independent filmmakers now and ‘Lights out’ is a perfect example of this. They entered Lights Out in a contest sponsored by the horror site Bloody Disgusting. It did not win. A couple of months after the contest, it suddenly blew up online (“‘Lights Out’: A Scary Swedish Short Spawns A Summer Hit”). Film festivals are a great way for filmmakers to showcase their work and it does give the film more publicity. However, in the case of Light Out most of the success came from the views they got from online. Sandberg said ‘Before, the film had maybe a 1,000 views, and then suddenly we were sitting in front of the computer refreshing the page to see the moment when it got to over a million’, this was then followed by emails from people in Hollywood—agents, managers, producers, and studios (“‘Lights Out’: The Horror Short That Could”). In addition to that, the film saw even more success since it got adapted into a feature film with a budget of $5million

I believe that this film is great in it’s simplicity with 1 location, actor. Also, the timing of the film was perfect, it didn’t over stay it’s welcome and got straight to the point, which in effect gave the audience an experience to remember. I feel that an important element of horrors is to maintain suspense and it could easily fade away over time, therefore timing is key in horror. The rise of Sandberg is also inspiring and proves just how easy it is to gain recognition and make it in Hollywood. The concept was very creative, but the online platform gave him the views and was essentially what brought the success. For filmmakers including myself digital media although competitive should give us optimism because now more then ever the opportunities are endless.

Bibliography

“What Makes A Movie Scary?- Now You See It • R/Horror”. reddit. N.p., 2017. Web. 27 Mar. 2017.

“‘Lights Out’: A Scary Swedish Short Spawns A Summer Hit”. NPR.org. N.p., 2017. Web. 27 Mar. 2017.

“Lights Out (Making Of) [HD]”. YouTube. N.p., 2017. Web. 27 Mar. 2017.

Your Bibliography: “‘Lights Out’: The Horror Short That Could”. Creators. N.p., 2017. Web. 27 Mar. 2017.

Chang, Justin. “The Fresh Horror Film ‘Lights Out’ Feeds On Audience’s Fear Of The Dark”. latimes.com. N.p., 2017. Web. 27 Mar. 2017.

Camp, Nigel. “Pre-Production, Production And Post-Production Stages”. The Video Effect. N.p., 2017. Web. 28 Mar. 2017.