RESEARCH: BIFA

CLICK HERE FOR BIFA

I have recently been looking at the BIFA, I especially wanted to see how well the film American Honey was doing as it had been nominated. When I went to the BFI study day, The film was mentioned and talked about as a British independent film. Rob Miller, who presented An Introduction To The Film Industry on the 2nd of November 2016, cited American Honey as an example of UK independent films. At 2.7m budget which is relatively cheap, it had posting unpopular characters apart from 1 slightly more famous character. It also has mainly just young people, according to it's website the film shows how young people these days are defined.


At the BFI study day I learnt that American Honey counted as a British film be a use of its British director and the cast and key organisations involved.
Andrea Arnold the producer of American Honey is also well known for producing Fish Tank at the cost off 1.3m (this is cheap compared to Star Wars).

American Honey's key themes involve youth and their life style which are themes and issues not usually covered by main stream cinemas. Likewise there were no expensive sets as it was shot outside on location rather than in a studio. A part of the way it created the sense of social realism is by the style of filming such as the hand held cinema technique depicting free youth.

In my film I also have a low production value, shooting on location and using unknowns. Also I have similar themes such as youth, realism and love.

PLANNING: SHOTLIST

In our group we made a shot list to plan out what we were filming and how we were going to edit the clips. 

PLANNING: INTERVIEW WIITH EMILY

Following on from what we learnt from the article 'Getting to know our characters' I did the interview with Emily, who is the youngest daughter, we decided to do it via whatsapp messages. The messages show her having a conversation with one of her close friends. The friend is trying to help her and get through to her, however Emily is quite resistant and in denial.

PLANNING: INTERVIEWING CHARACTERS

OPEN SOURCE HERE

I read through this article by Charlie Sierra, he talks about how we can get to know our characters. We are going to do some character interviews to get to know our characters a bit better, learning about their point of view and their personality. He writes about how we should think of it like a questionnaire which the characters need to fill out. For our film we are going to interview the mother and the two siblings which are all our characters so we will be able to see three different view point as they all have different ideas about what is actually going on.


Our Interview- younger sibling
exchange in whats apps messages between Emily and a friend.
'are you alright'
'yeah'
'how's your mum?'
'She is fine, why wouldn't she be'
'well you sister's gone emily, she's not coming back. You need to accept death sooner or later. always here to talk'
'I don't need to talk, I'm with my sister'
'What?'
'I'm sitting next to my sister'
'you have to let it go someday'

Mother (Mrs Hodgson)
Home on the sofa with a journalist interviewing her.
'nice to meet you Mrs Hodgson, we would just like to ask you a few questions concerning your eldest daughter, Cara.' The journalist
Mother agrees by nodding her head calmly
'thank you, I understanding this may be hard but I want to get a deeper understanding on what happened to Cara'
The mother continues to have a blank face.
'Is it true you had an argument with Cara the night she went out'
'I don't see why this concerns you, it's none of your business'
'I understand Mrs Hodgson'
'would you describe your self as a liberal mother?'
'I would say I was fair and I was always very generous towards Cara'
'I heard some rumours that Cara witnessed a crime that night'
'yes she did witness a crime but its got nothing to do with it' 'I believe that Cara is gone and she's not coming back'

PLANNING: TOP LINE AND BIG QUESTION

Frank Ash is a creative consultant for BBC films, he teaches creative techniques with filming film crews across and beyond the BBC.  I found out that the main factor of identification is through the 'top line' and 'big question'.

TOP LINE DEFINITION:  A young girl can't cope with the death of her older sister. The audience don't realize the older child is dead until near the end of the film opening as it is through the eyes of the younger sister. Once the audience find out that the older sister is actually dead, the younger child also comes to terms with it. However, as she leaves the room that she was imagining being in with her sister her phone rings and the audience gets a big shock.

BIG QUESTION: Will the younger sibling ever find out the truth about their sibling? Is the eldest sibling dead or alive?

TREATMENT

Treatment 

There is a tragic death in a family where involving one of two siblings who are very close with each other which the younger sibling cannot come to terms with. Throughout the film opening we see the younger sibling still acting as if the older sibling where still there, playing and talking to her etc. There will be flash backs to when they used to spend time together and the memories they had. As the younger sibling is still coming to terms with the death and not really understanding it she continues to call her older sister on her phone but it continuously going to voice mail. After the filming of all the scenes with the siblings together, we re-visit these scenes but instead the younger sister is by herself.

siblings together

audience thinks everything is okay

(continuously calls her sister on phone but it always goes voice mail) 

mum comes into room

audience sees older sibling is actually dead/not there all along

flash backs to all the scenes the audience saw but without the older sibling in it

younger sister leaves room

phone rings 

TWITTER

I have made a Twitter account so I can follow media relevant people and Twitter pages which can widen my understanding of film and media. So far I have followed many different pages such as the big 6, media bloggers and other interesting people who can post helpful posts that will influence me in different ways.
I read an article from the Guardian newspaper by Alan Rusbridger: Why Twitter matters for media organisations.

Alan Rusbridger says:It's a highly effective way of spreading ideas, information and content. Don't be distracted by the 140-character limit. A lot of the best tweets are links. It's instantaneous. Its reach can be immensely far and wide.