Final checks for the day

We wanted to check the weather forecast and tide forecast before we went to ensure that Friday the 22nd was suitable for filming:

Tide times:

Precipitation:

Temperature:

Wind:

Risk assessment

Below is a risk assessment that we created warning of the various threats surrounding filming in this particular area:

Schedule for the day of shooting

Schedule for the month

Character profile

Character Fact File

Name: Dylan

Age: 19

Gender: Male

Why we chose the name Dylan? 

We wanted the name to be as meaningful as all of the other cinematic elements. The film's title is 'The unknown' which ties in completely with the theme of Isolation. Everything is almost metaphoric as we tried to keep in with Barthe's theory of the symbolic code. The name Dylan means:

Dylan's story

Dylan was born into a very warm and happy family life. Growing up was easy for him as he succeeded in almost everything he tried. His mum and dad were always extremely supportive and he always had great friends around him. He had a girlfriend who loved him and a family dog. Everything was normal until he lived out what he thought was his dream and moved to London to go to university. Cut off from all of his friends and family, broken up with his girlfriend and broke with no social life, alone in his flat everyday. He felt the pressure of London life and the sheer isolation and decided to end it all in his depression because he had no other way out. Dylan is immediately regretful and longs for the simplicity his old daily life.

Casting Dylan

When casting, we had to realise we were very restricted with no budget. We had to think of our actor in advance and book him, weaving him into the story as though this was the perfect casting solution. We chose 17 year old Micheal Lynch as we just felt that he fit the part. As well as this, he has sufficient acting experience and is very enthusiastic. The perfect actor to play Dylan.

A list of possible shooting locations

We decided to try and scout out a number of possible locations in Northern Ireland. At this point we were dead set on filming on a beach and all that really mattered now was the actual aesthetic along with the accessibility and also the risks. Below are a shortlisted number of five beaches that we have decided to look further into Beaches:

1) West Strand beach:

West Strand Beach, also known as West Bay or Millstrand is a popular resort beach in the heart of this busy seaside resort. West Strand Beach is bounded at its northern end by the busy habour and flanked along its eastern boundary by a well used pedestrian/cycle promenade. Easy access to and from the town centre and all associated amenities/services. Very vast and in keeping with the theme of isolation and loneliness. (Co. Antrim)

                                             
2) Ballycastle Marina:

This is much different from what I was originally thinking off but the harshness of the rocks may actually work. (Co. Antrim)

                                   
3) Whiterocks beach, Portrush

The beach, situated just off the Causeway Coastal Route, enjoys a stunning natural coastal location, with the limestone cliffs of the White Rocks stretching from Curran Strand to Dunluce Castle. These soft, sedimentary rocks have been carved through centuries into a labyrinth of caves and arches. Shelagh’s Head, the Wishing Arch, Elephant Rock and the Lion’s Paw are headlands of distinguishable forms which rise out of the ocean. Under the road, there are cavernous caves, accessible only from the sea, home to seabirds and a hunting ground for hawks. The cliffs are extreme and would be very aesthetically pleasing.

                                        
4) Cranfield beach:

Cranfield West offers a gently sloping, mainly sandy beach located at the entrance to Carlingford Lough, an area designated as being of Special Scientific Interest. Set in an idyllic location at the mouth of Carlingford Lough in County Down, this south facing beach boasts the majestic Mourne Mountains as a backdrop. Probably too far for us and too busy for us to shoot in. Although visually nice, this is the weakest candidate.

5) Crawfordsburn Beach (Helen's Bay):

This is what my heart is really set on. As I was growing up, I was brought here and so it holds a very personal note for me. I know that the silhouetted trees along with the sun casting light leaks through the sky looks great along with the grey and vast beach. There are rocks that we can use for symbolism and it is extremely easy to access within 30 minutes by train.

Ideas for the final scene

Dylan, like the character in the video above, dies of a suicide drowning. We spent some time thinking of how to show this. Options are for Dylan to jump into the water from a height or to walk into the water and swim to the deeper ocean and then stop making effort to keep his body floating.

In terms of the actual drowning we wanted it to seem realistic. Many drowning scenes in movies show hands and arms flapping about and the character shouting for help. Through our research we realised that a person is not drowning if their head is above the water and has the ability to keep themselves up. Also, as it was his choice to drown and only a choice he regretted in death, having Dylan shouting for help wouldn't be in-keeping with the storyline.

We will show Dylan in the water as he sinks. This will be filmed on a Go-Pro in the water. The last shot will show Dylan's arms falling into the water and then the camera will pan around to reveal Dylan standing on the beach watching his death. To do this, we will need another actor in the sea to put their arms up as it is all one shot and our actor will already be on the beach.

Using flashbacks to tell a story/create a contrast

Our main task will include flashbacks. Flashbacks are often used in film and TV to give background information into a character's past. They help the audience to gain knowledge to make the scene more straightforward.

In our main task we plan to have a number of short flashbacks that will appear as the main protagonist refers to them. Dylan is remembering people in his life and his passion for sport as well as how he was due to become a university student. These flashbacks help to show how Dylan was previously living a happy life with which he was content. This creates a huge contrast between happiness/inclusivity and lack of emotion/isolation. The audience will, as a result, have a better understanding of just how much Dylan has lost and so will be more likely to empathise with him.

The flashbacks also create a sense of nostalgia as he thinks of his family, his friends and his girlfriend and admits to feeling lonely without them. The audience pity Dylan as they can see his struggle in losing them. He was never used to being alone and is at a loss without them.

Our aim is to show how Dylan's previous life was full of love and joy and contrast it with the loneliness that now consumes him.

We will create flashbacks by overlaying stock footage of light leaks and burned film over our taken footage. These colours create a contrast with the negative space and fray colourgraded background footage;

Recce: Production design

Reece Part 1: Costume Choices For Dylan (Our Protagonist)

Our group spent a lot of time looking at possibilities of clothing for Dylan. A lot of thought was put into the way that we should present Dylan onscreen. His clothes needed to reflect the type of person he was so as to give the audience information into who he was. We all agreed that he needed to be wearing clothes that were quite plain and nothing out of the ordinary so as to not cause his appearance to take away from the main point of the film.

 Our main choice for an outfit was: a grey hoodie, blue jeans and black trainers.

Then, after some discussion, we decided to come up with an alternative outfit to keep our options open. The alternative outfit we agreed on was: a black zip-up hoodie, a white T-shirt, black jeans and the same black trainers.

Hairstyle was another important discussion we had as a group regarding Dylan's appearance. We have decided that Dylan's hair will not be styled. Our reason for this choice is that as he is in purgatory he will not have access to hair products that would be typically used by guys of his age.

Dylan is not going to be wearing jewellery or have any type of make-up however he will discover a bracelet at one point in the film. Our reasons for this are that as he is in purgatory, he is alone and will therefore not care so much about his appearance.

The plain clothes will be typical of males of Dylan's age group. He will not be wearing anything over-the-top as he is in isolation. Also, as previously stated, we did not want Dylan's appearance to take away from the main point of the film which is to show Dylan's loneliness and desire for human connection and we believed that due to this it was best to keep costume simple.
Shoes --> Dylan will be wearing black trainers. The colour black is typically associated with death and helps to create the morbid tone to prepare the film for the plot twist.
Grey hoodie --> Grey can be seen as the colour between black and white. Dylan is stuck in purgatory between life on Earth and the afterlife, between heaven and hell.
Blue jeans --> Plain blue jeans are often worn by young males so the jeans would emphasise the normality that Dylan's previous life was.

Overall, our group is confident that our costume choices are very suitable fro the film and for Dylan as a character and hope that they will help to give some background into Dylan's personality and life.

Reece Part 2: Actor(s)

Originally, as our film only had one character, we only chose to gave one actor. Each member of the group sat down for a meeting about how to decide how to go about the casting. In order to narrow it down and make the process quicker we outlined some requirements for our actor:

We wanted our actor to have some experience with acting. We wanted to make sure they knew how to act and weren't completely new to it which would make the filming day easier when working with them.
They also needed to look somewhat similar to the image our director had in her head of how Dylan would look. This meant our actor needed to be a male in his late teens.
The sound in the film was to be recorded after filming in order to be used as a voiceover. We planned to record it though our school's music department's equipment. This meant therefore that our actor would have to be a pupil in the school as they would need to be present to record.
Our actor needed to be someone we knew well enough to know that they were reliable and someone that we could count on. They would need to be able to dedicate themselves to the project when we needed them.
They needed to be available on our filming day.
We then decided to have Dylan watch himself drown through a panning shot. Another actor was then introduced whose arm would be shown in the shot. This meant that we needed to find another boy in his late teens who was dedicated to the project as well.
More actors would also be needed on a separate occasion to be part of the flashbacks. Four actors would be needed for these; one for Dylan as a baby, one for Dylan as a young child and two for young teenage Dylan and his girlfriend.

After a lot of thought we decided that our friend Micheál Lynch should play the role of Dylan. Our other friend Jack McGarry agreed to play Dylan in the flashback.

Reece Part 3: Location Choice - Helen's Bay

Our group spent a lot of time discussing the location for our movie. We all agreed that we needed to film on a beach as our intention was to have Dylan looking at the sea an walking in the sand as he thinks about his life which hints at the plot twist of his intentional drowning.


In our film, Dylan is portrayed as being isolated. We needed to make sure that the location we chose would not be crowded and that there would not be that many people at the location. For this reason, we thought of Helen's Bay beach as we were shooting in the morning into early afternoon and we knew it would be quiet at that time.


Another reason for choosing Helen's Bay is that our location had to be accessed easily. Helen's Bay is not difficult to get to by train and therefore we would be able to get there for early morning and be ready to start filming at a reasonable time. We decided to each travel separately and were responsible for getting ourselves there and back. The location is also not that far from the train station meaning that it won't be that difficult to walk to it while carrying all of the equipment.

Reece Part 4: Props

Props are a crucial part to any film. They act as devices through which a story is told. Through characters using/finding them and through various camera shots capturing them in a scene, they help to give information into a particular character or the overall story.

As part of our preparation before filming, our group had to discuss what props we would need to use in our film. We had a meeting together to go over possible prop ideas. Each of us wrote down props that we thought could be interesting and/or useful to have in the film. We wanted to ensure that we had all the necessary props and that each prop helped to tell the story and was important. The result of this was that we decided that it was a good idea to have Dylan find random objects on the beach that remind him of his life. As I have explained previously, these objects will cause Dylan to relive memories of his life which will make him think about everything that happened to him and so cause him to tell his story.

The 6 definite props that will be used for this are; a jacket, a school book, a red rose, a bracelet, a picture frame and a notebook. Each object shall symbolise a part of Dylan’s life. The jacket could be a jacket that he wore often throughout his teenage years and so would be something that was physically close to him a lot of the time. The school book will help to represent his teenage years and the happy times he had with his friends before he left school and left the country. It will emphasise how Dylan had had friends previously and show how the sudden change to being lonely and isolated at university was very shocking to him.Together we decided that the red rose and the bracelet should be gifts given to his ex-girlfriend. This would help add to the story as it was the break up that was the start of the turning point in his life where everything started to go wrong and hence could be a reference to the beginning of Dylan’s end. The picture frame will also represent this time in his life as it will be a photo of him with his family emphasising how family life started to change negatively before he moved out. It will help to show that before they started fighting they were happy and content as a family. The notebook is also a crucial prop. I thought that the notebook could have been a sort of diary for Dylan. Dylan could have written his feelings in this notebook and so it could hold the stories of the good times of his life but also the more recent darker times and so would contain an explanation of the pain that Dylan went through towards the end of his life and why he felt the need to commit suicide. It could be seen as Dylan’s only “friend” for the last few months of his life but eventually his action of pouring his heart out to this notebook just wasn’t enough to keep him alive anymore. Our group all agreed on using these props as we thought they were essential for our film.

Additional props will be needed for the flashback sequence. As there will be numerous flashbacks, that will include more action, there will be more props required to help tell the stories in them. For the flashback to Dylan as a baby we agreed that it would make sense to have a baby’s blanket. The flashback to Dylan as a young child going to school will include a child’s schoolbag. The following flashback will need two more schoolbags for teenagers as it shows Dylan at 13/14 years old with his girlfriend. The final flashback before the flashback of Dylan’s death is of him alone in his room at university. The props that we are thinking of using for this flashback are; a stack of study notes, file paper and pens.

In terms of getting the props, it was very straightforward. Most of our props were very easy to find. Many of them were objects that we already owned or our actors already owned and so we could use them. The only prop that we had to get was a child’s schoolbag and we ordered this online. It came within a few days and so there was no problem using it on the day that we filmed the  flashbacks.

I have made a list below of the props that we be needed overall for the filming on the beach as well as the filming of the flashbacks:

List of Props
Props for beach                                              
Young men’s jacket
School book
Red rose
Girl’s bracelet
Picture frame with photo of a family in it
Average size notebook

Props for Flashbacks and Which Flashback They Will Be Used For
Baby’s blanket - Dylan as a baby
Young child’s schoolbag - Dylan as a young child going to school
Teenagers’ schoolbags - Dylan at 13/14 at school with his girlfriend
Stack of study notes - Dylan isolated at uni
File paper - Dylan isolated at uni

Shot list

Storyboard

Below is the animatic of our storyboard which I illustrated with pencil and watercolour then scanned onto animoto:

Target audience and audience expectation

-I gave this questionnaire out to 30 people in Belfast city, 15 women and 15 men, all of different ages in order to keep this a fair test. I also put out a poll on the internet so that I could get an idea of which nationality and specific social groups we would be targeting.

2) As we can see from the results, the general preferred independent sub-genre was split directly between horror and thriller. This was perfect as we wanted our film 'The Unknown' to be a hybrid of both these sub genres. The males mostly preferred this hybrid whilst the females of ages 30+ tended to sway more towards romances, telling us they liked movies such as 'Like Crazy'. Below is the chart for the Q2:

3) Most people said that the storyline draws them into the independent film more than anything else. I think this is because independent films don't get the same advertising scope as mainstream films. This is good because it means we aren't making our film for a larger audience and instead a more niche audience and therefore, we have more creative flexibility. The storyline behind independent films generally tackle very touchy issues in very interesting and recourseful ways. Below is the chart in answer to Q3:

4) Most people agreed that the most important element of an independent film was split between the sound and the setting. People felt that these aspects of the production design had to be good in order to give the film a realistic feel. However, lighting also scored highly among both genders with females also taking a high interest in costume:

5) Finally when we asked people what they wanted to get out of our film, they said they wanted to be made more curious. This fell in line with our expectations of what people wanted from independent films, as we knew from previous studies that independent films were extremely 'outside of the box-ish'. Below are the results:

Target audience

Below is an emaze of our target audience:

Script: Original, Redrafts, Final

Below is a Prezi I created about the process of writing our script:

Distribution

Below is an maze about the distribution of 'The Unknown' :