Unit 4

 


Christmas Project



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Task 1
Christmas Characteristics 


Here are some things that are characteristics of Christmas 

  • Warm lighting tones

  • Christmas Tree

  • Warm lighting tones

  • Ugly Christmas jumper

  • Snow Santa

  • Family Songs.

  • Food Alcohol

Emotional Responses

An emotional response is when something makes you feel an emotion. For example watching a lonely grandparent sit by themselves could trigger a sad emotional response.
We got into our production teams and discussed what could provoke an emotional response. 
Some of the things we said was if we saw redemption happening it could provoke the feeling of joy or relief. 


There are three categories of Christmas films that we are looking at and then we will be giving one categories as a team to work on for our project.
The categories are Classic, Hallmark and Questionable.

I was put into a group with Robert and Alfie. We made a "How to Produce" guide on Classic Movies. We had to make a booklet on how to produce a classic Christmas movie. Which included things like Mise En Scene, the plot of most classic movies etc.

Guide on making Classic Christmas Movies


Classics 
 
Classic Christmas movies are normally family movies. 
Examples 
Classic Christmas movies are always enjoyable. There always happy Christmas movies that you can watch at any age.  Classic Christmas Films are always replayed at Christmas time because their nostalgic to each generation. A Christmas movie that was played in the 80s could play every Christmas which means generations of kids would have watched and repeated the movie. I think audiences like to watch this genre of Christmas Movies because it's comforting. This is very different to Questionable Christmas Films. In the Questionable Genre there not as nostalgic and comforting as Classic Christmas Movies. Some are just action movies that just mention Christmas.

Questionable 

This is the category that isn't really Christmassy. Maybe they mention Christmas or it's set at Christmas time. It just doesn't follow the normal storyboard of a Classic Christmas movie 
Examples like


I think this movies should be in the questionable category because if you take away the Christmas decorations and clothing, your left with a bunch of guys who are just having a wild night. That fact that its Christmas isn't essential to the storyline. One of the guys is having a child at Christmas time but the reason they are having a wild night out is because of the child not Christmas.


I also think this movie is Questionable because the movie has nothing to do with Christmas, it just has Christmas elements in it at some point in the film. In the trailer you can see it's just a teen movie about high school, nothing about Christmas.  

In my opinion people who go to watch these films aren't the same people who want the feeling after watching a movie like Elf. One big difference between Questionable Christmas Films and Classic is the viewer age. You wouldn't take kids to go watch Die Hard at Christmas, you would take them to see a nice cute Christmas film like The Snowman. 

Hallmark 

Hallmark movies are the ones that are over the top cheesy Christmas movies. Love is always in the air type movies.
Examples like 

The audience enjoy this type of film because its all very romantic. It combines different genres that are very popular, Romance and Christmas. Putting the two together brings in a bigger audience.


Mean Girls vs The Grinch who stole Christmas

I know I talked about the movie in the other parts but these are the only Christmas films I really know and like. Mean Girls is under the category Is It Really A Christmas Film and The Grinch who stole Christmas is under the Classics.

Plot 

Mean Girl's Plot is about teenage girls who are always putting each other down and their is always rumours about each other. It's a teen movie. The Grinch who stole Christmas is about a town who loves to celebrate Christmas and the character Grinch hating in. Then a little girl get him to like Christmas and everything works out in the end whereas in the movie Mean Girls, Regina George gets hit by a bus. It sort of has a good ending where they all find themselves but it still ends with a new mean girl group.

Set

Mean Girl is set mainly at their High School but they do shoot in other locations like their houses, the mall. Since Mean Girl's was based all around the seasons it wasn't very Christmas like until it came to the December month. If you look closely in the background, you can see gingerbread men hung up and blown up reindeer to let you know it's Christmas time. Mean Girls Set. Now for TGWSC, you don't have to look closely for set because it is Christmas to the max in Whoville. In this clip you can see how decorated everything is. Light's everywhere, baubles and tinsel. Anything they could get they used. TGWSC Set
 The set is completely different in both movies and the classic movie is the one where it is all nicely designed. The reason they have done that is for the audience but I'll get into that in the Target Audience section.

Clothing

Mean Girls Jingle Bell Rock. In this clip you can see that they are wearing female version of a Santa Claus. This is the only time they wear Christmas clothing. They wear typical high school girl outfits.
The Grinch Costumes. In this clip you can see all the who's very dressed up in the Christmas spirit. The person almost throughout the whole movie who isn't wearing Christmas clothes is the Grinch himself. Everyone else is always in that clothing. Their clothes are all the bright colours, a lot are red since that is the colour for Christmas.

Target Audience

The target audience for these films are very different. Mean Girls is directed towards young girls and people who like high school movies. Whereas The Grinch Who Stole Christmas is directed for everyone but mainly focusing on families and people who love Christmas.




  

Christmas Pitch


We were then put into our groups for the Christmas Projects. I am working with Robert and Jack. We gave Kane a note on which categories of Christmas films we would rather do. We picked that we would like to do Questionable and we would least like to do Hallmark. I really wouldn't like to do Hallmark as it is to cheesy for me. We ended up getting Questionable and the ideas started floating. 
Here is the pitch presentation that we have put together with our ideas of Christmas projects. 



Task 2
Pre - Production work

By me

Locations
Risk Assessment 
By Jack

by Robert

Job Roles
Producer: Tamara Mills
Director: Robert Dobson
Camera Operator/Director: Jack Herriot



We have had a very rocky journey with this project. Let’s start from the beginning. 
We originally did our Christmas Pitch and we were doing Pitch 2 - Black December. Click on Christmas Pitch for more information. We did all the paperwork and mood board for that idea.

Shortening Script
28/11/22 
We sent the script to Kane and he was a bit concerned that the movie was going to be too long, so we changed the script down to just a fight scene. That wasn’t too much of a big deal as the characters were still the same and we just mainly changed the first part of the film. This also made it easier for locations as we only had to film in one location now.

Auditions
30/11/22 
The audition process was very quick as we only had to cast four main characters. 
Here is the audition pieces ---------------
We had around 15 people audition for the characters which is very helpful when you have actors who want to be in your films. I think something we could have done better was give the actors the script earlier, that would have gave more of the actors a better chance to look at the lines and think about how they are going to express the lines. We were cutting it with time so we did go with the actors who looked like they were confident with bringing these characters to life. 



Day 1 Filming
(Chicken Fight)
01/12/22 
We went out filming near the college which is good in case you run into technical issues like we did. Filming was going good we were having a few issues like had to stop filming when the public was in the shot and since we were filming on the bridge very close to college there was a lot of people coming through. Another little thing was it started raining but lucky I brought a umbrella for the camera. We had the bad camera which just means that the battery goes by a lot faster. I tried to sort out a new battery but there was non left for us which was very annoying. We had to stop filming when the camera died but we really wanted to get filming done that day as the actors schedule is very busy and I knew that if we didn't sort it out today we would find things more difficult.

Day 2 Filming
(Chicken Fight + changed ending)
12/12/22
We weren't left with many days to film with the actors as our schedules clashed which lead us to film on the last week which i really did not want to happen. I was just hoping we could get the rest of the filming done and try and get everything edited for the end of the week. Then we had equipment problems. There was a camera but no batteries. We couldn't film outside if we have no batteries. Normally I would of cries and went home but we all tried to figure out what would be the best thing to do. We changed the story again. With not loads of time to sit down and write a script we told the actors to improvise. They didn't do a bad job they were pretty good but I just wish things were more organised. That is one thing I will definitely be doing next time. We found a charger for the camera and just had to film in the college. We went to a empty classroom and filmed in there. We were now doing a elf therapy session were they talked about the fight so everything was still linked. One good thing about all this is because we are in the Is It Really A Christmas Film category we can get away with it being a bit funky. After hours of filming we called it a wrap with that cast.


Editing
14/12/22
I felt better knowing that we had footage to edit and that we filmed yesterday so hopefully we could make a story out of it. I was trying to piece all the footage together to make an actual story but it wasn't going good. I felt like we had more bloopers than actual footage. By the end of the day I spoke to Kane about it and he suggested to film a Santa voiceover and use the clips we have. It was a great idea because a lot of the clips we originally had it was mainly the audio we had an issue with which was making everything harder. I started working on costumes, we picked Santa Claus and I messaged Robert and Jack to let them know the new plan and they liked the idea. We had to film tomorrow as it was the last day and it was the only time we could film. I learned from last time and I sent out a message to all the film groups and let them know where were filming what time and what equipment we are using. Doing things like the makes sure that everyone is on the same page and we run into thing earlier rather than later. For example we were going to film in the morning but I got message from one of the other groups saying they booked the green screen room earlier for that time. Knowing this, I could just move filming up in advance.


Day 3 Filming
(Chicken Fight - Santa Voiceover)
15/12/22
Filming went really good today. We didn't run into any issues really. The audio was working, everyone was on time. We were filming in front of the green screen as we were going to edit a Santa's grotto in the background. Kane gave us an extension for the editing until we come back after Christmas. 



Task 3 
Evaluation


Here is the final movie 



My job role in this project was Producer. My job was to oversee everything and make sure everything ran smoothly. It was definitely not an easy job and I did struggle a lot. I think I could have been more organised which i did get better at, at the end and will help me remember now for the next project. I think when I was making decisions I was just thinking about my team when really I should have been thinking about everyone else’s team as if someone is filming and have taken all the equipment and we didn’t know about, that is what causes problems. I think if everyone communicates the best they can with everyone then it will be easier to deal with the little things. We ran into a lot of problems as you can tell from the day production dairies. At the end of it we did get a final movie which is better than not having anything. 

The editing was a very big struggle. I did the first half and then Robert did the second. I think because everyone was very last minute and we had Dylan who did help us with being our Santa but because he didn’t know the lines because he hadn’t had that much time, it made editing hard as things were very choppy. It was hard to use certain clips because he said it different in one take and then different again in a different clip so putting them together looked a bit messy. We are still learning more about editing so we knew it wasn’t going to perfect and we tried out best to bring the best out of the project. 








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