P2: Setting Up Equipment

For unit 3, I have to create a media product. I made a front cover, contents page and double page spread for my Sheldon Cooper magazine (a character from The Big Bang Theory). I had to create a risk assessment, recce and equipment list to make sure my photoshoot would be safe for me and the model; it also tells me what equipment I need to take. I used some of the same equipment for unit 3 as we did for our unit 5 short film. Furthermore, conventions are something I have had to consider for both units. For unti 3, I made a TV magazine so I had to copy the genre conventions of them (they have a masthead at the top left...). I also used the genre codes and conventions of other detective film noir movies for unit 5. This has helped me to fit into the genre and create a realistic short film. You can see my pre-production documents for my magazine on my unit 3 blog.

For our Newspaper detective short film, we had several things to consider: What props to use, what equipment we needed to use and the general health and safety check we had to put into place from our risk assessment. We have all used the equipment while filming the short film and we have all taken proper precautions to keep safe.

To create our short film we used a Cannon 250D camera, two different tripods (one stable one and one movable one), a boom mic for audio and props we needed for mise en scene. We used the cameras to record the video; we did this in colour and then I edited this to black and white to fit with our film noir theme. We used a stable tripod for still shots. We used this for most of the short film so the audience could focus on the dialogue between the two characters. We also used the moving tripod so we could do a tracking shot in the first scene around the character. We did come across a problem, we couldn't find a charged microphone to attached to the camera while filming so we used my laptop and we linked a UM-900 Professional USB Condenser microphone to my laptop to record clear audio and voiceovers. Mise en scene means placing in the scene. We looked into different conventions of detective film noir and studied the environment to create a realistic detective short film. We also had to bring in props to use and create a detective office using mise en scene.

We all had certain roles while producing Newspaper however we all used a camera and helped to film. Arsentijs, Jay and Henry are the actors while Ellie and Harrison were a part of the camera crew. For my role, I directed, filmed, edited and created the graphics for the short film. I had to be aware of detective film noir conventions, our target audience (15+), the acting, the different camera shots, angles and movements throughout the process.

Legal constraints are a key thing we need to keep in mind since we don't want the short film to be taken down; we also don't want to be sued or cause moral panic. Copyright is a huge issue when it comes to creative works. Copyright is when the creator protects their work (book, graphics, music, film...) from being used without their permission. In this instance, we cannot make our short film identical to someone else's or this is copyright infringement. We are creating an original short film so we are okay for this. BBFC (British Board of Film Classification) is a regulatory body that provides film ratings for film and TV, the cinemas have to follow these too. For our short film, we have decided to give it a 15+ age rating. We chose to give this rating since our short film has a swear word, a crime scene and a violent scene at the end. this is also the target audience we want to reach (15-50).

Risk assessment- Newspaper short film

Company name: Assessment carried out by: Faith Smith

Date of next review: Date assessment was carried out: 29.4.2022

What are the hazards?	Who might be harmed and how?	What are you already doing to control the risks?	What further action do you need to take to control the risks?	Who needs to carry out the action?	When is the action needed by?	Done
Equipment falling over, being dropped, or smashed	Everyone. Dropping a camera could make it smash and hurt us, if the lighting falls over this could hit us and cause damage to our props or the surroundings.	Wear the camera strap around our necks, use tripods, make sure we have enough space, so we don’t hit the lights accidentally and place the light on stable ground.	N/A	All of us	When we film
Tripping over, slipping and falling	The weather is a factor that can make us trip if it has been raining. The wires in the office from the computer or any lighting equipment we will use we can trip over if we are not careful.	We will try not to film our short film when it is raining. Also, we will keep the wires bunched together and out of the way to make sure we don’t trip.	N/A	All of us	On set
Weather	Although we only have two locations, the weather could affect the church scene if we choose to film outside. The rain can damage the equipment and make us slip.	We won’t film the church scene when it is raining or when the weather is bad.	N/A	One of us	A few days before we plan to film.
Electricity	As we are using a computer, phone and lighting equipment we will have to be careful of using any liquid around the technology.	Don’t have liquids around technology.	N/A	All of us

LOCATION RECCE

Prepared by	Faith Smith	Date	29.04.2022
Location Details	We are going to film all the scenes of our Newspaper detective drama short film in these two locations. The office (at Doncaster UTC) will have a desk and computer. We are going to film outside of the church (The Minister Church of Saint George) where there is space for us to film on the grass or inside the church.
Scene/Purpose of filming	In the office scenes, The Detective (Oscar Fletcher) will be called up and given the murder case by the Police Chief. Also in the office, The Detective interrogates Mikhail and James. Furthermore, Mikhail goes snooping in the office and The Detective catches him. Outside or inside of the church we will film The Detective going to the murder scene, looking for clues, talking to the suspects who found the body and talking to the Chief of Police.

Site Contact Name	Doncaster UTC	Site Address	College Rd Doncaster DN1 3BF
Contact telephone	01302 976515	Point of access	Front doors
Permissions	As we are students at DUTC, we will not need permission to film in an office there.	Availability	We will ask if we can use an office to film in, but it shouldn’t be a problem.
Points of Interest	An office	Suitability/Possible shots	• Medium shots • Establishing shot – long shot • Closeups • Extreme closeups
Safety Issues	Tripping over (especially wires) Dropping equipment	Electricity Supply	We will have electricity from the plug sockets around the office.
Safety Issues	Tripping over (especially wires) Dropping equipment	Light	From the sun streaming through a window, a computer and a phone when it rings and from portable lights.
		Windows	There are windows at the office.
		Noise	Other students talking outside, computer fan…


Site Contact Name	The Minister Church of Saint George/Doncaster Minister	Site Address	9 Church St, Doncaster DN1 1RD
Contact telephone	01302 323748	Point of access	Outside
Permissions	We will need permission in the form of a location permission form	Availability	More preferably out of service times
Points of Interest	Outside	Suitability/Possible shots	• Establishing shots • Over the shoulder shots • Medium shots • Closeups • Extreme closeups • Ground level shots
Safety Issues	Weather can cause equipment to be damaged Tripping, falling over Traffic when getting there.	Electricity Supply	We will need to take batteries with us as there is not an electricity supply.
Safety Issues		Sunlight	From the sun.
		Windows	No windows outside or windows in the church.
		Noise	From traffic, other people talking, birds, church bell, the weather.

Treatment

Newspaper

Treatment written by

Faith Smith

Logline: A murderer has struck once again, creating chaos in the town. The Detective must find out who murdered the victim before the murderer takes his next soul.

Characters:

The Detective (Oscar Fletcher): A sophisticated and calculated Detective with a desire for order and power. His organisation skills and determination help his search for answers and interrogate the suspects. But he has a dark secret…

Nancy Carmine: A famous singer/actress from a rich mafia family. Her life of crime came to a stop when she gets murdered in cold blood.

Mikhail: A hardheaded, stubborn man. His hot temper and foul language challenges The Detective as they fight for dominance and power.

Just James: A gullible man who has connections to Nancy Carmine, the murder victim. His nighttime drinking led him to meet Nancy Carmine, the singer at the bar making him a murder suspect. His naive nature makes him the perfect target to be manipulated…

Synopsis:

A small lamp lights up an office, The Detective’s office. His stare pierces the newspaper, reading every word to absorb the recent news of the day. He organises his desk, holding power over his once messy office as the silence nearly enveloped the room, the only sound being the flick of the newspaper pages. The Detective (Oscar Fletcher) anticipates his next case, waiting for the upcoming mayhem. A phone call delivered the great news for The Detective, Nancy Carmine’s murder, finally something to focus on. The Chief of Police requests him to visit the crime scene and search for clues

While arriving at the crime scene, The Detective grabs his notepad and pen, scanning the park surroundings. He examines the body and finds newspapers scattered at the crime scene with no murder weapon in sight, blood staining the ground. The phone rings and the Chief of Police gives The Detective some names, Mikhail and James, the suspects and these are etched into the notepad.

Back at the office, The Detective drags James into his office and commands him to sit down. Evidence, in the form of CCTV footage, is shown to James. We know that James was at the bar that Nancy performs at on the night of the murder, placing him close to the scene. James denies having anything to do with the murder, but The Detective uses his place in power and James’s trust to manipulate him. James becomes confused and starts to second guess his memories.

Next, The Detective interrogates Mikhail. However, Mikhail is defiant, he denies everything The Detective says. The Detective tries lots of interrogation tactics to persuade and intimidate Mikhail to tell him that he murdered Nancy Carmine, but Mikhail doesn’t give in, he swears are The Detective.

The Detective goes outside of his office to take a phone call, Mikhail gets up and types on his phone. He lifts his attention from his phone to the bin. There are bloody newspapers with letters written on them. Curiously, Mikhail picks up the newspapers and arranges them in order. They spell out Oscar (The Detective’s name). The newspapers are the Murderer’s calling card. While Mikhail is panicking that The Detective is the murderer, The Detective sneaks up behind him and chloroforms Mikhail with his tie. The Detective finds the camera (our perspective) and turns it off.

We also had to follow our risk assessment and location recce to make sure we are safe on set and the equipment doesn't get damaged either. We did make sure we were either using a camera harness (as above) with someone helping (I helped here), weating the camera strap around our necks and we made sure we the cameras were secured on the tripod correctly with space around us.

We used an electric lamp and a wired microphone for our audio so we made sure we wouldn't trip over those wires by keeping them out of the way. In this photo, we are making sure the lamp wires are safe and secure out of the way.

To make sure no one got hurt, we made sure we had enough room around us to film. Here I am making sure I can use the moving tripod and not hit anyone with it or damage it.

The weather was not as issue when we filmed in the park since it wasn't raining. Just like I wrote in the risk assessment, I made sure the weather was okay for filming by checking the weather forcast. I think we were very safe on set since we followed the risk assessment and recce I created for us.

As you can see, we have changed some of the shots used but we kept the mise en scène. We included an over the shoulder shot and side shot to show The Detective organising his desk, this shows how he is a perfectionist.

We did change the church scene since we did not have permission to film at a church. We decided to film at Sandall Park because we still wanted the scene to be outside, we already planned to film this outside for the crime scene. Furthermore, we found it difficult to find a time when everyone was free to film so we had to improvise our scenes which you can see from the screenshots. We still used close ups and medium shots to fit with the genre and conventions. To improvise, The Detective visits the crime scene and recieves a call from The Chief of Police telling us who the suspects are, he then writes these down on a notepad.

We did change the order in which the suspects are interrigated. We did this since we realised that the suspects wouldn't walk into the office by themselves and Mikhail wouldn't have a key in the end to snoop in The Detective's office. We followed the script really well but we did improvise a few lines. We used lots of over the shoulder shots so we can see The Detective talking to the suspects and their reactions. We also used some zoom ins, The Detective has a high angled shot when he is shining the lamp in Mikhail's face to show how he is superior...

We still included the monologue idea for our short film. But we changed most of this scene. It follows on straight after the scene before, The Detective walks out of his office to take a call. We still used a POV shot, but this is the POV of the bin to create suspense and to keep the viewers wondering what was in the bin. We used medium shots and close up shots to keep the shots consistant. We then pan over the newspapers with all of the letters spelling out Oscar (The Detective's name). As The Detective comes up behind him and chloroform him with his tie, we leave this on a cliffhanger to meet short film conventions.