I started my project by conducting some secondary contextual
research into other films that focus on betrayal such as ‘Paid in full’ by
doing so it helped me to think of several ways I could portray my own work and
helped me too think of my first few ideas. After watching a bunch of films I
decided it was time to do some research into real life betrays that have taken
place in history this was what really kicked start my thought process. From
looking into a man called John Walker an individual who is famous for betraying
his country (USA) to the Soviet Union; I gained a structure which was the
starting point of my story. Following this I conducted some primary research by
interviewing people, conducting and online survey and handing out surveys into
what people really thought about betrayal, this gave me a real insight into
what people expect and don’t expect.
After conducting our research me and my partner combined our
findings to come up with our first story line which was focused around a male
character who committed a crime and alongside that wronged his girlfriend who
betrayed him without him knowing, it was to appear to the audience that another
character was the one who committed the betrayal throughout the film, only
revealing the true traitor at the end. The structure of this story was inspired
by the story of John Walker.
Once we come up with our first story we began to look into
locations and actors and really the reality of creating this idea. This is
where we ran into our first problem which was a lack of actors. Although we
searched hard we could find any female actors that were willing to play the
part of the girlfriend who was a major role in the film. In order to solve this
problem it would mean making vast changes to the story in order for it to work
with just our few male friends that were willing to take part in the filming.
To solve the problem we had to replace the girlfriend
character with someone that would be of equal importance to the main character
so that we wouldn't lose the impact or shock the betrayal would have on the
audience but be able to use a male character. After much thought we decided the
best way to do this would be to make the character a family member; we decided
a close cousin would be the best option mainly because it would be the most
believable due to our actor’s appearances; a brother or father wouldn't be
realistic.
Not long after we came up with a full achievable story and
the last things to do was to find appropriate locations and plan shooting times
which was the next problem as all our actors were peers and the majority of
them were having exams so availability was an issue. We went out looking for
locations and found some local parks and quiet streets for the outside shots,
we also used a local corner shop for the shop scene and two of our friends
housed for the inside shots.
Before I knew it I found myself in the fourth week with no
footage due and only 3 weeks to go. Time was getting slim so me and my partner
contacted all our actors and came up with a timetable so that we could have the
required characters at the required times. In order for us make this achievable
we had to change some of the actor’s roles to the less important ones; but in
the end we had a plan of our shooting times which would mean us starting
shooting immediately and finishing
shooting in the 6th week of the FMP.
Once shooting began, we then faced our next problem, Mother
Nature. A lot of the shots we need
required dry weather preferably quiet sunny but we was unfortunate and the
weather was not on our side a lot of the time which just made planning and
doing shots that a bit harder. But it wasn't just the rain that caused us
problems due to our lack of equipment we didn't get a wind resistant microphone
and there was a high winds a lot of the time this was a major issue when
shooting outside especially out in the open. However after many takes we
managed to get the shots and audio that we needed.
By the end of the 6th week we had all the shots we
needed and the last thing left was editing it all together.
During the editing stage we got feedback from one of our
tutors and were advised to shorten our film as much of the film was build up
and wasn't needed. So that’s what we did.
My partner and I decided together which parts of the film were vital and
which parts where not really necessary. Following this we came up with a much
short version of our film which stilled summed up the story as a whole.
The majority of the work in the FMP was completed together
as we needed to make decisions that would affect both our work. My individual
input to the FMP was mainly in the production side as it’s my stronger point. I
done the majority of the editing and in the film production we operated one
camera each.
