Character Profiles

Name: Ashton Smith

Age: 18

Gender: Male

Race: English

Hair Colour: Blonde

Eye Colour: Blue

Background Information: Ashton is really close friends with Jay. He helped to support Jay's sister, Lily, when she was depressed as Jay was never there for her. He is completely oblivious to the trap he falls into which Jay sets for him. He blames Jay for Lily's death as he says that Jay was never there for Lily. He feels betrayed by Jay when Jay kidnaps him.

Name: Jay Collins

Age: 19

Gender: Male

Race: English

Hair Colour: Brunette

Eye Colour: Brown

Background Information: Jay is close friends with Ashton. Jay has a sister called Lily Collins who committed suicide as she was depressed. Jay's and Lily's parents have both recently died in a car accident. They have no other family apart from one another. When their parents died, Jay became a cold and bitter character. After Lily died, Jay was extremely broken up and blamed Ashton for her death. Jay feels betrayed by Ashton from this. He thinks that Ashton convinced her to commit suicide. This is what sets him off to betraying his friend Ashton and kidnapping him to make him suffer for Lily's death. He hires two hit men as a set up to kidnap Ashton.

Name: Man 1 (True identity unknown)

Age: Thought to be late teens early 20's

Gender: Male

Race: N/A

Hair Colour: N/A

Eye Colour: N/A

Background Information: Professional hit man along with man 2. He is a wanted criminal for a previous attempted murder. Along with man 2, he is hired by Jay to kidnap Ashton.

Name: Man 2 (True identity unknown)

Age: Thought to be late teens early 20's

Gender: Male

Race: N/A

Hair Colour: N/A

Eye Colour: N/A

Background Information: Professional hit man with man 1. He has a previous criminal record for theft. Along with man 1, he was hired by Jay to kidnap Ashton.

PHOTO TO COME

Name: Lily Collins

Age: 14

Gender: Female

Race: English

Hair Colour: Brunette

Eye Colour: Green

Background Information: Her older brother is Jay Collins. After their parents died, it was a shock to them both. Jay changed and became cold and harsh towards Lily. This made her quality of life horrible and she gradually became more and more depressed. The only person who she felt she could turn to was Ashton, Jay's best friend. This is because he was the only one Jay would talk to so therefore she felt that Ashton would understand her.

Props

Newspaper Report

This is news report will feature at the beginning of the film. Parts of it will appear in flashes which will hint to the audience bits about the plot of the film before any dialogue has been spoken meaning Lily's death.

Cross

This is the cross which Ashton will lay down for Lily in her favourite place in the forest.

Photograph of Lily

This is a photo of Lily. Jay lays this photo down in remembrance of his younger sister.

Flowers

Ashton lays some flowers down for Lily. He also lays something down for Lily as he knew her well to.

Gun

This is the gun which will be used in the film. It is a key prop as it determines the fate of both Jay and Ashton at the end of the film. The gun is not real for obvious reasons.

Handcuffs

What Jay uses to tie up Ashton to make sure that he doesn't try to escape.  

Lighting

My film will be filmed at two locations. One in the country in a lonely wood and the other in an unrecognisable place which is run down such as a disused warehouse.

I want the lighting for the woods to be natural without any sunshine. This is because, as the sun shines through the branches of the trees, it creates a light, warm and magical feeling. This is the complete opposite impression I want to create of the woods. In order to assure that there isn't going to be any strong sunshine, I have to make sure that I check the weather forecast for a week in advance each day to make sure that the weather doesn't change. The weather I need for my film is a thick overcast of clouds which creates an overall dim light.

The second half of my film is meant to be on the same day as the first half. This means that I need to make sure that the weather is exactly the same. The lighting will be slighting different as the second half of the film will be filmed inside, however, parts of the outside weather will be seen through the building door. I want the lighting to be quite dark for the inside of the building. This is because it will create a dark and mysterious setting which will have an uneasy feel to it. I also want the inside of the building to be dark so that Jay's character isn't fully revealed at first. I will assure that the lighting will be dark by switching the artificial lights off which are in the building.

Sound/Music

The Shawshank Redemption - 1994

Clip 1

The opening track to the film immediately sets the scene as to what time of year the film is set in. The music playing is from around the 40s so therefore the audience already know that the film is set in this time. The music contrasts to the themes and ideas about the film. This is because the film is about a man named Andy Dufrence who is wrongly caused of murdering his wife and her lover and is sentenced to 20 years in prison. To add to Andy's misfortunes, he is beaten and attacked by other inmates in the prision, which creates an overall sad and depressing storyline. However, Andy meets man called Red who both end up becoming long term friends.In some ways, I don't like the opening track as it gives the wrong impression to the audience about what the film is about, however, the opening music to the prison contradicts this.

Clip 2

The music which plays as the prison is first introduced really begins to set the scene of the sadness and despair of being sent to prison. It is a slow instrumental which features violins which help to create a sad atmosphere. It's almost as if the director is trying to get the audience to feel sympathy for Andy's character.

Evaluation of Sound/Music Research
I think that the opening track to a film is extremely important as it begins to set the scene, not just with the year or the time of year, but it also begins to hint at what the film's atmosphere, themes and ideas are about. My five minute film is a drama which from the very start has sad and depressing subjects as a young girl has committed suicide. Her name was Lily and was the sister of one of the main characters. As I want to grab the attention of my audience from the start, I want to have a slow sad instrumental to open my film. This film 'The Shawshank Redemption' inspired me to use a sad instrumental because when I watched the film, I felt immediately gripped and interested as to what was going on and also as to what was going to happen. I want my audience to become emotionally attached to the characters in my film so that when the ending arises, it comes as a big shock finale.

Location

Scene 1 - Lonely Wood

The Clearing - Wood

Scene 2 - Deserted Building

Reservoir Dogs - Disused Warehouse

Costume



Ashton Smith

Ashton has the most colour in his costume. This is because he is the victim in this story and doesn't have any dark secrets, however, Jay hints later on in the film that he helped Lily to commit suicide, which Ashton denies. It isn't revealed exactly what happened with Lily's death, whether Jay or Ashton was the cause. This is left for the audience to decide on. Ashton's clothes consist of dark blues and greens which are cold colours. These colours could suggest that Ashton may have played a part in Lily's death.

Ashton has blonde hair. Blonde hair usually connotes the character to be stereotypically known as dumb. This could possibly relate to Ashton in my film as he falls straight into Jay's trap and ends up getting himself caught.

Ashton's shirt consists of dark greens and blues. The darkness of the colours could suggest that Ashton had a dark secret about Lily's death. However, the dark green creates a warm type feel to it which could suggest that Ashton is a warm and honest person and is merely a victim in the story. The material of the shirt is of soft cotton, which is another point which suggests that Ashton is a victim as it creates a warm cosy feel.

Ashton's jeans are of a medium blue colour. This adds more colour to his clothing and could again suggest that he doesn't suspect anything about the trap he is about to fall into. To Ashton, it is just a normal day, hence the fact he is wearing normal clothes.

The general outlook of Ashton's costume is something normal which someone would wear on a day to day basis. As his clothes have colour in them, it means that they would stand out more than someone wearing darker clothes. He isn't wearing any strikingly dark clothes which could again suggest that he is an innocent victim.

Ashton's trainers are both light and dark brown. The dark brown could suggest that Ashton may be carrying a sense of guilt on his shoulders or it could suggest that Ashton is in fact doomed because the second he steps into the forest, his misfortune begins to occur. The lighter brown on Ashton's trainers could suggest that there is a bit of hope for Ashton as he finally gets released at the end of the film, however, it is unknown whether he was shot by Jay or if Jay in fact shot himself.

Jay Collins

Jay's costume conflicts to Ashton's costume. This is because Jay's costume mainly consists of dark brown and black. This suggests that Jay doesn't want to make himself stand out too much when he kidnaps Ashton.

Jay's hair colour is a medium brunette. It is usually seen that people with brown hair are a lot more intelligent than people with blonde hair. They also are seen to know more about what is going on than blonde haired people. This is relevant to my plot as Ashton (blonde hair) has no idea what is about to happen to him whilst Jay (brunette hair) knows exactly what is going to happen to Ashton. 

Jay's jacket is brown with a fake leather type material. This could suggest that Jay isn't wearing his best clothing. Instead, he is wearing clothes which he won't mind getting dirty but nothing too much out of the ordinary so that Ashton doesn't suspect anything.

Jay's jeans are black. This could suggest that there is a darkness inside of him whether it's something to do with Lily's death or whether it is because he double-crossed his best friend Ashton. The black could also represent death as he commits a murder at the end whether it is his own life or Ashton's life. 

Jay's shoes are a brown ankle boot. This type of shoe would keep your feet warm. This could suggest that Jay is well-equipped for their trek to the woods as they will keep his feet warm in the cold autumn weather. Also, if Jay was found with slightly muddy ankle boots and he explained that he had been for a trek in the wood, it wouldn't look as out of place if he wore white trainers which would show up the mud well and also, you wouldn't expect to find anyone who has gone for a trek in the muddy woods with white trainers.

Man 1



Man 2

Man 1 and 2 both consist of similar costumes. They have no name in this film as they are both unknown people who have no dialogue and don't even show their faces so they could be anyone.

They both wear balaclavas on their heads. This is because I thought that they both would look more threatening by not showing any reference to their face. I also know that criminals wear balaclavas so they aren't identified and caught which is why I thought they would suit their characters as they don't want to be identified by Ashton. It also keeps both Man 1 and 2's characters more mysterious.

They are both wearing dark coloured hoodies with their hoods up. Man 1 is in dark grey whilst Man 2 is in black. The reason for this is so that both of the men can be identified easily, but they are both in dark colours so that they don't stand out to anyone.

Man 1 is wearing matching grey tracksuit bottoms which is good for easy movement such as running for example. Man 2 is wearing black jeans with a tear in the right knee. This could suggest that these trousers aren't his best pair and may have been ripped committing some sort of other crime or even running away from another crime such as climbing over a fence.

Man 1 is wearing white trainers that are already slightly muddy already which suggests that they are his rough work pair. The trainers are good for running in whether it's away from the police or trying to catch a person. This is why Man 2 is also wearing trainers. However, Man 2's trainers are black and blend in with his outfit more. The complete darkness of Man 2 could suggest that he is a darker character whilst Man 1 may not be as bad as Man 2.

Storyboard

This is my storyboard for my five minute film Betrayed. The opening credits haven't been listed on the storyboard as I want to have a play around with them first. I know that they will appear whilst the opening accompaniment is playing on the screen with the film shots continuing on in the background.

Filming Schedule

This is the filming schedule for my film. As I have a lot of shots to film, I decided to film my film in two sections. The first section took longer as I had longer shots to film and not much dialogue. In the second part of my filming, there was a lot more dialogue which meant that I had the opportunity to shoot some shot reverse shots which takes less time to film.

Typical Conventions of 5 Minute Films

1. Characters

In short films, there only tends to be around 2-3 main characters. This is because there isn't much time in a short film to develop lots of different characters, therefore, if there were lots of main characters to introduce, then there wouldn't be time to portray a proper story involving these characters. I also feel that by using lots of characters in a short film will also confuse the audience as there would be lots of characters to focus on. By using a typical 2-3 main characters in a film allows the audience to connect and relate with the characters more in the short amount of time.

2. Twist

A lot of short films usually contain some sort of twist. The reason behind this is because as a short film is short, there isn't much opportunity to make the film interesting. A twist in a film is a simple but effective technique which makes the film interesting and also grips the audience into watching the film.

3. Simple Storyline

As a short film isn't that long, a simple storyline which is easy to follow is the best thing to have. If a storyline is too complicated, then it will confuse the audience and it won't engage them into the story as much.

4. Length

The maximum length of a short film is 35 minutes. If the film is any longer then it would be classed as a feature length film. However, short films typically last from around 5-10 minutes.