I had initially done a very short and basic ‘budget’ for my short film when creating my treatment, I decided that once I had completed my production and was onto post-production I could reflect on this and pick apart what my budget would have looked like more realistically. In this blog I wanted to go through a list of the resources I used and how much that costed as well as anything I would have to consider if this were a professionally done short film.

First though, here is a screenshot of my original ‘budget’. I didn’t really understand how much detail this needed to seem professional when I was initially creating this and so I didn’t really do any research into this. I decided to be brief in this as for this project, when creating this, everything was either free or I already owned, that changed a little once I got going with the production so this blog will be discussing the prices of all my resources so that I can put together a more accurate budget for what this film would have needed.

Equipment: My equipment consisted only of my Canon 750D DSLR camera and my Neewer RL-12 Ring Light, both of which I owned prior to the time of working on this project. However the camera is priced at around £350 – £500 (some places charge different and I can’t remember where exactly I bought it from) and the ring light was around £100.

Locations: Both locations I used were completely free for me to use as the first location was my own home and so I didn’t need to and still don’t need to factor that into the budget. The second location was a barn at a friends house and so, again, I had nothing to pay for, however, theoretically let’s put this at between £50 and £100 a day to hire out.

Actors: Again, my actors were all free and were happy to help with no pay as they were all either family or friends, however, I’ve had a look on the internet and it seems many people would say between £50 and £100 should be an average pay for acting in a short film (https://www.quora.com/How-much-should-you-pay-an-actor-for-a-short-film & https://www.reddit.com/r/Filmmakers/comments/3i9yfo/for_a_student_project_how_much_should_i_pay_my/). So multiplying that between the 4 actors I had this would come to between £200 and £400 just for actors.

Post Production: All of my post production was done at college in our edit suite, which means all the editing software is already paid for by college and I didn’t have to put any money towards this, just my time. Although for the sake of putting together a budget, I want to see how much Final Cut Pro actually is so I can gather an idea of how much I may have had to pay. According to Apples download link it would cost around £299 to download and use and own myself.

Travel: I thought it would be important to factor in the cost of the travel, and as I did all the driving to and from all the locations (including to and from Cumbria) but didn’t really know how to accuratly estimate the cost of my travel. So, I went onto the AA ‘Mileage Calculator’ and entered my route into there and it gave me this:

Since I did not only do this journey once, but 4 times specifically for filming, plus a little extra driving within the two destinations, this would work out to around £50, give or take just for the travel.

Costumes & Props: The majority of my props were old mirrors I found at home and that I had prior to filming or even planning this project so I won’t factor those into the budget, and then the majority of the rest of the props were found at the location once I was there and I had permission by the owner to use them all for free. Having said this, I did buy a lot of extra candles for my practical lighting, I bought 4 sets of 5 candles at £4.25 a pack from IKEA, so that is an extra £17 onto my budget.

In terms of costume, I bought 3 black hooded cloaks online for my cult member actors to wear during the nightmare sequence, these were £14.99 each and so came to £44.97 all together.

Promotions: Since I did my own promotions for this short film on my Instagram, I also don’t need to fator in a price for that, but, since I was planning to enter into film festivals – which due to these prices, I didn’t end up doing, but may still do since many of the deadlines are still open until later this year – I felt it necessary to factor in the submission fees for the three film festivals I looked into entering.

Below are the screenshots of these submission fees, all together totaling $72, roughly £59:

Overall Budget: So, now, adding up all the prices my budget at its highest would be £1570, and at its lowest would be £1000, overall pretty expensive for what ended up being only a 4 and a half minute long film.

I did write a full and more detailed blog around casting my main actress, Ella, as there was more reasons as to why I chose to cast her in particular and how I felt she could portray the role of the main character. As well as casting her, I also had to cast another 3 additional actors for the role of my cult members during the nightmare sequence, however their roles are a lot less important and who played these characters really didn’t matter as their faces would be covered and voices altered.

I ended up casting my mum, dad and brother as I knew they would be around in the same place and at the time I needed to film this nightmare sequence and since they only had one line, they didn’t need any kind of acting skills etc. As long as all 3 of them would fit in the cloaks, which I bought with mum so that I could be sure they fit, and could follow very basic and simple directions then they were perfect for these roles. There isn’t much else I can say about why I casted them other than what I have already mentioned, they took instructions and directions very well and I am very happy with the contribution they added to the film and am very happy with the way the cult members were portrayed in my film.

I wrote a blog not too long back on the actors documents which shows the call sheets they all received along with a copy of the script and shot list; in that blog there is also the evidence of their signed contributor release forms.

My other location, specifically for scene 3, the nightmare scene, is a barn at the back of Warcop Hall, a very big and luxurious building not far from me. I have written a blog about finding this location, a family friend who works as an architect is related to the man that owns the barn and so getting permission was quite easy, and I am so glad I did as this location is perfect for this scene. We are going round to film tonight, 24th April, and will hopefully have prepared enough so that we will not need to spend an unnecessary amount of time filming.

Here are some pictures of the location once the set design and props were all placed and complete, pictures of the location without the props can be found in this blog.

I decided that for my filming prep I wanted to put more effort and detail into my shot list rather than my story board as I knew that in production I would most likely change some framing, angles and possibly even the order of the shots in my scenes. I also didn’t know how to show what I am planning on creating through a storyboard and would rather write my shot list as best I can and then let my creativity and the vision I have for this project aid me once production commences. However, although I am personally not going to be relying on the shot list that much, I am still going to try and create a few storyboards for a scene or two so that my teachers have some ind of insight to my idea and thought train. I have already stated in a few of my earlier blogs that the aesthetic of this film is extremely important to me and is one of the biggest aspects to the success of my short film, and so creating at least two or three storyboards to portray this will probably be more useful that I am thinking at this point. I also feel like creating a storyboard may also help me when I get to the evaluation stages of this project to provide some reference of what I wanted my shots to look like vs what they eventually do look like.

Here is at least 1 storyboard for each location (more may be added):

My location for scenes 1, 2 and 4, so all my scenes apart from the nightmare sequence, will be filmed in my own bedroom in Leyland. Since I am the tenant of this house, I do not need to worry about getting the right permissions or anything and can just film when I need to. This makes filming extra shots a lot easier if I do need to re-film etc as I don’t have to work around anyone else’s schedule other than mine and my actresses. I wanted to use this location for these scenes as I wanted an aspect of my character to be fairly ‘normal’ and ‘girl next door’ like and I feel my bedroom in Leyland is very ‘normal’. I also feel like it is a decent space to get all my shots and angles done.

Location Recce

To be completed prior to filming. This is for you to complete for every filming location. Include detail in all appropriate boxes, you need more than just ‘yes’ or ‘no’

Although I have planned my short film to have little to no dialog I still felt it necessary to write a script, however it is quite basic script and in some ways is just a vaguer version of my shot list and synopsis. The script may only be basic but I feel like this,along with my shot list and other visual planning will help my actors have a more accurate understanding of what I am asking of them and what role I want them to play. I am going to print off my script as well as my shot list to have a paper copy during my shoot for my actors to refer to while filming takes place.

My research and planning into my visuals and plot helped me massively in creating this script and helped aid the development of my ideas which eventually helped me in writing a cohesive and understandable script.

This blog will include screenshots of my shot list that I have written for my short film, although I have planned my shots in as much detail as I can at this point, I am open to adjusting some shots, adding or removing shots once it comes to filming and when I am editing too. I am sure I will stick mostly to the shots I have written here but will be using this mainly as a guild line, and letting my creativity build upon what I have already planned, rather than having the shots set in stone with no room for adjustments or improvements. These changes could be as small as changing a camera angle on a certain shot or could be as big as completely re-planning a shot or series of shots, but at this point I cannot plan for these kind of changes.

My short film will consist of 4 characters, made up of 3 cult members and my main character, Ella, however in my film the main character is the only character that really has any significance to the story. Whereas my 3 cult members will be acting more as props than actual characters, and will just be used as a symbolism of Satan and Satanism etc. This character will embody some classic horror stereotypes, for example being a young and attractive teenage girl to appeal to the male audience and, through costume etc, will also resemble a bit of a ‘slut’ as that has always been a very common character to be seen throughout the horror genre. My character will also be a very troubled character and this will be shown through self-harm SFX and drug use throughout some scenes of the film, I want to present her as being ‘lost’ and searching for faith, which is why she ends up being involved in the occult etc.

I have chosen to cast Ella as my main character for many reasons, but mainly because I feel like she could very much embody the character I want to portray in my film. Apart looking the part, blonde, pretty, petite, I also think she can play the ‘slut’ and ‘damsel-in-destress’ stereotype I am looking for in this character. Ella is going to be acting throughout the film although will have minimal to no lines, so most of the acting will be through facial expressions and body language, I talked about why I wanted to do this and the inspiration behind it in my blog on the film, “Hereditary”.  Because I am hoping to portray a very specific character and personality without the use of a detailed dialog, I feel I will need to rely on my actresses acting skills a little better and trust that Ella can portray emotions and experiences through facial expressions, body language and physical activities, for example smoking a cigarette, doing drugs etc. I trust in Ellas acting abilities and skill to help with all of this, she informed me that she received a B in her GCSE Drama and I have also done a casting tape of her reading aloud a short section from a horror script that I found online.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ol4mOSEZ_F5NhAnpTlLRuYj_4QBidgyI/view?usp=sharing

Overall I feel extremely confident that Ella can play the part I need her to play and portray the character I am wanting in my film.