As can be seen in my brief I set out to create a short film about the struggles of young men called

Sex Drugs and Violence for the Raindance Film Festival. I wanted to create a darker grittier piece of
film to add to the realism of the story as it is about abuse, prostitution and addiction. I wanted to
create a short film due to it giving me the most creative freedom, not limited by a song’s length or
subject matter with a music video or a specific topic as in a documentary. This is the same reason
that I chose Raindance Film Festival as besides the limit on the length of my production (25 minutes)
there are no other creative limits to my work. I wanted to create a production targeted at young
men because I did not feel that there was much representation of young men being shown as
victims of sexual abuse, isolation and their own pride.

I received several points of feedback from peers:

 Over exposed shots.

 Clear colour coded characters.
 Continuity errors.
 Smooth editing in the opening.
 Excellent make-up.
 Slightly grainy footage.
 Good use of the heartbeat sound effect.
 Targeted at the correct audience.

I failed to check my footage immediately after recording it and so some of my shots are very
inconsistently lit, however, due to my paranoia that a scene will end up too dark I have found that
my shots almost always end up over exposed. This can be solved in future by simply checking the
footage as can the continuity errors as the problem is always that a limb is out of place and I simply
forget to check the continuity and reshoot with the arms or bodies in the correct place. My peers did
however say that my production defiantly appealed to my target audience of 17-25 year old men.
They also said that my editing was smooth and all of the scenes flowed well. This (mixed with some
of the bullet points above) have led me to conclude that I did succeed in what I set out to do in my
original brief. Make a short film about the struggles young men face (if presented a little extremely)
for young men.
My teachers originally gave me the guidelines for my production as having: “no sex, no drug use and
no swearing” however I knew what kind of production I wanted to do and two out of my three
original ideas contained all of these elements.

So I spoke to my teachers and negotiated with them to allow me to break from all of these
guidelines as long as they made sense in the plot and served a purpose. My guidelines for Raindance
was that my production had to be under 25 minutes and that I had to pay a submission fee
depending on when I submit: Early Deadline: 26 April 2019 £25, Regular Deadline: 17 May 2019 £35,
Late Deadline: 31 May 2019 £50. Which I have not deviated from and so I plan to submit my work on
the 17th of May.

My genre was drama which has the conventions of: realistic characters, realistic dialogue, tension, a
fall and a climax. I feel that I stuck to my conventions well and presented them well in my
production.
I feel that my characters were realistic because I did throughout research into them and what could
motivate their actions throughout my production. For example, I found that victims of child abuse
were more likely to commit violent crime by 38% and so I wrote in that Violence’s father would be
abusive adding to his motivations of violence and his general anger towards others. I think that this
makes Violence a realist character.

I also showed that Sex is straight by dating a girl but services homosexual customers. This is because
a first-hand account from a male sex worker stated that: "I do consider myself straight and yes I do
oral on men”. This male sex worker worked in the profession by choice rather than circumstance or
desperation (unlike the majority of male sex workers) and even without the need for financial
stability still had to service male customers to make enough money. Sex has no family to financially
to fall back on and so his choice of profession was taken away from him and he has turned to using
sex to make enough money to survive. This desperate need for money means that he cannot
implement limits into his work and so is uncomfortable with but must have penetrative homosexual
sex. I think that these factors I have researched, considered and implemented make Sex a realistic
character. Finally, I think that I have made a Drugs a realistic character by giving him an absent father
as one study stated: "Research has shown that adolescents from single-parent households are more
prone to delinquent behaviours, including drug and alcohol use". An absent father will contribute to
his motivation to turn to Drugs. I also chose to give him a poor relationship with his mother as his
guilt would put a strain on their relationship as stated in this lengthy quote here: "I am worried
about what my mother will think when she reads it *referring to her book on her journey of drug
addiction*, when she can see how far down I had gone and the awful things I did and the awful
things I experienced. I worry whether she will feel guilt or like she failed me" "Maybe a mother will
read my book and understand her addict daughter and her problem better. Perhaps this mom won’t
feel so much guilt afterwards and it will ease her pain".
This guilt complex would put strain on any relationship especially one where the mother is and
alcoholic. Drugs’s constant use of his pills and weed is also realistic as one drug addict stated "After a
while, I needed heroin just to get by". All of these factors and many more make my characters
realistic. I felt that this really worked in my production as it showed the two sides of Drugs. One
where he is a carer for Sex and Violence always worried about them and offering help and another
where he is shown to be vulnerable and unsupported by his friends as they don’t know the extent of
his problems. This is further reinforced by his mother being unsupportive of him which I think added
to the effectiveness very well.

My dialogue is realistic as my characters speak like young men as they are young men. I am a young
man so I simply wrote them how me and my friends speak giving them realistic dialogue.
I have added many parts of tension to my production such as Sex’s interactions with his customers
as you feel scared for him. Violence’s first interaction with his father as you don’t know to what
extent Violence’s Father will abuse him. Finally, the tensest scene comes from Drugs’s overdose as
the audience does not know whether he will survive or die.

However, I do feel that I could have added further tension to these scenes with music and sound
effects. I also feel I could have had a real fight between Violence and Violence’s Father during their
confrontation which would have added to the tension of the scene as the audience would not have
known who would win.

I do however have clear rises and falls. Each character starts at almost their lowest point before
being risen up again. Drugs is an addict and then progressively becomes clean, Sex is alone before he
learns to trust his girlfriend and Violence lashes out at those around him before learning how to
direct his anger into something productive. Then all the characters reach their lowest point when
Sex is beaten by his client, Drugs’s mother dies and he overdoses and Violence finds that his little
sister has been hit by his father. This triggers a second rise in them with Sex realising that is pride is
not helping him and he will take a job offered to him, Violence standing up to his father and leaving
his abusive household, taking his younger sister with him.
 Drugs’s second rise comes from him surviving in hospital and then finding that his friends have
come to give him support and see that he is ok. I do think that I could have done this better as these
rises and falls are quite abrupt and if I was doing this project again I would have set these moments
up better with more scenes dedicated to their individual struggles and progressive rises.

I also followed the technical conventions of my genre with sound, music, lighting and camera work.

The drama convention for sound is for sounds to be sharp clear and impactful but to stay realistic.
For example, having the buzz of work and conversation during the pub scenes or the noise of
families in the park during the scenes on the park bench. I used these sounds effectively and clearly
for my audience to understand the setting of my scenes which assist with the mise-en-scene. Sounds
can also be used in drama to add dramatic tension to a scene. I used this by adding a heartbeat
sound effect into the beginning of my production at the opening scene and credits to make the
audience feel panicked by the scene as a heartbeat in film is associated with panic, rapid cuts to
black and death (for medical or murder mystery pieces of media). This heartbeat makes my audience
immediately on the edge of their seat for what is about to happen to the characters and if they are
in a dangerous situation.

The drama convention for music is to use emotionally manipulative music appropriately to match
the scene. For example my use of ‘Melancholy Hill’ by Gorillaz perfectly captures the sad but hopeful
feeling that my characters were feeling. The electric dot dot sound stays a positive and happy sound
throughout the song whereas the vocals sound sad and well… melancholy. This is a mirror to the
emotions of the room as the friends are both relieved that their friend has survived (the happy
background melody of their emotions) and sadden by the death of their close friends mother (the
sad vocals in the foreground of their emotions). I followed the conventions of sound as my music
appropriately matched the tones of my scenes and my sound effects served to heighten the drama.

The drama convention for lighting is to use lighting to match the feeling of a scene but usually have
everything well-lit regardless of the scene’s tone so that the audience can see what is happening. It
is also a convention to dramatically light things such as dramatically lighting one side of somebody or
just part of their face to add a feeling of tension or to give specific attention to one character. I
however went for more realistic lighting with my characters and so everything is well lit however I
made an effort to make the lighting brighter during happy scenes and darker during unhappy or
unpleasant scenes. However, I really felt that in my production I could have done better by adding
lights to specifically light certain characters during moments of tension in my production to
emphasise who is in power in the scene. I could have had the character who is the victim in a scene
be well lit to highlight their facial expressions of fear and discomfort.

The drama convention for camera work is for the camera work to reflect the emotions of the
characters such as close ups when a character is feeling crowded and pressured and wide shots for
when they are feeling isolated. For example, in the shot below Sex has just been abused by his
customer, rejected for a job and his girlfriend has just left him so I wanted to show how isolated and
alone he felt.

Then in this shot when Sex is noticing Drugs’s scratching (a sign of drug addiction) I used an extreme
close-up to show the details of his eyes as he looked down adding suspicion and tension to the
scene.
Out of all of my production’s conventions, camera work was the one that I was most disappointed in
as I felt that I should have done far more interesting camera techniques throughout my production. I
did use the stability of the camera to change how a scene felt to the audience. During scenes of
distress, upset and violence I used freehand to emphasise the instability of the scene and how the
characters are feeling highly emotional in a negative way. I mounted my camera on a tripod during
all the other scenes of happiness and stability in order to show how the characters feel safe and
secure.

I presented Drugs’s addiction clearly but showed how he would realistically try to hide it and how he
lies to his friends and family to perpetuate his addiction and he waits for the moment that people
leave before literally running for his pills as his addiction is crippling. I also presented his scratching
as addiction can make a person twitchy and restless because their body needs the product and can’t
think about anything else at the time making them feel inactive.
I also presented Drugs’s overdose as realistically possible by following the overdose symptoms for
percocet and having my actor performing these symptoms point by point.

I also made successful efforts to justify Drugs’s addiction as very few addicts have no trauma, mental
health problems or instability in their lives that would cause a problem with addiction.

In this respect I believe that I did cover my subject matter respectfully as these efforts were
represented by his clear fear of rejection, isolation and abandonment through his over caring of his
friends trying constantly to offer for them to stay closer with him. Believe that I did however fall
short with presenting just how crippling addiction is as in my project it seems that Drugs is cured of
his addiction immediately after being with Drugs’s Girlfriend. Originally I intended to present a
montage of dates between the two of them culminating in Drugs kicking his habit progressively. As it
stands in the production it is so abrupt that I don’t feel I did the topic of crippling addiction justice.
I did feel that I presented the isolation and depressive nature of being an unwilling male sex worker.
I did the subject of isolation justice as I showed how Sex could not keep a relationship due to his
work.

I also showed how he is shocked and surprised when Sex’s Girlfriend and her father reveal that they
know about his sex work and accept him despite this fact.

This surprise is in keeping with how sex workers have a distrust of authority as my research found.
This distrust of authority may extend to parental figures for younger sex workers such as Sex. I
believe that I presented Sex respectfully as a victim of circumstance rather than as people may
stereotype a male sex worker, as a very sexually active man who loves his work and does it by
choice.
The above statistic of sexual assault and the attitude towards it led to me deciding to have Sex be
raped by one of his customers when Sex withdraws his consent to add to the realism of my
production and I think respectfully showed one of the darkest sides to a sex workers life. Overall I
think I could have had added a montage to show Sex’s slow build-up of trust towards Sex’s Girlfriend
but besides that I did this subject justice.

I represented Violence’s abusive father well as I showed simply the level of abuse that I felt lent
justification to his violent behavior. I did not want Violence to be abused so badly that he was too
afraid to stand up to his father but by the same token I did not want him abused so little that he was
simply resentful and not angry as his anger is a large part of his character.

I am justified in presenting his abuse as the reason for his violence as my research showed that
children from abused homes were more likely to commit violent crimes.

As in my research shown above I also chose Violence’s abuse to be physical rather than emotional or
sexual as physical abuse is more likely to lead to violent crime in the child. I think that my decisions
for Violence to pull his life back together is respectful of the subject of abuse as not all victims of
abuse recover from it but showing that someone can will hopefully help people struggling with this
issue does this topic the justice that it deserves.
I did not encounter many issues during research besides the inaccuracy of statistics on drug use due
to users predominantly wanting to keep this information secret, statistics on prostitution as many
prostitute’s distrust authorities and so may not talk about their work and finally statistics on violence
as child abusers would hide their crimes and those who commit violent crime would try not to get
caught. I resolved this issue by going off available statistics and warning my audience that these
statistics may be subject to inaccuracy.

I had one actor (Brian Jackson) pull out of the production due to personal reasons, Brian was set to
play the role of Drugs in my production and so I had to quickly find a replacement actor for him. I
resolved this issue by giving the role of Drugs to Michael Stubbs who showed a lot of promise during
the auditions for the production.

I had many delays during filming as almost all of my actors were on holiday during my planned
filming dates. I resolved this issue by filming quickly over the span of about a week to get all of the
scenes done as quickly as possible.
During editing I found that two of my shots had disappeared. Whether I accidently deleted them,
never recorded them or some technical issue leading to them going missing I do not know. I resolved
this issue by quickly re-shooting them and adding them back into the production over the span of
about an hour and a half.

My chosen discipline was camera work and in honesty I do not feel that I really challenged myself
with this production. I did have a lot to film and so the individual shots took a back seat to organising
the shoot a whole. In hindsight this was a mistake as looking back over my finished production I
regret how many of shots were just stationary and standard. They weren’t bad, the just weren’t
exceptional. I am proud of several shots such as the close up on Sex’s eyes where you can
immediately see the suspicion on his face before he even asks Drugs about his habit.

The use of free hand in scenes of tension so the camera is as unstable as the characters and I felt
that it worked as it was a marked difference between the stable tripod shots during most of the
scenes and so would make the audience uncomfortable.
This and several other ‘over the shoulder’ shots as I felt that they added to the personal feel of the
scenes by making the audience feel as if they were there in the scene.

I that this production defiantly helped with my free-hand film making and the speed of my film
making. Whereas before with friends they were readily available, willing to help and often hanging
out with you after the shoot. This often leads to shoots taking far far longer with little sense of
urgency and it seen more as a social event with filming tacked on. However, working with actors
who were not my immediate friends made me want to speed up for them. They had limited time
and I wasn’t close enough with them to simply text a new time as they had their own lives to live
with exams and preparation and they owed me nothing as a friend. So I learned how to operate my
camera as quickly as possible while still getting quality shots. I also think that my directing improved
as a result of this need to actually get the production done rather than hang out with friends and a
camera. I also improved my standard of standard shots as I made a conscience effort to implement
the rule of thirds, proper framing and taking the background of the shot into account as far as focus
or reflective surfaces are concerned. I think that in the future of university I will be a much more
spatially aware camera operator and director (focusing on camera operator due to my discipline
right now). I will be much better suited to picking out hazards, planning shots and moving
confidently with a camera in free-hand.
Comparing my production to DAVID I am better in many areas but worse in others. For example I
believe that I outshine DAVID as far as attachment to characters goes. As a member of the audience
I never really cared about him or his struggles, I was never really given a reason to as it seems that
he became a heroin addict from a stable man with a loving sister (and assumable job given his white
shirt and brief case) just because why not?

I also never felt like DAVID had a chance of kicking his addiction and was always destined to die from
it.

Comparing DAVID to my character of Drugs shows just how lacking DAVID is. Drugs is given a
motivation for his addiction (absent father and uncaring mother) and more personality than simply
“an addict”. DAVID is show to have no personality and simply be a stereotypical heroin ‘junkie’
whereas Drugs has personal connections, a relationship and character flaws unrelated to the drugs
he takes. Drugs has friends that he’s insecure about losing because of his abandonment issues. This
is unrelated to his drug addiction. Further-more through my production Drugs is shown to be almost
able to get completely give up drugs with the support of his girlfriend and it is a tragic moment when
the death of his mother pushes him over the edge and into overdose when he was so close to
becoming completely clean. DAVID is just an addict who stays addicted and then dies due to his
addiction. This is boring and predictable and I wish they had done something different.

However. The camera work in DAVID is much cleaner, smoother and less grainy than mine. DAVID
looks more visually appealing than my production and has any engaging camera angles such as
DAVID looking up at the drug dealers as he approaches them and then them looking down at him.
This easily conveys who has power in this situation without the need for words.

If I was to do this project again I would choose to focus on the life on one of my characters and then
make that one story the best quality that I possibly could. I would focus less on the script, casting
and editing but rather would focus on locations, lighting and most of all camera work. I would make
this project (if I was to do it again) about the quality of my camera work rather than any other factor
and I would challenge myself to make the best looking production of anyone on the course. I would
also vastly improve my time management and make a shooting schedule before hiring my actors so
that I at least have something to go off and change and alter if my actors cannot make the selected
dates. I would also keep a constant work schedule on me and note down everything that could
happen like family events, work or an unavailable actor.