Christmas film

                                                              Christmas film       FINAL FILM:  (CLICK HERE)

Research

In teams we created how to guides, on how to create a Is it really a Christmas film, our team was made up of casey Weedall, Martin Cunningham and Joshua Jorgensen, we created a guide on how to make a 'Is it really a christmas film?' an example of this type of Christmas film would be 'Die hard', here is some images of our guide which we created in class. By making this we gained more knowledge about that some films we may not class as christmas films do include christmas settings and decorations.

The three Christmas film genres

Family Favourite

An example of a family favourite film is 'The christmas Chronicles', this is very christmassy and is definitley a film you would watch with your family, this is because the film is about two siblings who set out to catch santa on tape, but when the plan doesn't go their way they end up helping Saint Nick  save the holiday before it's too late. This genre of Christmas film compared to for example the 'Is it really a Christmas film? is very different because family favourite christmas films are full of magic and adventure and althought 'Is it really a Christmas film?' films do also have these attributes there isn't as much. This is why people prefer to watch family favourite Christmas films during the festive period because it gets them more excited and puts them in the christmas spirit for the holidays.

Is it really a christmas film?

An example of an is it really a christmas film?, is Die Hard, this film is not a Christmas film but it could in some cases fall under the catagory, this because of the music used in th film the props, the setting, and the season in which Die Hard is filmed in. This is why we call it an 'is it really a christmas film?' because the whole film doesn't contain any christmas magic or anything family friendly. The film is rated 18+ meaning kids can't even watch it, this is because it contains violence etc. Comparing this film to a christmas classic like Home Alone, is a whole other story, Home Alone is a christmas film that will always be watvhed during the christmas period, this is because Home Alone has been made one of the most popular christmas films ever made, it is a film for all to watch especially with your family but also with your friends or even by yourself, this film can make anyone feel the christmas spirit.

 

Christmas Classic

Christmas classics are the popular christmas films which evryone knows or has seen a few examples of christmas classics are Home Alone, Elf, The Grinch, Arthur Christmas and many many more! These films are being watched in most households over the christmas holidays getting people excited for christmas and bringing people together.

Why they are still considered Christmas films?

They are still considered Christmas films because they aren't just a watch it once and that's it, they hold up year after year because of many reasons for example; people get a sense of nostalgia from christmas films whether that be from a Christmas film they saw as a child or it may even remind them of a memory in their life where a specific Christmas film was playing and they want to relive that memory. They are also a way to get excited for the Christmas period by watching them leading up to christmas or even sometimes people watch them until the end of december. But people may also even watch them throughout the year because it makes them happy.

Arthur Christmas

Arthur christmas is about santa's son who sets out on a mission to deliver a present to a little girl whos present was misplaced, before it's to late. Arthur christmas is a family film which brings family and friends together, the cast includes the likes of James Mcavoy, Hugh Laurie and Bill Nighy. The cast for this film came together to create a christmas classic which families watch together and celeberate the festive season. Here is the trailer from the film and some images.

                                                   (Click on the link below to view the trailer)

                                                                Arthur Christmas Trailer

Nightmare before christmas

This film is a big contrast from Arthur Christmas, this is because The Nightmare Before Christmas is about a guy called Jack Skellington who is a halloween being and he accidentally ends up finding his way from Halloween Town to Christmas Town, when Jack sees all the warm Christmas lights and and bright colours he decides to change his life for the better. In halloween Town Jack is known as the Pumpkin King who spends his anual halloween's terrifying people, but now Jack has found Christmas Town he can stop being the Pumpkin King and take over the role as Santa Clause.

                                                           

                                                    (Click on the link below to view the trailer)

                                                       Nightmare Before Christmas Trailer

Pre-Production Paperwork

RISK ASSESMENTS

CASTING CALL

FILM PITCH

OUR SONG CHOICE

LOCATIONS

 

CHARACTER BREAKDOWNS

SCRIPT

PLANNING PROCESS

Before any of the actual filming started and we chose our actors, we had to plan the film, planning this film was really fun as we hd a lot of ideas flowing and we knew exactly how our film would look shot wise and atmosphere wise. The first stage of planning was getting the story established, after many ideas flowing between the group we all agreed on one, and that became 'Christmas Lights'. When the story was written up, we started to look for actors that could play our characters in our film. We put out a casting call into the actors group chat in teams to see who wanted to be in our film, after putting the casting call out we started receiving messages from actors that wanted to be apart of our film and who they wanted to play. When we received these messages we asked the actors to audition and send them via teams so that we were able to cast who we thought suitable for the roles. After viewing the auditions we all decided on who would play who in our film. The decision was made that Kadie Bradley would play (Charlie), Rebecca Williams would play (Kate), and Alan Tarkil, Aiden Hope, Connor Errington, Jessica Williams, Laura Lillystone, Pheobe Howard, would play the friend group. After the cast was chosen it was time to start pre-production paperwork, we split the paperwork between the three of us, making the process a lot faster and more efficient. When pre production paperwork was completed we started planning our filming days because we wanted to start as soon as possible. We decided to film on the first day after we finished the pre-production paperwork which kept us ahead of schedule and would give us more time to edit and make sure we were on top of everything.

                                                               PRODUCTION DIARY

Co-Directing this film was a really fun experience as I got to work alongside some amazing actors and crew who both did an excellent job throughout the whole shoot. Working on this set was such a fun time and everyone involved was great. On the first day of shooting we were filming in stockton Highstreet with Kadie Bradley as our main character Charlie, firstly we filmed in wellington square were we got some shots of Kadie walking out of a shop and down the street walking past all the shops. The next shot was walking into the highstreet with Charlie holding her shopping bags, we then see Charlie walk into a shop which we used a shot which panned down from the roof of the shop to the bottom where Charlie walks out. Thats all we filmed on the first day of shooting onto the next day. Second day of filming was located at Freya Whitehouse's house, on this day we filmed the phone call scene between Charlie and Kate, this was a really fun scene to film as everything looked cinematic and very aesthetically pleasing. After filming this scene we filmed the scene where Charlie walks into her house with the shopping, we then shot the scene inside the house where we see Charlie making a cup of tea. We wraped up after this shot and then went for food to end the day. Day 3 of filming was in Stockton High street on the night time to film the scene with Charlie and her friends, this filming day went very well and it was what we needed as it was the last filming day, after filming the last remaining scenes we wrapped up.I also want to say a big thank you to the actors and crew for each individually help make this film what it is and how good it looks. Being on the set of this film has been a learning experince which i will take and use on my upcoming projects, I feel that no matter what set I am on whether that be a film set or a theater set theres always soemthing to take away from it, one of the biggest things is experience but theres a lot more for instance your teamwork abilities get stronger, you're love for the industry gets stronger, and you always come of a set with more passion to do more. I also think as a crew we worked very well together and I think that's always a positive towards the production when not only just the crew work great together the actors do to. The synergy on set was always great which meant everyone was always on the ball and ready to film, the actors always arrived on set on time and when they arrived on set they were ready to go straight away. This was really good for the production overall and it made it so that we finished shooting within the first filming week. After all the filming was done we wrapped up and started on the edit as soon we could, editing took about three days to do and seeing the way it was edited was great, because of the camera we used we were able to to colour correct a lot of the shots making them so relaxing and enjoyable to watch. Freya Whitehouse who edited the film did an absolute amazing job in making it look very aesthetically pleasing and given it such a warm feel. When the edit was done we all watched it and were very proud of what we had acheived with this film, it is definitley one of the best projects I have been apart of this year, and I can't wait to do more projects in the future with this cast and crew.

DISTRIBUTION AND EVALUATION

The start of the production consisted of planning and getting everything that needed to be sorted done, this included, finding the right song, finding atmospheric and christmassy locations, and all pre-production paperwork. We split the paperwork between the three of us making it more time efficient, this helped massively when it came to getting to filming days because we had more time to figure out where we wanted to film and what shots we wanted to get on specific days. After all the planning we started filming, filming took around three days to complete. On the first day we filmed in Wellington Square with the actor Kadie Bradley and we got a few shots of her walking out of a few shops and walking down Stockton Highstreet, these shots were essential to the story because this is how it all starts when Charlie gets home and unpacks her shopping and makes herself a cup of tea, right after this she gets a call from Kate asking her to come out but Charlie refuses, after this shot we filmed the scene where Kate comes to Charlies house and tries to get Charlie to go to the christmas lights, Charlie refuses again but when Kate leaves, Charlie watches a old video of her and her dad when she was younger at chrustmas, this makes her want to go. Charlie makes her way to the christmas lights to see her friends, this shot was so visually appealing and i'm glad we got it because it looks so good! The next shot is of her younger self at the tree where she is going to see her friends this reminds her more of her father and all the great memories she's had at christmas. The next shot is of Charlie with all of her freinds, this shot is so wholesome because it shows that her friends wanted her their and when she came they were happy to see her, i think this shot is a really good shot to end it on because it's a taer jerker but it's a happy tear jerker. The last stage of production is the editing, the editing process was amazing to watch and how Freya edited certain shots, my favourite is the family video because it's a really clever shot and Freya knew that when edited it would look great and it did! When the edit was finished we all watched it and were really happy with the end product, the fact it went from a few ideas to one idea then to a whole production which looks amazing is so good to see. Everyone who was involved was fantastic and I cannot wait to do more projects with both Cast and Crew.

What i have learnt

I feel like I have learned a lot on this production, but one in perticular thing would be to make sure that in future projects I get all paperwork done as soon as physically possible, beause when that's out of the way you get so much time to film. This is a big thing that I am going to take away from this project and implement into my own films and other tasks. My target that I want to acheive during my next project is to be that little more organised and make sure I get all paperwork done as quickly as possible to give myself more time to film and edit so that there's no rushing, which can lead to a project not going the way I want it too.