Production File - While You Were Sleeping

While You Were Sleeping
By Danny Peachey

I had to produce a 6 minute fictional film centred on two main characters or more, this is the production file that documents all of the processes I used to produce my final product and a 40 second pilot.
For this piece of work I want to create a dark comedy, based around two primary characters and one secondary character.
I first started with researching different types of films involving hostages or hostage situations, these being such as the “Saw” trilogy starting in 2004 and most recently Saw 5 released in 2008, films revolving around people being taken hostage, and given a choice, that would decide their freedom or their death. I also looked at some short films similar to the type of design and I idea I had in mind. I was also looking on You Tube for short films revolving around dark comedy for example Hoodoo for Voodoo, High Expectations and The Inside Job - Mafia Dark Comedy. But my favourite example of a hostage film, that revolves around the relationship between the hostage and its capturer is the film “Tie me up, tie me down”
Tie me up tie me down follows the role of a young man, who has recently been released from a mental institution, he man becomes obsessed with an actress, who he had a one night stand with and doesn’t want to let her leave.
Throughout my project I had to keep a journal of every aspect I did, from research and pre-production all the way to the final product and an evaluation, however I am currently at the post production stage, and the final product being the 6 minute fictional film has not been finalised and evaluated.
I also have to use a piece of 3D software called frame forge to produce a full storyboard of my film as and avi document as well as storyboard stills to visualise how my film will be structured, how it will look and how it will feel.
My primary idea was a fantasy story about vampires in the modern age, living with and around humans, and how they lives can become twisted and manipulated by lies and betrayal, titled “A Memory Of Blood” and you can find the script here. However this script was a lot longer then 6 minutes and I felt that I didn’t have enough knowledge to complete it to a standard that I wanted to achieve and cut it down to 6 minutes while still keeping the main storyline intact.
My secondary idea was the idea of a dark comedy about a hostage and his captures day and what he does throughout the day, the primary script can be found here, I have also written an alternative ending and that script can be found here.
I also wrote a short proposal of an overview of my film, what the characters were like, what makes them significant to the piece, and some basic research, my proposal can be found here.
After I had written my script I started to write some brief character histories for each character, Terry, John and Stacie’s can be located on their names.
After writing the character histories, I searched for actors that I wanted to use, but without funding in my current situation, I decided to go with actors that I knew and who also had experience of working behind the camera as well, but didn’t need being paid for payment for travel or a hotel room, these people being Danny Peachey, Jack Boyles and Janet Chu .
After these three people accepted the desired take I had to write a detailed filming schedule as well as numerous release forms that had to be agreed and signed by the actors and signed of by someone of authority this being Simon Perkins.
I had some locations in mind but I wanted to investigate a range of different places and pick from the best, the place I ended up deciding would be most suitable was 5 Noel Street. The reason I felt 5 noel street was most suitable was because the main reason being, it being where I lived so I didn’t have to get permission to film there, also it has a run down cellar, but the rest of the apartment is well maintained and large enough to hold a crew with a low risk level, the only place with the higher risk level was the cellar, however the cast and crew had high knowledge of the cellar location and the risks involved.
Once the footage was shot, I started to think about how my title credits could be made to look in the same aseptic theme as the 6 minute fictional film and pilot would be and this is what I came up with, the credits title sequence can be found here.