Audience research - SurveyMonkey

As it's a sensitive subject, the group decided to create a annoymous survey 

https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/JDT3LGC

1) What is your gender?
2) How old are you?
3) Do you feel there is enough help provided for those suffering with mental health?
4) Do you think health services generalise conditions without tailoring to patient needs?
5) Why do you think people feel awkward about discussing mental health?
6) Do you think people with mental health issues are treated differently in society? If so, how?

If the response to these answers are good, we are considering using these quotes for the voiceover / sound for our short film.

Shoot #4 - Eating Disorder

Both Emma and Izzy filmed the eating disorder bedroom scene together. We covered the room in magazine posters and underweight models and made a significant amount of makeup visible to show that the character is conscious of her looks.

The scenes we filmed:

• Waking up
• Looking at laptop / Ana blogs
• Establishing shots of magazines and posters
• Makeup
• Getting ready
• Close up shots of rib cage, spine and collar bones.
• Juxtaposition shots of a pan up the leg of two different leg sizes.
• Weighing on scales
• Close up of scale weight changing on the screen.
• Leaving lecture in oversized clothes.

Shoot #3 - Filming outside #1

We filmed the commute of the anxiety's travel to her lecture. We made a quick decision to film this on the certain day because it was cloudy but no rain and still bright outside to get good footage.

Shots filmed:

• Close ups of face
• Wide shot of walking to lecture hall
• Being struck by a stranger
• Wide shot with depth, people walking around me to present isolation.

Shoot #2 - Anxiety

I decided to nominate myself as being the actress for the anxiety role as I have had experience around people who have suffered from it. I found being filmed uncomfortable but I feel like my lack of confidence helped with making the character more realistic. For the props etc of the room we tried to make the room as regular as possible to initiate that those with anxiety can still fit in and live a normal life.

The scenes we shot for anxiety were:

• Establishing shot of her on bed
• Looking out the window
• Biting nails (close up)
• Tying shoe laces tightly to suggest nerves
• Putting hoodie on
• 360 shot on bed.
• Putting earphones in (close up)

First Shoot - OCD

The first filming shoot was filming the in room scenes with Stacey, Emma's flatmate who has acknowledged OCD illnesses around her in her life.  The scenes were shot in my student accommodation. Our group wiped down my room and making it as simplistic as possible.

The shots we got done were:

• Establishing glass and anti septic products.
• Waking up
• Making bed and perfecting the corners (close up)
• Putting on slippers
• Washing hands and overusing soap (close up)
• Putting on coat
• Leaving the room to go to lecture

Eating Disorder storyboard EXTENDED

• Due to the 360 spin in the anxiety's storyboard and the close up of the washing hands in the OCD storyboard we decided to add more scenes to the eating disorder storyboard to make it more intense and personal.
• We have decided to get close up establishing shots of the actress' body, showing her spine and ribs. This will then be juxtaposed with a body of a larger weight doing the same movements, suggesting that this is what the character is seeing in her eyes which is making her unhappy.
• We have decided to use Emma and Izzy for these scenes as we concluded that it would be too much pressure to ask actresses we do not know as well to play these roles.
• We've also decided to add a few more general shots such as leaflets to suggest mental health is the topic of this short film.

Deciding filming location

We all decided that my bedroom would be best to film our three characters in due to it being simplistic and easy to modify.

Locations

After our seminar we went to the Turing College reception to see if we was able to use one of the rooms in Turing or Keynes which are not in use this year.

Alex emailed the master of both accommodations and they unfortunately both denied us access to use any empty room in either accommodations.

From this, we decided to use my room for filming as it was the accommodation which was easy to get to for everyone and the less decorated from the others so it would be easier to modify.

Eating Disorder storyboard

• Our eating disorder character will be showing the audience her routine for the morning and what is triggering the character every morning.
• Once woken from bed, she will step onto scales and look displeased with herself.
• We then are going to use establishing shots of things that trigger our character, such as online blogs on her computer and photos of underweight models scattered around her room.
• A potential idea that we are considering is to have another actress who is larger than the eating disorder actress to play what she sees in her mind. However this may be difficult to do as it is an uncomfortable role to ask someone to play.

Anxiety storyboard

• The plot for the character suffering from anxiety will have the same structure as the other two characters in the short film.
• The character will begin with tying up laces and leaving the room to go to the lecture.
• To show what the character is thinking about in their mind is the issue and not anything physical, we are going to film the character sitting on the bed and it will be filmed at 360 degrees to get a depth and discomfort watching the character. Alerting the character is thinking about things that are hurting them.
• The character will be shown as awkward and isolated when walking to the lecture, to the point that she knocks herself into a random stranger.

OCD storyboard

• Our first character to be shown on screen when editing it together will be the OCD character as it firstly introduces the "half empty" glasses on the table side. This will suggest our three characters are synced together and all have a similar narrative.
• The OCD character will get out of bed, we will see her wear slippers to protect herself from the floor and cautious of what she touches. 
• We will film an intense washing hands scene to show how conscious she is of dirt and to highlight that this is an issue she is struggling with and not just a person who is feeling dirty.

Mental Health Youtube Video

• This video which Alex found on Youtube and brought to discussion in one of our meetings has brought together victims of mental health and made them discuss this in front of a camera.
• This video gave us an idea to perhaps have statistics written on the screen or have the actors share a few personal thoughts in the video.

Research Through Music Video

Our group firstly decided to look into music videos together which present signs of mental health or things which would trigger it (for example abuse). The music videos contain eating disorders (Christina Aguliera), Depression/anxiety (Pink) and the other two videos established issues which may be seen as triggering to seeking help such as Domestic Abuse (Eminem) and adultery (Katy Perry).

Group Meeting

The group got together to jot down ideas regarding the original idea of focusing on mental health and greatest day.