Summer work

For my summer work, I made a short film about safe sex using the analogy of snails lack of protection in the wild. I was inspired to make this when i stepped on a snail and realised how little protection their shell actually provides. I thought it would be fun to make a film using snails which ends in them getting squished but I felt that this needed more meaning so I decided to do it in a style of a PSA using the idea of protection as an analogy for protection for sex such as condoms. I have a dollhouse in my room from when I was younger which I have used for other short films so I planned to use this as my main set, however I knew that for the final squish scene I would need to get them outside of the house. I drafted out a story board to help me develop a plot that coherently linked these locations together and this helped me plan some framing ideas for scenes. Most of these frames I stuck to when filming.

However there were some I had to change for practical reasons, for example I originally wanted the opening shot to have an open window in the background however as the windows in the dollhouse have no glass I felt that this looked tacky and unrealistic. However, I still wanted to demonstrate that the snail was looking outside so I decided to change the shot to have the camera looking through the window at the snail. I felt this shot was actually better than my original idea as it created a sense of 'peering in' to the secret life of the snails. The second set I had to create was the field. I wanted

this setting to be a more romantic and human location than just a regular field so I decided to stage this scene as a picnic instead. To do this I had to make a miniature picnic blanket, I made this out of a sheet of paper which I colored a checkerboard pattern on with a red biro. I filmed the snails over the course of 2 hours. First filming in the dollhouse, experimenting with a variety of angles to get the best shots, then moving to the garden with the 'picnic blanket' when I finished the filming i then moved on to editing. I used the app videoleap. I used sound effects from the app at first however I felt this didn't convey the romance theme enough so I decide to add a piece of music over the video. I looked through some playlists on Spotify of romantic songs and wrote down the ones i felt applied best to the themes of my video. My three final contenders were 'Fantasy' by Mariah Carey, 'My Heart Will Go On' by Celine Dion and 'Love on the Brain' by Rhianna. I looked at the lyrics of the songs and I felt 'Love on the Brain' was the best choice as it had more negative connotations and showed how love can guide you to make poor/irrational decisions. Reflecting my theme of correctly using protection.

I was satisfied for the end result as I felt I was able to create a film that both educated and entertained my audience. I felt that I was able to successfully demonstrate my desired themes (i.e. romance and comedy) and I was also satisfied with the visual elements as I felt that the visuals made the themes an messaging obvious whilst also being aesthetically pleasing.