Friday, February 27, 2026

Genre reserach

I’ve been trying to clearly decide on the genre. Right now, I think the film fits best as a Phycological drama. The main focus will not just be on what the character does, but on how his mind changes over time. I want the audience to feel uncomfortable and unsure about what will happen next.

When I researched Psychological Thrillers, I learned that they usually focus on a character’s inner struggles. The tension comes from their thoughts, fears, and obsessions rather than big action scenes. These films often use lighting, sound, and camera angles to show mental instability. This is important for my film because the story is about a slow mental decline, not one big dramatic moment.


Taxi driver this film follows a lonely man who feels disconnected from society and slowly becomes more unstable. What stood out to me was how the film shows his isolation. There are many scenes of him alone, driving at night, thinking to himself. The city feels dark and empty even though it is crowded.

The film builds tension slowly. Nothing extreme happens at first, but you can tell something is wrong with him. This is helpful for my project because I want to show my character’s boredom and isolation before his addiction becomes serious. I can use quiet scenes, voiceovers, or long shots of him alone in his apartment or office to show his mindset.

From this research, I learned that I need to build tension slowly. I should start with simple, repetitive scenes to show boredom, then slowly change the lighting, editing, and sound as the character’s addiction grows. Doing this research early is helping me think more clearly about how to make my film feel realistic and intense without needing complicated effects or large sets.

Thursday, February 26, 2026

Film Reaserch #3

 I watched Trainspotting and American Psycho to see how filmmakers portray characters who are dissatisfied with their lives and mentally drifting away from reality. Both movies approach this idea in very different ways but they each have techniques I could use.



Trainspotting uses creative camera work and surreal scenes to represent drug use and the characters mental states. Some scenes exaggerate reality, which helps the viewer understand how the character feels internally. This inspired me to think about adding stylized shots or unusual angles to represent my character’s mindset instead of only filming things realistically.


American Psycho focuses more on subtlety. The character seems normal on the outside, but small details in his behavior, expressions, and dialogue hint that something is wrong. This is useful because it shows how you can foreshadow a character’s breakdown without making it obvious. I want to experiment with this idea by showing small hints early in my film that suggest something is off before anything major happens.


Wednesday, February 25, 2026

Film Reaserch #2

 So basically today I continued researching films that relate to my short film idea about someone bored with life who starts going down a destructive path. I looked at Fight Club and Requiem for a Dream because both movies show characters who feel trapped in their lives and try to escape in unhealthy ways.



Fight Club is really useful for studying narration and symbolism. The main character’s boredom is shown through repetitive shots of his routine, like the camera focusing on mundane details of his apartment and office life. This is something I want to use because it visually communicates boredom without dialogue. Requiem for a Dream is helpful in a different way. It uses fast cuts, sound effects, and close-ups to show addiction taking over someone’s life. Instead of just telling the audience that the character is addicted, it makes them feel it through editing and sound.


Both films showed me that I don’t need to explicitly show everything. I can suggest things visually and let the audience interpret what’s happening, which will make my film more interesting and cinematic.


Tuesday, February 24, 2026

Film Research

 So basically I am going to be researching various movies and figuring out how to make my short film as sigma as their movies are. I spent some time looking at movies that were about Suicide and drugs and found a movie called "Suicide Room" its a polish movie about some high school students, I also found a movie called Office space which is based on the boringness of working in an office. Since my film has topics about an office and suicide I felt that these are good movies to start of with.

The movie about the suicide room has elements that I want to use such as the ways in they suggest that someone is going to commit a suicide without actually showing anything explicit. For example showing a shadow from behind of someone getting killing themselves rather than showing the entire thing. Then the second movie about the Office space it shows the ordinary life at an office and it has a lot of good techniques that i could implement such as various shots of B roll of the office.


Saturday, February 21, 2026

A level project schedule

So basically last year my planning was not very good so here is my schedule so i don't mess up and stay on task the entire year.

Week 1

  • Choose project genre

  • Begin developing the full film plot

  • Research genre and story ideas

  • Post updates to blog

Week 2

  • Continue researching and planning project components

  • Further develop story

  • Finalize main ideas

  • Post updates to blog

Week 3

  • Continue research for project components (digital/print)

  • Develop script or detailed outline

  • Create filming/editing schedule

  • Reach out to potential participants for filming

  • Create shot list and storyboard

  • Develop social media tool

Week 4

  • Continue research for project components

  • Begin production of video component

  • Document production process (for social media and blog)

  • Post updates to social media and blog

Week 5

  • Continue research and planning for project components

  • Continue production of video component

  • Begin editing video component

  • Start planning print component

  • Post updates to social media and blog

Week 6

  • Continue post-production of video component

  • Continue planning print component

  • Post updates to social media and blog

Week 7

  • Finalize video component

  • Work on print/digital components

  • Post updates to social media and blog

Week 8

  • Finalize video component

  • Continue work on print/digital components

  • Post updates to social media and blog

Week 9

  • Create Critical Reflection

  • Finalize print component

  • Post updates to social media and blog

Week 10

  • Create final overall project reflection

  • Post all project components to blog

Friday, February 20, 2026

A LEVEL PROJECT REVEAL

 What's up Cambridge, last year my project was honestly kind of buns. This year I want to create something I actually like, I will be choosing to create a short film. I always wanted to make a short film and this seems like a perfect opportunity for it. This year the film is 5 minutes which is longer than the 2 minutes we had to make last year. This means I will need to make a longer script. 

Honestly I thought of my idea for this project when I was watching the Wolf of Wall Street. I did not really like the movie, but it made me realize that rich people are often terrible people and got rich for various interesting ways. I want my short film to be based on a man that works a regular office job, his life will be very repetitive, he is going to be a single man who just goes to work and comes back with a boring life. This schedule is going to keep repeating until he is sick of it, like he will get more annoyed every day. Then he will start being kind an asshole. He will start drinking and start doing drugs. He will start not going into work and he gets fired. He will get so sick of his life that is will try to kill himself. 

I dont want to have a happy ending. I feel like movies always have happy endings and there is not enough movies that have a problem that does not get solved. I want to create a story where his life seems bad but it keeps getting worse and he sees people doing better but turns to drugs instead of trying to fix his life which happens to alot of people and I dont think it is represented often.


Friday, December 12, 2025

Creative Critical reflection

Our documentary affects almost everybody in the world. Since everyone needs to wear clothes we needed to make sure that our documentary addressed the topic appropriately and in a way that would engage the audience. We ended up trying to create a piece that had correct information and a way to present it in a way that would be interesting. Our documentary represents the lower income citizen by giving them easier ways to get better clothing, and addressing the higher income citizen by showing then ways that they can donate clothes not only to help protect the environment but also help other individuals. 



We tried to make our documentary engaging by combining informational segments with entertaining segments. We included the funny segment in the beginning where we were interviewing people on the street. Then we switched it over to a more informational segment with my standup and then included a segment about thrifting mixing the informational portion with the entertaining by including B-roll and an interview with Cooper. Then we included the ending which was very serious about me closing off the topic. After the documentary finished we added a comedic element by interviewing a plastic gorilla to leave the audience with a smile on their faces after watching our documentary.
To research for our documentary we looked at the amount of clothes being thrown away each year and felt we could make an entertaining and informing segment by interviewing people on the street. Our biggest achievement was making the informational green screen segment. Nor me or Robbie has ever made a green screen style segment. So I feel the way that we were able to put it together was pretty impressive. I researched and wrote the script for the standup about the various different problems related to clothing waste. Then we recorded the standups in the TV studio. Then I came home and did a lot of research on how to create the green screen itself. Another convention we challenged was the previously mentioned gloominess of documentaries of similar premises. Instead of a sad tone from other wasteful documentaries we decided to take a different approach and make our documentary more positive rather than making the audiences feel down.


Genre reserach

I’ve been trying to clearly decide on the genre. Right now, I think the film fits best as a Phycological drama. The main focus will not just...