Final Project Presentation and Critical Review of the Project’s Aims

My final project will be a short film – adaptation of Roald Dahl’s short story “Lamb to the Slaughter”.

A summary of the story:

Mary Maloney is sitting in her warm and clean home, waiting for her husband (a chief policeman) to come from work. She is 6-month pregnant. She is happy, in love and there is a sense of calmness in everything she does.

He comes home on time, she fixes him a drink, but as they’re sitting in the living room he tells her he’s leaving her. In a state of shock she goes to prepare dinner. Reaching in the freezer in the basement she grabs the first thing her hand finds – a frozen lamb leg. On her way to the kitchen she sees him standing in the living room and suddenly, overwhelmed with feelings, she hits him on the back of the head with the lamb leg. The hit kills him instantly.

She decides not to surrender herself for the sake of her baby. She puts the lamb in the oven to bake and goes to the supermarket, pretending everything is normal and, smiling, gets some groceries because “she’s cooking him dinner tonight”. When she returns home she calls the police explaining someone must have gone in while she was away and murdered him.

The police arrives, they spend the day investigating and sometime later one of her husband’s ex colleagues reminds her she’s got something cooking in the oven. Mary says she can’t possibly eat now but as a sign of gratitude and hospitality offers the lamb to the police officers. They accept and as they’re having dinner they’re discussing how the murder weapon must be somewhere around, probably right under their noses.  In the other room Mary Maloney starts to giggle.

I chose that particular story not only for the original plot, which intrigued me personally, but also because it has very little dialog and most of the narrative is developing through the thoughts of the leading character – Mary Maloney. This will challenge my directing and editing skills and will give me the opportunity to use my imagination and apply a broader range of filming/editing techniques in order to convey meaning and action.

As a CCM student, having studied Film and semiotics, I am familiar with different editing structures and ways of conveying meaning, i.e. Institutional Modes of Representation (for example a Hollywood-style production will use different connotations and structure from a Bollywood, a Chinese, a Korean, or any other type of regional production). Nevertheless, my personal and professional interests lie in Western high-budget TV series productions, which follow the Hollywood IMR. This is why I chose to film my short film, applying the Hollywood IMR’s semiotics and techniques of conveying meaning.

Although the story does involve murder, I do not intend to show it in brutal detail. My target audience I would define to be quite broad – above the age of 12, any gender, any social class.

In order for this to be a legitimate piece of work, my first step was to acquire the rights to the story. After some struggle and polite persistence on my part, Mark Casarotto (the solicitor for the Dahl family in charge of the filming rights of the author’s works) contacted the family on my behalf and came back with their blessing and a contract, granting me the filming rights for that story for the period of 9 months. The only conditions were that the finished product will not be shown in its entire form anywhere outside of university and that I sent them a copy.

My research showed me that the story has been officially adapted for screen twice over the years – once in 1958, as an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, where, as the title suggests, it was directed by Hitchcock himself; and the second time later in the early nineties – for the British TV series Tales of the Unexpected. Hitchcock is one of my biggest influences in terms of filming techniques in general, which led me to the decision not to see either of the adaptations – I don’t want to be directly influenced by their way of constructing the story. This will allow me to imagine and choose my shots and techniques on my own and thus make my work different from what is already out there.

For my future career I hope to work as a director/producer in television and more specifically – on TV series, music videos and/or commercials. My course has provided me with solid theoretical knowledge to support me in that career. This short film will boost my portfolio and enable me to put to practice that knowledge and demonstrate my technical skills as well.

Being not only the director, but also the producer of my project, other skills which will be challenged and used will be my organizational, time management and leadership skills.

When it comes to organizing my work I have followed a quote, found in Steven Dawkins and Ian Wynd’s book “Video Production: Putting Theory into Practice”(2010).

It is by Steve Cartwright : “As a general rule […]we often devote as much as 70% of our time to the pre-production process and 30% to post-production with the remaining 10% (if you work 110% like I do) devoted to the actual shooting. […]The percentages should tell you where the real work and success of the program lie.”(1996:4)

Here is how I have planned my work:

 20 October – 09 March

Pre-production

For those dates I have also taken into consideration the fact that I will also be busy with other university work, such as group projects, lectures and essays.

The pre-production will include:

• Fixing the dates for every step.
• Finding a filming location – I have already established this to be a friend’s house, the street and a supermarket nearby
• Writing the script – Already written
• Making the storyboard – Production in process
• Arranging the filming crew – I have already contacted the crew, students from the Media Production course, who I have already worked with on a few other projects.
• Casting the lead actress and actor – scheduled for 11^th and 12^th February; will try to secure one of the ET theatre halls as a casting location, or alternatively will try to secure the cinema hall in the Hub.
• Securing extras– 3 policeman, 1 groceries store salesperson; many friends have already volunteered.
• Budgeting production expenses – my initial casting will try to find the two lead actors, who are willing to help me for free. (In exchange they will be allowed to use snippets of it for their show reels and put it in their CVs). Worst case scenario, if none of the applicants under these conditions are even remotely suited – I will offer to cover the journey fees and accommodation costs and conduct a second casting with the new conditions.
• Booking equipment from the Media Loan Shop –
  • 2 JVC GY-HM700CHE cameras;
  • 2 JVC GY-HM700CHE battery chargers;
  • 2 JVC LCD Video monitors;
  • 2 Manfrotto HDV 503 Video tripods;
  • Manfrotto 114MV Dolly (plus tracks);
  • 1 set ARRI 800 red head lights;
  • lighting gells;
  • boom mic
  • boom poll;
  • 3 small SENNHEISER (clothes) microphones
  • SENNHEISER headphones
  • 1 Ediroll
  • Securing sound effects – Have already secured the BBC sounds archive
  • Conducting a project risk assessment – already completed, back-up plans are in place
  • Producing a shooting schedule
  • Test shoot on location – in order to test the exact positioning of the cameras and lights; scheduled for 4^th February in order to leave enough time for story-board corrections and worst case – to change location to the back-up one.

10 March – 14 March

Production

• Day 1,2,3 and 4– shooting indoor scenes
• Day 5 – shooting outdoor and supermarket scenes

15 March – 14 May

Post-production

• Logging the footage
• Capturing the clips, selected as useful at the logging stage
• Digital editing – assembly, rough cut and final cut
• Exporting

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Bibliography:

Cartwright, S. (1996) Pre-Production Planning for Video, Film and Multimedia. Oxford, Focal Press.

Dawkins, S. and Wynd, I. (2010) Video Production: Putting Theory into Practice. 1st ed. London: Palgrave Macmillan.