Research
https://www.youtube.com/@Ocleg/videos
“Ocleg” is a creator who specialises in analog horror and emergency alert mock videos. I’ve been a big fan of their content and similar videos like it for a long time now and their videos are definitely a big part of the inspiration for this film. Watching their videos on this was definitely a great point of reference for me when creating my film as the BBC itself doesn’t have many emergency alert graphics as such available to the public and this gave me a good visualisation of what it would look like in these types of situations.
This video in particular is a great example of how the emergency alerts of the BBC would look like. It’s also a great inspiration for a massive thing happening much like my idea of radio waves killing the population. The eeriness of this video is something I aim to achieve with my project.
When researching for the film, when the film was set was a very important part of the development. I decided on setting the film in the early 2000s as I thought this style of branding created by Martin Lambie-Nairn was brilliant and with the lower quality I could give to the graphics and film itself it could create a creepy effect which I feel adds to the horror element to the emergency alert.
The “Pop Pulse” section is very heavily based off “Top Of The Pops”. While the film is set in the early 2000s and TOTP was most popular before then, I still thought this was a perfect way to pay tribute to one of the BBCs most successful shows.
The main part of this point would be the “charts countdown” where the character lists off the top 5 singles in the UK charts. The countdown visual is very heavily based on the count down segment which was used on TOTP.
Another way this section was based on TOTP is with the host having a lot of flair and energy which is something that was very common on the show with hosts like John Peel, Noel edmonds and Bruno Brookes to name a few.
To create the most accurate looking BBC footage I could create I studied the work of Martin Lambie-Nairn, especially his work with TV Idents, infamously creating the BBC One “Balloon” indents.
This video talks about how Martin Lambie-Nairn was tasked with bringing the BBC into the modern age with entirely new branding for the corporation, something that really inspired me. Following this and other guidelines I could follow exactly how the BBC brand of that time was supposed to look like down to the correct font, logo and how different branches of the BBC were supposed to look.
The way the point of view is always that of the viewer is something that is used in a lot of media, but most famously would be “Unfriended”. In this film, everything is from the point of view of a laptop and follows a girl on Skype calls that go wrong and her friends start getting murdered. From my own personal experiences with this style, my short film “Adolescence”, it is a really difficult thing to accomplish effectively as you need to make it as accurate as possible, while still being entertaining for the audience to follow. If not done correctly you lose a sense of illusion which can make the film very quickly less engaging.
Pre-Production
Any filming I need will be inside college using the TV Studio. The scenes I need to actually film with be Pop Pulse with the TV Studio set and then a music video using the green screen which is also in the TV Studio.
Collaborations
I will be collaborating with a few different people. Leon Whiting has agreed to help with camera work and taking up the role of vision mixer during the filming of Pop Pulse and the music video. Myself and Jacob Topham are working on a song together that we can use for the music video section of the Pop Pulse show. The music video will feature Jacob and Harley Kavailauskas.
Equipment
Cameras already in the TV Studio
Lighting
Lapel Microphones