Introduction

My name is Lee Barham and I am a student at University College Falmouth, studying Film at BA (Hons) level. This is the first in hopefully a number of blogs that will appear here over the next five or six months, to accompany the production of my final film at university. This blog will take you through the film-making process of Autumn Leaves; a ten minute narrative short film that I will co-produce, direct and edit.

 Autumn Leaves is to be my graduation film and represents an idea that I have had for the good part of three years. Over the last three or four months I have taken the idea and toyed with the different possibilities of making it into my ten minute short film. Although, at this stage I am still toying and tweaking the idea still, before I settle with the best possible way of telling it, in order to write a script.

Below is the latest story idea I have had and hopefully this is what will form into the final story structure for the film:


Autumn Leaves is a black comedy. It follows the story of a Funeral Director, his son and their family business, in a small rural village that has seen better days. The story starts in the last few days/weeks before William (The Son) goes off to University. Thomas (The Funeral Director), knows that the business is on its last legs and with William's departure, the situation will only get worse. It is at this stage that Thomas launches a desperate plan; to kill off the village locals. He knows that this is a sure fire way to maintain business in order to support his son's education and the business itself.

The story represents themes of change and the strain of local economies and communities under the threat of commerce. I chose the setting of a Funeral parlour because I have become fascinated by the question 'How does a Funeral director rely on community business when his business is death?'.

I am interested in the character because I feel that it's a fresh take on the serial killer story. I am interested in the extremity of the situation and the way a business man deals with expanding his business under harsh financial times. Essentially, I aim to make something that is funny, different but most importantly, a film that is able to say something about the society that we live in.  In current times, it is the small communities and the lower classes that are under threat within this coalition government. This film symbolises the traditional family business under times of financial crisis, money cuts and globalisation.

That is a small summary of the story and of what my project is about in general. Over the next few blogs, I will talk more in detail about the story, the people that I plan to work with (Crew) and the creative and productive processes that I will come in contact with over the next four or five months.