Short Film:
It was always clear from the research earlier on in the course that an incredibly large and complex story with many twists and turns simply wasn't going to be possible as all the example i looked at all had incredibly basic story with a straight forward narrative and not much fussing about with setting of scenes, allowing the mise en scene to explain such factors instead of dedicating valuable time on things such as establishing shots as it simply wasn't necessary or needed. However i did manage to break away from some of the usual conventions of short films that i found whilst still taking snippets of inspiration from others.
- They were always centered around one event and not much else, in order to really explore that event in the few minutes given. However i have played around with this convention somewhat as despite there only being one drive in the story like most short films, in this case the fact that the main character is hungover and trying to recall the events of the previous night, there are still many other events that are revealed within that scenario, this serves to branch the film out a bit and make it more than just one event, as is so exhibited in the award winning short film 'The Hole' which despite containing several events as such, it has little build which i believed made it slightly more predictable than it perhaps could have been.
- Something that films like 'The Hole' and the simply remarkable 'Sign Language' made me realise to great effect however, is how the film doesn't have to be on such a large scale like a full length feature, it is a short film and thus large area's in which to film and different locations make things slightly tricky to fit in and in fact is quite needless given the situation. For example The Hole doesn't move from within the office where it is set, a nice and straightforward setting for the audience to comprehend quickly and shift their attention to the actual events themselves something equally exhibited in 'Sign Language' in which the setting doesnt at all shift from a street in London, as opposed to having several locations which have to be comprehended first before the events truly mean anything to the audience, overall making the delivery of each event snappier and more crisp.
Characterisation:
The main factor that i have taken to heart when it comes to characterisation is how the characters are established; it seemed to all be based around mise en scene, allowing the judgement from the audience on their personality be draw from their surroundings, clothing, facial expressions and body language. Such as in ‘The Hole’ where the grumpy, bored office worker has his personality moulded by his clothing (the top button of his shirt undone and his tie loose) as well his slumped posture and vacant expression, giving off the impression of tediousness and dumbing down to the point of brain washing.
I have exhibited this use when constructing the main character in that his facial expressions right off the bat is dazed and confused while his body language in the way he walks is unsteady and laboured as though his limbs are heavier than they should be, this coupled with him just being in his underwear and a baggy T-shirt makes for a good ploy as a hung-over youth, playing on the stereotype of an unkempt appearance and an untidy house courtesy of numerous amounts of mess lying around from the previous night. On top of this, the use of close up shots on the main characters face to emphasise the emotion and mid shots when appropriate to show the full range of body language used so as to convey the full scale of emotions displayed, although admittedly these full body language displays are only ever used to convey anger.Genre:
As my film is a hybrid it is clear that it must cross over two conventions, those of comedy and those of thriller. On the thriller side of things it keeps to the classic convention of a ‘who dunnit’ murder mystery only i have slightly tweaked this so that it is only revealed to be a murder mystery near the end of the film. On the comedy side of things however, I’m afraid that the conventions are fairly basically followed. Basic use of taboo such as swearing and advanced taboo such as a swastika on the lawn in the garden are themes used by many sitcoms although i must confess that this film follows a comedy style fairly similar to The Inbetweeners, in that complex writing takes a back foot to general abuse and taboo.
Post Production:
The use of non-diegetic sound in short films is something that has always interested me as it is a good way to build suspense be it music or SFX. The SFX that truly amazed me was in The Hole, where the hole itself was accompanied by some sort of low humming drone, this not only built suspense but also served to give the hole an identity of its own. I have used such hard to identify SFX to build suspense near the end of the film at which point there emerges a gigh pitched wine backed by a low throbbing pulse, this is to give the final array of flashbacks some gravitas and suspense as they reveal what really happened during the final gruesome events of the previous night, this accompanied by some quick cutting between the flashbacks and a close mid shot of the characters face serve to build the events before revealing exactly where the main characters girlfriend is.
Another thing ive done in post production is editing the footage itself for the flashbacks, such as lowering the saturation and adjusting the focus slightly whilst playing with the light to make it slightly softer so that it looked slightly odd to the human eye, making sure that there was absolutely no question that it really was a flashback.
2) How Effective is the combination of your main product and your ancillery tasks?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfSvH_n57wk
3) What Have You Learned From Your Audience Feedback?
Below is a table highlighting a survey i conducted by hand after showing the film to 30 people representing 3 demographics chosen at random. The blue bar is the demographic i catered to (youth of 14-25) the red and green as you can see are 2 other demographics wistfully ignored to compare against.
As you can see, the majority of my demographic described the film as ‘good’ and all of the reviews were in the positive section of the chart, meaning that i was right in catering the film to this age group and that taboo and sex jokes seem to hit the spot with the youth vote but doesn’t really do much on the part of the older generation. A quote that often joined the rating with the youth part of the survey when they were further questioned was that they ‘liked how the events are totally unconnected so you really don’t expect the girlfriend to be dead’ and that ‘the events during the film caused them to forget about the calendar saying that it was their anniversary at the start of the film’ this told me that the plot doesn’t exactly need to be coherent as such and that all the events in between the beginning and end don’t necessarily have to be relevant to the overall idea of the film and can simply be thrown in just to manoeuvre the characters to where you want them to be for the final moments of the film.
However there was one criticism of the film the was mirrored in most reviws across the board, and that was that the films ending was rather flat, yes the discovery was good, but the rather sudden ending and cut to the credits simply wasn’t particularly impactful and thus failed to really leave any sort of impression on them once the film had ended. The problem i have with this statement is that i am simply not entirely sure as to how i would have addressed it. I dislike the idea of trying to change the ending concept of him finding what happens to his girlfriend however i think its the final line o the film that causes it to fall flat, the simple ‘Lisa?’ Leaves a lot to be desired when it comes to genuine impact.
4) How did you use new media technologies in the construction, research, planning and evaluation stages?https://prezi.com/secure/d51853fa6dc4e0accef91dfd451768558cc93a30/
