Sam Thomas' A2 Work

The Codes and Conventions of short films (Listed prevously Here) are very varied and are not strict to follow, however they do tend to be a brief guideline and a core similarity throughout most shorts. When researching the conventions I looked into Youtube(Specifically FutureShorts) and also the BBC shorts page. What I found was that most short films will have the title at the beginning of the film, generally on a black screen, signifying the low budget. Also credits will be similar to a full film, but obviously shorter, mise en scene will tend to be more gloomy and music will last throughout the film, or at least a major part of it.

Editing: With a short-film, there will always be an impact of making reality seem abnormal, or what is abnormal feel like reality. This can be done with a varied range of editing techniques to make the viewer feel out of place. For our film we did this be having short cuts (subliminally) of one of our abnormal characters(Blue Man). We got this idea from Sunshine(2007-Danny Boyle) which used this idea to forsee a moment of what was coming ahead. We did this in hoping that it would make what was a normal day for our main protagonist in our plot feel more like a dis-equilibrium, to the audience. We also decided that we would edit our movie to have quick, short cuts to the music. This was influenced by Shaun of the Dead(Starts at 4:19)(2004-Edgar Wright) and also makes it similar to a music video which we found in our research, is what a lot of short films tend to be.
Cinematography: To get the right feel for our film and make it work correctly we need the camera to be in a perfect position to get the exact framing we wanted. A shot that needed this precision was the travel scene. We wanted to have the shot look like the background was changing but Ben(Gordon) was staying centre frame. To complete this we had the grid set up on the camera screen so we could set up where Ben had to be placed. We then had him walk towards camera and we cut them together to make it work. This part was influenced by the Grand Theft Auto 4(2008-Rockstar Games) trailer.

Lighting: With the time of filming being around winter, the day got darker much quickly then we would like it to. This meant that we had difficulty with having continuity near windows in shots if we needed to re-shoot as the light outside will either be darker, or lighter than before, depending on when we were filming. In some shots we also needed the room to be lighter.
For this we would have a friend hold up a desk lamp facing in the direction of the camera, from behind the camera, but with a translucent cloth over it, so some light was given, but not too much. White balance was not a problem in most shots but for the dialogue scene where most walls are white, we turned down the brightness so it did not over power the other colours.

Representations: Our main protagonist in our film was to represent the average boy of today's society. Average build, normal life, middle class, nothing very special to him. However, as audience feedback suggested, he was also set up for the Female Gaze as girls liked the scene of when he's getting out of bed without a top. We represent the British countryside by showing lots of foliage in the local area. This is different to American set areas as they will tend to be more built up areas with trees planted by man, where our areas are woods and forests by roads.

Characters: When picking who we would have for our characters we looked into other productions which we felt were similar to ours and looked into how our characters should be. We realised that for our protagonist who controlled time(Blue Man) he would need to be creepy and out of the ordinary, hence why he became blue. However, we needed the audience to relate to him and therefore dressed him up in a suit. This showing that he is normal in a sense that he maintains a job, and the black tie to show he may not be the most happy person. Half Life's(1999-Valve) G-Man character influenced Blue man and also we took the name of the main protagonist from half life main protagonist as well, as a inter textual reference. Another intertextual reference we used was taking the second name of John Locke from Lost(2005-2010 - JJ Abrams) as our main characters second name. Lost also influenced how we edited our film.

Narrative: The narrative for our film was derived form just talking to each other and mixing our two ideas from before. But we were also influenced by films such as The Matrix Trilogy(1999-2003 - Wachowski Brothers) where a complicated theory is explained by an almighty character of some kind. This is why we believe our film was over complicated and ended up being rather corny as we tried to use big words to make our narrative feel more grown up and clever. We probably didnt pick the best actor to play our Doner/Magic Helper character and when our disequilibrium was solved, there wasn't a big enough punch to it and therefore it flopped on the audience since they were still confused about the dialogue we proposed to them before. We however thought we would leave a narrative enigma at the end of the film by leaving it with our protagonist arriving back in bed and it ends. This is similar to real short films as they will generally like to keep the audience thinking and an open end can usually do it well.
Soundtrack: Our soundtrack was created to reflect the mood of the character and also genre of the film. We chose a Jazz song as it fits well with the tempo of the protagonist getting up, and also it can fool the audience into thinking it is going to be an up-beat film with nothing too creepy or odd about it. This hopefully makes it more shocking when the pace of the film changes. It also works well at making our film more like a music video which a lot of short films are. Sound effects used in our film needed to signify a change in location such as the flashback scene and also that time wasn't right so for this we looked into Lost and Prince of Persia: Sands of Time(2003). Lost used a boom effect for when switching over to flashback which we thought was a good way to switch. We took from Prince if Persia a similar style of noise for when time is be ing effected(here).

Titles: For our titles of our film we thought we would go with the average white on black. This because it signifies that we are an indpendent film with not a very big budget. We changed the title of our film as we decided it needed to stand out more to the audience, therefore we made it look like a digital clock, which is relevant to our film, it also attracts attention as extra sound is played alongside it to make it more believable. For our ending credits we though we would break the norm and do them backwards. This was to relate to our story which was all about time being backwards. This makes the audience feel slightly more confused as it is not what they are accustomed to.

Promotion: A teaser campaign is generally seen in major films as it attracts the audiences attention and starts brewing up conversations between people about what it could be. The best i've seen is Cloverfield(2007 - JJ Abrams) Where a date was released and some raw footage which made major headlines of forums over the internet. We decided to make a teaser poster for our film which was solely based on the Blue Man Character. This is because this is the weirdest bit of our film and thought it would cause more of a stir between our audience. We wouldn't have a cinema campaign however as we are just a short film, and also since we are an independent british film, we would most likely be straight to DVD anyway or at least in selected 'arthouse' cinemas within the UK, and if lucky, in USA.

When creating our package of film poster, Magazine review and the film, we needed to think how we would link all three to the same audience. To do this we tried to have a core similarity to the posters and the magazine review. Both our posters were centred around having the main protagonists in main shot in the centre. These are to clearly show who the film is bout. To link to our younger audience more, we thought we would have the school as a focus in the Main poster as well. This is so a setting that is recognisable to them is shown and they will feel that the move is more relevant to them. Reviews on the poster are also from places that the audience should have heard of/look up to. This means that the viewer sees the review, thinks there idol likes and therefore they should too.

Our magazine review is related to the target audience by speaking in an informal language and hinting at ideas and forms they will recognise such as text speak e.g. OMG. The younger audience will prefer the informal language as you can relate to the writer more, and also younger generations are loosing formality in speech and actions so it will be more normal to them. The magazine is aimed more at a male audience however, with facts girls may not be as impressed in and also the fact we are a bit sexist from time to time e.g. Lady in the kitchen.

When working with our target audience we found many points that needed to be changed and we reflected on the comments that our audience gave us to try make our film better and to more of their taste. First comments on the animatic and initial pitch was that it sounded rather complicated and would be tricky to do with re-wind and other tricks. We acted on this and decided that when we start writing the screenplay we keep dialogue to a minimum. However it turned out that when we tried sticking it to a minimum, we made it more complicated than it originally could have been.
After first filming and creating our beginning we pitched it to the rest of our class mates. They all noticed, along with us, that on big screen you can notice a camera bump when Ben was walking down the stairs. We changed this by making the stair clip shorter. Also it felt a bit out of place without music over the top of the beginning and would fit better with the short cuts, so Sam created a jazz song composing it to the film.
When we put the whole film together, we showed it to the class again. This time they notified us that it was rather complicated to follow the dialogue as they couldn't understand the Blue Man as he was muffled and speaking too fast. Some people also decide that it would also work better as a mute, and speak backwards instead if he needed to. However, we were not able to re-film and revise a new screenplay so we were not able to do this re-shoot so instead we dubbed over the blue man. We had also added music over the ending re-wind and credits which audience said worked very well.
After watching our final cut we picked up on a few flaws ourselves. We noticed that at the beginning with the microwave, you can see the blue man pop up on the left of the camera. This is because our first intentions for this shot was to have you able to see him in the reflection of the glass but it did not work, but sadly I wasnt out of shot either when I popped up. There is a jump cut in the music just as Ben enters the school, it isnt very noticeable but it can pop out if the volume is loud enough which can sound out of place at times. If we were to do it again, I believe that we would include more shots of things happening in rewind and also cut down the dialogue to include more action. This is reflected off feedback given by our teacher. This is because at the moment our films twist is very weak and doesn't create the reaction we intended therefore including all this should make it more creepy.

To produce our package and research into products I used a range of new media technologies. Here is a list if what I have used.

Social Networking - I used sites such as facebook/Youtube/scribd to upload documents and videos and then get feedback off a wider target market, the internet and my friends.
Blogger - I used blogger to document my findings as I went along and a constant stream of information of how I was doing and what I was doing at each stage.
Search Engines - I used sites such as www.imdb.com and www.google.co.uk to get information and find what i needed. IMDB is a good site for film information as it has a database on every film.
Final Cut Express 4 and Sony Vegas 8 - I used these two programs to edit our film together, both of which are highly capable and are both similar, but Final Cut is on Mac Only.
iDVD 6 - We used this program to put our film onto DVD at the end of the editing process.
Garageband - We used garageband to create music for our film. We recorded the music using real instruments.
DV Camcorder - This was used to film our production. It is easier to film in digital as we can get it onto the Mac much faster.
Both OS Formats - I ended up using both operating system formats as some programs were easier to sue on PC while others were easier on Mac
Scanner - We used the scanner to scan in our storyboard. This was much easier than drawing it on pc.