Evaluation: Question 4

·         Who is your target audience and how have you reached them?

Our target audience are teenagers and we attract them by using actors of their ages, which makes it easier for them to relate to the subject we are exploring. We have also made the story more complicated by inferring that Raine’s ‘drinking’ has made her hallucinate, which is a current issue for teenagers.

Evaluation: Question 2/3

·         How have the short films that you have studied/researched influenced your own production? Be specific; think about use of cameras, music, titles, narrative structure etc.

·         What were your other influences? Music videos, films and news story, personal incident?

On watching the short film Beyond Words, I was struck by the way the director removed sound and the subsequent powerful impact that its absence created. The tap dripping as we see Raine’s slit wrists is one of the few diegetic sounds within the short, which separates and highlights its importance because the sudden nonexistence of sound places more emphasis on the protagonist’s suggested tragedy and the repetition of this soothing echo is a direct contrast to the visual, which is design to shock.

By beginning the short as though it is a full-length film with titles as is done in Mud Boy, the audience is deliberately led into the false expectation of security, and this works well because it allows us to produce a short that leaves the reader without security, using something as tangible as the subconscious state.

It can be suggested that every good narrative must have a turning point, and we represent this in the ‘proposal’ of the lipstick and the next of the camera zooming in on Raine’s shocked expression, allows us to bridge the gap between our two ideas. This is the point that lightening (see example Scarlett’s Witch),within both the filming and editing stages become integral as it supports this transition by using bright, exaggerated colours symbolic of happiness and then dark, shadowy ones, symbolic of the change in the character’s emotion – the breaking of her heart.

The shots that stand out in my memory are the ones of the protagonist’s eyes, which are influenced by the film Pan’s Labyrinth. The way the camera zooms into Ofelia’s eyes is a poignant shot as it represents the movement of the protagonist. In my opinion, the shot of the eye in Raine is also representative of the audience’s ‘invitation’ into Raine’s mind and thus her emotions, which we also try to depict in the camera angles as during the dream sequence a long of them are from her point of view. 

Evaluation: Question 1

·         How does this piece conform to short film codes and conventions; think both in terms of technique and content?

We decided to use friends as our actors and Roisin was the seductress. In keeping the cast small, we were enabled to retain Raine’s simplicity as a character and also the effectiveness of the visual despite its complicated and confusing structure. We also don’t have much speech or diegetic sound, rather relying on non-diegetic sounds to create the tone we need. The music is an integral component as it is the audience’s direct link to Raine’s emotions. The frequent use of handheld shots juxtaposed with static ones creates a gritty, realistic look and each shot is important and moves the narrative forward, so therefore, we have kept shots short or overlapped them so that we can show two emotions at once.
Overall, the short is determined to be outside of the box. During our idea generation sessions, we had problems creating one idea. The film is unique, because it explores the different states of the human mind, which we did by treading the tenuous line between dreams and nightmares using colours, overlaps and music. The shock ending by leaving it on a question (which is a similarity to some shorts, such as Mud Boy), encourages the audience to think for themselves, which is quite interesting because everyone’s interpretations are different. It does not conform to the boundaries of any particular genre (although the bright yellowy colouring might suggest a fantasy world), which keeps it engaging for the audience and makes it visually interesting.

Our Aims

Here’s a list of what we have to complete:

·         Finish editing the colour of the nightmare scenes

·         Finish the Overlays within the nightmare scenes (for example find a suitable position for the knife)

·         Edit the visual of Raine and the Seductress running from the bench – it is too long.

-        Cut down the visual of the candle

-        Maybe visual of the vodka?

·         Edit the stop frame pictures (i.e. make them darker etc, and more shadowy)

·         Put a voiceover over the nightmare scenes (i.e. the candle)

-        Find a scream/add the one that we recorded

-        Put the sound of the tap dripping on the stop frame segment

·           Create a soundtrack (dream like music which transcends to music that represents a nightmare)

·           Photoshop of the title Raine

Editing Process

In terms of editing, I have enjoyed this project more than previous ones. I have learnt many new techniques and have had a more active and hands-on role within the editing process, which has helped to solidify my knowledge.

During the filming and editing process, we have made few, but significant changes to our idea. For example, we cut the scene where the girl sees her ‘friends’ in the woods, as we felt it deviated away from the tone of the piece, by giving it a more film-like one. Problems with our camera during filming has had a direct impact on the style of the piece as the end segment is now in stop frame, which I feel has become one of the visual representations of the dichotomy we are trying to create.

I have learnt how to edit with precision and my attention to detail has allowed me to note problems which on first glance had been missed by others in my group. Working within a group has given me more moral support in my learning of Final Cut Pro, because I know I can rely on my team members to help me. In our short film, colour is extremely important and I have learnt how to change and exaggerate colour and make bright yellow colours, by adjusting the red and green in the RGB colour tool. This project has given me a chance to learn lots of new techniques, and also increased my awareness as to the importance of each shot, because of the strict time restraints.

At the moment, we are quite close to finishing and as a group have become more critical the closer we get to finishing, as we have all improved our understanding of the program and are able to work out whether things we thought weren't possible actually are.

The Presentation: Raine

 

The Notes For Our Presentation

Presentation Notes

Synopsis:

·      When trying to create a concept we wanted to explore the two extremes of sleep (a state on vulnerability) and thus merged the idea of dream and nightmare.

·      We wanted to do something different and approach the subject of suicide from a different angle and felt that this was unique because it was created using a more realistic feel.

Actors:

·      In creating Rain, we’ve delved into the fine line between reality and dreaming and created this obviously troubled character. The name choice came quite naturally and it reflects the instability in everything surrounding her.

·      The seductress is one of those characters that you know as soon as you see her is trouble. The iconic white dress, adds to her surrealism, yet she is the one thing that stays the same, because what we see with her, is exactly what we get.

·      The Boyfriend is the ultimate deceiver. Aside from the seductress, we have created a character that Rain can fully trust, which we see in the way she responds to him and once that is taken away from her, the question is what is left for her? And by keeping her ambiguous the question is did she ever really have anything?

·      The small cast, allow us to focus more on Rain’s feelings etc.

Location:

·      We have decided to film in a massive park (Finsbury Park) so we can get to different extremes, the woodland and the more public access parks.

·      By keeping it simple, we help retain the realism.

Props:

·      The water bottle is integral to the whole film, because it is the core from which everything expands.

Storyboard- Raine

Storyboard:

Raine

Roisin: Colouring |  Perpe: Description- writing | Justyn: Drawing. 

Short Film Pre-Production

Notes typed and edited by Roisin

Character Profiles

The female protagonist:

• Slim
• Nothing special
• Some unusual features
• Own sense of style - arty

The Seductress:

•  Pixie-like
• Light-footed (dancer)
• White Dress, pink lips (dream)
• Skimpy clothes/rah-rah skirt, red lips, dark eyes (nightmare)
• Represents the temptation to drink

The guy:

•  Normal looking
•  Similar look/style to Justin Bieber
• Represents the female protagonist’s addiction

The friends:

•   Own style

Production Schedule

Sunday 24^th – Friday 28^th October

(Actual days for each location depend on weather)

Two days park:

• Before dream sequence
• Part of dream sequence
• Part of nightmare sequence
• Female protagonist: 2 days
• Seductress: 2 days
• Guy: 2 days
• Friends: 1 day

One day tunnel/underpass:

• Transition from dream to nightmare
• Female protagonist and Seductress

One day leaving house, bathroom and symbolist shots:

• Mostly indoors
• Female protagonist (maybe Seductress)

Synopsis

A girl leaves her home with a bottle of, what appears to be, water and sits in her local park to watch the world go by.  However, everything changes and the world isn’t what she knew it to be; she enters a dream-like world and is led by a girl in white through a forest to a small gathering of friends who are happy to befriend the girl.  Amongst the friends is the girl’s dream man and he leads her farther into the forest.  After presenting her with a gift, the dream world shifts and becomes a nightmare.  The girl feels powerless against the horror and stops everything the only way she knows how to...

The News (Future Shorts)

The camera captures the female protagonist from a wide range of angles, makes it look interesting and shows how happy she is. The voiceover makes it seem as though she is conversing directly with the audience (with pauses for the audience’s to ask questions) and a personal relationship is thus established with her. The camera angle as he explains what has happened to her sister is taken from her point-of-view, which allows the audience to empathise with her and experience the changes of emotion she is experiencing.

The couple are madly in love and everything at first seems ideal, her pouring out her heart to him about he has made her so happy and declaring her love for him. The suddenness of the statement, “I killed your sister,” is stated in such a matter-of-fact tone of voice, that at first the audience do not realize like the female protagonist and have to recheck what he says. The way he also continues to talk as though nothing is going on creates repulsion for the audience. The absence of a reply from the woman leaves a hole in the narrative, one of shock, a contrast to the beginning.

Causality (Coffee Shorts)

The opening of the film and opening shot of the ‘shrine’, carries a mournful tone in the music and the pictures, which every time they change or move flashes like an x-ray, which implies that maybe the couple are dead. The use of music increases the tension of the situation; it reaches a peak with a sound that forebodes, which grabs the audience’s attention to type of situation even before we see the gun.

The slow movement of the camera reveal parts of situation and this again heightens the reader’s interest. As the camera zooms into a close-up of the female protagonist’s face and her reaction to what she has just done, the flashbacks help the audience to understand why and refer to her not knowing what to do.

Her distance from her friend’s ‘death’ is hard for the audience to watch because she is uncaring and harsh The director explores the heights of anger and the depths of despair and juxtaposes them in the protagonist to show how closely they correlate. The audience actually believe that the woman has gotten away with her deceit so are shocked when her friend is we resuscitated. By leaving it on a cliffhanger the director makes the audience curious because we want to know what happened. I actually found this short quite comedic because of the use of music and the ending, it made me laugh.

http://www.coffeeshorts.co.uk/drama.html

Group Discussion

In today’s lesson we got into our groups and started to talk through ideas. I’m working with Justyn and Roisin, we started to think about what sort of topics we would like to explore i.e. secrets. I’m happy to be working with them again after our Media Analysis project, because we know each other’s strengths and weaknesses and also we know what sort of ideas work and what doesn’t when it comes to formulating ideas etc.

Beyond Words - Armand De Saint Salvy

The title is very important because it places the audience in a position they have never been before. The absence of sound allows the audience to empathise with the protagonist. They feel disorientated and out of touch in the world. Makes us concentrate more on the surroundings and actions of those around us. It lowers our reaction time, which is why it is more frightening to us when the guy grabs her. The switch between sound and no sound makes the scene much more brutal and heartbreaking to watch because the woman is helpless.

The movement of the camera moves with the exercises, which places us there. As she walks to her car, we feel voyeuristic, like we are intruding on her life. The switches between the absence of sound and sight in both characters, leaves the audience helpless as well.  By doing this, the director connects with the audience at their most vulnerable and that is why this piece is so impacting.

It makes the audience more aware that every person has a story, which we do not know about. The beauty of the film is achieved in the deaf woman helping the blind man and he her. It makes the audience think about the importance that everyday sense which we take for granted have on our lives.

Scarlet's Witch

The low-angle shot of the camera tracking along the road, along with the music demonstrates that the journey that Scarlet makes. The de-saturated colours help create this sense of mystery, with the forest surrounding it. The opening of what seems like a cottage door in darkness as the title ‘Scarlet’s Witch’ implies the dark tone of the narrative and the idea of black magic. The colour of the title using red fading into a harsh yellow is a connotation of hellish, dark imagery. The repetition of this shot later on, when Scarlet goes to visit the witch reminds the audience of this. The opening voiceover dialogue ‘Once upon a time there was a little girl named Scarlet’ is fairytale like, and so sets up the structure of the plot, good being taken over by evil before overcoming it again.

The use of the camera movements and angles are interesting because they keep the reader’s attention. For example, the shot of Scarlett on the swing whilst watching the other kids play together highlights her loneliness and immediately establishes a reason for actions later on. The far away shot of Scarlett as she stands alone in the wood make her look vulnerable and the narrowness of the path makes her seem as though she is trapped. The close-ups of her support this, as the audience can see the fear written on her face even though she sounds brave as she talks. The switch to the sand-timer being in focus and then out draws the audience to the importance of time in the story. As the camera moves slowly through the trees the audience is put in Scarlet’s position which creates a feeling of trepidation in them. By keeping the hourglass in shot as the audience see Scarlet crying, again shows its importance.

The director’s deliberate use of lighting is very important because it creates the tone of each scene. Changes from normal, bright colouring to darker and almost sinister one adds to the sense of danger. The fade in and out of black helps move the pace of the narrative on. The contrast of the warm interior of the cottage and twist in the narrative deliberately changes the audience’s expectation and thus makes the ending unexpected. The third repetition of the cottage door opening again is much more ominous because there is a creak and the mise-en-scene has again adopted a darker colouring, making the dark interior appear more threatening.

The use of a voiceover helps to add to the audience’s feelings; “She had to do something. So she did,” This sense of foreboding overshadows the narrative. Another example is, “Scarlet had finally used her favour. But time had run out,” a sense of fearful anticipation is created for the audience and they want to know what will happen to Scarlet. Ending with a powerful emphasis on the moral of selfishness and a question, ‘What would you sacrifice?’ the audience is left to ponder on it and the importance of character and integrity. 

Short Film Company Case Study - Silver Films

It was founded by the producer Janey de Nordwall in 1996 and since then the company have produced five award winning shorts, including About A Girl and their most recent Garden With Red Roses. Their use their shorts to raise awareness and raise money for charity, which I think works effectively because of the expansion of the internet. The company also deal with advertising, of which the director Richard Oliver is in charge of, mostly of them being for car companies. For example, one  of themost recognisable is the Toyota Auris for ITV Mystery Dramas

Generating Ideas Lesson

What makes a good Short Film idea?

• Twist in the narrative
• Something that makes you think 
• Realism and Imagination
• Simplistic i.e. the narrative
• Different Situations

Things to do:

• Synopsis
• Detailed Storyboard and Shot List
• Script
• Production Schedule

Prelim Task (Fourth Lesson)

·         We extended our knowledge in this lesson by learning how to create more exciting and effective titles.

·         We used Photoshop to edit the photograph of a blackboard (or rather, green board) we found and added text to it, ‘Lost Boy’.

·         We then experimented with the smudge tool, trying to get the wipe effect.

·         We realised that to do that, we would need to import each stage of the process into Final Cut Pro. We would have to save one picture with one smudge across it, save it Photoshop and then drag it into our sequence. We would have to then repeat that stage, saving them as different files, before dragging them together  in Final Cut and speeding them up to make it appear as one if one fluid movement.

·         We had the chance to practice this technique, although we never had the chance to perfect it as we run out of time.



Lost Boy from BDC on Vimeo.

Prelim Task (Third Lesson)

Here are a list of things we did today, and how we did them:

·         We created a title:

¾     We used Text to write the title and chose the Font, Chalkduster, which appeared to be chalk-like and thus linked to our narrative and setting.

¾     We then wrote single letters of our title Lost Boy in each text area and dragged them down into our project separately. I then shortened their duration so that each letter appeared on the screen faster. We then reversed this by copying each segment and putting it back down on the timeline but in the reverse order.

¾     Again, we fastened it up, before fading it into the opening shot of the narrative.

·         We decide to experiment and see whether we could make the title blurry, to create the effect that someone was rubbing the title off the board.

¾     We tried to speed each segment up and add fades in between them, but that had no effect on them, apart from making the title appear and disappear very fast.

Alive in Johburg Analysis

The first shot immediately establishes the mise-en-scene. The audience are looking through the back of a convoy – there are lots of point-of-view shots. It is dusty, cars are destroyed, and it looks like a war scene. There is an alien spaceship in the background,  which symbolises elements of outer space The camera moves/shakes quite a lot, which deliberately gives the piece an amateur feel. At some points it helps to heighten the confusion, which contributes to the threat of the aliens i.e. running away. The medium shots of the robots as the police try to shoot it from all different angles, show us that it is invincible, which would make the audience feel threatened by this unknown creature.

The way the title slowly fades into and out of black makes it seem like a documentary-style film i.e. infers longevity. Ambiguity is created, for example through the hazy setting against the foreground the now ‘aliens’ as we know them, spaceships.

 The voiceover as  news footage of these mechanical robots or aliens evokes a documentary style because of its realism. Lots of different points of views. “This is when things really started to get out of hand,” implies that something bad is going to happen along with the visual of police getting out armed with guns out of a helicopter. The music at this point supports the build up of tension, with shot-reverse-shots of the police running towards the robot.

The date 1990 tells us that this is set in apartheid South Africa and is significance because at that time there was complete segregation and the idea of different races is explored metaphorically. The aliens can be interpreted as black people, those who were poor and had nothing.  It leaves the audience thinking, what happened? which is a very unusual way for a documentary to end.

Researching Short Film Festivals

The National Film Challenge:

·         The 48 Hour Film Project have created a worldwide competition that allows anyone to create a film in just one weekend. (this year 22^nd October-25^th)

·         The National Film Challenge was started in 2004 on the back of the 48 Hour Film Project (2001)

·         It is done over the internet to allow it to be worldwide.

·         It is produced by the KDHX Community Media based in Missouri .

·         A panel of judges then choose the top films and people vote for it

·         The winning film is shown at the Filmapaloozo, which is the festival finale and there is a cash prize to be won.

http://filmchallenge.org/

Short Film Central:

·         Is a place where directors from all over the world can upload their works and enter different festivals

·         Also has industry contacts and information about upcoming screenings of shorts

·         The New York City Short Film Festival screens many different films from around the world.

·         It was created by the filmmakers David Barba, James Pellerito and Jennifer Pellerito, has following categories such as drama, comedy, foreign language and animation. This year winners include:

-        Best Animation - La Tranchée

-        Best Comedy – Diplomacy

-        BFLF - Il Gioco

-        Best Drama - Over Cards

www.shortfilms.org.uk/submit/

The London Short Film Festival:

·         Originally called the Halloween Short Film Festival it was organised by Phillip Ilson and Kate Taylor in 2003, renamed in 2008

·         Independent and creative film directors see their work screen over a ten day period at some famous cinemas i.e. Shortwave Cinemas

·         In this year alone over 6000 tickets were sold and for the 42 events at the 10 venues with more than 200 films being screened. It was described by Time Out as a party, “Too good a party to miss".

·         This year's nomination include; THE BEDFORDS (Henry Coombes) and the LAST TRAIN (David Schofield). However, this year's was YOU’RE THE STRANGER HERE (Tom Geens)

·         The festival is very easy to mention and has support for low budget films. If you have a film under five minutes and it cost less than £500 then you enter for free.

www.shortfilms.org.uk/submit/

Future Shorts:

·         Since beginning in 2003, Future Shorts has become a worldwide centre-stage (over 90 cities) for filmmakers to screen their work.

·         It is a short film distributor centrally from London and holds monthly film festivals.

·         In just one film submission filmmakers can have their film shown over all the world

·         The monthly programmes are shown at 20 venues across the UK

http://futureshorts.com/index.php

Neill Blomkamp

Neill Blomkamp

Blomkamp (1979) is a South-African, Canadian-based film director who is best known for his 2009 feature-film District 9, which was produced by Peter Jackson, and based on his 2006 shot  Alive in Johburg. Blomkamp studied at the Vancouver Film School and later worked as a visual effects artist.

Blomkamp is well-known for the documentary-style he evokes, hand-held, with use of lots of computer generated effects. Landfall is an example of this; a trilogy of shorts set in the Halo universe (which is has since become a video) and was directed by Blomkamp in 2007. One of them later went on to win the Cannes Lions 2008 in the Film Lions category. Some of his other short films have also included, Yellow, Tetra Vaal and commercials for Nike and Citroën (find example).

It was recently announced that Blomkamp would work on his own solo project a new science fiction film called Elysium.

Meshes of The Afternoon Analysis

The focus on the flower as it put on the pavement highlights its symbolism. The medium-shot of the knife in the bread and telephone on the stairs shows the importance of the object. The concentration on all the little actions i.e. opening the door, note the importance of similarities in each repetition of the actions. It’s these little changes that help to make it hard to grasp reality because it is not clearly distinguished as to what is a dream.

The shadow of a woman moves towards the flower creates a sense of ambiguity as forebodes. Her fatigue is shown in point of view. The aperture is played around with to allow the audience to view things the way she does. There are continuous switches between her point-of-view and the audience point of view, which adds to this air of confusion surrounding the ‘narrative’.  Every time the protagonist bumps into a wall camera follows the movement of her body and replicates that. The deliberate beating/or systematic knocking of the drum as the female protagonist looks around the room creates a sense of dread and almost replicates the sound of knocking at hell’s gate.