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.