Final Idea: 'Dragons Den' Pitch

'Mood Board' presenting initial ideas for my idea for my short film with the main focus on the positive and negative aspects of teenage life:

(awaiting the video)

Genre: Mock-umentary

Textual analysis of: The Internet, the truth behind the conspiracy

The mock-umentary clearly follows several conventions of a documentary but constantly features a comical effect throughout, undoubtedly giving the impression of a mock-umentary and therefore fulfilling its main purpose. The clip shows several establishing fast-forwarded shots and close-ups to establish the scenes in which the mock-umentary is taking place and focussing upon the subject it is concentrating on. The clip also features individual interviews further focussing upon the subject of the internet, again a common convention of a documentary/mock-umentary. The exaggeration of certain storylines and topics clearly emphasises upon the comedy factor within the clip making the intention of entertainment and amusement clear.


Treatment of a short in this genre: Local tennis fanatic believes he can be the best player in the world yet his lack or ability and experience state otherwise. Crew of cameras follow him in his everyday life to discover the training he goes through. There are interviews with his parents who state that they try and support their son in his dreams but end up arguing other whether that is the best option of whether they should tell him the truth or continue supporting him.

Genre: Drama

Genre: Comedy

Textual Analysis of: The Purge: The Morning After


The Purge: the Morning After from Johnny Ray Gill on Vimeo.

This dark-humoured comedy is based upon the well-known thriller phenomenon, The Purge. In the film every crime is deemed legal one day a year in order to encourage crime prevention throughout the remainer of the year; this short focuses upon the possible issues that are dealt with the following day. Through the several different shot types, the attitude and personality of the characters is captured by showing their emotions to their surroundings and the conversation topics. The men wearing bright pink aprons automatically creates a comic effect due to their 'manliness' being played down by a predominantly stereotypical feminine colour. The dialogue between the three characters and the laidback approach to what usually would outrage and disgust people, for example, when Elmer tells how someone wearing a mask broke into his house, tied him up and proceeded to murder his entire family, Dan's reply, through a yawn, is simply "that sucks", displaying a sign of dark-comedy. The way Dan denies that the person who was involved within the crime is him, even though the security footage clearly shows his face, adds a large factor of stupidity on both his character denying clear evidence and for thinking that Elmer would believe him. The hypocritical views displayed by Elmer regarding disability are again shown when he tells the female character not to let her "disability define" her, yet when she replies with something along the lines of "I will define you with an ass-kicking", Elmer responds with "You cannot kick me cause you are paralysed", with the emphasis on the word "paralysed". Overall, the sensitive topics drawn upon in this short are transformed into a dark-comedy mainly down to the professional acting of the three main characters.

Treatment for a short in this genre:
Storyline/narrative: two unlikely best friends and flat mates, one incredibly smart yet socially awkward (Tom) and the other pretty dum (Dan) but a social butterfly, sharing a flat. Each character attempts to encourage the other to try activities that they are interested in, for example, Tom tries to take Dan to a sci-fi convention, and instead of paying attention to Tom's interests, Dan simply tries to pick up numbers from the girls also attending the convention and when Dan attempts to set Tom up with a girl at a speed-dating event at a local pub, he just stands at the bar being blunt with every person that approaches him.
Setting: Urban city, surrounded by everyday locations, such as shops, cafes and parks etc.
Characters: Tom - incredibly smart and socially awkward, does his best to avoid most social events other than those linked strongly to his 'geeky' interests; Dan - lacks most general knowledge yet proves to be a hit with everyone he meets and seems to have gained the reputation of a 'ladies man'. Dan regularly attends social events such as parties, pub crawls and gigs.

Genre: Documentary

Textual analysis of : 'A Man Who Delivers'

A Man Who Delivers clearly follows the typical conventions of a short in a documentary genre as it includes a voice over throughout and informative information into the 'real' lifestyle of a drug dealer. The documentary however does not include individual face interviews that are typically used in documentaries. The editing shows real text messages exchanged between the drug dealer and their clients, providing the audience with an even further insight into the life between the main focus.

Genre: Romance

Genre: Horror

Genre - Horror

Textual Analysis of: 'Lights Out'

'Lights Out' follows several typical conventions of a horror short and is a simple yet effective short film. The classic childhood fear of being scared of the dark is used as the basis for a terrifying story line. The camera angles consists of a mixture between medium to long shots to show the mysterious character along with the main character to emphasise how physically close the two of them are; further suggesting that the two of them will come face-to-face. The other shot type used is a close up to show the shocked and terrified expression on the main character's face as well as to show the face of the mysterious character to terrify the audience as it terrifies the main character. The framing of the shots either include just the main character or the mysterious being both to be in the centre, but when both of them are in the same shot, the main character is seen to be directly in the middle, suggesting that not only is she the main focus of the audience but also to the mysterious character lurking in her flat. The editing consists of a mixture of short paced and long paced editing, the short paced representing the quick thinking and hysterical mind activity going on inside the main character's head and the long paced editing showing the gradual movement of the mysterious being as it slowly grows closer and closer to the main character. The mise-en-scene is rather stereotypical within this short film as it follows the typical story line of a helpless young female alone whilst being watched by an unknown figure. The classic example of switching the lights on and off can be closely linked to a fear many people had when they were young, by re-switching on the light to make sure no one was around. The surroundings within the short film are very basic, making sure the reader pays attention to the characters within the clip only and to feel the full force of also coming face to face with the mysterious figure as the main character does, opposed to being distracted by the surroundings. The sound in the clip is additionally rather basic, consisting of only music to build tension, leading up to climatic point where the main character, and the audience, come face to face with the unknown being, leading them into an even more dramatic situation of being scared and anticipating the inevitable themselves. The other use of sound is the diagetic screams that occur often from the shock and scare from the main character in their terrifying revelation of discovering the mysterious figure.

Video Planning for A2 piece

A2 Video Planning

Life as a teenager

Positives and Negatives of Teenage Life

Inital Planning Ideas for A2 piece

A2 Planning Ideas

What are pros and cons in creating a short film in comparison to a feature film?

The pros can include a limited amount of boundaries which allows the artist to experiment with creativity, for example, most feature films have a set purpose and strict boundaries to stick to in order to appeal to a certain audience and produce more profit; many short film makers create short films to express their creativity opposed to reach a specific figure in sales and can take more risks as they have little to lose. Short films can be a maximum of 40 minutes long, meaning that, unlike feature films, they have a limited amount of time which be beneficial in avoiding complicating the storyline and confusing the audience, where some feature films have been unsuccessful. However, the main cons are that short films are often not viewed as much as feature films as they lack the world wide market appeal that feature films achieve through their mass advertising, meaning that, although several film festivals attempt to display these, some exceptional short films do not receive the credit and recognition they deserve. The limited amount of time can also be a burden on short films as there is a limit on how much background/story can be created in maximum 40 minute time limit.

How has the short film market benefitted from digital technologies?

As digital technologies have continued to grow and advance it has become easier for independent companies and individuals to produce high quality films through easily-accessible equipment and software. Although the cost of digital technologies can be rather pricey, the advancement of digital technologies also means that more people are able to afford to purchase certain equipment or software, opposed to having to pay £4000 per reel. You can easily buy a camcorder for as little as £30 from Argos and most computers/laptops are already fitted with some kind of editing software, such as Windows Live Movie Maker, making it a lot easier for most people to simply create short films with a limited budget.

Who is the short film markets audience?

The audience for short films tend to usually be more niche than feature films as they are often produced for more reasons than to simply generate profit and boost ancillary revenue. A large number of people may view short films now and again, there tends to be a more specific audience that are more interested in what a film means and what the creator is trying to say. Short films are typically produced by aspiring directors, people wanting to add to their portfolio in order to break into the film industry and therefore short films appeal to film makers and fans of independent industries/artists that want to see their work flourish or display a dedicated interest in short films, or just film itself.  

How are short films consumed?

Short films can be professional or amateur productions and are often screened at local, national, or international film festivals. Short films are often made by independent filmmakers for non profit, either with a low or no budget. Short films are usually funded by film grants, non profit organizations, sponsors or out of pocket funds. Short films can also be consumed via YouTube and other such websites, such as Shorts Bay, 4Shorts or Short of the Week, which are accessible by anyone with an internet connection.

What is a short film?

A short film is any film not long enough to be considered a feature film, which, as defined by  the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences a short film is "an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes or less, including all credits".The term featurette is usually applied to a film longer than a short subject, but shorter than a standard feature film. 

Looking back to go forward

Looking back at my AS coursework piece I can clearly evaluate several positive and negative aspects of the planning, production and post-production. Throughout the duration of creating the product, both Courtney and I feel that we worked hard and to our full ability to achieve the marks we did; however, there are still some improvements we feel we could have made in order to improve our marks.

Planning

We believed our idea was a true representation of the lives of some teens that other members of society would often overlook and would not think twice about. We believe our idea emphasised the struggles some people are faced with and would raise awareness of what some people may be going through, therefore encouraging members of society to not simply ignore nor pass judgement as easily as they often do. However, the theme of teens mixing with the wrong crowd is a popular topic and therefore is not as original as we would have hoped for. For the casting of our opening, we advertised our idea to a group of people available to us allowing us to film whenever and wherever. When assigning the role of the main character we had a selection of people and decided Chantelle would fit the role perfectly due to the stereotype we had developed; however, the acting experience of the people we chose was rather limited and this may have affected how the characters came across as a whole. Our script was extremely detailed as it included all the lines each character would have to say, which scene it would take place in and even the credits which would be inputted within the post-production process.  Our storyboard was additionally very detailed as it showed, mostly, shot-for-shot sections with details such as what type of shot to use, what would happen through the duration of the shot and how long the shot would last for. Overall, I feel that Courtney and I planned thoroughly for the production and even the post-production for our product and if we had to complete our AS coursework again, we would only make subtle changes, such as altering the storyline slightly to make our idea more original and widening our casting search to people who had more professional acting experience.

Production

Overall the organisation our the production of our coursework was extremely efficient; we created a detailed plan of what scenes we would film on which dates at certain times and at specific locations. By strictly following this plan we reached all the deadlines in plenty of time, leaving us more time to play around with the post-production side to achieve the best result. The filming however was not as successful; due to the lack of experience of our actors we had to retake several shots which meant spending a bit more time on some scenes, although we still managed to stick to our deadlines. Overall, Courtney and I were content with most scenes within our film opening and by sticking to our plan we were able to spend some time tweaking scenes that raised concerns without having to stress or worry about not reaching deadlines.

Post-production

The editing process was overall very positive as the scenes we filmed were simply easily trimmed to fit the plan set out in our storyboard. At first we struggled to use the Adobe Premier Pro software as both Courtney and I had hardly any experience using it beforehand, meaning we had to spent a rather long time just figuring out how to use it and how to apply what we knew of the software into the editing of our filming. The two idents used at the beginning of our film opening are effective in the way that they do not seem out of place, especially the use of the second one, which clearly states "Covert-Teen Productions", the word "teen" directly linking to our intended target audience of mostly teenagers. The soundtrack within our film opening mainly consists of three pieces, the first simply a short section of instrumental music found on YouTube to create a tense atmosphere, leading up to the scene where an act of violence is seen taking place. The second is a cover, also found on YouTube, to display the feelings of our main character and to encourage the audience to understand her difficult position and why she is so emotional. The last piece of music is a song often heard in nightclubs and at house parties to fit the scene we created of a house party. The music is originally from the speakers within the house, but we enhanced it to make the audience feel more involved in the hectic scene and make them feel as if they are actually there. During the post-production of our film opening we encountered a huge problem regarding the audio from our film, being that some scenes it was barely audible. However, during the creation of our idents, Courtney and I discovered how we could improve it and soon fixed the problem, leaving the audio is all scenes clear and easy to hear.

A2 Coursework

In relation to my A2 coursework, I will ensure to learn from the negative aspects of my AS coursework; to make certain of this I will focus my casting on people who have more acting experience to avoid having to retake several shots in order to achieve the results I want.

- Plan in advance to avoid falling behind deadlines

- When going through the casting process, include people who have previous acting experience

- Ensure that the idea is engaging to avoid the audience loosing interest