Short film
What is a short
film? It's defined as a film or movie that isn't long enough to be considered a
feature film movie, and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines
this length to be anything under 40 minutes. But what is it, as a
production rather than what its properties are.
A short film is, in
a way, trying to reach the same reaction from its target audience as a
feature film would (interest in the plot, affection for the characters,
etc.), but in a shorter time. Sometimes, this would lead to the film being simpler
in terms of story line, and sometimes it may portray aspects of the film in a
way to show hidden meanings in order to fit in more about the story in a
shorter time space. Some may say the main difference between a
feature film and a short film is that feature films are made up of more scenes
than a short film, giving you the space to develop more complex characters put
in a larger variety of situations or obstacles for the characters to interact
with.
However
understanding the whole subject of short film cannot be done by researching the
views of other people, and one must involve himself in the act of watching and
familiarising him or herself with short film, which is what I must do.
My research would
begin as I decide to pick out three different short films, watch them, and
analyse them to the best of my ability. By making a note of the important
aspects of a short film, I could gain knowledge about the subject that I can
use in the future, when creating my own short film, to increase the possibility
of making a successful product.
Codes and Conventions of short film:
The codes and conventions of a short film is what distinguishes short
films form others, such as feature films and etc. Therefore it would be smart
to learn about them so we can apply them to our short film production.
One code and convention is the duration
and storyline of them. It is clear form these three short films, Risk It,
Room 9 and The Open Door, that short films have an average length of less than 10
minutes. The Academy of Motion Picture
Arts and Sciences defines a short film as "an original motion picture that
has a running time of 40 minutes or less, including all credits".
The characters and locations
are another. From my research, I found out that short films have around 2 to 3
characters. This could be because of lack of budget that short films usually
have, some short films have NO BUDGET. This could also be the reason that the storylines
are simple. Similarly, having no budget limits where the production team can
film, which results to there being around 2 or 3 locations within the film.
The title used is another. 'Risk
It', 'Room 8' and 'The Open Door' all have titles that are short, sharp and are
relevant to the genre and usually relates to the main plots in the short film.
This would signal my group to keep the title for our film short and simple.
Another
code and convention would be the cinematography
used; this refers to the different shot types seen. Different cinematography is
used for different genres, but short films usually have some in common. In ‘Risk
It’ there are close ups of his phone and the “risk it” coin. Also in “The Open
Door” there is a close up of the door handle. These objects shown all play
major roles in the short film, this suggests that a common shot type used in
short films is to have a close up of important objects. This could link back to
how they must be kept simple as there is low budget.
Storyboards and Shot Lists:
A storyboard is used similarly to a script for planning, except it provides some degree of visuals so that the group can visualise the film and its potential shot types and locations. We started off by sketching certain aspects of the short film to represent the scene in the shot such as a door. And besides it we created a list of the different shots we would take.
Camera Practice:
More research we
had to do was to familiarise ourselves with pieces of equipment, we had already
learnt how to use portable recorders and microphones last year, but this year
we would be using a video camera. By practicing how to use the camera, we will
reduce the risk of delaying any processes we have in the future such as while
we are filming, we wouldn’t have to stop for any mistake of lack of
understanding (which may cause things to take longer than if we had learnt how
to do it effectively at the start).
Here is a colleague of mine learning
how to station a camera and its on-board features.
Research methods:
Primary Research:
Questionnaire:
Pros:
- Feedback is given
straight from the target audience as they were the people who were handed the
questionnaire.
- Simple and
relatively cost effective way of finding out answers to queries.
- Can be analysed
more 'scientifically' and objectively as the answers only come in one form.
Cons:
- Lacks the ability
to interpret some forms of information such as emotion and behaviour.
- Hard to tell
whether the person has answered truthfully or to the best of their ability.
- People may have
different mindsets as to what means what, and what is wrong or right, impacting
their question and making it hard for the researcher to understand the answer.
Interviews:
Pros:
More direct and
easier for the respondent to answer because it is direct to the
interviewer.
You can read
the respondents body language and emotions
to further increase the effectiveness of your research.
Interviewer can
search for more answers by expanding the question to understand more.
Questions can be
more understanding to the respondent because it can be explained if not
understood.
Answers
are received as soon as the interview finishes, rather than
waiting for a questionnaire to be sent back for example.
Cons:
Some specific
equipment may be needed (professional equipment can make the research more
costly).
Interviewer may be
biased and asked closed questions leading to expected answers that may not have
been the respondents intention.
Interviewer must be
consistent or each interview will result in a hugely different set of answers,
making it harder to analyse.
May be more
time consuming.
Observations:
Some research can also be conducted by simply observing actions taken to
something natural over a large period of time. This would be effective to
things that apply to long periods of time, such as popularity tests to see how
popular a certain thing is in an environment by seeing how many people approach
it. However, it would be inefficient otherwise as it is very time consuming and
you may not always get the answers you are looking for.
Secondary Research:
Newspaper
analysis/Book search:
Researching using book
and newspapers provides on hand information; this information is usually
factual and therefore is accurate and can be relied upon. Newspapers must be
factual as they are describing current events. Also book, if written by a well-known
author who has qualifications on the topic he or she is writing about, it can
be very useful to read. However, books and newspapers very easily become
outdated as times change and books or a single newspaper cannot be updated. It
is also relatively time consuming to research using books.
Internet search:
Unlike books and newspapers,
the internet is always updated as it is easy to edit and is connected to
millions of people. A pro of researching using the internet is a large amount
of resources available on the internet with relevance to countless things.
Also, the internet is relevantly quick. Since it has links to many people,
professionals also use it to publish data, once found, this data can be precise
and valuable to use. However, a problem with using the internet is that when
webpages are NOT manually updated or have no automatic updating in place, it
also becomes outdated, potentially rendering the information/statistics
useless. Also, since it is available to so many people, you could end up
reading unrealizable data as you do now know its source, which could end up
being from an amateur. Finally, when using the internet, you often find
yourself in a filter bubble, where your search results tunnel down to your
personal interests, restricting views from other points of view.
Software:
Adobe Premier Pro CS6:
Premier Pro is my primary
editing software, it allows me to edit the videos i have recorded in many ways
and combine them to make a final short film (or any video). To begin, I import
my video clips into the program, I can then order them in a timeline, before
processing them so that they could be combined. The different features
that Premier Pro provides me includes the ability to split-screen
clips (a huge part of my groups short film)
Audacity:
Audacity is an
audio editing software that I can use to clip, trip, and amplify (or the
opposite) audio that has been recorded.
Target Audience
Who are the target audience for short films?
The short film industry’s audience is quite specialised and
niche compared that of the mainstream audience of larger full length FEATURE
FILMS.
Short films is really limited to those people who are
interested in the form of short films and in making short films themselves, it
is a very specific production. In London there are short film festivals, which
are screened at places like the ICA (Institute of Contemporary Arts), Tricycle
Theatre in Kilburn and Ritzy Cinema in Brixton. These are places that attract
consumers who enjoy theatre and specialist
cinema. They are usually university educated and middle class people.
The gender is
approximately 50/50. Because there are a higher number of women studying
creative arts, short films tend to be aimed slightly more towards them.
Short films are often shared on social media, which is
dominated by young people. This
results in the age range being around 15 to 30 0year olds, but other ages also take
part.
Short films mostly target young, bright film enthusiasts,
both male and female. It is important to understand that, unlike feature length
films, short films do not target a broad, but a smaller specific audience
depending on its genre.
Planning
Logos:
A logo would be used to distinguish our production group from
other production groups, it gave us a label we can be referred to.
Our first Logo:
After changing groups:
Moodboard:
We created a mood board to make a collection of different images that could potentially inspire our short film, this could help us develop the plot and the short film. We brought together a variety of images that we believed to be relevant to our short film such as clipboards, stairs in different lighting and people chasing each other:
Todorov's Narrative Theory:
Todorov's Narrative theory helped us create our storyline, it seemed to be the most rlevant to our personaly story idea. We explain the theory in this prezi, and then show how Todorov's theory is similar to ours.
_________________________________________
We changed groups due
to creative differences and adopted a new member, Ravey Pambu. We then came
up with a new idea that would be able to meet the duration of 5 minutes. So we
made a schedule, so that we could meet the deadline. This gave our group a
structural backbone so that we remain organised and on point. This is
illustrated below:
New Storyboards and
shot lists:
Risk Assessment:
A risk assessment was used in order to ensure that we
understood the potential risks and could act to avoid them during the phase
they are relevant in:
