Conventions of Short Films

To research the conventions of short films, I decided to would be best to first analyse three professional short films from https://www.shortoftheweek.com/ to see what they all had in common.

The three short films I watched were-

 Porcupine - action/thriller - To protect her infant child on New Year's Eve from an impending intruder, a young widow asks the 911 operator permission to shoot.

The Proposal - romcom - A romantic comedy about a couple finding truth, courage and love where they least expect it, underneath their dinner table.

EPIC FAIL - experimental - In a time where post-truth news divides and conservative politics fails to lure in young voters, a extraordinary vote for world peace has dramatic consequences.

There were a couple things I noticed in all of them:

1) They are all 'short'. Obviously, as the name of the genre suggests, all these films were under 10minutes, with one being as short as 5.

2)  Other than EPIC FAIL, which is an experimental short film, they are character based. They follow the narratives of a select few characters.

3) The twist. The ending of all three is not anticipated, although it may be foreshadowed, it doesn't follow the general trend of the plot.

4) Small budget. Compared to full-length movies, all these films have much smaller budgets. This is largely because most short film creators and small business or individuals who do not have a massive financial backing.

5) The situation in all the films are real and have the potential to happen, but they are hyperbolic depictions of what could happen in life

Researching the conventions of short films is vital to making a successful film as the conventions are pivotal to the genre of the product, and without them, understanding may not be clear which will lead to the film being unsuccessful.

Stephen Neale

Furthermore, as media theorist Neale said, genres are meant to be predictable and formulaic. This makes them more successful as it becomes appealing to the audience if they know what to expect, particularly if they have enjoyed other short films. We will be following the conventions of short films. Short films are not like modern movies and are predictablely shocking: they are expected to be unpredicable, which makes them particularly intriguing, and is definatley a convention that we will follow.

Short films don't usually adhere to specific genres like full length films do because as by their very nature, short films are experimental and so our film will not follow any typical genre (ie horror, action).

Theories of Short Films

Unfortunately, with the new Prezi system, it costs to be able to embed links, however if you click on an image, you can scroll through all the images in the post

Researching Theory is very important, as like conventions, they are the backbone of the genre, and without them pieces can become very unclear and messy.

I wish to create a post-modern short film. So to start I have researched the theory behind short films themselves, so I can see the different ideas I should choose to include in my film. Following this post I will also research conventions of a short film and post-modern conventions, before exemplifying how they will apply to my work.

Animatic

Introducing The Feedback Panel!

Why These Four?

• Age Range 17-23, which is my target audience.
• Both genders, again, target audience.
• All use Social Media.
• All like film and have studied film related subjects.

Pitch Feedback - Primary Audience

Pitch - Primary Audience

Recently, Dylan, Ruben and I pitched our basic idea to our primary audience.

Despite our film having a large audience, with the plot potentially interesting people of all ages, our specific, primary target audience will be 16-21 year olds, as it is this generation that will most likely relate to the films message, and the films characters as we use actors within a similar age bracket.

Excluding us three, my class consists of 5 girls and two boys, and so is an ideal group to pitch to so we can better understand our target audience and their opinions on the idea.

Here's the actual PowerPoint that we presented with:

Storyboard - Draft 1

This is our first attempt at a storyboard. It is very rough however it outlines the plot for those who prefer visuals.

Moving on from this we hope to create an animatic to allow audiences to see how the film flows, and examples of audio we wll use. 

Changing Idea

While contemplating my project, I have decided that a change would be best, as working by myself will mean I'd have a lot of work to do, and my idea is generally over-ambitious and logistically would be very difficult to complete. I have decided to join up with two other people, Dylan and Ruben, together we will film a post-modern, contemporary short film.

I will be in charge of editing. The general message behind the film will be how society is becoming consumed with technology and its influence on our generation. 

I felt like the change would be best for numerous reasons:

1) Working in a group will allow us to spread the work load, so we can put more effort into smaller parts of the film, making it better overall.

2) The idea we have thought of together is a stronger idea than my previous one. It follows more conventions of a short film and is very contemporary.

Synopsis

-> Our short film will be entirely in greyscale.

-> It starts cutting between ECUs of different eyes.

-> The cutting stops on the main character and zooms out until his whole body is in frame.

-> We will then follow the narrative of three characters as they are completely absorbed by technology and it controls their lives.

-> The film will end with a powerful twist where it will cut to colour and the characters will have their family around them, before cutting back to greyscale and the family disappearing again.

I'll be uploading the storyboard very soon, so I hope that will make the plot much clearer.