In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
I Am Butterfly I am Butterfly short film Youtube
Representation
- The mother and daughter seem to be from a middle class social group because they are wearing nice clothes and appear wealthy. However, the voice over from the little girl says they have no money and ‘mummy wants to be a model’ which makes you realise that they are from a working class background and probably on minimum wage or benefits as the mother hasn’t become a model. The little girl also mentions that they rely on the mother’s horrible boyfriend for money.
- This is a positive stereotype for the working class because you can’t see it through mise en scene, you’re just told through voice over narration.
 |
| This is a still from the short film, showing the closeness between mother and daughter. |
- The expected audience of the film, being mainly females probably think about the representation in a different way. The mother is wearing a nice dress, in a nice clean city and is with her young daughter. You wouldn’t think by eye that she is a working class mother, and if you watched it on mute you wouldn’t associate her at all with the working class.
Narrative
- The narrative is progressed by the voice over of the police man and ‘Butterfly’ the little girl and make the film make sense. We don’t know what’s happened to her mother, although we know something has, and it’s only when we see her mother leave then the whole voice over and short film movement
make sense.
make sense.
- The moving image is linear in the narrative although it uses ellipsis to get rid of the unimportant parts of the narrative. This technique is even more important in short films as they have a limited time to get it all in.
- The chronology is linear because they don’t start with the ending and progress the story on until the climax right at the end.
Genre
- The genre for this short film seems unidentifiable as nothing scary or funny happens in it to determine it as a comedy or horror film. However, because of the cliff-hanging ending, I suppose it has an element of thriller in it. The piece is very dramatic and plays with your emotion but doesn’t really belong to a certain genre.
- Short films typically use genre to determine what you are going to get in sometimes less than five minutes. There are thousands of short films they each don’t all share the same genre, and some are even hybrids, and they all take different routes in telling their stories.
- Genre is very helpful in short films because it cuts out all the unimportant parts of film which are used to establish the genre, such as a thriller opening of a crime that has been committed etc.
Audience
- Here, the director of the short film actually gets involved and writes the audience about the film.
- I think the audience for the film are middle aged parents, who can relate to the film. One of the people comment about having no father around and it being ‘just another modern day family’ which suggests that the person who commented is older and more aware of the rising amounts of single parent families. This isn’t an issue that teenagers and children think about.
- The short film is shown and spoken about across Flickr, which shows that maybe he’s trying to reach a younger target audience, as many people of the older generations don’t know this exists or don’t use it.
- Carlos Florez has won an EMMY award for his work, which is a big achievement, especially for a short film director.
Media Language
- I find the last sequence very interesting because when the mother leaves the daughter in a weird tunnel thing in the middle of a street, you get point of view shots of the daughter looking out and watching her mother abandon her. Florez has used this to put yourself in a young girl of about 4’s eyes and make you feel sympathy for her.
- Also in this scene, the most heart-breaking part of it all, the point of view shot of the girl looking through the glass is distorted, to show the grooves in the glass, but also to show the distortion of what is happening and how unnatural it is for a mother to just leave her young daughter on the street. I find this particularly interesting because it is clever use of camera work and this position and place has been used purposely. This generates a response from the audience because it’s so gripping and shocking that it grabs your attention.
Blush
I chose this short film because it really intrigued me and confused me, which is a good thing when it comes to short films. I also chose it because our group are thinking about having a silent short film, and this one only has music over the top and a few foley effects, no dialogue. This is also interesting because the team ISO Pictures has decided to use a plain white background behind, and just the two actors on props. This whole short film is filled with suspense, and the five key concepts make it really thrilling.
Representation
- We don't learn anything about the characters because the sequence seems to happen over time, yet we don't really know anything about them due to their being no dialogue. However, we can guess what their like with what happens in the sequence and the mise en scene.
-Red is the predominant colour, which signals love, lust, blood and danger. This makes us suspect something is going on, however we think it may just be love and lust when the woman is in her underwear and they are having an intimate moment.
-The male is obviously dangerous as we see him lure her into his studio, sleeps with her and then killers her. This makes us realize that first impressions are often wrong as he just seemed like a man who wanted to hit on her at a party.
-The two characters are represented differently throughout the film, because we assume she is a high class woman while she's drinking a cocktail at the party, then she seems very easy when she takes the mans invitation at a photo shoot then sleeps with him, then we feel sympathy when she is the victim of murder, and these are all conveyed to us in 5 minutes.
-The woman seems to be in control of the situation because it is always the man moving around her, with her as the main subject, until the very end when he becomes the dominant character.
-The silence of the piece makes sure we don't know too much about the piece, and cannot form too much character representations through what they say etc.
Narrative
- The piece seems to follow a linear, chronological narrative, except from when we see the man running at the beginning and we don't really know what that is about, but all becomes clear in the end.
-We don't know too much of what is happening, and we can only assume, but we don't know if the narrative and short film is taking place over the same day, in only a few hours, or if it's throughout the course of a few years. The characters are wearing the same clothes, but this could be because of their character traits and because it's a short film we have to be careful not to confuse the spectator.
-I think the narrative covers a few hours, as this all happens too quick and we don't get an idea of whats actually happened to make the story turn so bad. When the woman picks up the lamp to through it at the man, we would assume that they have a had a fight, and have maybe been together a while to get this intimately angry with each other, however when he shoots her, we assume that she was trying to protect herself.
-There is no voice over or any dialogue to progress the story on, however there is a heartbeat and a dodgy tune in the background which suggest that it is a thriller piece and something bad is going to happen.
Genre
- The genre of the piece is obviously a thriller because of what happens at the way, and the audience is left guessing all the way through it.
-At the beginning of the short film we suspect that the film is a romance, because of the connotations of red and the scenes of the only two characters, however we don't really know until the end when we see that the red colour means danger, blood and horror.
-Genre is used in short films to determine what is going to happen and what it's all about, and sometimes to define certification. While I was finding a short film, I searched up thrillers as I think it would be important to research if we decide to make a thriller short film (which we're thinking about) so I already knew that the film was a thriller, however it was made clear in the film.
Audience
-Audiences are very important to all film makers, and especially short film makers as they have a much narrower audience and not as many people have access to them. The audience for this particular short film is probably male and females (but mostly males becuase of the genre and themes and issues raised) from late teens to middle aged people. This would be because the story is still quite shocking and not suitable for a younger audience and they probably wouldn't be interested in it, and stories such as these are not common for elderly people to watch.
- I think the audience would enjoy this film because the climax of it is very unexpected and almost frightening which shocks the audience.
-The short film was in the running of a competition to become the Best New Short Film USA so it obviously stands out to a wide audience who are interested in the genre and short movies like these.
Media Language
-I think the short film was very successful because of the use of mise en scene, lighting and colour. The colour red connotes a lot of different things, and in this film we realise that it's representing all the connotations. However the most common use for it is blood and danger, which we find out at the end that this is the main reason it's been used.
-The themes and issues of the piece are very unique and leaves us with a thought in our minds, which is very good for a short film to have. The issues of sex with strangers, and danger in what people tell us is evident in this piece and makes the spectators shocked.
- The silence in the short film, with only foley effects and music in the back ground is very effective because we don't get a sense of what is happening until we see it happen. These are very effective and it will be something we consider doing when it comes to our short film
‘Bitch’ (Dom Bridges 2009) Bitch - Youtube
Representation
- I think the lower/working class are represented in this short film. This is shown by them shopping in a cheap supermarket such as ALDI or LIDL. We know this because as the camera is focused on the conveyor belt, all the packaging looks cheap and it seems unsaturated. They are also wearing average clothes instead of suits etc which would show us that they’re middle class.
- Because it’s comedy, the characters don’t really need to be posh, especially for this setting. This makes genre important to the audience so that they can see their favourite genre and relate to the characters, instead of looking at a different class to them.
- I also think the representations are a bit backward and unexpected. It is usually portrayed as middle aged men scamming old women, but in this instance, it’s the other way around.This makes us off guard, and because the roles are reversed, we aren’t expecting the final outcome.
Narrative
- The chronology of the narrative is linear, as there is no use of flash-backs for example, and it doesn’t start at the end etc. This is typical for short films as being under 5 minutes, there isn’t a lot of time for them to be jumping around time and it would confuse the spectator.
- The short film ends on its climax, with the man realising that he’s been conned and says the title of the short film ‘bitch’ this is to make us link between the title and the film as it could be unclear.
- Ending on the climax is good because it leaves us on the edge of our seat and we don’t know whether he’s going to pay for her shopping or if he’s going to run after her. This is typical of short films as they don’t have a lot of time to show us the extent of what happens.
Genre
- The genre is definitely comedy but we don’t really know this until the ending, when it climax’s. After the short film, the genre is clearly identified because it will make you laugh and everything will make sense.
- Short films typically use genre to cut out the introduction and typical conventions of short films. In this example, genre is hard to tell from the title, because ‘bitch’ isn’t a very nice word, making you think of violence or crime, but it turns out to be funny. Bitch is no longer such a bad word, but used in the right context it is.
- The genre is shown also through mise en scene, as the setting is in a supermarket, which although is not funny, is not a typical place to have a thriller or a horror film. All the conventions add up to show the genre, such as the items on the conveyor belt are a bit random, such as dog food and baked beans, and we know it’s not going to be 100% serious.
 |
| This shows us that it'll be a comedy because it uses a different style of creative titles to reinforce humour |
Audience
- You can see the difference in audience feedback from the two short films. These comments seem to be from younger, teenage audience who seem to have stumbled across this short film by accident. This is probably one of the reasons this short film was called Bitch, to gain the right target audience, because teenagers are more engaged with comedies etc.
- I think the audience would be pleased by the film because it swears, which is still relatively new for younger teenage audiences, and it is very funny and unexpected. This attracts them to these type of short film.
- This short film was shortlisted in the ‘Best Short Film’ category in 2008 at the Rushes Short Film Festival. This is an achievement because it not only gains publicity for it, but it shows how creative and interesting it is to many different people, including film critics.
Media Language
- The best part of the film is the ending, but the part in the middle when this crazy old lady is showing a picture of her dead ‘son’ is very interesting and creative. She shows a picture of an oriental man who looks nothing like him. This generates a response of comedic values, whereas the audience or spectator will probably laugh, but be more indulged to as where this woman is going with her madness. A close up of the picture shows us that he does in fact look nothing like him and we start to feel sympathy (like the character) for this woman who has probably gone mental.
Broad Daylight Broad Daylight - Youtube
- This shot shows a man outside the house looking up at the window-The window seems to be a point of view shot of the little girl inside.
-I like this shot and the whole short film because it's relevant to our film, as it's a as if a crime is about to happen in the middle of the day.
-This inspires our short film because we are doing a daylight short film, and want to make the person outside look like the antagonist.
-Another shot from the short film which I found interesting, though we didn't use it in our film, was this one:
Dream Girl Dream Girl - Virgin Media Shorts
Representation
-Because there is no dialogue between the only two characters, we have to assume things about the people. We can obviously see their gender, and the age can be guessed. The female seems to be about 18 years old, of caucasian ethnicity and of the middle or working class. We know this because she is using public transport but looks respectable.
-The male in the short film seems slightly older, maybe 22 years old, and is from possibly African decent. He seems to be in a lower class as the female, though probably high working class. We can make these assumptions through their costume and location.
-It's quite touching that the characters are from different backgrounds, because it shows to us that two complete strangers can share an intimate moment on a very normal occasion, where as 50 yuears ago, it would have been a totally different story. The director has chosen these characters for a purpose and I think this may be one of the reasons why.
Genre
-Although the genre of the piece is said to be 'other' on virgin media shorts, I would argue that it is a romance, and this short film seems to be only part of a story which could be carried on in a sequel.
-It isnt a regular occurance that two complete strangers share an intimate moment on public transport such as this, and when the male character gets off the tube train, he then changes his mind and goes back to sit with the girl.
-That seems to be connotations of a love story, so I would argue that it's a romance.
Narrative
-There is no voice over to direct the scene, which would propell the story on and give us a clear sense of the narrative, however we do get an understanding that this short film is set over just a couple of minutes. In other films, such as Blush, we don't know if the events are chronological. Here we understand through mise en scene and other aspects that it is.
-The sequence follows a linear path, in which we get all the information we need. The short film is only just over 2 minutes long, so there is not a lot of time there for the directors to add in flash backs, or make it a circular narrative.
-I personally do not belive that the short film Dream Girl follows any of the narrative theories, such as Todorov or Volgler, as there is no journey, or disequilibrium. However I could see Todorov's theory being argued here, and it could work if the scene wasn't so simple and something bad actually did happen, but the man exiting the train and getting back on seems to normal to be called a disequilibrum and resolution.
Audience
-I think the audience for this short film would be anyone who has an interest in films, and in particular short films.
-The film won the Tivo Award, which shows that there is an audience for the short films, and people do vote to see people with talent get recognised.
-I think the main audience for these films are people who create short films themselves too, as this whole website was created for people making short films.
-At the beginning of the short film, the advert said 'Virgin Media Shorts, Champoining Undiscovered Talent' Which shows there are people behind this who watch all these short films to find people who are capable of making good films.
-I think the main audience would be females, from tenaged to about mid twenties because the title is 'Dream Girl' and this is typically a thing which females find cute and desirable. I don't think older people would enjoy it as much, as they're not as much into romance and finding love in everyday situations.
Media Language
- I think that the film is very interesting because it targets an audience of people without even considering itself having a genre (which I would argue it would) and it has a particular theme running all the way through it. I would say the film is finding love, or an unexpected encounter, in a common place.
-The location was particulary chosen to reach out to millions of people nationwide who get the tube to work or anywhere everyday, and so many people felt like they could relate to things like this happening.
-I loved the short film because I felt it was so simple and yet so nice that it made me smile when I found that nothing really does happen to surprise or shock you, it just makes you feel happy.
Editing/Post Production and Sound - Boxed
This short film only lasts 3 minutes, but uses really interesting editing techniques.
Right from the start, we can see quick pace editing, and sped up action, which makes the short film very intense from first watch.
The use of diegetic and non-diegetic make the piece interesting, with the eerie music to build the tension for the audience. A specific part in the first minute when the man plays a voice message left for him by his girlfriend/wife. We hear the message just as the character would hear it, which makes us feel as though we are in the room with him.
The short film uses a lot of depth of field shots and focus pulling, to show us the main objects in the shots. It also could tell us that that is what he is feeling in his head, to convey to us that he is confused as to where the sounds are coming from.
We also hear non-diegetic sounds of people laughing, which makes the piece really sinister and worrying. This was added in editing, which makes the short film even more eerie.
In what ways does our short film use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Narrative Organisation and the Short Film Format
Our short film follows the conventions of a normal short film which you'd find on sites like www.youtube.com, and online competitions like Virgin Media Shorts. It opens with the title sequence, and although many short films which I have seen have had the title in the middle or during specific shots, we decided to open the short film with the title. This is because we liked the way you know the title right from the beginning, and it doesn't give too much away. We also decided to put the titles of our names in between the action in the short film, on a separate black screen.This kept things simple and separate from the action.
Characterisation
Characterisation is essential for any film, including short films and probably even more so, because you want to present them in the right way and for your audience to feel differently about different characters. We decided on mise en scene being the key element here to distinguish their characteristics and how we want the audience to feel toward the character. For example, we decided on Curtis wearing dark clothing, a black hoodie and jeans, to show that he's mysterious and possibly dangerous, though he still looks quite juevenille, which to a certain audience would worry them even more, as teenagers are represented badly in the media and are seen as a 'threat' to peoples homes.
Camerawork
Sound
Mise En Scene
Mise en scene is one of the most important parts of a short film, as it can convey underlying meaning without being a big part of the shot.
There are eleven elements of mise en scene;
- Body Language
- Facial Expression
- Make Up
- Hair
- Decor
- Lighting
- Colour
- Composition
- Settings
- Props
- Costume
These are all taken into consideration when planning, and this is also done in real media products. Although these arent the main things in many films, they are essential to convey the emotions and locations in the short film. Our main mise en scene element are props are costumes. We use the right costumes (Dani's well dressed character and Curtis's all in black thrilling costume) to convey these messages so we get a sense about the characters without a lot of dialogue. As I have already mentioned, we wanted Dani to own a good phone and nice expensive jewelery so we get a better idea about her character.
Use of Genre Conventions
We strongly challenge genre conventions in our film because it is a thriller. Most thrillers occur at night, when most 'scary' things happen. We have filmed purposely in the middle of the day, which although all the mise en scene points to something suspcious, it makes you wonder what Curtis is doing at this house in board daylight. When we compare our film to another well known thriller such as Se7en, we see that although people are used to seeing all these bad things happening in themost vulnerable part of the day, we can challenge this and make our film stand out from the rest. Other than that, I would say that the short film in which we have made, conforms to the conventions of real media products, in particular thriller films, as it includes a protgaonist and an antagonist, with an equilibrium at the beginning and the end, with distruption in the middle.
A break in, relationships and crime are probable the only themes and issues of our piece. This is the main themes of our film, and will go into the 'tags' part on our youtube video. There aren't a lot of issues in our films, except the ones stated above, but other people will probably see our short film differently to us. These would challenge real media products, especially Hollywood High Concept films as they made hundreds of films, yet it is rare to see a film which follows the same idea as ours.
Editing/Post Production
|
| This is our main title, which we made in post-producion. This title fits the conventions for many film genres, including thriller. We liked it because it doesn't give too much away about the film, and even though it does on the ancillary products, we wanted to keep the beginning of the film open, as it opens with Dani's scenes where everything is fine, in equilibrium, and we didn't want it to go straight into the disequilibrium, even though it is close. This time comes in from the character, and is well made for our short film. |
|
| Another title in which was made and added to our short film in post production. We played around with titles for ages, and after looking at other thrillers titles we decided we wanted to keep it simple, but it to come from the side of the screen and pivot down so we can see it properlly. This was effective because we used a simple font and it didn't distract the audience from the actual action of our piece. |
| ||||
| Royalty free music was added while we were editing, in order to add suspense. We chose this piece of music because it adds to the conventions of a thriller, and makes the short film more dark and suspenseful, as we may not expect Curtis's character to be doing anything wrong, and this just reinforces it. We didn't use the non-diegetic music on Dani's shots because she doesn't know what is happening at home yet, so she is just in a rush and wants to get home. This music was found online on a royalty free website, and without it our short film wouldn't be as good. |
 |
| We sped up the shots of Dani driving up, to make it look like she was very rushed., as when we first filmed, she took too long to pull away from the curb. We did re-film, though the cars were all in different places, so the shots which we did like would have to be re-shot again. We decided just to sped up the clip by about 0.30% which made her leave the curb quicker and make her look more hurried. If there were other people walking along the pavement in the shots this wouldn't have been possible as they would have sped up too and made it look fake, which we don't want. Luckily this wasn't the case and we could edit without any disruption. |
 |
Cutting between shots is obviously used in editing, and we had many shots, long and short which we had to cut through throughout all our short film. Through editing for a number of months we found out short cuts of how to swap between the cutting tool, and normal mouse. These are A and B, and make it so much easier to edit, especially when you are just experimenting. These are also easy to undo, so we had plenty of time to get the shots cut just at the right places. |
In what ways does our poster use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
This is our final draft of our poster. I think it looks very professional, and makes our film look like a stereotypical thriller.
-Our poster contains the typical credit block in which we have changed all the names that were originally there to our names, and Central Sussex College. Although people may not read this, it is evident if you look close enough that it has been persnonalised to suit our film.
-Our poster is simple, uses three images and everything is simple. We used the black and white theme to encourage people to watch the film, as it doesn't give to much away, which is common in most films.
This is a poster i have previously looked at, and now I can compare it to our product because they have so many different similarities.
1) They have two characters which are the main focus of the poster.
2) It includes star ratings to people are encouraged to go and see the film.
3) The title is big enough to make an impact, yet its not too big so it doesn't draw you away from the characters and objects in the poster
Compared to this poster, however, ours seems to be challenging the conventions, as we haven't used bright colours to make it stand out, instead we used the black and white to be individual and that it stands out in a different way. I didn't come across a lot of posters which were in black or white, though it's more common in thrillers.
This is an example of one of the Pulp Fiction posters. I think this wasprobably made after the film had been released, so that there was more publicity for it after it had already made back its budget. This film poster is intriguing because it has no colour, and makes us strain our eyes to see the pictures which are in the letter. This is effective, and we have kind of incorporated this into our poster to make ours stand out from all the bright coloured posters.
In what ways does our review use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
-Our review fits all the measurements and criteria of a Little White Lies review. This was part of the whole ancillary task to make it the perfect replica of the reviews in which we have studied. I think that it completely conforms to all the conventions in which the Little White lies review entails. This is exactly what we were aiming for when we were making the review, and looks just right,
-When we look at the actual review, the words sound professional and like an actual Little White Lies review. It was obviously meant to be like this, and after many drafts being handed in asking people to discuss it with me and fill in a questionnaire about it. 4/4 said it sounded professional.
- If I was to say it challenges the conventions of a real media product, It would be that we are reviewing a 5 minute short film and now a feature length one, which makes it harder to write a professional review on it. The real Little White Lies website reviews all the films in the charts and other independent films because of the target audience who are informed film enthusiasts.
-Our film isn't a real short film in which people win competitions for and are recognized for making them, so the review won't be a complete match for a real media product, as people are qualified to make the reviews in which hundred of people read every other month.
How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
What have you learned from your audience feedback?
Target audience: Males ages 15 - 40. People out of this age range will obviously watch our film too, yet this is who we think it would appeal to more.
 |
| REVIEW QUESTIONNAIRE ASKED TO 4 MALES BETWEEN THE AGES OF 15 AND 50 |
This has shown me that the audience feed-back of the main demographic are pleased with the review, even though they don't read Little White Lies magazines and aren't keen on reading reviews before going to see a film
 |
| POSTER QUESTIONNAIRE ASKED TO 4 MALES BETWEEN THE AGES OF 16 AND 40 |
This questionnaire about the poster was asked to same people as the review questionnaire, and this showed me that they'd see the film after seeing the poster, and gives us some idea of where they'd expect to see it.
This is a picture of some people's feedback. They are all in the target audience, which shows us that they enjoyed it, and we targeted our film at the right people. I showed them the short film, and they saw this before seeing the review and poster.
They did admit that;
"I would have never of seen the film if you hadn't of shown it to me, cos' I don't watch these type of films online'
Because this isn't a professional short film, I wouldn't expect them to see the film if they were just looking online, as we don't have a lot of views on our youtube video, yet I am grateful for this feedback as it shows that people do enjoy it, and maybe it would encourage more people to start watching short film.
One of the comments was "probably would have worked better in the dark though"
I don't know whether this was a general comment about the piece, or because I have spoken to him about our troubles with the film whilst research and planning and making it. If this is a general point about our short film, then it would make sense for him to point it out as he has taken the course before, and knows what to expect from thrillers after studying their conventions.
This issue is something we have spoken about as a group, and during research and planning, we decided to shoot our film in the daylight to mix things up. I have explained this to the people who i asked about the short film, yet he probably still believes that it would have worked better here.
The audience feedback shows us what we might be too biased to say about our own film. We have recieved feedback throughout the whole advanced portfolio from our teachers and peers, which have guided us to do the best work which we could. This can now be made relevant to our feedback, because we have had to change things about our films to suit our target audience and make our short film more appealing to the audience.
One of the many conversations with our teachers have been about the short film being shot in the day time. This was questioned many times, and although we are happy with out final product, the film would have probably made more sense to be in the dark, so that it fits the themes and conventions of a thriller, which we wanted it to be.
No comments:
Post a Comment