After looking at some previous short film works i have learnt what's important to create a successful short film. It is essential that the characters are introduced quickly and effectively. Also due to the reason that a short film is only five minutes long there can only be one climax in the film, which has to be introduced and solved fairly quickly. The characters are shown to the audience very quickly so it is vital that they are introduced as quickly as possible so that the audience has a good idea of how the characters lives. The shot types used in a short film are very clever as they insure that the audience has a clear view of what's going on as well as being creative. This then results in the piece of work not feeling like a film but feeling like a snippet of your own life that you could relate to.
I believe that with enough research our group can make a very effective short film. We will be looking at different examples and analysing them to get an idea of the types of camera shots, sound, editing and general setting. This will all also be based around our genre which we have chose to base around emotion. We will have to look at a number of different emotions to get an idea of which one will be best for us to use and the most effective one.
Thursday 22 July 2010
Wednesday 21 July 2010
Short Film Genre Research
We have decided that creating a short film would be a best option for our group as it allows us to explore the process much more. However although this is not final we started researching to get an idea of some of the genres available.
After looking at a large variety of short films it is quite obvious the route they all go down. This is first started off by very quickly introducing the characters usually by entering us into their lives very quickly. This is because there simply isn't enough time to spend a large amount of time letting the audience get to know the characters. I also found that there is only one, is any, problem to overcome and a short film and once this is sorted this will almost be the end of the clip.
I believe that short films are a kind of genre within itself, after watching many examples i have found that they don't try and create a horror, or comedy or any other genre. Instead its all based around a specific emotion and how this is portrayed in the characters life. So i believe that to ensure that we create a successful short film it will be very important to choose a strong emotion that can be drawn to the audience.
We used Youtube and the LG film fest website to explore previous shortfilms made.
http://www.lgfilmfest.com/
After looking at a large variety of short films it is quite obvious the route they all go down. This is first started off by very quickly introducing the characters usually by entering us into their lives very quickly. This is because there simply isn't enough time to spend a large amount of time letting the audience get to know the characters. I also found that there is only one, is any, problem to overcome and a short film and once this is sorted this will almost be the end of the clip.
I believe that short films are a kind of genre within itself, after watching many examples i have found that they don't try and create a horror, or comedy or any other genre. Instead its all based around a specific emotion and how this is portrayed in the characters life. So i believe that to ensure that we create a successful short film it will be very important to choose a strong emotion that can be drawn to the audience.
We used Youtube and the LG film fest website to explore previous shortfilms made.
http://www.lgfilmfest.com/
Monday 12 July 2010
Creative Filming
We looked at creative techniques and made a short clip to create suspicion. We looked at different camera angles and movements to create a desired effect. First of all we created suspense by panning up from the person led on the floor straight to the person walking away which makes the viewer ask the question of if the person walking away had caused the injury in any way. The way we followed the person walking gives the effect that she was responsible for something. I think that the way we panned across the wall when the girl moved from walking out the door to down the steps worked very well and enabled us to follow on from the clip nicely. The final clip of watching the person continue to walk down the starts from very high up also makes her look much more suspicious.
I have learnt from this activity that the way something is filmed and edited together can easily change the way the viewer sees the clip. This is very important when trying to establish a genre and ensure that the viewer feels in a specific way. I feel that I have developed more skills in the sense that I understand more the shots needed to ensure that a specific feel and genre is created.
Thursday 1 July 2010
Skills Development
For AS media i produced an opening of a film of the horror genre. This meant carrying out a number of tasks to insure i created the best possible result.
Pre-production and planning was a very important part of my production. I feel i could have improved in many ways but also carried out some tasks very well. For example I feel that i researched into films very well and got an idea of what rules to follow when thinking about my own opening to a film. This enabled me to get ideas of the correct techniques to be carried out and also how to apply these. However i do believe that i could have looked into the films in more detail and not just analysing them. I carried out a questionnaire to collect some information about my target audience to ensure that my final project appeals to the correct target audience. However I also think that i could have asked more questions in more detail to get a better overview of what appeals to the audience of this age. I believe that I could have looked into institutions a lot more to get an idea of what type of company would be relevant to out genre and film, this would have improved my evaluation as it would have made it much more relevant and I would have had a much better understanding. After some of the basic research i wrote a film proposal of the basic outline of out idea, I think i could have done this in much more detail as it left us with room to change the project which may sound like it gives room for improvement but it also leaves much more room for error which it is very important to avoid. So i believe if i had written this up in more detail it may have reduced the risk of error later on in the year. I think our storyboarding could have been drastically improved as it didn't really give us any idea of how the production was going to look and when it came to filming it meant we then found out that some of the shots didn't work and this meant changing some of them which then complicated the rest of the shots and getting them to work well. I am pleased with our location pictures as it gave us the ability to plan around the surroundings and work out how to set the scene we want which made filming a much simpler process. Due to our storyboard not being as good as it could have been we carried out a test film which enabled us to get an idea of what shots work well and what didn't so when it came to out final production we would finish with a much better result. I believe this was a very important part of our planning and definitely improved our final production.
During our production we carried out a lot of work to ensure that we had the best possible results however there is definitely room for improvement. During the filming I believe that i improved on seeing what shots will work well and what ones simply wont. It also enabled me to develop my skills on making sure that we follow both the 180 and 45 degree rule. However I do believe that I need to improve on planning slightly in advance to editing to understand when the shots should finish so that the shots don't drag on too far and not follow on smoothly. I also think that the planning for mis-en-scene went well as we insured that we followed the conventions and made sure that our actors fitted in well with the atmosphere we were trying to create. Overall i think that out production was the most successful part of our whole project.
Post production was a very important part of our project as it involved hours of editing. It took us a very long time to achieve out final clip and also needed us to do a little extra filming. I believe that our editing went very well on ensuring that our clips follow on well. However i do think that finding the correct music was a struggle all the way through. It meant we had cut clips down and increase the speed when necessary to ensure that the music fitted well, however this took a very long time and may not have been as it could have been if we had created music to fit our opening perfectly. Come the end of the editing process there became a issue that it may not finish as well as it could so we might need to add in an extra scene which will act as the opening following on to clarify that its not a trailer. However there was a lot of debate on whether this scene made the clip any better or if it simply killed the atmosphere created.
Pre-production and planning was a very important part of my production. I feel i could have improved in many ways but also carried out some tasks very well. For example I feel that i researched into films very well and got an idea of what rules to follow when thinking about my own opening to a film. This enabled me to get ideas of the correct techniques to be carried out and also how to apply these. However i do believe that i could have looked into the films in more detail and not just analysing them. I carried out a questionnaire to collect some information about my target audience to ensure that my final project appeals to the correct target audience. However I also think that i could have asked more questions in more detail to get a better overview of what appeals to the audience of this age. I believe that I could have looked into institutions a lot more to get an idea of what type of company would be relevant to out genre and film, this would have improved my evaluation as it would have made it much more relevant and I would have had a much better understanding. After some of the basic research i wrote a film proposal of the basic outline of out idea, I think i could have done this in much more detail as it left us with room to change the project which may sound like it gives room for improvement but it also leaves much more room for error which it is very important to avoid. So i believe if i had written this up in more detail it may have reduced the risk of error later on in the year. I think our storyboarding could have been drastically improved as it didn't really give us any idea of how the production was going to look and when it came to filming it meant we then found out that some of the shots didn't work and this meant changing some of them which then complicated the rest of the shots and getting them to work well. I am pleased with our location pictures as it gave us the ability to plan around the surroundings and work out how to set the scene we want which made filming a much simpler process. Due to our storyboard not being as good as it could have been we carried out a test film which enabled us to get an idea of what shots work well and what didn't so when it came to out final production we would finish with a much better result. I believe this was a very important part of our planning and definitely improved our final production.
During our production we carried out a lot of work to ensure that we had the best possible results however there is definitely room for improvement. During the filming I believe that i improved on seeing what shots will work well and what ones simply wont. It also enabled me to develop my skills on making sure that we follow both the 180 and 45 degree rule. However I do believe that I need to improve on planning slightly in advance to editing to understand when the shots should finish so that the shots don't drag on too far and not follow on smoothly. I also think that the planning for mis-en-scene went well as we insured that we followed the conventions and made sure that our actors fitted in well with the atmosphere we were trying to create. Overall i think that out production was the most successful part of our whole project.
Post production was a very important part of our project as it involved hours of editing. It took us a very long time to achieve out final clip and also needed us to do a little extra filming. I believe that our editing went very well on ensuring that our clips follow on well. However i do think that finding the correct music was a struggle all the way through. It meant we had cut clips down and increase the speed when necessary to ensure that the music fitted well, however this took a very long time and may not have been as it could have been if we had created music to fit our opening perfectly. Come the end of the editing process there became a issue that it may not finish as well as it could so we might need to add in an extra scene which will act as the opening following on to clarify that its not a trailer. However there was a lot of debate on whether this scene made the clip any better or if it simply killed the atmosphere created.
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