COMMENTARY! Because it wont let us do it on the film, it's just not working, and you let Marcus and Nathan do this so...

The short film ‘Slip of the tongue’ that we watched on youtube, initially inspired us. Throughout the film, the protagonist narrates in a voiceover said in verse. We used this idea in our own film, using it to convey our character’s inner thoughts and feelings to the audience. We thought that this style would be a unique and interesting addition to our film. It also works well with our genre, which is social realism. It allows us to show the realist and actual emotions of the character. However, our film slightly differs from SotT, as the poem, although powerful and thought provoking has a more light-hearted feel to it. In our film, the poem is quite sad in it’s nature.

-We also looked at the short ‘INSiDE’. This film also inspired us in terms of character; Short films tend to be more about real-life issues, so we thought that a character with mental illness would be converting to the convention of short films, these are also conventions of social realist film, which is the genre of our film. For example our film is set in quite an urban area, in a city, our character is an average person, just like in other SR films.

-Unlike both the short films we watched we decided to use a somewhat more POV style of filming. We went with the common convention of a short film by having very few main characters. In fact, we had only one protagonist in our film. We felt that this creates more of an impact on our audience. They became more involved with one character than if there were many.

-As well as the POV style, used many different camera shots to convey that our character was trapped. Like in ‘INSiDE’, we used lots of high angle shots, to convey the inner vulnerability of ‘Michael’.

--When filming the roof scene we were worried about safety, and wondered if we should scrap the idea and re-film in a different location, however, we felt that this would take away from a main part of the narrative. So we powered through.

-We tried to make the narrative clear from the onset; this is a common convention of most short films. We wanted our audience to understand what was going on, despite the fact that the ending is quite ambiguous. We didn’t want our narrative to be too complicated.

-Again unlike the short films we watched, we used music in our film. In both of the films we watched the lack of music gave the film a certain effect. We felt that the opposite, adding music would do the same thing.

Task Three: How Effective Is The Combination Of My Main Product and Ancillary Texts

This is our film poster. When creating it, we wanted to stick to the common conventions of film posters we had researched. The initial purpose of a film poster is to attract the audience. it is designed to intrigue and tell enough of the story to make people interested and want to see more. When designing the poster, I went with idea of not using a colour. I wanted the poster to be in black and white to create a sort of sombre mood, conveying to the audience what the atmosphere of the film is. The fact that you do not see the protagonist's face make it all that more interesting. This reflects the genre of the film which is Social Relaism. The poster, gives that edgy, gritty feel that is common of many SR films. Our target audience are teens, so it was an obvious choice to put a teenager on the front. This again, all relates to the genre of our film.

Our review is effective in telling our audience what the film is about while not completely revealing the story, Our film review is more likely to appear in a BFI type film magazine. It would be appealing to lover of indie films, and of course, out target audience, teenagers. 

The black and white theme was carried on from the poster to the film review, I wanted to link it to the poster and again, give it a slightly dark feel, which relates to the theme of our film. I also used an image from the film that is very similar to the poster, not showing Marcus' face. In the shot from the film in the review, we wanted to show iconography of SR films by having our main character surrounded by urban-looking area.

Task Four

Task Two Audience Feedback

Audience Feedback

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Movie Poster

This is a screen grab of our Poster, created using photoshop.

Filming

Here are some shots from our groups filming process.

Film Poster Concept

This is my idea for my groups film poster. I decided to put a mid-shot of the main character, played by Marcus on our poster as he is our protagonist and so therefore the audience will then get a small idea of what the film is about. As Marcus is a young person, our target audience (males and females between the ages of 16-24), will take an interest.

I decided to put Marcus' face half in shadow to give the character a touch of mystery, and to show that he is alone and separated from the rest of society. I represented him as a stereotypical youth by putting him in a 'hoodie'. This is to express the fact that, at first glance, he can appear to be like a normal teenager. This is also done so our target audience can easily relate to the character. I incorporated actual lines from the film to show that there is more to the character than the initial impression. Also, it We feel that makes the audience curious wand want to see our film.

We have decided that the title of our film will be 'I am...', and our tag line is 'Am I lost in a trance, or am I lost in a daze...'.

We feel that the title reflects the inner turmoil of our main character who is struggling to express himself in his life. He is trying to find out exactly who he is. The tag line again is dialogue from the actual film, which reiterates the fact that he is trapped. I placed the tag line at the bottom so it is the last thing read. This means that it will stick in the minds of our audience.

Animatic

I am the person who has been in charge of producing the animatic for our film.


I took pictures of the story board and uploaded each one to iMovie in order to create a mock-up of what our final film will look like. I put each image on the timeline. We plan to add music and voice to our film, in order to give us a clearer idea of how each shot will look, sound, and how long our movie will be. This will help us make any necessary changes now.

Summary of Audience Research

During our audience research, I helped to and out the questionnaires to our target audience which is male and female teens between the ages of 16-24.

We collected the results as a group and gave Nathan the job of tallying the results.

Conventions of Genre

We decided that our genre is Drama/Social Realist.

The conventions of this genre tend to deal with real life issues such as;

• Religion
• Drug issues
• Race
• Society

From what I've found in research, Drama/Social Realism tends to be more popular in British Cinema. It tends to be more an independent film genre, rather than mainstream hollywood cinema.

Assignment One

What is a short film?

A short film can range anywhere from between 1-40 minutes. It consists of simple ideas and can have complex meaning. However, a short film doesn't just have to be a film. It can be an advert on T.V, a film trailer, or even a music video.

Today, many music now consist of not only the audio but also a narrative too. Providing the audience with not only musical entertainment, but also the visual entertainment you get from a film too. Artists tend to do this in order to convey messages and meaningthrough the video as well as the song.

Adverts do the same and an example of this is a match.com advert:

Review of Short Film

'Oranges' (2008)

Oranges is a short coming of age film about a young Australian boy who's never been kissed. the tale follows the young boy as he makes a new friend, and finds out just what he's been missing. the film is funny and very entertaining for the audience. However, at times, as the character leads you through the streets of suburban Australia, you cant help but feel slightly out of touch with what's happening. Overall, the film is very enjoyable and I recommend to all.