Evaluation Question 1 - Alex

Short films contain some of the most inventive and unconventional work to be found in film making. Through research I found that there are 6 codes and conventions which are typical for a short film.

Conventions of short films: 

1.     2-3 main characters – Because they short films are ‘short’ there isn’t enough time to create deep backgrounds or history for the characters, therefore character numbers are kept low in order to allow the viewer to relate to the characters in the short amount of time.

2.     Twist – Short films always include a twist and this is because it makes the short film more interesting as they are so short. Without the twist the short film wouldn’t interest people.

3.     Low Budget – Short films typically have a low budget because the directors are usually independent and don’t have sufficient backing in terms of funding. They keep their funding down by only having one or two actors and by using no more than a few locations.

4.     Max length of 35 minutes (typically 5-10 minutes long) – Any longer than 35 minutes then they wouldn’t be classed as short.

5.     Situation which intrigues the viewer – Short films usually take an everyday situation that we can all relate to and then flip it heads up somehow. This allows the viewer to relate to the film but it also intrigues them.

6.     Follows Todorov’s theory – Typically added to short films but not always.

The equilibrium: everything is normal

The Disruption: Something disrupts the equilibrium

Realisation of the disruption: The disruption is noticed

Attempt to repair the disruption: Tries to fix the problem

Return to equilibrium: This can be a brand new equilibrium or the same as before.

The three short films that I have decided to apply these to are Me & You,2&2 and Identity. 2&2 is the short film which is most similar to ours out of the two due to its social realism genre.

Mise en scene Camera Work Editing techniques Sound

Me & You

1.     There are 2 main characters in this short film.

2.     The twist is when the couple break up

3.     Roughly £2000

4.     It is 7 minutes and 25 seconds long

5.     It’s a love story which most people are able to relate to if they have had previous relationships or if they have had their heart broken somehow. It is a very popular theme.

6.     It does apply to Todorov’s theory:

Equilibrium:  The teenage boy is living a typical boyish life which we can see from his possession of playboy magazines (props) and his choice of laid back clothing (costume).

Disruption:  He gets a girlfriend and we can see this already starts to disrupt his life as a teenage boy because he hides the magazines which we can see through the bird’s eye view of the camera.

Realisation of the disruption: We can tell that the girl has been recognised as a disruption due to dialogue and their body language. The couple start to argue more and more as the clip goes on and their tone of voices raise while the non – diegetic soundtrack crescendos.

Attempt to repair the disruption: He breaks up with the girl and tries to get over the relationship in his own time.

Return to equilibrium: Again from the bird’s eye view of the camera we see him go and retrieve his playboy magazines from their hiding place and puts back on the clothes that he used to wear. He shouts out “Fancy going down to the pub?” right at the end which expresses that he is over the relationship and has returned to normal (returning to the equilibrium)

2&2

     1.     There are again 2 main characters in this short film. 

     2.     The twist is where the student gets shot suddenly in front of the class

     3.     Roughly £2500

     4.     Its 6 minutes and 51 seconds long.

     5.     It’s a classroom situation that most people have been through.

     6.     It does apply to Todorov’s theory.

Equilibrium: All of the boy students are sitting in a classroom which we can see through an over the shoulder shot of the teacher. They are being taught that 2+2=5 which is obviously not correct but the boys don’t object. They’re composition within the frame allows us to be able to see all of the boys at once as this happens.

Disruption: One student disagrees with the teacher but when the teacher tells him that he is wrong we hear no more from the student. Then another student disrupts the class by saying “But Sir, two plus two is four.” And he doesn’t back down even when the teacher gets angry which we can tell by his facial expression and tone of voice.

Realisation of the disruption:  After arguing with the student for a while the teacher realises that he can’t fight it alone as we can see through the way that he storms out which we can see at the end of the fast paced shot reverse shot sequence as he goes to get some older students who are wearing a different uniform to the rest of the boys which suggests that they were rewarded for not going against the teacher and the teacher is promoting this.

Attempt to fix the disruption: The teacher gives the student one last chance to fix his ‘mistake’ and when he still decides to go against the teacher he is shot in front of the whole class and we can see by their facial expressions that they are not too shocked by this so it must have happened before.

Return to the equilibrium: The teacher goes straight back to teaching the class the same sum as if nothing had happened, ignoring the blood that is on the board from the dead student. None of the students disagree with him and get on with their work, however we see at the very end of the film through match on action of one of the students books that he has changed the sum to match the deceased student’s rather than the teachers.  

Identity:

     1.     There is only 1 main character who is a loner and doesn’t fit into any group.

     2.     The twist is when she takes off her mask but it can be argued that it is when you realise that her whole day has been backwards.

     3.     £3000

     4.     It is relatable because it is at a school and it is trying to emphasise that everyone wears a mask at school and doesn’t act like who they really are.

     5.     It does follow Todorov’s theory.

Equilibrium: Through a variety of long shots, medium shots and close up shots, we can see that every student in the school is wearing a mask and that it is normal to stay within the group of your mask colour. Colour on the student’s masks is all that is used to separate the students.

Medium shot of masked characters

Disruption: We can see the protagonist’s confusion even though she is wearing a mask and this is through body language. She starts to see that something isn’t right with society and the disruption is the realisation of this and therefore trying to work out what is going on.

Long shot of her trying to work out what's going on

Realisation of the disruption: As she looks around as we can see through a POV shot, she notices that people have all the same colour masks and this seemed odd to her. She wanted to know where she fitted in which we can see through the continuity editing techniques of her searching through match on action. We can see this for ourselves when the camera focuses on a student switching masks as they switched groups and this is seen through a close up shot. When she finally works out what is going on which we can see through body language, she starts to run and stumbles into the toilets because she is so stunned with what she has just found out.

POV shot of other students

Attempt to repair the disruption: She sees a break in her mask via a mirror in the bathroom which we can see by an over the shoulder shot of her. This gives her the confidence to take off the rest of her mask and we can see her facial expression through a close up shot and she is happy, almost like she’s found everything she has been searching for. As this is happening the non-diegetic music crescendos to emphasise how happy she is and how dramatic the moment of realisation is.

Return to the equilibrium: In this short film she

Mirror view after she takes off the mask

returns to a brand new equilibrium because she is still as alone as she was before but you can tell by how confidently she walks through the shot that she no longer cares because she has found what she had been looking for As she walks the non – diegetic soundtrack crescendos again making it parallel sound. She lives a new normal knowing the truth when nobody else does.

Confidently walks through the crowd through establishing shot

Our Short Film analysis:

Our final product includes a variety of different media products and is classed under the genre of social realism with a few aspects of thriller genre which is the same as a short film I researched called Selfie. Selfie is a short film based on daily incidents faced by every common man and portrays how we let ourselves get affected by what others perceive of us. It is under the social realism genre because all of the characters are Asian and it raises awareness of how they are represented. Our film is under the social realism genre because it is about the issue of poverty and gives the viewers a reason to sympathise with people in real life poverty. Our short film is set in Brighton because there are a lot of people living on the streets there so it gives our production that realistic feel.

Our short film begins with a fade from white transition because it is supposed to represent a dream that our main character is having. The first thing we notice is our main character walking down the streets of Brighton through a long shot in a plain costume to represent her not being very wealthy however it is not clear at this point that she is in poverty and this is not evident until much later in the film. As the scene continues, more and more abnormal events start happening to the protagonist. 

POV from Louise

We see a Point of view (POV) shot from Louise’s (Protagonist) perspective and from this we notice that there is a crowd of people looking at her and this is followed by a little girl who looks very similar to her and she runs over to Louise and asks for her autograph which confuses Louise as we see from her facial expression, but she does it nonetheless. We made the girl look similar to her through costume and hair and make-up as parts of Mise en scene.

Signing the magazine

For example we gave her straight hair which was similar to Louise’s and we dressed her in clothes that Louise is wearing in the magazine she Is asked to sign and It is also what she wears later on in the sequence. The non-diegetic soundtrack we chose is synchronous sound because it match the distorted feel of the protagonist.

In the next scene we cut to Louise walking through a different part of Brighton and a different character is introduced and although the audience doesn’t know it yet, this is the antagonist. Because there is no build-up of this character it creates enigma when she is introduced because the audience ask the question of who is she?

Antagonise pushes Louise

This is similar to the short film called the Introvert in the way that we don’t know that the character is the antagonist until towards the end of the film. This could also be seen as similar to another short film called Traction except from the fact in this film we are tricked into thinking one person is the antagonist when in fact it was the other. Enigma is a common convention used in short films particularly thriller related ones. However it is not always very common within the social realism genre and therefore it could be seen that we are challenging this convention.

A wipe transition is used to take us to the next scene and this is to emphasise the fact that a transformation has taken place within the character. We can further see the transformation through her costume and body language.

Sped up shot of Louise passing time

Her costume has changed from plain and ragged looking to expensive and stylish, she in now wearing a fur coat over the top of a golden dress and the audience would notice that this is the same outfit that the little girl was wearing before who asked for her autograph and the same outfit as on the magazine. Therefore the little girl could be seen as a foreshadowing technique. This shot is followed by a sped up shot of Louise walking and shopping as she goes. This is to show that she is embracing her new fame and the fact that it is sped up is similar to the short film I previously analysed called a social life. It was sped up in both our film and a social life to show time passing. The only difference is that in ours the character was moving to a different location where as in a social life the character stayed in the same place so it could also be seen as challenging the conventions.

Sped up part of A social life

Louise sees the poster with hateful words on it

We then cut to a side view of Louise in the same location and watch her see the negative side of fame - the hate. Our short film doesn’t follow Todorov’s theory because it is all very confusing and disorientated until the end and because there are two different lives being led by our protagonist. Other short films typically do use Todorov’s theory so we are challenging this convention. After seeing her poster which some hateful

View from inside of the car

words written on it as shown through a medium shot, she runs away and we can tell by this that she is upset and also by her facial expressions. We use a parallel cutting sequence to build up the anticipation that something bad is going to happen. We can tell this by the change in the non-diegetic soundtrack as it crescendos throughout the sequence. One part of the parallel cutting sequence is a POV shot of someone in a car being driven somewhere and because we don’t know who it is or where they are going it creates enigma. The other half of the parallel cutting is Louise walking down an alley way and then down the street of Brighton which is where the suspense is built up to and where the two shots meet. This part of the film would be a situation which intrigues the viewer because they would want to keep watching in order to know what is going to happen and who was in the car. At the end of the scene the protagonist gets taken by the mysterious character who was in the car. This thriller themed part of the film is not similar to any other short film which I have watched or studied therefore this scene could be seen as challenging the conventions of a short film.

Louise gets taken by the antagonist

Then we cut to a completely different part of the film where the setting and lighting are completely different with the purpose of creating a completely different mood within the audience. The lighting is dark with only a few red lights to highlight the characters in the room. At first it’s only Louise in the room and the scene starts off with another POV shot and all she can see are posters of herself around the room and we used a POV shot to give an idea as to how scared someone could be if they wake up in a strange place and I think

Louise's point of view when she wake up

these POV shots are not so common in other short films and so again we have challenged the conventions. As the diegetic sound of high heels walking towards her occurs, we see a long shot of Louise tied up with a tie around her mouth so that she couldn’t speak so we know that the dialogue on top of the POV shot before was actually non diegetic and was what she was thinking rather than speaking. While Louise is looking around, the diegetic sound of the footsteps crescendo and another parallel sequence is used to show someone walking down a corridor and this builds up suspense and creates enigma because it makes the audience ask questions.

Alex standing over Louise showing dominance

The dialogue that the mysterious character speaks is in a tone which gives away that she is the antagonist. This is because it is angry and stern and the way she says “well, well not so high and mighty now are we” is quite patronising.  The darkness of the room symbolises the dim mood of Louise and also implies a lair or secret hide out and you can hardly see anything in the scene because nothing is supposed to be clear at this point in time. The composition of the characters within the frame shows the difference in power because Alex (the antagonist) is standing above Louise as she sits on the floor so the camera is at a high angle looking up at her using a shot reverse shot sequence using the 180 degree rule. The flashbacks purpose are to tell the story as to why Alex has kidnapped Louise and it links in with the hatred part of the fame, she is a crazed fan.

One of the flashbacks

To emphasise that they are flashbacks, we put a filter over the footage so that is brighter than the rest and looks a little bit disorientated. The flashback footage is accompanied by a diegetic voice over from Alex telling her story.

After the flashback scene Louise is left begging for her life and Alex pulls out a gun which is emphasised by match on action. The Diegetic sound of the gun goes off and then the screen fades to black. We then transition into the next scene which is completely different to the last, bright lights

Alex pulls out a gun and shoots Louise

and in an outdoor setting. Within this setting we see Louise sitting under a blanket next to a brick wall, with a plain coat on and some torn clothes underneath. This change in costume is to emphasise the change in character from popular and famous to poor, in poverty and miserable. Louise’s body language and facial expressions show that she is confused and as she picks up the magazine placed next to her which is

The new setting where Louise is now in poverty

expressed through match on action, she suddenly realises that it was all a dream. However this is then compromised when she sees another character walk past her who is wearing the exact same costume as Alex was in the dream. “Or was it a dream?” Is the question that the audience will be asking.

                                                                           The magazine title is a white font on a black

The confusion of Alex being in the real world

background and this is typical of a short film. Our genre of our film is social realism and it brings up the world issue of poverty. We have both used and challenged conventions of this genre in our short film.

Our title

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

Posters:

The two short film posters that I decided to look into were the ones for Selfie and Apartment 41. The selfie poster follows more of the conventions and codes of a short film whereas apartment 41 changes them and isn’t as typical of a short film.

The main conventions of a short film poster include:

1.     Features the main character of the film.

2.     Colours aren’t too vibrant and reflect the genre of the film

3.     Large titled font so that we can gain information about the genre from it.

4.     Names of the actors don’t usually feature but the directors name does.

Selfie:

• The protagonist is the main focus of the poster which makes it so that we can't see anything in the background.
• The genre isn't really given away by the poster and there is only one colour used - green. 
• The actors' names aren't anywhere to be seen on the poster which is different from full length films and it shows that the people who make the film are more advertising themselves rather than the actors.
• The actors in this film are all Asian and this is first shown on the poster. The director is also Asian and this indicates that the film may be aimed at a specific ethnic group or may be trying to send a message which is related to a specific ethnic group.
• There are a lot of outside references on the bottom of the poster which is where the film is going to be shown.
• There is no way of telling who the film is aimed at either from the poster because there is no indication as to what the film is about unless you know other films from the producers.
• The title is the biggest part of the film poster so it is obvious that it's the most important piece of information.
• The producing company logo is in the top left hand corner of the poster and this is for it to be recognised.
• The company logo isn't usually featured in a full length film poster.
• The yellow text works well with the green background and the names of the people involved in the making of the film is written in a larger and bolder text.
• All of the text is central and on the bottom half of the poster so the main character can be the main focus of the poster - composition also does this.
• Because it is a short film there is no certification. 

Apartment 41:

• Apartment 41 is a short horror film and we can tell this because of the different layout to full length films however it is also weird for a short film because of the placement and size of the text.
• The layout is different in the way that the actor’s names are almost the same size as everyone else's name involved in the making of the film and you are given a little bit of information about what the film is about.
• This is because in a short film the people who make the film are just as if not more important than the actors so they should be as well-known as the actors are.
• This information is written underneath the title where it says 'what if she never leaves you' and this intrigues the audience because it is asking them a direct question. However this is a weird thing to have on a short film poster as they don't usually feature tag lines like this. Tag lines are usually only used for feature length films.
• There is very little colour in this film poster which is iconic of the horror genre.
• The Facebook and twitter logos are featured on this poster which is again different from a full length film. This highlights that you can watch the short films on them and it is advertised using them. This is a good way of advertising themselves as well as the film.
• There isn't a variety of fonts used which is different to a full length film. 
• We can only see one character on the poster and because she is silhouetted we can make an educated guess that she is the antagonist.
• This guess is based on the fact that she is mysterious and haunting which is iconic of a demon or other antagonist in a horror film.
• The colours of black and white are basic but effective as they contrast well and makes the text stand out. The actor’s names are written on either side of the poster and although there is nothing indicating that they are the actor’s names we know they are because they are always the biggest on every poster.
• We can tell from the poster that the film will most probably follow Todorov's theory of narrative because most horror films do and because the demon invading on their lives is classed as the disruption part of the theory and that this picture is most probably to show this disruption.
• The title is in a white font until the end of it which is in red and this is effective because it means the people who see the poster will find it easier to remember the name than if it was in a white font like the rest of the text.
• Because it is a short film there is no set certification but it looks as though it would be aimed at a higher age group rather than a lower one due to the haunting poster.

Our poster is similar to other posters in the way that it doesn’t have the actor’s names on it and the colours aren’t very vibrant or colourful. Our poster gives out a message like the others and is intriguing. It doesn’t really give away if the narrative is going to be linear or not however it tells us that it is going to be a sad story because of the characters facial expression.

There isn’t much of a difference between short film posters and full length film posters but I find that some full length films have more on them than short film posters do. For example I also analysed 2 full length film posters and you can start to see some slight differences. For example the director isn’t made as known as on the short film posters and it is more about the actors. Another difference we notice is that the full length poster makes the genre and narrative more obvious than a short film poster does because there is a bigger budget to make the poster.

The two posters I analysed were the horror film, Silence of the lambs, and the action film Avengers assemble.

Silence of the lambs:

·       

You can tell that this poster is of the horror genre due to the main very disturbing image.

·        The image is disturbing because it is not natural, the character's eyes are bright red like the colour of blood which symbolises potential gore and is the connotation of evil.

·        The colours featured in the poster are all really dark which represents the nature of the film because dark and cold colours are iconic of a horror film.

·        The composition of the character makes her the main object of focus because we can't see any background action or information.

·        The only other bit of information we are given is the insect which replaces the character's mouth and this also suggests horror genre due to it being disturbing and mist people are scared of insects.

·        This particular insect has a skull on it which makes it even more frightening.

·        We can't help but notice that the character on this poster is female which supports gender stereotypes that females are always the victims. We can tell that she is a victim because of her facial expression, she looks trapped. You would think that she was a victim from this poster however she actually plays a really strong protagonist role.

·        Her eyes are red and the colour red can often symbolise blood and danger and this is more obvious because of her white skin, her white skin makes her look dead.

·        The film poster will attract an audience that can handle and enjoy horror films.

·        The title is orange so that it stands out as the rest of the poster is dark. 

·        The actors names are written in a much larger font than anyone else name on the poster such as the directors. 

·        The layout of the poster is very standard and doesn't really give us a clue what the film is about or what kind of narrative it has. 

·        This film is based on a book as referenced below the title where it says "from the terrifying best seller" 

·        Silence of the Lambs is certified an 18 which gives an idea on how the story is going to be and will shows who their target audience is. However making the film an 18 will also attract people younger than this because of what they know an 18 rated film contains.

Avengers assemble:

·        You can tell from this poster that it is an action genre because there is a lot of action going on.

·        You can mainly see this action in the background of the poster but also by the way the characters are running and the fast paced movement of buildings catching fire and spaceships crashing.

·        You can also tell that it is an action film through costume as they are dressed up as well recognised Marvel superheroes and the long shot of the camera makes it so we can see all of them clearly.

·        The Marvel name is well known for its action films and so they knew that putting the Marvel name on there would attract their regular audience.

·        The dark blue and red colours are iconic of an action film so this would indicate an action genre as well.

·        Their composition within the frame does this too as it enables us to observe the amount of movement going on.

·        The costumes attract a specific audience of those who enjoy the superhero/action genre. The actors’ names at the top of the poster will also attract this audience because these actors are famous for their roles as superheroes.

·        They are represented as superheroes but not necessarily positive or negatively, they do however look powerful which is helped by the slightly lowered camera angle.

·        Most of the superheroes are men which supports gender stereotypes and represents women negatively.

·        You can make an educated guess from this poster that the main focus of it are the protagonists as they are working together as a team and again we recognise them as superheroes.

·        The layout of the poster doesn’t hide anything and shows everything that is going on which is quite a lot and this is again iconic of an action film, particularly a marvel action film.

·        The title is the biggest and most obvious part of what is on the poster.

·         The font used for the title and actors names implies action.

·        Marvel is the wider cultural reference because the superheroes were all in Marvel comics before they were made into films.

·        The actors’ names are more obvious than the director’s name because consumers are more likely to recognise the actors’ names rather than the director’s name and therefore the actors would encourage someone to watch the film more. You can only really find the director’s name if you look for it.

·        The date that the film is released is 4^th May and the ‘a’ featured is the actual Avengers logo which starts to get people to recognise the logo as belonging to that film.

·        The certification isn’t shown on the poster but the film is certified as a 12 which is suiting considering Marvel’s target audience.

Little white lies review:

Little White Lies is an internationally distributed movie magazine. It is published by London-based media company TCO London, who also publish the DIY culture magazine Huck. Little White Lies launched in 2005 with the sole aim of creating a magazine that captures the excitement of talking about movies with good friends by bringing together impassioned, intelligent writing with striking illustration. The magazine has since become renowned for its independent ethos and iconic covers.

Each issue of the magazine dedicates its entire front section to an upcoming theatrical release, drawing inspiration from the themes and visual tone of the carefully selected film. The back section features essential reviews of the latest movie releases, plus exclusive interviews, festival reports and more.

Today Little White Lies continues to look for new ways of combining cutting-edge editorial and graphic design while remaining dedicated to championing the best film talent from around the world.

As you can see from the images above, the Little White Lies magazine has a way of doing things and keep a lot of things the same on every addition. For example the white circle with the Little White Lies name in never gets missed off and they are always colourful. (except with some editions where they sell black and white copies for people to colour in. 

Little White Lies is a unique magazine aimed at young people (specifically under 25 year olds) as we can tell by the pop art style and the bright colours and it gives reviews on short films.

 The standard layout that Little White Lies use in their reviews have two and a half columns and a rating out of 5 system which takes up the rest of the third column. 

There is a picture at the top from the short film that it is reviewing and each paragraph usually talks about a different subject to the other.

 The language is not always formal in these reviews for example they sometimes involve swearing or slang however the language always changes. 

The language not being formal is not a problem because it means that their target audience of younger people can relate to it more and maybe understand it a little better.

Each one contains a few reviews of short films and they have never really taken an interest in longer length films. 

Little White Lies review

Our review to look like LWL

Our Little White Lies review is very professional and will give us the success we need.