Peer Review

Peer Review

For this year’s digital media coursework, we had to create a project between 2 or 3 people. This year I was paired with Siobhan Chareka. I do think we were able to communicate effectively through the likes of social media like Facebook and this was a good starting point for us to then share pictures and videos. This definitely helped the process of our project as we could then look and discuss what has been shared and comment and really discuss it in full.

I would say that we did achieve our goals in the production stage as we managed to come up with a storyboard, scene list and the general theme of the short film. However, it was quite difficult to arrange a time to get together and sort it all out in one due go due to other obligations earlier on in the year, I think if we had been able and had the chance to get together more, we might have been able to plan everything a bit better and have everything prepared as opposed to just guessing what needed to be done. I did feel there was less communication so therefore less was planned. In hindsight, writing out a script and scheduling shooting dates ahead would have helped when it came to actually filming the short film.

Using Adobe Premiere Pro between the 2 of us came quite easy as we already had previous experience of using it, however to extend our knowledge, I watched YouTube tutorials about the basic commands to refresh my memory and learn new one to facilitate the progress of our short film. We then took it in turns to shoot and then in the post production stage, edit to create our short film.

There we some problems we had encountered such as the main protagonist becoming so ill that she had to drop out indefinitely, which then led to me taking her place. Some other problems included lack of available shooting times due to other conflict which meant we had to keep post-poning and pushing back, which then meant we had to push back the post-production. We solved the lack of availability by doing individual work and then sending it to each other.

Overall, I do agree that the group did manage to develop and share new working relationships, for instance due to the recent YouTube tutorials I watched, I was then able to share this knowledge with Siobhan, and vice versa. She introduced me to some shortcuts and hidden commands to increase my knowledge further and ease the post-production process, which was then demonstrated in our short film. However the lack of free time between us created some frustration on my part, but I used that to my advantage and with the YouTube tutorials, I was then able to overcome this problem and manage to get everything done within the deadline.

Audience for Short Film in general

Target Audience

The short film industry's audience is quite specific compared to that of a full length film. The 2 main groups of people who will be familiar with short films are unemployed students seeking a future in the film industry and the people who are already successful among the industry.

Demographics

The professional and investors who are employed in the industry may be looking at the short films to find potential in a director, producer or writer to work for them for the particular company. The student sector, a majority of them would be unemployed. They would be viewing the films for inspiration for their own work as an amateur film make. A majority of these films would be familiar with the use of the internet, i.e Youtube.

Psychographics

The audience for short films would be completely different to that of mainstream films. There are many different types of categories within the audience for short film. Some of these categories could be:

• SUCCEEDERS: These are people who tend to think they are in control and are powerful, successful and ambitious. This group is mainly driven by their income wanting to get their foot in the door of the industry. If they are already successful and are in a powerful position then they would be the type to invest in a new director from viewing a short film and therefore bring more money into their company.
• ASPIRERS: These are the type of people who want a bigger and better lifestyle. These types are usually of the younger generation who may have probably just finished university with a degree and want their big break into the film industry. Because they want a bigger and better lifestyle, they would probably be watching a lot of short films to get a better understanding about them and they could possible get inspiration for their own short film and eventually get recognised.
• INDIVIDUALISTS: These are the people are the indepentent thinkers who want to be separate from the crowd. This sector of the audience could include people who just like to express their own opinions and views through the art of film.

Tzvetan Todorov's Theory of states of equilibrium and disruption

Tzvetan Todorov was a Bulgarian literary theorist who suggested that most narratives start with a state of equilibrium in which life is 'normal' and the protagonists are happy. This state of normality is disrupted by an outside force, which has to be fought against in order to return to a state of equilibrium. This model can easily be applied to a wide range of films.

Claude-Levi-Strauss Binary Opposite Theory

Claude Levi-Strauss was a social anthropologist who studies the myths of tribal cultures. He examined how stories unconsciously reflect the values, beliefs and myths of a culture. These are usually expressed in the form of BINARY OPPOSITES. His research has been adapted by media theorists to reveal underlying themes and symbolic oppositions in media texts.

He believed that in every narrative, there was a conflict between two qualities or terms. The reason for binary oppositions is that it can help establish who the 'good' and the 'bad' characters are instantly. They are obviously present in narratives because fundamentally a narrative must be based on a conflict of interest, i.e the interests of the Hero versus the interests of the Villain.

For example in 1970's Western films: The Binary Opposites of the HOMESTEADERS VS NATIVE AMERICANS:

HOMESTEADERS:

• Christian
• Domestic
• Weak
• Garden
• Inside Society

NATIVE AMERICANS:

• Pagan
• Savage
• Strong
• Wilderness
• Outside Society

Barthes' Narrative Codes

Barthes' Narrative Codes

 Roland Barthes developed 5 different codes that apply to films in general in order to be considered a 'good' film, which include:

• The Enigma Code

This is something that the audience do not know, in order to build up the tension and suspense within a film, especially the thriller and horror genres or even just any genre in general. Below is a teaser picture from the movie 'Shutter Island'

•  The Semantic Code

This code is applied to the props that are used in the film, to represent certain concepts and ideas such as wealth. Examples of props which are used to represent wealthy characters are items such as luxury cars, mansions, jewelry and their status within a society. Below is an still from 'Scarface' to show the character: Tony Montana's excessive wealth.

•  The Action Code

This is referred to an action that the audience can see on screen that isn't explained, e.g in a horror film, a character could be shown running away or maybe even towards something that the audience do not know about. This will build the tension and suspense as the audience are left with unanswered questions that they want to find the answers to i.e Why are they running? Are they innocent or guilty? This is turn makes them stay throughout the film, in order to find out. Below is a scene from 'The Shining'. This scene shows a young boy cycling down a corridor, minding his own business, then he comes across these 2 girls, and the this is the first time the audience have seen them, so they would have questions as to where they came from and how did they get there, as there are only supposed to be 3 people staying in the hotel grounds.

• The Symbolic Code

This refers to a structure that portrays the meanings through the use of binary opposites, or stereotypes which go against the usual traits and concepts that an audience may have of a film, which include the characters, location., etc... The scene below from 'Kick-Ass' shows stereotypes that go against usual film concepts, the main character, Dave, portrayed by Aaron Johnson is seen as a weak, geeky teen, who dresses up as a superhero and tries to fight against crime in his neighbourhood without any superpowers whatsoever.

• The Referential Code

This code delves deeper into the audience's wider cultural knowledge, morality and ideology.

Narrative in Short Films

Narrative

What is Narrative?

The way in which a story is told in both fictional and non-fictional media texts.

The narrative of most short films usually include twists and turns in order to make the short film more interesting due to the length of the film, therefore it needs to be enjoyable for the audience, it needs to keep them entertained. 

One of the differences between the narratives of short and feature films is that in the full length ones, there is more tension and suspense as they have the time to full develop a storyline and the characters as well and then the director portrays a shock ending, leaving the audience surprised, which in turn, keeps them interested in the film, however short films haven't got that much time, so everything is condensed to about 5 minutes worth of film, so in order to keep the audience entertained, one must have an enigma, as everything else is going to be too short to explain.

Like the plot twists at the end of 'The Others';

Typical titles and credits associated with the thriller genre

This week we are looking at how to make titles and credits for our short film in order to make it look more professional and more something that people will think is a professional piece of short film.