Real Media
Looking into the narrative structure of a typical short film, it usually has a strange twist such as the abstract storyline of Mathieu Ratthe. That short film played on the archetypal horror movie setting in which you think the older man is going to kill off the younger woman. That soon all gets turned in its head when it is revealed he is helping the poor woman give birth. Short films like to fool us all, shocking up with the pun at the end. Let’s face it, the feature lengths take over an hour to build us up to the climax and it is an art in itself to capture the emotional response in a matter of minutes like the shorts do. Our film runs along the same lines although our short is full of twists, constantly twisting the audience’s perception on what reality really is. It reflects the actuality of the film industry and what the audience recognises to be real. This is different from the usual conventions of short films but that makes it stand out. A complex mix of interview, costume drama and documentary style scenes all add up to the intricacy of ‘Grace’.
Lovefield by Mathieu Rathe
Characters in short films are usually unknown, Hollywood stars sparsely used, though sometimes short films are ladders for the striving actor such as Gerard Butler in Please. The actors we use are unknown people and we develop it around common stereotypes. We have the main actress, Christina Rose, who is a young, arrogant woman, her impending success only getting to her head. When I scripted the character, I knew this was the type of attitude that she needed in order to change personalities and therefore create more of a diverse reality change.
We use limited, cheap settings and make the most out of outdoor locations where we have the freedom to do as we please. This plays on real media, where shorts with low budgets use low class locations where they don’t have to pay too much. We used a social club to save on expenses during the interview scene and a local park for the costume and documentary scenes.
The local park during filming
With short films, you can get away with idiosyncratic camera shots such as the hand held camera movements. Of course, with a growing interest in documentary films like Cloverfield and Paranormal Activity, the media industry for this style is only growing larger. This is great for our film! We use a lot of documentary techniques, whizzing the camera about in hand held fast pans and a solid long take of a period drama, which would (if it were real) be edited into a series of shots. Really, we played on the whole concept of untraditional cinema, avoiding the predictability of a normal, average short film with average camera angles. Many fashion/make over shows use the conspiracy technique around television where they are pretending it is all fluid documentary entries of the progress and we used this. Using noddy shots, we trick the watcher into thinking two cameras are trained on both of the people, not inserted in the editing after it is filmed. The normal drama piece is a normal, unedited-looking piece of footage. The end twist to everything (Post-Production) appears very natural and that is because it is but the whole joke is the audience being fooled into a comforting state of realism. However, as it goes on, the audience would become more weary of what is real and where the filming actually ends as they know a camera is there. Questions spring up such as:
- Who is behind the camera?
- Is there someone ready to film another piece, taking it a step back again?
The reality of what happens behind the camera is never actually shown and that would disorientate watchers.
We don’t use any music which is unusual for any piece of film. However, there was no real need to have any music or sound effects as it is raw documentary. The end credits were dubbed with an out take of the production that plays on realism and background music from the interview piece. Usually, short films like to keep the dialogue as minimal as possible but our piece is full of character interaction, displaying true movie sets.
Costumes were a huge part of our production piece, especially when mimicking a drama reminiscing a period drama such as Pride and Prejudice. We only managed to get high quality costumes because a kindly owner of a costume place offered them for free hire for the day. This saved us a lot on costs. Costumes were a huge part of our production, if that wasn’t obvious from the pictures posted on our filming day. Normally, low budget films don’t even try to recreate a costume drama piece, as it is a risky thing to try and pull off. Short films don’t really feel the need to do a costume drama as it doesn’t really convey messages if they stand by themselves. So, we have developed the ideas of costume, taking it further than most would.
Main male in costume drama
With prissy, spoilt Hollywood actress and the idea of the costume drama plot device of an old man trying to marry a young female, we have played much on stereotypes. Almost every period drama has the issue of unwanted marriage and older men trying to and we play greatly on that representation on typical dramas. However, we changed the two females, both the woman in the Regency part and the Producer in terms of how they would typically be viewed (weak and helpless). Both females are powerful and authorative, which is strange in the Regency period and the modern film industry (which I soon think will change). Also, I have to mention, whilst we are on the subject of representation that it very Shakespearean. I know I have said about this before but to recount, I love Shakespeare and adore how this reflects his works such as ‘Much Ado About Nothing’ and ‘Midsummer’s Night Dream’ where appearance and reality are played upon greatly. Of course, it’s not something the film industry takes on in a different sense. Sure there have been movies such as ‘She’s the Man’ (a modern twist on ‘Twelfth’ Night but nothing shortened and the idea played upon.
The product and the ancillary texts
Right, as anyone would know, film posters are used as a marketing technique for a movie. I have already posted my film poster and mine is very different from the rest of the groups. The decision was made by me because I am doing the general poster and I wanted it to be a mystery. Mine was definitely aiming towards marketing rather than promoting it. The rest of my group decided for the Jane Austen approach, which would obviously target the female audience. Mine, I feel, would border on our target audience of the film buffs. What is very special about our posters is that they are very high resolution and can be blown up to the size of a real film poster if we had the funds.
My poster is so abstract from the film that it stands out, which is always a good thing. I have received high praise from people for my poster, I am delighted to say and proceeded to ask people what they thought of it when they saw it:
Ian, 17, thinks, ‘Crime, Poirot, Agatha Christie, possible film set.’
Sharon, 39, thinks, ‘Perhaps documentary or some plot about the camera?’
In a previous post on March 18th 2010, I explained in a little detail of why I chose to did as the picture and how I got the desired effects through editing. I noted that it was an ambiguious image with just an arm reaching down for a video camera. Also, there was the naked arm of a female that could symbolised sexual themes, which would drawn in the older audience we are aiming for. The main reason I loved this poster was because it could be taken any way possible and would stir up people's imaginations. It anchors the text to the audience of a professional older audience with its simplicity and technical nature. Being mostly black, it doesn't give much away with a background and its sharp, raw editing techniques would only anchor my audience more into my text. The camera itself comes from the documentary, where the fake cameraman is holding it as if he had filmed with it and the arm is mine as I play the part of the leading actress.
In a previous post on March 18th 2010, I explained in a little detail of why I chose to did as the picture and how I got the desired effects through editing. I noted that it was an ambiguious image with just an arm reaching down for a video camera. Also, there was the naked arm of a female that could symbolised sexual themes, which would drawn in the older audience we are aiming for. The main reason I loved this poster was because it could be taken any way possible and would stir up people's imaginations. It anchors the text to the audience of a professional older audience with its simplicity and technical nature. Being mostly black, it doesn't give much away with a background and its sharp, raw editing techniques would only anchor my audience more into my text. The camera itself comes from the documentary, where the fake cameraman is holding it as if he had filmed with it and the arm is mine as I play the part of the leading actress.
I think the review and the poster go as a good duo. They really are polar opposites. The review, I made to portray as a costume drama with a slight hint of more to it than the norm whilst the poster is more confusing and documentary-like. After all, we did really make a documentary piece, not a costume drama. The cleverest twist of the poster is that it doesn’t anchor someone into thinking ‘yes, it’s a documentary’ or ‘yes, it’s a costume drama’; it leaves the audience flexible enough to make their own mind up about it as combining the two has never really been done before. My text would feature in a broadsheet, something appropriate such as 'The Independent' or 'The Guardian' as these are the higher, professional and older audience we are targeting. However, our main texts would be the specialist film magazines such as, "Film Review", "Empire" and "Little White Lies" as the film buffs would love a piece of complex film as ours is. The only problem is the fact the review is done by me, therefore I hold a biased view towards the film as a whole. That could be seen as a good point though! What we look for most, everyone does, is a bit of entertainment and that is what we are aiming for and I think it is what my two texts mediate.
The review is partnered with two other short film reviews that are very recent (updated in the past few months) and is effective in the fact that it gives the reader two other movies to compare it to. ‘Grace’, in the review, isn’t only setting it up as a typical costume drama but a piece of complicated drama that needs to be taken seriously. This works well with the product as a whole as both portray the two sides of the short film.
The review is partnered with two other short film reviews that are very recent (updated in the past few months) and is effective in the fact that it gives the reader two other movies to compare it to. ‘Grace’, in the review, isn’t only setting it up as a typical costume drama but a piece of complicated drama that needs to be taken seriously. This works well with the product as a whole as both portray the two sides of the short film.
Feedback
Well, I’ve already talked about how a couple of people reacted to the poster and now it’s time to talk about the short film. Before we split up on half term, we all decided that we would each hold a separate screening at our homes, inviting people round. I decided to take on the older range for my audience, to see just who got what. Our intended audience is more of a specialist one but as we can’t get hold of any film buffs, ordinary people will have to do!
So, I managed to get people together for a screening, even with snacks. As I could not get it onto the TV, I used my copy to play on our main computer and they proceeded to watch it in small groups.
The ages ranged from 39-65 and this gave me a good variety of different feedbacks. I soon learnt from the feedback that the comedy aspect was definitely working! Everyone was laughing as the producer started to go off on one as her partner winds her up about the filming.
Nigel 65 says, “It was good. The couple made me laugh and it had different layers that kept you watching.”
Mark 44 (above) says, “That was pretty good. The Producer and Director were hilarious and it was filmed really well.”
Trina 42 says, “The editing is really great! It flows really well and can’t believe it’s us there on the screen. Everyone was laughing at our bit and I’m really pleased about it as people don’t realise how hard improvisation is.”
Dave 39 says, “I like how you edited the colour for the costume drama and then went to black and white for the rest of it. It was good how it went from the production stages as well, showing it is a documentary. You don’t realise how funny you look when you see yourself on screen but everyone was laughing as well so it couldn’t have been that bad.”
Dave also was a media student and so he has the knowledge of the film industry and how things work. Even on the day of filming he was pointing out certain things and I thought it was a good experience to interview him so see what he thought of the film as a whole.
I’m afraid I couldn’t get any feedback from different classes as I come from a working class background! I would have liked to but I know it was not possible. This was a family event as I couldn’t really drag a few strangers off the street and take them in my house! The good thing about my family is that they are very critical of things, especially when it comes to films! So they are generally honest about how things look and can even look from a cinematic knowledge as one of my relatives took a Media course in college (though many years ago!).
Technology and how it helped us
I can safely say that technology today helped us a great deal whilst planning, researching, constructing and evaluation. The internet was probably the biggest help out of all of them in all aspects of our production. We looked up short films to start with and I analysed ‘Please’ (it is one of the first entries of mine in the blog) on YouTube, as well as many other videos. When I was looking for costumes, I used the net to explore where I could get period drama costumes. It also came in handy when I had to research in-depth the Regency period to make my script as realistic as possible.
The blog, as a new media, was a big learning experience as well as – in my opinion – the best way to record everything. As it poses as an online diary of events, I think it captures the whole thing perfectly. From this, we can see how done what when, what needed to be done and our progress in a very real timeframe. Placing the evaluation on the blog as well was a huge relief, as we could put our entire work on one place, one a secure internet page so the public could see it if they wished.
Photoshop 5 was a blessing when it came to making our posters. We used a digital USB camera - Fuji Finepix s5100 - (very high standard) for our photo shoot and then uploaded them onto Photoshop to edit them (such as blacking out the background and fiddling around with the contrast).
For all the editing aspects we used Magix Movie Edit pro 11, which was very simple to use whilst we used trial and error as well as getting a tutorial session. Also, the other groups offered advice, as one member is very experienced with editing programmes.
Also, I cannot forget Celtx, which I used to format all my script. This is a free script writing programme and all my scripts look professional quality as they were written straight into it. It has many aspects that only helped aid me, even giving me areas to store all my character and location information! Other basic programmes like Microsoft Publisher helped me design my A3 spreadsheet for my reviews.
As for filming, our group had a very high spec HD camera. This managed to get our video in an extremely high quality, which only made it look even better! The media industry is going head first into the HD industry so this gives our short film a heads up. They were USB-ready so no messing around with cables and leads; we just plugged them in and uploaded it to edit.
