Here is our finished film, the quality of the picture is blurry as it had to be condensed considerabley so that it would be uploaded on to youtube effectively.
Wednesday, 21 April 2010
Tuesday, 16 March 2010
Evaluation
When deciding on the story for our short film we had come to the conclusion that it would have been best to follow a standard narrative because of the complexity behind the actual story, and it would simply be clearer if we had the simple structure that a normally narrative provides.
On the terms of Genre we went for a thriller/horror approach, it is difficult to define the genre entirely but here is a few links (http://www.filmsite.org/genres.html, http://www.filmsite.org/subgenres.html.) that you may follow to explain the genre's in greater depth and to see whether you agree or not. It is more than likely that our short film is a hybrid of many genres much like the modern short films produced today. We tried to follow the basic conventions of thriller/horror by including the idea of the dark figure with no face, the thought behind this was to explore the viewers fear of the unknown. It is a similar point with clowns, a possible theory behind the phobia of clowns is the fact you can not actually see their proper face, and ties in with the unknown factor that I wanted to get across in the shadow character of our short film.
I also tried to get across the feel of horror and thriller in the music I had produced, I used a range of sounds and effects to create suspense and a sense of uneasiness form the very beginning. The bells and some slight timing variations with the synth sounds I managed to create an abstract sound that creates a feeling of suspense with the tambourine and heart beat drums to add to that effect more .To build the suspense I added choirs wind like noises and hellish screams to send chills down the spine when it came to the climax of the piece, I also added a distinctive Piano tune to portray the sadness and grief normally experienced from horror/ thriller films.
In relation to the 'What makes a good short film ' by the BBC (http://www.bbc.co.uk/filmnetwork/filmmaking/guide/introduction/what-makes-a-good-short) Our film has a medium strength script, there isn't much actual taking in our film, it was mainly stage directions and so on, but they are all part of the script. Sections of the film could have been made clearer wit ha slight alteration to the actions and voice over’s used, for example the scene where the Author delete his story, it is not perfectly clear what he is doing. With slight alteration and only adding 20-30 seconds max to the total length would make the story and that scene a lot clearer than it currently is.
I think our story had achieved a good level of originality through the fact that it combines reality and fantasy in a very different light, through an author’s novel we see his creation happening in real life, and even after it has been deleted it still continues using reflections as the /portal/ between the worlds almost. (That last idea is admittedly clichéd).
In terms of acting, our main character is performed by a student who takes performing arts and has appeared in many local productions done by the local drama club, and was very good at acting out the scenes no matter how absurd! Since I was part of the acting as well (playing the role of the Author) I felt I did well for someone who has little experience in acting, I think the fact that me and the actress (Emily) are old friends from primary school all the way through to college put me at ease when acting in front of the camera and provided the natural friendship feeling that was put across at the very start of the film.
When looking back over the film it shows a good flow between each clip, thanks to the use of HD cameras, careful preparation between shots and good continuous lighting. The acting from Emily is of a high quality
The film is short at under 5 minutes keeping it short and sweet is the best approach and I think 5 minutes is a good time to approach that 'philosophy' with.
A strong beginning, is one thing that I find our short film to be lacking, as it is a steady introduction to the characters and not a introduction that would grab your attention instantly, and I think this may damage the films effectiveness in the long run.
We avoided repetition as much as possible, and I think there are not very many repetitions apart form the fast flash back of the recent events, but adds a certain desired effect to the story and does not distract the audience from it, we also avoided the punch line twists by keeping the end simple and effective and offering little hints throughout the film to build up to that final scene.
In relation to new techniques we discovered an interesting technique to create a scratchy like image with a loud distorted noise all by using the trolley without it's tracks, and running it across the tarmac.
When looking at our poster, we copied the style of the 'I’m not there' Poster, as the general composition of the poster fitted our initial sketches as seen on the storyboard sheets posted earlier. We decided that a pure black and white approach would best fit the short film it was advertising, as it is black and white that makes up a novel on the computer screen, or even in the book, no colours other than black and white and creates a good correlation between the two. It also provides the striking contrast to make the image more striking.
The font is a particular favourite of mine and well chosen by Jamie, slightly eroded and damaged just like the story is when it's deleted, and confuses reality with fantasy.
The Tag line again is well chosen as it suggests the main feature of the story without giving it away, it puts the whole idea that the erase key does more than just erase something like a story; it is much more than that. The image of the head with no face, lost in the blackness relates to the actual shadow figure in the short film, it creates a sense of interest into what is behind the blackness covering his face, why is it not there etc. And those questions will make the audience want to watch the film and find out! They will not get exact answers but they will get a story equally compelling. It is a debatable point that the poster does not raise the right questions is unsuccessful, but I feel that having the poster raise a number of questions that makes them watch the short film and even though their questions are not answered completely the poster still does its primary job of pulling in the audience.
For the article we had decided that the images should be placed in a scrapbook/diary arrangement to fit the style of a sneak peak interview that makes up the majority of the article.
The photos were placed in a range of angles and overlapping to let them flow from one to the other revealing little bits of how the film was made, and actual shots from the film acting as little tasters to entice the audience to read the article and watch the film on its release. Thus is the desired effect. We also took the title directly from the poster to link them both together, the faded like background relates to the idea of fading away, like when you erase pencil with a rubber however I feel that the background should have been darker to give better contrast like the poster to help link the two together better.
On a whole the 3 products all work well together as they poster offers a compelling image that entices the audiences to want to watch the film, where as the article promotes the film from a different approach giving a human face on the producers and crew of the film giving it a more friendly appearance, yet still relating it to the short film and trying to make the audience want to watch it, in a subtle way.
In my personal view I find that the poster is stronger than the article as it is more striking visually, and I feel that the article misses that aspect to help boost the promotional purposes it was made for. The film and the poster are tied for the best as I feel that both were executed well and the final products are of a high quality and portray exactly what they were supposed to.
If I could have changed anything I would have changed the article to make link more to the poster, and edit the layout slightly to gain a better impact on the audiences. The poster is of a good quality and I wouldn't change much at all, I would have liked to create different posters, experimenting with different tools and effects on Photoshop.
I think our short film meets the short film beginner audience, by this I mean a teenager aged 16-19 or even older who has never watched short films before, or has dabbled in them on the odd occasion.
I would like to think that the film brings the audience more into the world of short films and makes them an avid watcher. It is a high demand for a short film made under difficult circumstances (lack of proper technology that the more experienced short film makers have).
We were getting constant feedback from our target audience by showing them small previews of our film and asking what they thought, and what could be made better, unfortunately we did not make a record of this, mainly because it was all done in the editing period, so any ideas or errors were changed immediately. But this helped us spot out minor errors in the music and the flow of the film making for a better film, as the film was edited to remove the little errors that the target audience noticed.
Digital Technology was the key factor that made all this possible, there is a huge list of different technologies that we used to create our short film and here are just a few:
Sony Vegas movie suite
Acoustica Mixcraft 4,
Adobe Photoshop,
Microsoft word,
HD camera,
Still cameras,0
Windows move maker,
Email,
Mobile phones.
We would film using the HD camera whilst taking still shot with the other camera, after the filming was complete, we would dock the camera on to the PC upload the clips then sort through them all editing them into place on the movie editor programme. I mentioned Mobile Phones and email, they may seem an odd technology but it was vital for us to be able to communicate with each other and arrange times for filming and collect data and information we had gathered on separate tasks, which would seem rather fitting considering the Web 2.0 age is now upon us.
The idea of interaction with technology and media played a major role in the making of our short film, and showed us how big this will be later.
It is also why we have done this Blog, keeping track of our progress through the whole process relating to research we had done to show the development of the actual production and make them interactive with links and music to follow up on.
The amount of technology we used has been a great help, but it has also been a curse, on several occasions batteries ran out or were just dead and we had no access to chargers, delaying filming for days. It was also apparent that we had troubles on the editing software where it would not respond quickly enough or would glitch moving the sound out of sync with the video.
But it also made the whole process easier to do, and less painful, if we did not have this it would have been a lot harder to make final a product of a similar standard of ours.
I have developed many IT skills during this project, mainly musical skills on the Acoustica Mixcraft 4 software, I quickly mastered the basic techniques and began to delve deeper into the more advanced techniques just enough to help me make effective music scores for the film.
Over all I think the Project has been a great success and I am happy with the final products we have created.
On the terms of Genre we went for a thriller/horror approach, it is difficult to define the genre entirely but here is a few links (http://www.filmsite.org/genres.html, http://www.filmsite.org/subgenres.html.) that you may follow to explain the genre's in greater depth and to see whether you agree or not. It is more than likely that our short film is a hybrid of many genres much like the modern short films produced today. We tried to follow the basic conventions of thriller/horror by including the idea of the dark figure with no face, the thought behind this was to explore the viewers fear of the unknown. It is a similar point with clowns, a possible theory behind the phobia of clowns is the fact you can not actually see their proper face, and ties in with the unknown factor that I wanted to get across in the shadow character of our short film.
I also tried to get across the feel of horror and thriller in the music I had produced, I used a range of sounds and effects to create suspense and a sense of uneasiness form the very beginning. The bells and some slight timing variations with the synth sounds I managed to create an abstract sound that creates a feeling of suspense with the tambourine and heart beat drums to add to that effect more .To build the suspense I added choirs wind like noises and hellish screams to send chills down the spine when it came to the climax of the piece, I also added a distinctive Piano tune to portray the sadness and grief normally experienced from horror/ thriller films.
In relation to the 'What makes a good short film ' by the BBC (http://www.bbc.co.uk/filmnetwork/filmmaking/guide/introduction/what-makes-a-good-short) Our film has a medium strength script, there isn't much actual taking in our film, it was mainly stage directions and so on, but they are all part of the script. Sections of the film could have been made clearer wit ha slight alteration to the actions and voice over’s used, for example the scene where the Author delete his story, it is not perfectly clear what he is doing. With slight alteration and only adding 20-30 seconds max to the total length would make the story and that scene a lot clearer than it currently is.
I think our story had achieved a good level of originality through the fact that it combines reality and fantasy in a very different light, through an author’s novel we see his creation happening in real life, and even after it has been deleted it still continues using reflections as the /portal/ between the worlds almost. (That last idea is admittedly clichéd).
In terms of acting, our main character is performed by a student who takes performing arts and has appeared in many local productions done by the local drama club, and was very good at acting out the scenes no matter how absurd! Since I was part of the acting as well (playing the role of the Author) I felt I did well for someone who has little experience in acting, I think the fact that me and the actress (Emily) are old friends from primary school all the way through to college put me at ease when acting in front of the camera and provided the natural friendship feeling that was put across at the very start of the film.
When looking back over the film it shows a good flow between each clip, thanks to the use of HD cameras, careful preparation between shots and good continuous lighting. The acting from Emily is of a high quality
The film is short at under 5 minutes keeping it short and sweet is the best approach and I think 5 minutes is a good time to approach that 'philosophy' with.
A strong beginning, is one thing that I find our short film to be lacking, as it is a steady introduction to the characters and not a introduction that would grab your attention instantly, and I think this may damage the films effectiveness in the long run.
We avoided repetition as much as possible, and I think there are not very many repetitions apart form the fast flash back of the recent events, but adds a certain desired effect to the story and does not distract the audience from it, we also avoided the punch line twists by keeping the end simple and effective and offering little hints throughout the film to build up to that final scene.
In relation to new techniques we discovered an interesting technique to create a scratchy like image with a loud distorted noise all by using the trolley without it's tracks, and running it across the tarmac.
When looking at our poster, we copied the style of the 'I’m not there' Poster, as the general composition of the poster fitted our initial sketches as seen on the storyboard sheets posted earlier. We decided that a pure black and white approach would best fit the short film it was advertising, as it is black and white that makes up a novel on the computer screen, or even in the book, no colours other than black and white and creates a good correlation between the two. It also provides the striking contrast to make the image more striking.
The font is a particular favourite of mine and well chosen by Jamie, slightly eroded and damaged just like the story is when it's deleted, and confuses reality with fantasy.
The Tag line again is well chosen as it suggests the main feature of the story without giving it away, it puts the whole idea that the erase key does more than just erase something like a story; it is much more than that. The image of the head with no face, lost in the blackness relates to the actual shadow figure in the short film, it creates a sense of interest into what is behind the blackness covering his face, why is it not there etc. And those questions will make the audience want to watch the film and find out! They will not get exact answers but they will get a story equally compelling. It is a debatable point that the poster does not raise the right questions is unsuccessful, but I feel that having the poster raise a number of questions that makes them watch the short film and even though their questions are not answered completely the poster still does its primary job of pulling in the audience.
For the article we had decided that the images should be placed in a scrapbook/diary arrangement to fit the style of a sneak peak interview that makes up the majority of the article.
The photos were placed in a range of angles and overlapping to let them flow from one to the other revealing little bits of how the film was made, and actual shots from the film acting as little tasters to entice the audience to read the article and watch the film on its release. Thus is the desired effect. We also took the title directly from the poster to link them both together, the faded like background relates to the idea of fading away, like when you erase pencil with a rubber however I feel that the background should have been darker to give better contrast like the poster to help link the two together better.
On a whole the 3 products all work well together as they poster offers a compelling image that entices the audiences to want to watch the film, where as the article promotes the film from a different approach giving a human face on the producers and crew of the film giving it a more friendly appearance, yet still relating it to the short film and trying to make the audience want to watch it, in a subtle way.
In my personal view I find that the poster is stronger than the article as it is more striking visually, and I feel that the article misses that aspect to help boost the promotional purposes it was made for. The film and the poster are tied for the best as I feel that both were executed well and the final products are of a high quality and portray exactly what they were supposed to.
If I could have changed anything I would have changed the article to make link more to the poster, and edit the layout slightly to gain a better impact on the audiences. The poster is of a good quality and I wouldn't change much at all, I would have liked to create different posters, experimenting with different tools and effects on Photoshop.
I think our short film meets the short film beginner audience, by this I mean a teenager aged 16-19 or even older who has never watched short films before, or has dabbled in them on the odd occasion.
I would like to think that the film brings the audience more into the world of short films and makes them an avid watcher. It is a high demand for a short film made under difficult circumstances (lack of proper technology that the more experienced short film makers have).
We were getting constant feedback from our target audience by showing them small previews of our film and asking what they thought, and what could be made better, unfortunately we did not make a record of this, mainly because it was all done in the editing period, so any ideas or errors were changed immediately. But this helped us spot out minor errors in the music and the flow of the film making for a better film, as the film was edited to remove the little errors that the target audience noticed.
Digital Technology was the key factor that made all this possible, there is a huge list of different technologies that we used to create our short film and here are just a few:
Sony Vegas movie suite
Acoustica Mixcraft 4,
Adobe Photoshop,
Microsoft word,
HD camera,
Still cameras,0
Windows move maker,
Email,
Mobile phones.
We would film using the HD camera whilst taking still shot with the other camera, after the filming was complete, we would dock the camera on to the PC upload the clips then sort through them all editing them into place on the movie editor programme. I mentioned Mobile Phones and email, they may seem an odd technology but it was vital for us to be able to communicate with each other and arrange times for filming and collect data and information we had gathered on separate tasks, which would seem rather fitting considering the Web 2.0 age is now upon us.
The idea of interaction with technology and media played a major role in the making of our short film, and showed us how big this will be later.
It is also why we have done this Blog, keeping track of our progress through the whole process relating to research we had done to show the development of the actual production and make them interactive with links and music to follow up on.
The amount of technology we used has been a great help, but it has also been a curse, on several occasions batteries ran out or were just dead and we had no access to chargers, delaying filming for days. It was also apparent that we had troubles on the editing software where it would not respond quickly enough or would glitch moving the sound out of sync with the video.
But it also made the whole process easier to do, and less painful, if we did not have this it would have been a lot harder to make final a product of a similar standard of ours.
I have developed many IT skills during this project, mainly musical skills on the Acoustica Mixcraft 4 software, I quickly mastered the basic techniques and began to delve deeper into the more advanced techniques just enough to help me make effective music scores for the film.
Over all I think the Project has been a great success and I am happy with the final products we have created.
Monday, 15 March 2010
Sunday, 14 March 2010
Onto the music for the film, which was my majortask in amongst the group as well as the producer and actor !
I wanted to get across the feeling of intense fear and uneasyness which I wanted to be put across in the film as well. And after many hours and versions made up i had finally came up with this.
I think the final product was very close to what I wanted to include. uncfortuinatly in the actual production of the short film, it was as prominant as I would have liked. But it did feature in there. I had to create new scores when the film had been edeted completely so i could get an accurate fit with the music and the film, which was again a great success. Unfortuinatly I dont have any of those files available at the time, but will be posted as soon as I get access to them.
I wanted to get across the feeling of intense fear and uneasyness which I wanted to be put across in the film as well. And after many hours and versions made up i had finally came up with this.
I think the final product was very close to what I wanted to include. uncfortuinatly in the actual production of the short film, it was as prominant as I would have liked. But it did feature in there. I had to create new scores when the film had been edeted completely so i could get an accurate fit with the music and the film, which was again a great success. Unfortuinatly I dont have any of those files available at the time, but will be posted as soon as I get access to them.
After looking through many magazines and articles, we had finally decided on a layout and style that we wanted in our magazine.
We also looked at our poster to see what elements we should include in that to tie in all the littel nuggets of information together.
Here is the final product:
The background ties nicely with the name of the film 'Erase' and Scott had madea good decission on the layout of the magazine making the centre a pocket full of photographs and little bits of detail about the short film and it's production.
Onto the Article it's self, Scott was given the task of this as well and did a brilliant job giving it the natural and realistic feel that we wanted for the article, in the interview he put in I think an unfair portayal of my character was a rather funny addition to the article on a more personal note.
Short Films, the new addiction? An audience with the Erase creators.
In the new technological age, people have come to expect things immediately; the world has become a place of speed and abruptness, where all news is old news, as soon as it hits. Therefore it seems fitting that every aspect of this new technological world, should work on the same basis: Short films, a story told in a matter of minutes, containing all the action, comedy, romance, suspense of any major blockbuster, all the while delivering their essential message; the reason for their creation.
In recent years short films have become exponentially more popular, used for a multitude of purposes; to entertain, to advertise, or simply as the opening to that new must-see movie. Awards are no longer given to just the feature-length films from this director or that producer, but to short films, made by ‘average Joes’; the short film industry is quickly becoming a more recognized media.
Short films are becoming so popular that Nick Parks, the famed director of ‘Wallace and Grommet’ has been nominated for an Oscar for best short animated film, an award which he has already won on 4 previous occasions. Such news has encouraged a new generation of short-film makers (otherwise known as ‘Shakers’) to step into the limelight and broadcast their creations worldwide.
One of these groups of ‘shakers’, who have decided to take the brave and, frankly, well-deserved step into the limelight, is a culmination of the brilliant director, producer and stars of the celebrated short film, ‘True Colours’, with the equally brilliant producer of, the short film, ‘Georgina’s Secret’. This genius group of young ‘shakers’ have formulated an idea for a amazing short film, which possesses all the necessary elements to take the short-film world by storm. And we, at ‘Now Film’ magazine, have been given the opportunity to interview, two of these brilliant minds; Co-producers/directors, Scott Pinder and Nick Williams.
NF: ‘So, welcome to Now Film magazine, we’re absolutely thrilled to have you and really looking forward, to hearing about your new project. Can you maybe, tell us a little bit about it, because up to now it’s all been kept quite quiet, and we’re dying to know about it. What made you decide to make this film, how did you come up with it, more importantly who came up with it.’
Scott: (Laughs) ‘Well, we don’t want to reveal too much, we want to leave some surprise for the audience, but I suppose we can tell you a little bit. The majority of us, as I’m sure you’ll know have worked together before, and we had a really good time making ‘True Colours’, so we decided to give it another try, and I’ve known Jamie Kirk for a good few years now and we bumped in to him at an awards night, and he really wanted to do another short-film and we-’
Nick: ‘Cut a long story short we decided to make a new film.’
Scott: ‘Yeh.’ (Laughs)
NF: ‘Ok, but who actually came up with the story?’
Nick: ‘Well, we all added bits and pieces to the story, we threw a few ideas about to start off with, but eventually we managed to settle on this one, I think it was me who came up with the actual idea of the author writing his story and I think it was Scott who came up with the two realities aspect, wasn’t it?’
Scott: ‘Ye I think I came up with the two realities coming together in the end, but in the end we all pretty much put the same amount in as each other really.’
NF: ‘Ok so there’s no one who can take all the glory, you all came up with it together, but for our readers who know nothing about it, can you explain exactly what ‘IT’ is?’
Nick: (Laughs) ‘Well like Scott said, we don’t want to give too much away, but, the gist of the story is, this authors writing a story and what he’s writing is coming true, and it’s all happening to this girl, anyway it’s all meant to be quite chilling and creepy, and I really think we’ve managed to achieve that, especially with the help of Saquib Majid
Scott: ‘Ye, it’s really come together and I reckon it really makes you think and like Nick said Saq has done some really good work, I mean we all had a go, but he’s done the majority of the filming and it’s looking really good, so we’re just hoping it’ll get a good reaction.’
NF: ‘Well I’m sure it will go down great with the public, but one last question before we call it a day, where exactly has your inspiration come from?’
Scott: ‘Hm. Well, there’s loads of things that inspired it to be honest, I mean we’ve taken inspiration from loads of like thriller films, to help with creating the suspense etc. But I reckon that, personally, I took inspiration from the film, ‘Sliding Doors’ and how it looks at two separate realities and I reckon that that’s how I came up with the duel realities aspect.’
NF: ‘Well I’m afraid that that’s all we have time for and we are really looking forward to the film coming out, it’s out May 4th is that right?’
Scott: ‘Ye, that’s right, we hope you like it.’
The new short-film, ‘Erase’, is to be released May 4th and, is more than likely going to be a major hit with short-film fans the world over.
The above is the final article he had come up with, after help from all of us edeting and correcting the odd mistake here and there. Over all a great sucess in the article.
We also looked at our poster to see what elements we should include in that to tie in all the littel nuggets of information together.
Here is the final product:
The background ties nicely with the name of the film 'Erase' and Scott had madea good decission on the layout of the magazine making the centre a pocket full of photographs and little bits of detail about the short film and it's production.Onto the Article it's self, Scott was given the task of this as well and did a brilliant job giving it the natural and realistic feel that we wanted for the article, in the interview he put in I think an unfair portayal of my character was a rather funny addition to the article on a more personal note.
Short Films, the new addiction? An audience with the Erase creators.
In the new technological age, people have come to expect things immediately; the world has become a place of speed and abruptness, where all news is old news, as soon as it hits. Therefore it seems fitting that every aspect of this new technological world, should work on the same basis: Short films, a story told in a matter of minutes, containing all the action, comedy, romance, suspense of any major blockbuster, all the while delivering their essential message; the reason for their creation.
In recent years short films have become exponentially more popular, used for a multitude of purposes; to entertain, to advertise, or simply as the opening to that new must-see movie. Awards are no longer given to just the feature-length films from this director or that producer, but to short films, made by ‘average Joes’; the short film industry is quickly becoming a more recognized media.
Short films are becoming so popular that Nick Parks, the famed director of ‘Wallace and Grommet’ has been nominated for an Oscar for best short animated film, an award which he has already won on 4 previous occasions. Such news has encouraged a new generation of short-film makers (otherwise known as ‘Shakers’) to step into the limelight and broadcast their creations worldwide.
One of these groups of ‘shakers’, who have decided to take the brave and, frankly, well-deserved step into the limelight, is a culmination of the brilliant director, producer and stars of the celebrated short film, ‘True Colours’, with the equally brilliant producer of, the short film, ‘Georgina’s Secret’. This genius group of young ‘shakers’ have formulated an idea for a amazing short film, which possesses all the necessary elements to take the short-film world by storm. And we, at ‘Now Film’ magazine, have been given the opportunity to interview, two of these brilliant minds; Co-producers/directors, Scott Pinder and Nick Williams.
NF: ‘So, welcome to Now Film magazine, we’re absolutely thrilled to have you and really looking forward, to hearing about your new project. Can you maybe, tell us a little bit about it, because up to now it’s all been kept quite quiet, and we’re dying to know about it. What made you decide to make this film, how did you come up with it, more importantly who came up with it.’
Scott: (Laughs) ‘Well, we don’t want to reveal too much, we want to leave some surprise for the audience, but I suppose we can tell you a little bit. The majority of us, as I’m sure you’ll know have worked together before, and we had a really good time making ‘True Colours’, so we decided to give it another try, and I’ve known Jamie Kirk for a good few years now and we bumped in to him at an awards night, and he really wanted to do another short-film and we-’
Nick: ‘Cut a long story short we decided to make a new film.’
Scott: ‘Yeh.’ (Laughs)
NF: ‘Ok, but who actually came up with the story?’
Nick: ‘Well, we all added bits and pieces to the story, we threw a few ideas about to start off with, but eventually we managed to settle on this one, I think it was me who came up with the actual idea of the author writing his story and I think it was Scott who came up with the two realities aspect, wasn’t it?’
Scott: ‘Ye I think I came up with the two realities coming together in the end, but in the end we all pretty much put the same amount in as each other really.’
NF: ‘Ok so there’s no one who can take all the glory, you all came up with it together, but for our readers who know nothing about it, can you explain exactly what ‘IT’ is?’
Nick: (Laughs) ‘Well like Scott said, we don’t want to give too much away, but, the gist of the story is, this authors writing a story and what he’s writing is coming true, and it’s all happening to this girl, anyway it’s all meant to be quite chilling and creepy, and I really think we’ve managed to achieve that, especially with the help of Saquib Majid
Scott: ‘Ye, it’s really come together and I reckon it really makes you think and like Nick said Saq has done some really good work, I mean we all had a go, but he’s done the majority of the filming and it’s looking really good, so we’re just hoping it’ll get a good reaction.’
NF: ‘Well I’m sure it will go down great with the public, but one last question before we call it a day, where exactly has your inspiration come from?’
Scott: ‘Hm. Well, there’s loads of things that inspired it to be honest, I mean we’ve taken inspiration from loads of like thriller films, to help with creating the suspense etc. But I reckon that, personally, I took inspiration from the film, ‘Sliding Doors’ and how it looks at two separate realities and I reckon that that’s how I came up with the duel realities aspect.’
NF: ‘Well I’m afraid that that’s all we have time for and we are really looking forward to the film coming out, it’s out May 4th is that right?’
Scott: ‘Ye, that’s right, we hope you like it.’
The new short-film, ‘Erase’, is to be released May 4th and, is more than likely going to be a major hit with short-film fans the world over.
The above is the final article he had come up with, after help from all of us edeting and correcting the odd mistake here and there. Over all a great sucess in the article.
So, with the poster in mind we looked at many different posters but one cought our attention the most and it was this one :
The gerneal composition of this poster and was very striking, and seemded to fit the genre and title of the film, wit ha few tweaks here and there. Erase being the chosen name for our film, ideas popped up about removing the face of our poster figure, trying to get across the idea of two worlds merging and dissapearing all at once.
there were several other posters that we looked at and here is another that was a very good find.
'The Unborn' poster was a very good insperation for the final scene of our film, and was exxactly what I wanted to acheive as well. So looking at this poster I managed to direct the filming, to base it around this poster and see what we could accomplish and I feel that we accomplished that, without the help of my team it may not have looked so good.
And after hours of edeting and flipping and changing my good friend Jamie had created the finaldesign for our poster with great success,
The gerneal composition of this poster and was very striking, and seemded to fit the genre and title of the film, wit ha few tweaks here and there. Erase being the chosen name for our film, ideas popped up about removing the face of our poster figure, trying to get across the idea of two worlds merging and dissapearing all at once.
there were several other posters that we looked at and here is another that was a very good find.
'The Unborn' poster was a very good insperation for the final scene of our film, and was exxactly what I wanted to acheive as well. So looking at this poster I managed to direct the filming, to base it around this poster and see what we could accomplish and I feel that we accomplished that, without the help of my team it may not have looked so good.
And after hours of edeting and flipping and changing my good friend Jamie had created the finaldesign for our poster with great success,
Planning for the short film.
We began planning for the short film, by looking over many aspects of story lines and lighting as shown previously in my blog. We began to develop a range of stories that we could possibly use to base our short film on.
With many quick ideas produced, which I will post up later, one was chosen over the others,
The story with our film was that of an Author and his room mate. The author began writing a novel for his university project, and as he wrote his novel, it merged the fantasy world with the real world. And everything that happened to his main character, happened to his room mate, confused his room mate decided to ignore these strange happenings, until finally the worlds merged bringing her and the story to life and her possible doom!?
That was the basics of the story that we firther developed into a story that progressed from start to finish with a smooth transaction, more or less.
With the story line of our film set. and decided on we began to look into film posters and film magazines to look at the layouts and formats used on them, to help us to get an idea of what we needed to include in ours.
Tuesday, 23 February 2010
In preperation for our short film we had the time to experiment with the equipment we would be using, and plan out our film to make sure we were fully prepared for filming.
Since we had used the cameras in a past 'mini' project we experimented with the lights, and filters to get an idea of the effect and moods caused by different colo
urings and so on. These pitures are the best of the many we took and show the different moods achieved.
Tuesday, 3 November 2009
Short film Analysis
I havel ooked at the guides that the BBC had published on what makes agood short film, found here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/filmnetwork/filmmakingguidegoodshort#idea
I then watched this film :
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/filmnetwork/A54736806
And analysed it and comparing it to the guides set out by the BBC.
(my notes on analysis)
The idea is unique and very wierd. Scientists lust leads to his death inevitably eaten by the 'eel' woman.
Original is debatable.
Script is lacking content yet the imagery suggests more, both acting and script come together at times as a good script may become corrupt
by bad acting. This short film has such a small amount of script that it's hard to get into the situation as there is little tiem spent on some aspects.
However the lack of script is also it's gain, the film lacks script in order to create suspence and questioning from the audience hence involving them in the
film.
The acting by the 'eel girl' was better than the others, she played the charatcer moving and acting as you would expect her to, crfeating a
sence of realism to a sereal creature. The acting of the scientist and officer was average, the acting wascheesey almost especially with the
second scientist licking his lips, tryign to put across the idea of lust. The vocal acting, was nto very believable as there was no feeling in it,
their actions were also too quick.
The effects used in this film were especially good, the sets were detailed captured the feel and mood of th short film, almost fortelling the end
through the sets. The camera work was well planned and exectured with smooth transactions from one cut to the next, lighintg was low, inside and high outside
creating excellent contrast between the two areas. Sound quality was low at the begenning as it was difficult to make out what they were saying, thus
runing the experience.
This film is short lasting only 5 minutes, It is consise and gets to the point quickly, but not too wuickly. their timing is good as it creates the right ammount of suspence
at the right time.
The film's beginning is strong as it does not reveal much at all about the true nature of the scientists intentions early on. The
questioning of this protocol that is mentioned several times and why it is mentioned, which is ofcourse revealed later in the film.
Repetion did not occur, yet it almost did, During the film we see the 'Eel girl' climb into the bath, and we see her in the bath again at the end,
this is not entirely repetative but a good tool linking the events between the first time and second time together.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/filmnetwork/filmmakingguidegoodshort#idea
I then watched this film :
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/filmnetwork/A54736806
And analysed it and comparing it to the guides set out by the BBC.
(my notes on analysis)
The idea is unique and very wierd. Scientists lust leads to his death inevitably eaten by the 'eel' woman.
Original is debatable.
Script is lacking content yet the imagery suggests more, both acting and script come together at times as a good script may become corrupt
by bad acting. This short film has such a small amount of script that it's hard to get into the situation as there is little tiem spent on some aspects.
However the lack of script is also it's gain, the film lacks script in order to create suspence and questioning from the audience hence involving them in the
film.
The acting by the 'eel girl' was better than the others, she played the charatcer moving and acting as you would expect her to, crfeating a
sence of realism to a sereal creature. The acting of the scientist and officer was average, the acting wascheesey almost especially with the
second scientist licking his lips, tryign to put across the idea of lust. The vocal acting, was nto very believable as there was no feeling in it,
their actions were also too quick.
The effects used in this film were especially good, the sets were detailed captured the feel and mood of th short film, almost fortelling the end
through the sets. The camera work was well planned and exectured with smooth transactions from one cut to the next, lighintg was low, inside and high outside
creating excellent contrast between the two areas. Sound quality was low at the begenning as it was difficult to make out what they were saying, thus
runing the experience.
This film is short lasting only 5 minutes, It is consise and gets to the point quickly, but not too wuickly. their timing is good as it creates the right ammount of suspence
at the right time.
The film's beginning is strong as it does not reveal much at all about the true nature of the scientists intentions early on. The
questioning of this protocol that is mentioned several times and why it is mentioned, which is ofcourse revealed later in the film.
Repetion did not occur, yet it almost did, During the film we see the 'Eel girl' climb into the bath, and we see her in the bath again at the end,
this is not entirely repetative but a good tool linking the events between the first time and second time together.
Tuesday, 6 October 2009
Typical Narrative structure and Ant-Narrative structure.
In the lesson we began to look at Narratives in film making an how they follow set structer points, Equilibrium, Disequilibrium and New Equilibrium. Most films follow this basic structure, and may be repeated several times in a single film, which makes up a Typical Narrative, an Anti-Narrative film does the opposite and does not follow this structure, instead it may hav the New Equilibrium at the begenning, a good example would be Pulp Fiction, this film does not follow this structure at all, making it one of the best examples of an Anti-Narrative film.
We were then presented with a task to write both a Typical Narrative film and an Anti-Narrative film in the genre of horror in groups.
The follwing story was the Typical Narrative film ( I have shortened the story by reducing the ammount of detail) :
4 Teenagers ( 2 boys and 2 girls) plan to go on a weekend trip to a nearby campsite, known for its great location. However one of the girls drops out as she is unable to go, and so another Teenager (boy) takes her plce on this trip. They go by car, and enter a forest taking them to a secluded lake, not the campsite they were expecting to go, however they decide to stay and set up camp in an open plane in theforest, near the lake.
During the first night, they take drugs and drink, sat around the campfire they are talking, when they begin to what they believe is to be hilousinations. One of the boys (boy 1) dissapears after he goes off for a wee. One of the other boys (boy 2) realises he is missing and goes off searching for him, they both end up dying and are left in the forest.
during their absence and murder, the 2 remaing teenagers, boy3 and girl, are left alone at the camp, over confident the boy begins to sexually assault the girl, in her panic she beats him over the head with a bottle, seeing blood run over the floor she runs outside panicking. She is then jumped on by the girl who dropped out at the begening of the trip. A fight ensues when she the murderous fenatic is about to kill the girl she is struck on the back of the head by the boy from the tent. They pull themselves together and make their escape back to civilisation.
The following story is a typical /Anti/-Narrative ( again I have shortened the story to give the general idea of the anti-narrative asepcts)
The black screen is removed by the screams of a girl, she is running through the forest hands bound pushing past all the foliage blockeing her path. We catch a glimps of some strange shadow in the form of some creature in the distance showingno sign of persuit, she keeps running wehn she finally reaches and opening in the woods seeing a camp site empty. but the stains of blood are everywhere.
We suddenly flash back to a group of people in a car off to a camping trip in the near buy woods,
We see them prepping and introductions of those characters are done by the conversation they are having. The day progresses and at night we see the group around the campfire telling ghost stories trying to scare eachother, when suddenyl the same shadow'y' figure is spotted by the group, scared they huddle together. but the shadow dissapears only to return behind them and the screan darkens as we hear the screams of the newly found victims of the shadow beast
A sudden flash back to the girl at the campsite, and begins to run again realising the creature is after her still. She reaches a car, her evidently, finding yet more blood stains all over it.
{ The above story is a good example of Anti-Narrative as the story bergins at the end, and flicks between middle beginning and end in the incorrect order to build the story up.}
We were then presented with a task to write both a Typical Narrative film and an Anti-Narrative film in the genre of horror in groups.
The follwing story was the Typical Narrative film ( I have shortened the story by reducing the ammount of detail) :
4 Teenagers ( 2 boys and 2 girls) plan to go on a weekend trip to a nearby campsite, known for its great location. However one of the girls drops out as she is unable to go, and so another Teenager (boy) takes her plce on this trip. They go by car, and enter a forest taking them to a secluded lake, not the campsite they were expecting to go, however they decide to stay and set up camp in an open plane in theforest, near the lake.
During the first night, they take drugs and drink, sat around the campfire they are talking, when they begin to what they believe is to be hilousinations. One of the boys (boy 1) dissapears after he goes off for a wee. One of the other boys (boy 2) realises he is missing and goes off searching for him, they both end up dying and are left in the forest.
during their absence and murder, the 2 remaing teenagers, boy3 and girl, are left alone at the camp, over confident the boy begins to sexually assault the girl, in her panic she beats him over the head with a bottle, seeing blood run over the floor she runs outside panicking. She is then jumped on by the girl who dropped out at the begening of the trip. A fight ensues when she the murderous fenatic is about to kill the girl she is struck on the back of the head by the boy from the tent. They pull themselves together and make their escape back to civilisation.
The following story is a typical /Anti/-Narrative ( again I have shortened the story to give the general idea of the anti-narrative asepcts)
The black screen is removed by the screams of a girl, she is running through the forest hands bound pushing past all the foliage blockeing her path. We catch a glimps of some strange shadow in the form of some creature in the distance showingno sign of persuit, she keeps running wehn she finally reaches and opening in the woods seeing a camp site empty. but the stains of blood are everywhere.
We suddenly flash back to a group of people in a car off to a camping trip in the near buy woods,
We see them prepping and introductions of those characters are done by the conversation they are having. The day progresses and at night we see the group around the campfire telling ghost stories trying to scare eachother, when suddenyl the same shadow'y' figure is spotted by the group, scared they huddle together. but the shadow dissapears only to return behind them and the screan darkens as we hear the screams of the newly found victims of the shadow beast
A sudden flash back to the girl at the campsite, and begins to run again realising the creature is after her still. She reaches a car, her evidently, finding yet more blood stains all over it.
{ The above story is a good example of Anti-Narrative as the story bergins at the end, and flicks between middle beginning and end in the incorrect order to build the story up.}
Sunday, 20 September 2009
Why is genre an important factor of film making ?
To begin with Genre affects two parts of films and their production, Firstly the producers of the films and secondly the Audience.
For the Producers, genre provides many points for them to use whislt making their film. Genre provides them with the typical guidlines that are used for specifc films, for example chick flick, romance films. In this genre of film, the vast majority follow the same story line set out by its genre. The couple fall in love, have a troubled middle, get together at the end and live happily ever after. But genre does not just dictate the stroy line of the films and the order of events that happen, but it also helps provide the characters of the film and which roles they should perform, again taking Chick flick and Romance as an example, there is always the friend of one of the two main characters, that usually provides the comedic side for the males, and the helpful side for the females. This role can vary for both sexes depending on the specific films.
However the guidlines laid down by genres are also something that a producer should look to break once in a while, to produce are more unique film that attracts the audience. Keeping to the convetional guidlines of certain genres can be a safe zone for all producers allowing them to create films with set actions and characters that are easily recognised by the audiences, however breaking these guidlines and mixing genres allows the Producer to really become creative with their work, creating twists and turns in the films to really engage their audience.
For the audience, genre is important to them for the sole reason of recognition. Recognition is an important part for the audience, if they see a specific genre they will instantly recall the general ideas that come with that gerne. Also when seeing a specific genre they will recognise the fact that they like or dislike those said genres of films, but they do not only recognise the genres and what the stories might entail, genres also bring in actors that are most popular in certain gernes.
The audience then can recognise the actors wih specific genres, making them enjoy the movie and the actors own personality to the film creating a good audience base.
So to conclude genre is important because it Gives the producer guidlines for which they can follow or not, it also provides thems with the means to be creative with mixing genres in films.
For the audience it provides set conditions and extras that they can recognise and begin to decide wether they like certain genres more thatn others as well as actors performances in the different genres.
For the Producers, genre provides many points for them to use whislt making their film. Genre provides them with the typical guidlines that are used for specifc films, for example chick flick, romance films. In this genre of film, the vast majority follow the same story line set out by its genre. The couple fall in love, have a troubled middle, get together at the end and live happily ever after. But genre does not just dictate the stroy line of the films and the order of events that happen, but it also helps provide the characters of the film and which roles they should perform, again taking Chick flick and Romance as an example, there is always the friend of one of the two main characters, that usually provides the comedic side for the males, and the helpful side for the females. This role can vary for both sexes depending on the specific films.
However the guidlines laid down by genres are also something that a producer should look to break once in a while, to produce are more unique film that attracts the audience. Keeping to the convetional guidlines of certain genres can be a safe zone for all producers allowing them to create films with set actions and characters that are easily recognised by the audiences, however breaking these guidlines and mixing genres allows the Producer to really become creative with their work, creating twists and turns in the films to really engage their audience.
For the audience, genre is important to them for the sole reason of recognition. Recognition is an important part for the audience, if they see a specific genre they will instantly recall the general ideas that come with that gerne. Also when seeing a specific genre they will recognise the fact that they like or dislike those said genres of films, but they do not only recognise the genres and what the stories might entail, genres also bring in actors that are most popular in certain gernes.
The audience then can recognise the actors wih specific genres, making them enjoy the movie and the actors own personality to the film creating a good audience base.
So to conclude genre is important because it Gives the producer guidlines for which they can follow or not, it also provides thems with the means to be creative with mixing genres in films.
For the audience it provides set conditions and extras that they can recognise and begin to decide wether they like certain genres more thatn others as well as actors performances in the different genres.
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