Time Table

There is a slight problem with frees and my actor's, but this sets up the challenge and shows I need my organisation skills to do my filming out of college time.

 

 

Charlie Sharkett

Monday - Last Tueaday - Before dinner Wednesday - Before dinner Thursday - Period 2 Friday - Last

 

Tue 15:03

 

Charlie Sharkett

 

Monday - Last

Tueaday - Before dinner

Wednesday - Before dinner

Thursday - Period 2

Friday - Last

 

Joshua Worthington

 

Monday - first

Tuesday - afternoon

Wednesday - first two

Thursday - 3rd

Friday - afternoon

 

 

Rough draft of film poster

Title of my short film

I have decided upon the name of my short which will be 'Matter of seconds'.
This title to me, connects with the story but also have this intensifying edge to it, which may intriged my audience and reel them in.
I had many other draft names such as 'Time', 'Regret' and 'What would you do?'
I like the short sharp titles, due to how much effect they can do upon people, but none of them really connected well with my short film.

Locations connected with storyboards

These shots will all be taken at my home location. This will be done in my bedroom and bathroom. Shots will also be taken coming out of my house. Im just really cautious about the ice, as this will it slippery for not just my actor but also myself, I'm also scared about carrying the camera while it is slippery.

 These shots(first 3)will all be taken at my home location. This will be done in my bedroom and bathroom. Shots will also be taken coming out of my house. Im just really cautious about the ice, as this will it slippery for not just my actor but also myself, I'm also scared about carrying the camera while it is slippery.

These four shots will be taken upon leaving my house and down my street, but I will use a cut shot using a close up of Joshs then zooming out, Im going to try this effect and see if it pulls off correctly. After this Im going to use the college ground, knowing this might not be very exciting and adventurious but this fit's in with my story very well.

 

(All the shot from now downwards) These will all be shot at college.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kate Domaille (2001) theory

every story ever told can be fitted into one of eight narrative types. Each of these narrative

types has a source, an original story upon which the others are based.

I believe my story fits into the:
 

Orpheus

The loss of something personal, the gift that is taken away, the tragedy of losss or the journey which follows the loss.

I believe it fits into this narrative type due to the fact he believes he is about to lose his life and this gift of life is taken away, but my narrative turns towards the end where this is flipped and he still has this gift of life and nothing personal is taken away.

Tzvetan Todorov (1977) theory

Stage 1: A point of stable equilibrium, where everything is satisfied, calm and normal – This is at the beginning of my narrative which takes place in my short film. This only lasts a couple of seconds where he thinks he takes some headache pills but this then disrupts his stable equilibrium(played by Josh).

 

Stage 2: This stability is disrupted by some kind of force, which creates a state of disequilibrium – his friend (played by Charlie) informs him they’re in fact morphine pills and informs him he only has five minutes to live.

 

Stage 3: Recognition that a disruption has taken place – My main character will recognise this and beginning his quest to fulfil before he thinks his going to die. On-going through his quest he gives away his wallet chucks away his phone and confesses to teacher his own opinion of him.

 

Stage 4: It is only possible to re-create equilibrium through action directed against the disruption. – My main character objective is to give back this mysterious box to his ex-girlfriend before he dies, but this is where there is twist in my story and this plays to the code and conventions of a thriller genre. The only way to re-create this equilibrium in my narrative is for actually ‘Charlie’ to tell ‘Josh’ he was joking, which he finally catches up to josh and tells him.

 

Stage 5: Restoration of a new state of equilibrium. The consequences of the reaction is to change the world of the narrative and/or the characters so that the final state of equilibrium in not the same as the initial state. – Finally Charlie informs Josh that it was a joke which creates this ‘new state of equilibrium’ but the final state is not in the same initial state as Josh did all those things before reaches his ex-girlfriend. So this creates a whole new story.

Conventions of a film poster

The main objective of a film poster is to be eye catching.
To have an image which is intriguing. The title is normal displayed largely across the top. From the poster you may be able to understand the genre. It has to be appealing to my target audience.
I need to use such key factors as a tagline and always got to include an age certificate.
I think including the directors and producers give it this more professional look to it as well as it collides with the codes and conventions.

Film posters

Codes and Conventions of film review page

Conventions of film review  page would be such factors as obviously the name of the film.
Maybe with the films tagline including important details such as the release date, age rating, director,cast,running and plot. They would be a dominant main image from the film then around this image the main article(review). The magazine would give its own overall view and its own rating.

Conventions of film front cover page

I believe a front cover of a magazine has the same codes and conventions as a music magazine. Film magazine still needs to include such things as the Masthead of the magazine and no doubt an upcoming film with an image connected to it on the front cover. They only use up to the maximum of 3 fonts so it looks continious throughout. Other conventions such as 'buzz words', 'banners' and 'Anchorage text'. The use of coverlines are still used on film front cover magazines as well to make it look a lot more jam packed full of interesting stories.

Examples of film reviews

Examples of film magazine front covers

 

Cast Profile

Main character - Josh Worthington/18/Male

Josh Worthington will be staring as my main lead character in my short film. He also studies media and film so he understands the code and conventions of creating a short film and the genre of my short film. He fits in with my targeted audience very well and this will create a connection between the character and audience. The character is a young man and has just broken up with his girlfriend which connects to the story.

Main character friend – Charlie Sharkett/17/Male

Charlie will play the role of the main characters friend. Again he is in my targeted audience age group which creates a connection between him and the audience. His part in the story is he’s playing the joke on Josh which creates this catastrophe.

Main character ex-girlfriend – Abbie Hastings/17/Female

Abbie will play the role of Josh’s ex-girlfriend. She fits into the targeted age group so everything fits perfectly as well as the other actors.

Script

Charlie: did you just swallow pills from that bottle

Josh: yeah why                                                       

Charlie: you idiot these are not aspirin, you moron this are morphine pills, THROW IT UP MAN (grabs head and puts it to sink)

(Josh sticks fingers down throat)
(Charlie laughing behind back)

Josh: I can’t do it... I can’t do (looks up) how long do I have left

Charlie: ermm erh a matter of //minutes//

Josh: MINUTES (grabs Charlie)

Charlie: I’m sorry man, why didn’t you ask me

Josh: (turns around, Charlie laughs again behind back) Ok, Ok call 999

Charlie: Oh no man it’s not what you think josh, JOSH

(Josh starts running, stops get phone out)

Josh: Mum hey I haven’t got a lot of time but I love you so much I’m sorry for all the things I did, like setting the house on fire and crashing the car tell dad I love him so much and I love you I’ve got to go I’m sorry bye

(Donation stall, josh stops and gives wallet)

Donation women: Donation!

Josh: you know what take it all, the pin is 3265

(Josh runs into teach knocks paper everywhere, starts to pick it up)

Josh: you know what I don’t have time for this, you know what your teaching is stupid your textbooks are too expensive shove it up your arse

Teacher: Josh!

(Josh sees Abbies friends)

Josh: Hey where is Abbie

Friends: Studying in room A6 I think why

(Josh gets to door, preps himself then knocks, but walks straight in)

Josh: Hey abbie //listen// im in a bad situation here just listen; just //listen for a second please// just listen okay//  I know im such an idiot I know im sorry im sorry ok I was pissed off when we broke up so I just took it okay im such an idiot, just a great big idiot im dickhead I still like you I still do now

Abbie: //Josh what are you doing here//      //is that… how did you get this//      //you have any idea how much ive gone through because of this // this is wrong why are you suddenly doing this

Josh: I had to give it back I just did, I didn’t know what would happen I was just so pissed off but (breaths a lot ) I just still love you (puts hands on her neck) I still love you im going to black out any second though right now

(Charlie breaks through door)

Charlie: JOSH Jesus man…. It was a joke I tried shouting you but you just kept running

Josh: WHAT

Charlie: It was just a practical joke //man//

Josh: REALLY

Charlie: Yeah it’s not real

Josh: OH MY GOD(HANDS ON HEAD)

Charlie: I know right (laughs)

Josh: you know what I just did

Charlie: no what you did

(josh still looks shocked)

Josh: OH MY GOD... crap my wallet

Charlie: What your wallet what do you mean your wallet  JOSH

 

Audience Research

risk assessment

Animatic

Story boards

Production plan + cast

Props

Ring box
Phone
Donation stall
Wallet
Clock
Papers

Cast

Josh(Main Character) - Josh Worthington
Charlie(Friend) - Charlie Sharkett
Abbie(Girlfriend) - Abbie hastings
Teacher - Tim Anderson
Extras - Need to Decided

Deconstruction and Reconstruction of a media text

Deconstruction and Reconstruction of a media text

Within temptation – Sinead short film

 

Our deconstruction and reconstruction task, we chose to do a short film which we tried to reconstruct thirty seconds of. The short film was called ‘Within Temptation – Sinead’. The main obstacles which prevented us for producing a master piece were lighting and location. The segment was from 1:17 till 1:47 of the short film.

Costumes were a key feature in our reconstruction and they were pretty easy to snap up, as they was average clothing from everyday use such as the white vest or a casual jumper. We did actually encounter a couple of problems with clothing which interrupt our shooting schedule. The reason this happened was because we need a specific jumper to have this realism and continuity editing, but our actor kept forgetting the jumper giving us a negative knock on effect and delaying us from shooting. The non-diegetic music we used wasn’t the exact duplicate from the original film but it was pretty close which I thought fitted in quite well; also we picked up diegetic sound from the camera which fitted in quite well and was very pleasing.

Back to the lighting issue, this punished our continuity editing, in our closing scenes the light is turned on but then in the next one it is off. This was due to different location shooting. This was a big mistake and when we went on to editing and realised this mistake, we didn’t have enough time to go back and reshoot it.

Problems kept on popping up for us, in our shooting of the short film such as the sequence of the women going through the cupboards, we made another mistake as we shoot using two different cupboards, this again showed lack of continuity. As a team we tried to resolve this problem, as we was editing we flipped the so it looked like a replica to the same cupboard and when we showed our final product to the class, nobody batted an eyelid to it.

From doing this task, it has opened my eyes and show me that you need to make a production plan, this involves been flexible for your team/group. You need to make sure when they are all available for weeks in advance so you know when best to film etc. You need all your gear ready as well, like props for instance. We couldn’t reconstruction without certain props. This all needs to be applied for continuity and so on. I believe when it comes to editing my own media text, I will need to practice and explore to get the hang of it and produce what I want. I noticed problems only occurred when you’re not fully prepared planned but once you get on track you’re sorted for weeks to come.

Reconstruction

Codes and convention of selected brief

My selected brief was a short film, which genre was a thriller. In a short film, characters are key factor. They tend to stick to 2 or 3 main characters, as it is a short film they tend to not go deep in to their backgrounds or story. This then allows the audience to relate to the characters in such short of time. They tend to get an everyday situation and just flip it on its head. Short films have a lot smaller and niche audience than mainstream due to the creative nature, length and simple storyline.

In a short film, there is normally always a ‘twist’, this is done to make the short film so much more interesting as it in such short of time. Without one of these it would be boring and uninteresting. For example in the short film ‘Tick Tock’ we think he is about to die when in fact we see how he is pranked and actually is going to survive.

Budget of a short film tends to be very low; this is due to the film directors been independent. They do this by sticking to 1 or 2 locations and using 1 or 2 actors, some actor mean even act for free. In the short film ‘within temptation’ we see only 3 actors which is pretty high for short but still very minimalistic.

Length of short film can be to the maximum of 15 minutes, but are normally around to 5-10 minutes in length, if they were any longer they would be classified as a feature length. An example is ‘within temptation – triplets’ that short film is 6 minutes and 24 seconds long.

Short films is that quite a lot use the steadi-cam technology to create a point of view shot, this is because short films are mainly a story in a particular characters life, and the best way to betray this story is to see it how the character would see it.

Voice overs are a very popular method of sound in short films, and it is often found in short films that a voice over would be used instead of dialogue, there could be many reasons for this, for one it is cheaper to record a voice over than use a high tech boom, but also if the story is about someone's life, the voice over would normally be that of the central protagonist.

Codes and convention of my selected film genre (thriller short film) ‘Within Temptation – Sinead short film’

Thrillers use a lot of quick cuts and camera angles changes to create this tension. Its normal a handheld camera would be used for movement for a more quicker and exciting scene. They tend to keep the main character centre of frame, to make them the main priority.

Mise en scene of a thriller is normal to with its lighting, especially the use of shadows. Mirrors and stairs are also very convention of a thriller genre movie.

Editing in my short film as you can see is very elliptical, which shows this fast pacing movement. It excites the audience.

The music is non-diegetic in a trailer for thrillers genre movie's and it isn't normally pop chart music as in the short film 'Within Temptation' we hear the non-diegetic voice over with a piano playing.

Videos for psychographic interviews

Storyboards for 30 second short film 1:17 - 1:47