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.