In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Short film research - stills
Our short film - stills
Genre
The main convention of short film form is that many do not follow a single specific genre, but rather take the hybrid approach, blending different genres to create an interesting and unique film. Out of the short films we researched, the main running theme tended to be interesting events happening in usually mundane environments – for example, The Black Hole, where a man working in a dull office environment encounters something out of the ordinary. We wanted to reflect this in our film, combining Social Realism aspects to more experimental film making, to produce a hybrid genre short film – in fitting with the usual conventions of short films. We thought that this would be appropriate as it means we do not have to conform to one specific genre, and because we are covering a rather short event in our film it means we can tell a full narrative in a short space of time, keeping our audience engaged and creating an interesting media text.
Narrative
As the film is limited to a short time span, narrative and is more difficult to develop than feature length films – the story must either be a very compact one, shown in a montage, or only a small section of a larger narrative is told, creating enigma for an audience. For instance, in Signs (thumbnails shown above) the story is shown in a montage format, showing small snippets of narrative that creates a full story in a short period of time, as it just shows the main important sections of the plot. Also, in The Black Hole the narrative itself is very short and the film is in real time, with not much characterisation or set-up for the narrative. In our film, we decided to use the montage format, following a character throughout a single day, showing the narrative from start to finish – introducing the character, the conflict and the resolution. This is similar to the short film Maybe One Day (thumbnails above) where the character is shown over a period of a single day using a montage style format.
Characterisation
Close-ups and mid-close-ups are used as a means of communicating the protagonists’ feelings here; this is crucial in short films as the short running-time allows for little development of character through other means.
A close-up is used the first time our protagonist appears in the film, which immediately engages the viewer with the character, and identifies him as the main character in the film.
The facial expressions of the characters seen in the short films are integral to characterisation, and we tried to emulate this in our film. Using close ups and medium close ups, we were able to get across the protagonists emotions easily and pull sympathy from the audience of his mundane existence. This is similar to the short films we watched – Signs and Maybe One Day in particular. Close ups are used here (see thumbnail images above) showing the protagonists sadness and boredom throughout the day. Watching it in class, everyone sympathised with these characters and therefore related to them, were interested in them and their story, and wanted to succeed. This is a great way to engage the audience quickly, and means they want to know more about the character. This ‘underdog’ convention that pulls sympathy from the audience is exactly what we used in our short film.
Our two actors are both Theatre Studies students, which was a key factor in choosing them; the realism and believability of the acting (especially facial expressions) is key to the realism of our film.
We wanted to make the protagonist a likeable character that the audience could relate to – we therefore chose to shoot the title sequence following his daily routine, this way the audience could relate to it. Him eating the cheese mix and watching ‘Jeremy Kyle’ for example endears him to the viewer as these are things that many of the audience (especially as they are 16-25) could relate to.
This also creates humour for the audience as we go through the motions of the protagonists life and see his misfortune throughout his morning – doing up his buttons incorrectly, spilling the milk on the counter, hitting his head on the bathroom door – these are all minor things that make his day seem much worse to the audience, so they sympathise with him and want him to succeed in his plan to ‘get the girl’.
Mise en Scene
Short films are frequently situated in the normality of the modern day, as indicated in the settings of Maybe One Day, Signs and The Black Hole: trains, offices and apartments/houses. We also used this kind of setting in our film, with most of the action taking place in the protagonist's house.
A convention of short films set in these mundane environments is the transgression from the setting, and for something out of the ordinary to happen. In our film, our protagonist embarks on a quest to get the girl of his dreams - literally. In the films above, the characters break free from their daily routine in Maybe One Day, crawl into a black hole in The Black Hole and find an escape from the boredom of work by talking to a woman in the opposite building through signs in Signs.
The dull colours and lighting present in the first part of Maybe One Day and The Black Hole go hand in hand with the aforementioned drab settings of the films. The everyday props and costume, for example photocopiers, vending machines, cereal, toothbrushes, ties and shirts also add to this humdrum element, which we tried to replicate in our film.
We decided on the first shot of our protagonist being a graphic match with the girl's face in his dreams as he wakes up, but it was only after viewing Signs again that we realised that this shot mirrors the opening of this film. These overhead shots of the characterslying in bed ground the film in the everyday - supported by the mise en scene as described previously - immediately setting the scene and engaging the viewer in a familiar setting.
Mise en scene is crucial in our intial dream sequence in particular. The highly saturated images create a dreamlike, ethereal aesthetic, which was perfect for what we were trying to achieve.
The natural setting and lighting helped immensely, with the grass, trees and the soft shadows from the sun aiding the tone; even the lens flare, usually something which would detract from a sequence, contributed to the mood.
Our actor's costume - a loose dress which complemented her skin tone and the overall colour of the scene - was another plus. As with Maybe One Day and The Black Hole, this scene shows how combinations of the different areas of mise en scene can all contribute to an impressive end.
Editing
As with manyother short films, we used elliptical editing to make the day-long narrative fit into 5 minutes, rather than doing a real-time film.
We also created a montage sequence for the protagonists 'preparation to get the girl', using lots of choppy, snappy cuts to make his preparations seem manic and frenzied, to show his desperation for the girl and how this has driven him to rather crazed actions.
We think this worked really well as the quick cuts increase the pace of the film and therefore increase the tension for the audience, which contrasts to the slow, mundane first sequence of him getting dressed etc; essentially the editing mirrors his emotions at the time of the story, allowing the audience to empathise with the characters feelings.
This technique is also used in the short film Maybe One Day - as the character becomes more exhilarated as he explores the freedom of life, we see a montage of him in different places, with fast cuts to speed up the pace and make us empathise with the characters excitable, energetic feelings.
Montages are a convention of short films as they show a big part of the plot in a very short period of time, allowing for more narrative to be squeezed into the short run-time of the film.
We also used post-production in our film to correct minor mistakes made in filming - changes in lighting, for example. Final cut allowed us to do this easily and left us with quite a good result.
We used different music to enhance our film - for the opening dream sequence, we used a track called 'Eastern Dreams' that we found on Garageband as it sounded dreamlike and quite relaxing, to mirror the action of the film.
We then used a Bossanova cover of 'The Girl from Ipanema' that we found on Youtube as it sounded just like elevator music, which has connatations of mundanity and boredom, which we thought would complement the title sequence well. The song is very well known, and the theme of the song is also in fitting with the theme of our film - about a girl that every guy wants. This means that most people that watch the film and know the song can link these themes together. Both these choices of music are parallel, matching in tone and mood.
For the montage scene, we used a piece of drum and bass music called 'Centipede' made by Charlotte's brother, which we felt worked really well against the manic, choppy editing. This also made the film quite humourous as the tasks the protaganist does in the montage seem a little trivial and strange - making the card (badly), jogging, doing small weights - but the intense music makes it seem as if he is doing very important things. The sound here is contrapuntal as it is contrast to the feeble activites that the protagonist is carrying out, however it could also be seen as parallel as the music goes with the editing of the film.
Little White Lies review conventions
As with most magazines, Little White Lies has a distinctive 'house style' in both the copy and the layout and appearance of their film reviews. We had to analyse and conform to these conventions when creating the review for our film; in this section, these will be outlined in the comparison of the Little White Lies review for Monsters (Edwards, 2010) and the one we created for our film.
A full-page review will feature an image of the film in the top third, centred and with slightly rounded corners. This gives the reader an example of what the film looks like, and perhaps a brief glimpse of genre and content. The image of a character wearing a gas mask in Monsters is emblematic of the plot following Andrew and Samantha through a quarantine zone, while the shot of our protagonist eating cereal at a table suggests a social realist film.
Underneath this image the title of the film, its director(s), stars and release date are found. The text of the title is large and bold, with a small gap between it and the other information. The text of 'Directed by', 'Starring' and 'Released' is slightly spaced out, as with the actual details, although these are in both bold and italics.
The first letter of the copy is in the same font and size of the title, with the rest of the writing wrapped around it. This is a stylistic decision that is found in many other publications, and gives the article a professional aesthetic. Paragraphs are indicated by indentations as opposed to spaces, and the text is justified and split into three columns.
At the end of the review, the writer's name follows in bold. A final section gives a general overview of the film, with just a sentence written each under three different headings: 'Anticipation' references the premise of the film, 'Enjoyment' refers, essentially, to the quality of the film and what the experience was like watching it, and 'In Retrospect' summarises the impact and context of the film, for example Monsters prompted the writer to remark that 'British sci-fi is evolving into an exciting new genre.' Two thin lines separate these segments, and a mark out of five is given for each of the three headings; this style of reviewing, unique to Little White Lies, gives the reader an at-a-glance look at what the film is like. Finally, the page number (with a zero in front of any two-digit number) and a small symbol relating to the cover film is placed underneath these scores. Regrettably, we forgot to include these in our own review, but thankfully it only detracts slightly from its appearance.
The language of Little White Lies reviews relies on its audience. A survey taken of its readers in late 2008 revealed that 72% visited the cinema 0-4 times a month, with 22% making 5-10 visits; similarly, 65% bought 0-4 DVDs a month, while 22% bought 5-10; 22% work in Media and 20% in 'Creative' (IT, advertising, graphics); 54% regularly play video games; 34% are aged 18-24, with 51% 25-35. These statistics suggest that the average reader is knowledgeable about film and has a passion for cinema, but is also well-versed in other forms of media. The vast majority are aged 18-35, meaning a mature and sophisticated lexicon suits them well.
The rationale of the magazine is outlined in the 'About' section of their website: the magazine features 'cutting edge writing, illustration and photography to get under the skin of cinema.' Those behind the magazine 'venture beyond the boundaries of the big screen, exploring the worlds of music, art, politics and pop culture to inform and illuminate the medium we love', while their mission is to 'reshape the debate across the movie landscape.'
The use of restricted code is key in these reviews, and takes their film-loving audience into account. Take, for example, the Monsters review, in which the film is described as 'an intimate character piece set within a science fiction framework', which 'prizes mood, atmosphere and personality above action and spectacle.' These terms would be lost on a reader who knew little about cinema.
Our review also features restricted code, for example when short films are described as 'exercises in transient creativity: fleeting glimpses of stories that compel, yet cannot deliver the lasting impact that feature-lengths can.'
Additional terms pepper these reviews: 'expansive shots', 'introspective road movie' and 'inventive framing' are found in that of Monsters. In comparison, our review mentions 'accomplished cinematography', 'the social realist world of the protagonist' and 'less than impressive cases of match-on action'.
Sophisticated vocabulary is another convention of Little White Lies reviews: 'revelatory excitement' and 'ideas and images [floating] around the periphery' in the one for Monsters; 'youthful impetuousness' and 'a sleep-induced epiphany to stir him from his lethargy' in our review. Complex language such as this caters to the audience of Little White Lies and ensures that they keep them engaged and away from mainstream competitors such as Empire and Total Film
The conventions of Little White Lies reviews are fully realised in the review for Alone, Together, but the fact that ours concerns a short film as opposed to a feature-length offering posed a challenge. I feel the article developed what we learnt previously and is a successful part of our product as a whole.
Film Poster conventions
Here is a copy of our final poster.
We decided to follow the usual film poster conventions using the rule of thirds - the 'dreamt image' of the male and female on the left in highly saturated colour, showing that they are a figment of the protagonists imagination and emphasising the happiness of the image.
Then, a desaturated image on the protagonist on the right, looking miserable and confused, the black and white nature again highlighting this and contrasting greatly to his imagination shown on the left.
The reviews are placed in the centre, with the title at the top left of the poster and protruding into the centre - its important that the title of the film stands out, and we think we did a good job with this as it really jumps out against the backround.
We chose a deep purple colour that doesn't necessarily have any blatent connatations (such as red or yellow).
Following conventions of posters of real media products, we included the actors names at the top of the poster, with the surname printed in a bigger font - we felt this made the poster look more professional as we've seen this many times in famous posters.
The tagline - 'Will he get the girl of his dreams?' creates enigma codes for the audience as it is a rhetorical question, and makes the audience ask this question themselves.
The plain background of the poster follows conventions of other comedy films, such as Looking for Eric:
As you can see, this poster is quite similar to ours in the way it has a desaturated image on the right next to the saturated on the left. The plain background doesn't distract much from the imagery of the film or the title, which is what we wanted to achieve with our poster.
Our poster also follows some of the same conventions as the poster for Juno - as with many film posters, we decided to use imagery from a separate photoshoot with the characters as appose to a screengrab, meaning that we could show more through the characters facial expressions that could give more clues to the films plot - this is the technique used in this poster, as we can see the relationship between the two lead characters and can make their own estimations about the films plot.
This poster for Candy also holds some of the same conventions as our poster - the relationship between the two characters is clearly shown through their facial expressions and physicality, which is seen in the left image on our fim poster. This is achieved through using studio photography rather than a screengrab from the film.
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