When I made my own script I had to take many different factors into consideration. firstly I had to sit down and think about what story I could use in my script. This was in fact harder than I first thought it would be. I needed to take factors into consideration as I would not be able to have too many actors (all of which would need to be friends) and have a next to zero budget and would need to think of viable locations that the short film could be filmed at.
I had to go through a trial and error system to begin with. I thought of some good story lines but then when I thought about them more and in detail I realised they would be very difficult to actually film. I decided to to a bit of my own research into short films on the Internet trying to think of a good story line. I looked at many short films such as Cubs, Wasp, About a girl and Signs. These films really helped be grasp and understand short films. For instance About a girl is a narrative she speaks to the audience directly as if it was a diary I found this very interesting and in fact decided to use this method in my own script.
I played around with different ideas but after looking at and evaluating other short films I came to the conclusion that I wanted my short film to be a narrative about a man who returns from war in Afghanistan and how he copes with day to day life back at his home after his horrible experiences of war and destruction. I had to look at war journals and even watched a couple of documentaries on men returns from war in Vietnam and Iraq. This was very helpful and I had a very clear understanding in my head on what I wanted and needed to do. I came up with the final idea of my short film being called 'The Man Who Never Returned'. This name was supposed to represent the fact that physically the Man came back from war in Afghanistan but he was not the same Man that left to go to war mentally. His mind was still out in Afghanistan.
Unfortunately I realised a bit too late that my story was far to broad for the time I had to film. It was a very big story to portray and a very good actor would be needed to portray this Man. I learnt a lot in the process of making this script non the less.
Sunday, 10 October 2010
Friday, 8 October 2010
Post 7 - Creating your own script
We have been doing a lot of script work in our media lessons which have benefited hugely in my understanding of scripts. Firstly we started one of our lesson with a simple but affective task that was not as easy as one might think. The class sat in a circle and we all had to talk to the class about what we did the night before with no planning or time to think and we had one minute to talk continuously about what we did. This gave the class a good basic idea of a script as we all found it more difficult than we thought.
In another lesson we watched a short film called signs which was a very different kind of film that any of us had seen before in such as it was a silent film when there was no talking what so ever. This gave myself and the rest of the class a lot to think about as it was unlike anything we had seen before. I feel that signs was a great example of a short film because it was like nothing we have seen before but yet it was very affective in how it got its points and emotions across to us even though there were no words involved.
In class we identified the key features that pretty much all short film have. we used signs as an example as we tried to identify all his needs and desires. firstly we had to distinguish these features. we came up with the following:
a world (the world in which he lives)
a character
a want
a need
a problem (preventing his need and wants)
and an obligation (something he needs to do to achieve his goal)
The character is obviously the man the short film revolves around. The impression we got of him was that he was living in a big city, he lives by himself and does not seem to have any social activity out side of the work place. He seems lonely and depressed. we discussed as a class that his want is friends and a need was a girlfriend. he clearly is looking for a female companion as he is always looking and smiling at other women trying to get a reaction. eventually at his work desk in a tall building he makes contact with this women across the road in another office building. They exchange messages through signs which is where the name comes from. His obligation is to meet this women face to face but we get the feeling he is nervous and afraid which we identified as being the problem, so he keeps on the sign messaging for days maybe weeks. he eventually confronts his problem and completes his obligation by meeting her and the film ends. this is a classic example of a want, need, problem and obligation scenario
In another lesson we watched a short film called signs which was a very different kind of film that any of us had seen before in such as it was a silent film when there was no talking what so ever. This gave myself and the rest of the class a lot to think about as it was unlike anything we had seen before. I feel that signs was a great example of a short film because it was like nothing we have seen before but yet it was very affective in how it got its points and emotions across to us even though there were no words involved.
In class we identified the key features that pretty much all short film have. we used signs as an example as we tried to identify all his needs and desires. firstly we had to distinguish these features. we came up with the following:
a world (the world in which he lives)
a character
a want
a need
a problem (preventing his need and wants)
and an obligation (something he needs to do to achieve his goal)
The character is obviously the man the short film revolves around. The impression we got of him was that he was living in a big city, he lives by himself and does not seem to have any social activity out side of the work place. He seems lonely and depressed. we discussed as a class that his want is friends and a need was a girlfriend. he clearly is looking for a female companion as he is always looking and smiling at other women trying to get a reaction. eventually at his work desk in a tall building he makes contact with this women across the road in another office building. They exchange messages through signs which is where the name comes from. His obligation is to meet this women face to face but we get the feeling he is nervous and afraid which we identified as being the problem, so he keeps on the sign messaging for days maybe weeks. he eventually confronts his problem and completes his obligation by meeting her and the film ends. this is a classic example of a want, need, problem and obligation scenario
Tuesday, 5 October 2010
Post 6 What makes a good short film?
In our media studies lessons we discussed and researched many attributes of short films. As a class we watched and talked about all the different types and watched many short films ourselves to compare and evaluate as shown in my previous posts (wasp). we had a professional short film director called Becky Knapp to talk to us about short films and answered many questions that gave me a much better understanding on short films and their purpose.
In this post I will be discussing what does make a good quality short film. firstly Becky Knapp gave us two different short films scripts to read through. One was called Donna and the other Does god play football.
The fist script I read was the script Donna. For me personally I found it very difficult to get into and i was not enthused to try and read the hole thing. My reasoning for this were it was not a very compelling story. I felt that the story had to much description of the scene and the atmosphere but had no interesting dialogue or substance to it. For me it was far from compelling and interesting. Taking into consideration when actually put into a film it will be more visual and perhaps more interesting I still feel that the scrip was in many ways was quite boring. We discussed the script after we had read it and most if not all of the class were in agreement that the script was not to our liking. I thinks this may be because it is targeted at a different audience a lot of the people who are my age look for more comedy and action but the script (Donna) was not offering this type of entertainment. We then watched a clip of the actually short film and it was in fact how I imagined it would be (better and more interesting visually and the acting and camera work was in my opinion to a good standard). this made it more interesting but unfortunately I still found myself thinking the story was fairly boring and it did not hold my attention at all. Ways to improve this would be to engage with the audience more, perhaps more dialogue and better explanation of what was happening because I found my self within a few minutes of watching the short film slightly confused on what was actually happening. questions such as who is the girl? Who was the man shouting at her? These were questions passing through my mind. Perhaps the directors were trying to do this so the audience would want to watch more to find out what was happening but for me it was simply not enough for me to want to watch the hole short film.
We then read the script Does god play football. I found this short film far more interesting for many different reasons. Firstly the story was easy to follow and was very clear and understandable. The story in general was good and encouraged the audience to watch more. There were things in the film that I really liked. For instance when the young boy asked his mother who his father was his mother replied God is all of our fathers, in response to this the young boy relates himself to Jesus Christ (the son of god) he takes his mothers words quite literally. When he prays to God he refers to God as 'Dad' I thought this was a marvelous touch by the director and film writers.
After doing my own research I have come up with some of my own points and views on what is needed to make a good short film. Firstly I feel the story line needs to be a an exiting and original idea (something different to what has already been produced). The film is only short so it must be exiting from the start and can not be the same old stuff that has already been done or else it is a waste of time. People don't want to watch short films that have already been done and watched before. Another important factor for me is to have a really good start and powerful start to the short film. This is something the short film 'Donna' failed to do. This is important because it draws the audience in and compels them into the story line. another important factors for a short film is perhaps using different filming techniques that can separate the film from the usual films being brought out. This will make it slightly quirky and different, audiences could really appreciate this. The short film needs to be short exiting, have good actors, exiting story line (original) and to be different from all the other films done before and must also have a good director because they will a short film requires the vision and creativity of a good director. If these points I have made are factored into the production of a short film then it will be a to a high standard.
In this post I will be discussing what does make a good quality short film. firstly Becky Knapp gave us two different short films scripts to read through. One was called Donna and the other Does god play football.
The fist script I read was the script Donna. For me personally I found it very difficult to get into and i was not enthused to try and read the hole thing. My reasoning for this were it was not a very compelling story. I felt that the story had to much description of the scene and the atmosphere but had no interesting dialogue or substance to it. For me it was far from compelling and interesting. Taking into consideration when actually put into a film it will be more visual and perhaps more interesting I still feel that the scrip was in many ways was quite boring. We discussed the script after we had read it and most if not all of the class were in agreement that the script was not to our liking. I thinks this may be because it is targeted at a different audience a lot of the people who are my age look for more comedy and action but the script (Donna) was not offering this type of entertainment. We then watched a clip of the actually short film and it was in fact how I imagined it would be (better and more interesting visually and the acting and camera work was in my opinion to a good standard). this made it more interesting but unfortunately I still found myself thinking the story was fairly boring and it did not hold my attention at all. Ways to improve this would be to engage with the audience more, perhaps more dialogue and better explanation of what was happening because I found my self within a few minutes of watching the short film slightly confused on what was actually happening. questions such as who is the girl? Who was the man shouting at her? These were questions passing through my mind. Perhaps the directors were trying to do this so the audience would want to watch more to find out what was happening but for me it was simply not enough for me to want to watch the hole short film.
We then read the script Does god play football. I found this short film far more interesting for many different reasons. Firstly the story was easy to follow and was very clear and understandable. The story in general was good and encouraged the audience to watch more. There were things in the film that I really liked. For instance when the young boy asked his mother who his father was his mother replied God is all of our fathers, in response to this the young boy relates himself to Jesus Christ (the son of god) he takes his mothers words quite literally. When he prays to God he refers to God as 'Dad' I thought this was a marvelous touch by the director and film writers.
After doing my own research I have come up with some of my own points and views on what is needed to make a good short film. Firstly I feel the story line needs to be a an exiting and original idea (something different to what has already been produced). The film is only short so it must be exiting from the start and can not be the same old stuff that has already been done or else it is a waste of time. People don't want to watch short films that have already been done and watched before. Another important factor for me is to have a really good start and powerful start to the short film. This is something the short film 'Donna' failed to do. This is important because it draws the audience in and compels them into the story line. another important factors for a short film is perhaps using different filming techniques that can separate the film from the usual films being brought out. This will make it slightly quirky and different, audiences could really appreciate this. The short film needs to be short exiting, have good actors, exiting story line (original) and to be different from all the other films done before and must also have a good director because they will a short film requires the vision and creativity of a good director. If these points I have made are factored into the production of a short film then it will be a to a high standard.
Friday, 1 October 2010
Post 5 - Audience Theory and my Short Film
For Post 5 we were first given the task of reading through Audience theory links and were put into four groups. Each group had to research each slide of audience theory and present a presentation for the class. For example Philip J Hanes was one of the groups presentations.
We then were given the task of watching four short films of our choice. we needed to watch all four films (on YouTube) and analyse them using what we learnt through the audience theory infomation that we studied and discussed in class and see what if any message is trying to be put forward for The viewer. Important and relevant information needs to be found out about the four short films that we watched. For example what was the funding, what were its reviews were they positive or negative. I must research the short films on the Internet and find out relevant and useful information about the films which will give me a wider range of knowledge on short film productions.
I needed to look at such topics as :
Dominant Hegemonic Position
Negotiated Hegonomic Position
Opositional Hegonomic Position
Mode of Adress
Aberrant Decoding
Mode of Panic
Wasp (short film 2003)
Wasp is a 2003 production as a social realism short film which was funded by film four and New Cinema. The budget set was £53,000. I watched this thrilling social realism short film on YouTube to analyse and discuss my own views on its Dominant Hegemonic and Negotiated hegemonic and my own personal opinion and views on it. The short film is 26 minutes long and has Danny Dyer as the ex boyfriend who many people will recognise.
Wasp is a 2003 production as a social realism short film which was funded by film four and New Cinema. The budget set was £53,000. I watched this thrilling social realism short film on YouTube to analyse and discuss my own views on its Dominant Hegemonic and Negotiated hegemonic and my own personal opinion and views on it. The short film is 26 minutes long and has Danny Dyer as the ex boyfriend who many people will recognise.
My view on this film is mixed in many different aspects. The film wasp looks into poverty and single parent life and its problems. firstly we see two grown women fighting in front of their own children setting an awful example to their kids. Then the language the kids use is bad which also indicates that there being no father figure around there has been no discipline and the mother lets the children do what they want. In many aspects the mother in Wasp is not fulfilling the duty of a good mother. Fighting and swearing in front of her kids is not what a good parent should be doing. But despite this the audience has some sympathy with the mother because she has no money and has four children to try and bring up with no money no father figure and no support living in awful conditions. Perhaps it is the mothers fault she is in this position which may take away any sympathy the audience have for her.
The Dominant Hegonomic view for the audience will be that there are still massive areas of poverty in this country and there are people still living in awful conditions trying to look after children. It is what I would call an eye opener to what is actually still happening in Britain today. Many people who watch this thrilling short film could well be very surprised on how close to the truth this short film is to reality.
But there is another view on the short film. Though the mother acts selfishly at times and is more worried about going out with her ex boyfriend than be looking after her kids there is another view that it could well be a good thing for the kids if their mother can have a relationship with the man and they could finally have a father figure. A father is what the kids need desperately and is what the mother needs aswel. At the end of the short film this is in fact confirmed as when the baby swallows the wasp and the ex boyfriend (Danny Dier) finds out she has 4 children he doesn't leave them he takes her to the hospital then gets them food from the fish and chip shop then takes them home. Everything that the ex boyfriend did was what the family have needed. This will be the Negotiated hegonomic position theory that perhaps her desire for a partner is in fact not selfish but essential.
About a Girl :
This is another short film that looks into social realism it was produced in 2001. The film lasts roughly 10 minutes. The film is based on a 13 year old girl who talks about her life and interests. She tells the audience of her dreams of being a singer but also the problems that she faces in her everyday life.
She seems to be alone and in need of some attention from her family especially her father. she wants to be a pop star with her friends and wants to escape the life she currently lives. This is shown when she asks her father if she can move in with him. This shows that she wants a change in her life style. The relationship with her father is poor. I feel the girl wants to have more attention from her father but he is unwilling to give it to her. because of a lack of interaction and advice from her parents she doesn't know wright from wrong in my opinion. for me this point is backed up when she throws her baby into the canal at the end of the film.
In the last scene I think the audience will be shocked and surprised at the actions of the girl. Many will see her actions as unacceptable and wrong. But some may feel that it is not the girls fault. She has not been brought up in a good way and as I mentioned before she doesnt understand wright from wrong. Some may feel sympathy for her as she has been faced with such a problem at such a young age and receives no support, attention and advice from anyone. This leads her to react in the only way she knows.
CUBS:
Cubs is a short film that looks into peir pressure and what kids are doing in and around london today. The film is 10 minutes long and is a tense short film that keeps the audience on their toes as it does not become clear What is happening until near the end and even then the audience must guess what the objective of the hunting. There is something gives the audience the sence of danger and perhaps the sence of crime involvment even though there is no direct link to crime that I could see through out the short film until the end when the gun apears.
The film in my opinion shows how young people can be easily peir pressured into getting involved into crime because of the rewards it perhaps brings but are not naught of the problems and drwabacks of getting involved with gangs. They are entering a dangerous world and do not understand the consiquences they will face. We dont know the story of the young boy and girl who are trying to get into this gang they may have personal issues that we dont know about and therefore are lead to crime to solve money issues or something along those lines. the audience from the start are lead to the feeling of danger and perhaps crime. The boy is desperate to join this gang and this is shown when he shoots the fox at the end of the short film.
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