1) Outline briefly how your approach to your current production work differs from your experience of pre-production work at AS?

This year the entire process of pre-production work has been a lot easier and quite frankly gone a lot quicker. During my AS the main bulk of preproduction work was learning how to use all of the soft wear that would be needed during the production process, we also had to gauge and acute knowledge of genre and the basics of film making. This year I seem to have got to the point a lot quicker,of course I've had to go over some of the things I learnt last year however creating a short film is far more vast than just creating an opening. Because of this my research into other short films has been far more extensive, I've tried to watch as many as possible so that I can get some inspiration and see the varying ways that directors have set out their own films. When it comes down to general planning, such as story boarding and mind mapping i've tried to do so in much more detail. This year I feel like I know pretty much what I need to do to achieve something i'm proud of, whereas last year I was a little lost.

2. What decisions have you made about the narrative structure of your short film? How has your thinking about narrative moved on since year 12?

The structure of my narrative is going to be fairly linear, however not in a traditional way. Because i'm not really using speech and not having a deep interaction with one character my plot isnt really a clear 'beginning, middle, end' type narrative. It just flows. Last year I think I got a bit carried away, I used flash backs to add some difference into my film opening. As a technique I think its a really good idea when done properly, however on reflection it made my opening look more like a montage sequence. Because I used clips of flash back quite often it detracted from my actual message and I think the audience may have got a little confused as to what was the real story that they were supposed to be following. My excuse at the time was that the point of a film opening is to evoke intrigue... I've learnt my lesson now.

3. To what extent could the short film be considered a discrete genre?

During AS I did a lot of research in to genre and my preferred genre was always drama, because I love watching things that have a real sense of reality about them. My last years work was within the drama genre looking into the relationship between a mother and daughter. So this year again I was hoping to create something within that same genre. I did a lot of research into surrealism at the beginning of this years work and I loved how surrealist work is basically all heightened reality. Surrealist practitioners such as Bunel or Dali take a social issue and warp it making it completely absurd. I really liked that premise, however I knew that a lot of people in my class are looking into surrealism, so I wanted to stray away and find a niche of my own. I could say that perhaps my film is of a discrete genre because I almost want it to have a feel of a kind of documentary style, but I don't want it to be real. I want it to be a drama. So perhaps at this stage of the development it is a discrete genre. 

"When I Grow Up"

I was  inspired by Teddy's Saunders "when I grow up" and I liked the basic premise because its all about the development process of young adults. Even though my film is going to be fictional, I want there to be an air of truth within it. I thought it would be an interesting idea to ask people of the age 17/18 what they wanted to be when they were younger, and what they wanted to be now when they're older. 17/18 year olds are an interesting age because we're at a time in life that we're about to go off and follow a path to hopefully employment. In my film I want to really tap into the different emotions felt at different ages, because I dont particulary want to use too much speech, I have to convey emotion through images. This is why doing my own "When I Grow up" video is useful, the diffrerent responses gauge how the individual feels about essentially growing up. Hopefully I can convey some of the thoughts and feelings from this video, in my final short film.

Research into Animation: Aardman Animations.

Aardman is arguably one of the most famous, renowned animation companies, its a British company based in Britain. The studio is known for making stop-motion clay animation, particularly using plastiscine characters. Wallice and Gromit being the most recognised.

Aardman started as a very small low budget company and their dream was to ultimatlely create an animated motion picture using plasticine. The partnership created a small short for the BBC and this sparked a lot of interest, forming ideas for the inspiration of the famous character, Morf. In the early days Aardman was commissioned to produce lots of short to go at the beginning of films or for adverts etc. Because using plasticine was such a pain-stakingly arduous and time consuming task, creating short films was perfect.

However interest grew is Aardman's work and the company produced small animated television drama's, such as Wallice and Gromit. These were a great success and opened a lot of doors for the company.

In 1997 the company Aadman and Dreamworks announced that they were teaming up to create a film. This film was Chicken Run. Another huge success. It was now clear that the company had gained enough technology, contacts and employees to continue to make full feature length films such as Flushed Away and Wallice and Gromit: The Curse of the Were Rabit.

 

As shown above its clear what level of intricasy must go into creating films that are feature length using this type of animation. Each character has to be individually sculpted and moved milimetre my milimetre to achieve the look of movement. Think about different facial expressions, all of that has to be taken into consideration. In some of the characters faces, the production company will get a real actor and place censors on the body and get him/her to act out the recquired movement. This allows the directors to have a good idea about how to position the plasticine characters.

 

Its a really interesting idea, and I think I would look into adding some sort of animation like this into my short film, just to illistrate the juvenille message im trying to put accross. However the amount of time it would take up is concerning me slightly. Its something im going to have to look into when developing my idea further.



Film Editing Glossary

Cut: A visual transition creating during the editing process where the shot is instantaneously replaced by another.

Continuity Editing: Creates action that flows smoothly across shots and scenes without visual inconsistency. It helps to establish a sense of story for the viewer.

Cross Cutting: Cutting backwards and forwards quickly between different lines of action, which indicates they're happening simultaneously.

Dissolve: A gradual scene transition. The editor overlaps the end of one shot with the beginning of the next one.

Editing: The work of selecting and joining together shots to create the finished film.

Errors of Continuity: Disruptions in the flow of a scene, such as failure to match a action or replace prop.

Establishing Shot: Shot normally taken from a great distance, perhaps from a bird's eye view. It establishes were the action is going to take place.

Eyeline Match: The matching of eyelines between characters. It established relationship of proximity.

Fade: A visual transition between shots or scenes that appears on screen without any action or picture. The editor fades out of the shot, then in again. Often used to indicate change time in place.

Final Cut: The finished edit of a film.

Jump Cut: A cut that creates lack of continuity by leaving out parts of the action.

Matched Cut: A cut joining two shots whose compositional elements match, helping to establish strong continuity of action.

Iris: Visible on screen as a circle closing down over or opening up a shot. More commonly used in the silent Hollywood films.

Montage: Scene's that emotional impact and visual design are achieved through editing together many brief shots.

Rough Cut: The editors first try at assembling the shots into a film.

Sequence Shot: A long shot that extends the whole length of a scene or sequence. It is composed without any editing.

Shot Reverse Shot Cutting: Usually used for conversation scenes. This technique alternates between over the shoulder shots showing each character speaking.

Structure of Short Films.

Michael Sokolor and The Structure of Short Film

• Its often the case that short  films tend to lack the traditional structure that a full length form would have.
• Its often thought that the traditional structure doesn't have to be/ isnt imperative to short film.
• Micheal Sokolor doesn't think this is always true.
• The style or genre of film has to be taken into consideratio before the structure should begin to be formed.
• If its an experimental movie for example, then of course structurally rules can be broken, as it is an "experiment".
• When looking at short film, documtaries or aninmated shorts then some traditional methods have to be worked with.
• Although an advert on the television isn't a short film, they are similar in some ways, this is an indication that short films should work under a similar structure.
• Another important factor is the length of a short film. Short films can be anything from around 5 minutes to maybe 25 or so. Its recommened to try and apply the structure of a feature film to a short movie (meaning act structure, exposition, inciting incident, turning points etc).
• With a film that is less than 15 or 20 minutes its difficult to have such a complex structure such as the one mentioned before, however it should be tried out. It may work.
• One of the key facts is creating something that an audience can relate to or at least to get a reaction out of them. Using a structure should hopefully ensure the audience feel like there is about to be some sort of conclusion, rather than just a series of frames that may or may not make sense.
• After any sort of film the audience should feel satisfied and not cheated of the whole story. Its a good thing to confuse the audience in some circumstance, but they shouldnt feel completely baffled, the plot in some way has to be self contained.

Different Types of Structure:

The Act Structure: The majority of full length films use the Act Structure, whether its two acts or five. If using this structure, its important to group things into potential acts fairly early on. It pushes one to think about what is the exposition moment, or the inciting incident or what each turning point is. It brings you to think about what the climatic moment of the story or the journey of the actor/actors is.
It often acts as a sort of safety net, its almost an outline that keeps the filmmaker on track. However it could be difficult for short films.
Its often the case that a short films doesn't have the same kind of complex plot as a full length film, its normally just a snap shot or insight into a character, or a part of a characters life.

Beginning and End Structure: Although of course the beginning starts the story, it doesnt have to be an exposition in the traditional way. The beginning should be the thing that throws the audience into the action. In short film you might not want to/ have time to explain all the background of a characters situation, if you cant, quite simply, then just dont. It should hopefully just make sense.
The end is most likely the most important part, it should be conclusive (even if the end is open).
Turning Points: Inciting act, turning point, climax may not be a written in part of the short film script, however there of course should be these things included, but in a short film you dont have enough time for these to be a huge long process. Like its said before a short film is usually a snap shot of the protagonists life.
Character Arc: Just like the story, the character most likely doesnt have time to develop a full narrative, its important to note that it must just be a snap shot. If too much background detail is put in, it may become messy.
Subplot: Subplots are extremely hard to apply when using short film, unless its completely obvious.
Avoid Long Chunks of Dialogue: "Show dont tell" is the best option is short film. Long chunks of dialogue take up valuable time that you could just portray it in different way.

A Collage of Pictures

All of these images are similar to the images that I want to show within my film.

I really like all the vibrant colours and I want to have lots of shots of hands and figures playing rather than have naturalistic characters. Some of my first memories of school was sitting around on a little table making figures out of playdo, and being very tactile.

"When I Grow Up" by Teddy Saunders

Teddy Saunders is quite a small time director and I came accross him when researching other video's that are similar to my own.
The video "When I Grow Up" is basically a retelling of Dr Seuss's final book "Oh, The Places You Will Go" and its basically a film about growing up, living your dreams and entering the path of finding out where your path is in life. I think its an extremely interesing premise.
One of my earliest idea's was using a childrens story or fable, so for this director to use Dr Seuss I can really relate to his thought process.
I really like how he's interviewed many people and I think its a really good idea for film. However personally I would want to have a more narrative and fictional feeling, which would relate to the fact that when we're younger we're told the way we should behave by little stories with moral endings.
But because I really like the interview idea, for my audience research it would be really interesting to interview people of my age, and ask them about their first memory of school and what they used to want to do when they were older and now what they want to do.
Interviewing this age range will be interesting because at 17/18 you are about to make some very important life decisions, and should hopefully have a desired path in life.
The other thing I really like in Teddy Saunders video was the use of vibrant colours and very interesting camera angles, for example the girl spinning around  is very interesting.
There are alot of interesting ideas I could use, and encourperate in my own film.

Camera Angles and Short Film

After my AS film, where I dont think I experimented with camera angles very much, I would really like to try and do interesting things, when it comes to using the camera. The video above gave me alot of help and reminded me of the different camera angles. But it also went one step further. It gave examples of why you would use certain camera angles for what.
In my film I want to try and make the audience really connect with the subject or whats going on. I want them to be able to remember their days at school and make them almost feel nostalgic. Before I thought that I would have to make sure I had a lot of close up shots, to try and gauge the emotion needed. However, now watching the video above, I realised that maybe use of varying wide shots might be better. I need to remember the audience is out of the film world, they are looking apon on the action, so undoubtably they are going to be slightly distanced.
I want there to be a lot of cross cutting, but maybe fading in and out to show the smoothness of the journey through childhood and then adolescence. As a teenager, I know how quickly the childhood years of life goes, and you don't know where time goes, if I can display this through use of smooth cross cutting through a series of shots.

I watched the clip above and it gave me a lot of inspiration to be more adventerous with my shots, you dont have to have the protagonist as the subject of the shot the whole time. I think that this relates well with my short film. Although my film is like someones journey through their school life, I dont want it to be specific character, I dont want it to be about their story, I want it to be fairly open so that each viewer can relate to their own experiences.

Thinking About Story Boarding...

Now it appears I have my concrete idea, I need to start thinking about story boarding and getting my idea on paper. One of my main concerns is that it wont have enough content to fill 4-5 minutes. I think the best way to do this is creating a very intricate story board and filming it so that I know how long the shots are going to be etc.
When researching Laurent Bourdoiseau I came accross a colaberation of different things he's directed and how his production team  story boarded it.

This gives who ever is working on the actual filming a very good insight into what actually needs to be done. Obviously my drawings wont be as good, or probably as detailed, however I can attempt to do a similar thing. I think it will help to move the process along. Then at least I will know how long it will take, hopefully. Which will mean even this early on in the process I can gauge how much content I will, and how much filming time i'll have to ensure I have.

An insight into my idea...

After changing my mind a fair few times, I want to try and stick to my idea about showing someone growing up through the school system (Video Pitch 1). 

I was recently watching the television and the "Grandma's cake tin Mr Kipling' advert came on and I realised that it shared a lot of the techniques i wish to use in my short film. There is a lot of colours and all the shots are very low down, and slightly blurry. This mirrors exactly what I want to portray in my film. It shows innocence and naivity beautifully. 

 

One of my favourite things is when the face of the adults is slightly blurred, it shows that when you're a child, things like peoples faces arent important and you dont register them the same as you would when you're older.
I also like how the shots like sweep and blurr, showing only the colour and certain objects.

 

 

Laurent Bourdoiseau (Director of Mr Kipling, Grandma's Tin Advert)

 

Laurent graduated from ESRA school in Paris and became an assistant director. His main inspiration is Willian Klein, he was lucky enough to be his personal assistant for a time. He found that his forte was promo's and with this opened Labalaba which specialised in visual effects for music video's. He hit the limelight with "Electronic Performers" which won many awards and was shown at Cannes as one of Saatchi's 25 top directors.

 

 

 



 



Hand Puppets..

I wanted to explore as many different conventions of film as possibly. After looking at stop motion I realised how time consuming that would be and it would most likely take up valuable time that I could be doing a lot more filming. Because I want to be as original and creative as possible I am looking at different techniques and to add in. 
After doing a lot of research into different films, I remembered the muppets and I thought that maybe not using humans would be an interesting stance. 
However, I offered to help sir with a year 9 and year 10 class, who have made a series of puppets, and were looking to make a music video with them. I thought this was a great chance for me to experiment with using other things within the film. I found that using puppets was really hard, because the puppets we were using were hand puppets,  it was difficult to make sure that arms, and peoples bodies were out of the shot. 
I could also imagine that lic-sycing would be difficult and equally very time consuming. So perhaps I should stick to using real people, as it would be a lot easier. 

Stop Motion....

Stop motion is an animation technique that manipulates objects to make it appear that its moving on its own. The object is moved tiny amounts each time between each photograph frame, creating the illusion that its moving my itself. Objects that don't always move can be made to look like they do, which creates an almost fantasy or eerie affect. Dolls or figurines can be manipulated to look like they move which is interesting because it really brings them to life affectively.

Personally I think its more interesting when humans are used along side the animation, it makes it more fantasy and bring it into a kind of surrealist world.
This is a short film I found on YouTube which really sums up why stop motion really works.

As a part of University of the Third age I had to help a group of children create a piece of animation or stop motion about the Vikings. I gave me a real insight into how time consuming and how much effort goes into creating a piece of stop motion. 

Big Brother Audition Film.

As a part of my research and planning, I thought that I would focus on my character development. As an amusing way to do this we thought we would pretend to do a big brother audition. Its a good way to pinpoint and highlight character traits. Before we could film we wrote on one side of paper all things we hate about peoples personalities, and on the other side we wrote all the most attractive character traits. When it came to filming, I thought it would be more amusing to film the characters that we found most annoying.

 

Comment Feedback Response.

This video is in response to the comments on my original idea pitch. Some questions were asked, so this video answers them and straightens a few things out!