Class reaction to treatment.

After reading out our treatment to the class we filmed there responses to the questions we asked them. By doing this we got an idea of whether our treatment gave across the interpretations we wanted and abled us make a few final touches to the treatment.

From carrying out this research we found that our treatment was successful at
- portraying and attracting our wanted target audience which was young adults/ teenagers who actively use a social networking
-the plot creates the genre we wanted
- giving us ideas about conventions we have used and what we have challenged

Our treatment

After our groups had been decided and me, Sarah and Phoebe discussed a new idea, we came up with our treatment.
This is our first draft:
Neck of the Woods Treatment

We then showed our media class the treatment and recorded the class discussion.

Our class are aged 17 and 18 and are about half males and half females. They are important when giving us their opinions as they study media, and are aware of the conventions of our genre and what they should expect. They are also important as they are an audience and therefore if they don't understand the plot then our film isn't being portrayed the way we want it to be.

Class Feedback
1) Worried that the film won't be long enough and will be too short

2)Laptop screen- wanted to know how it would be done- screencast using quicktime movie- higher quality
3)Using a dog- we are actually going to use my dog and the class were worried that he won't be well behaved or whether he would act like we wanted him too. I think that he will be okay as he is generally good behaved especially on walks.
4) Some of the class were confused about the Polaroid camera and what the point of it was; the Polaroid camera is so that we don't have to show the werewolf as we don't have the expertise to make it look professional.
5)E/S of the small dark room is probably worded wrong as it's not an E/S of a small dark room, theres a small dark room and then an establishing shot of a news report- this will need to be reworded to make it more clear.
6)How will we make the Polaroid camera photo? We are going to make it ourselves with photograph paper.

Target Audience

As identified we've decided our films genre is a mystical thriller. The type of person that we feel would go and watch a film of this genre would be young teenager as the mystical side of the film appeals would appeal to them, for example twilight, which is a very similar film, a thriller which contains mythical creatures.
The film has been rated a PG 12 and therefore audiences under 12 without parental guidence wouldn't be able to see the film at the cinema; however for our film I feel it would only be a PG; the only violence isn't seen by the audience.

Typical conventions

Our film is a hybrid of the genres thriller and mystical/fantasy.

Elements of our film that are typical of this genre:

A mystical character,Fantasies take the audience to netherworld places (or another dimension) where events are unlikely to occur in real life - they transcend the bounds of human possibility and physical laws. They often have an element of magic, myth, wonder, and the extraordinary. They may appeal to both children and adults, depending upon the particular film.
Our film has a mystical character which is the werewolf. A werewolf is a common mystical character in films and all have very similar characteristics, wolf like that are really humans, very hairy, dark fur, big teeth, appear at a full moon and have a piercing howl

The Wolfman 2010 is a good example of a mystical film, and is very similar to our film idea.
This is a picture from this film which shows a typical looking werewolf:


This is a trailer from The Wolfman 2010


This trailer also shows many conventions of the thriller/mystical fantasy genre
A lot of the scenes with the werewolf are shot:
-at night
-in woods
-in bad weather like storms, rain and fog.
Our film will be shot in woods

Not only are werewolves used in films but also in T.V dramas and series
Doctor Who used the concept of a werewolf in one episode



A lot of this shows the typical conventions of a mystical thriller that contains a werewolf:
- Full moon
- Howl
- Human transforming into a werewolf

One convention that I noticed was that in a lot of films that use a werewolf was that they are set in around the 18th/19th century- this could be down to many reasons, the main one in my opinion is that during this time, supernatural and myths were believed to be truth because there wasn't scientific knowledge. This is going to be a convention that we are going to challenge. Our film isn't going to be set in the past but is going to be set in the present to fit in with our stalker/ Internet killer plot.

A film that isn't set in the 18th/19th Century is Twilight. This is similar to ours because its set in the present but uses mythical creatures like vampires. This is a useful film to watch because it will show us how to incorporate an old myth in with the present. The characters are also the same age as our characters which is useful.
A trailer from Twilight:

Group Members Presentations

Sarah- Polaroid

Sarahs idea was based upon a young boy who turned into a werewolf. Sarahs film was the film that gave us the idea on how to present the werewolf through a picture, because we don't have the skills or equipment to make it look proffesional or even like a real werewolf.
I really liked Sarahs idea, because it was obvious the plot was well thought through, problems that could have been faced have been tackled.

Phoebe-
Phoebes film was based upon a young boy. He arrives home to his parents house where there is a televised news report about girls going missing, the report describes the kind of clothes that the victim wears. The boy then goes upstairs and changes into the clothes that the report describes.

We during one of our lessons, we sat down and discussed each others ideas, we mind mapped possible plots and we found that if we took bits from each others film ideas we came up with in our opinion, a really interesting plot. After much discussion we had a plot in mind that all 3 of us were really happy with.

Group members (potential roles)

For one of our lessons our task was to come up with a film idea of own and present it to the class, the class would then give feedback about what they thought of our idea, questions they had and what they liked about it.
This is what feedback us in our group got on our individual ideas and what our potential roles could be.

Sarah:
Polaroid
Sarahs film is the most similar to our final idea.
Her presentation in class was very clear, well thought out and easy to follow.
Her basic concept was about a werewolf and her plot provided the answer to the problem of the getting a werewolf on screen, she came up with using a polaroid camera to get a picture of a werewolf instead of an actual werewolf on screen which is what we are incorparating in our film. I will go into further detail on my group members presentations in the next post.
I think that Sarah is going to be a valuable member of our group. She is creative and put a lot of input into discussions on our film treatment and came up with quite a lot of the ideas.

Phoebe
Phoebes film idea was presented to the class in a lot of detail and was well developed. Both her and my idea had the concept of a news report which is going to be used in our film. Phoebe has good, sound ideas which is going to be really useful in group disscusions.

As a group we work really well together and get on really well not just in the classroom, its important that we get on so that we can argree on ideas and complete work together without any issues.

Short examples

Black Hole

This is a short which is extremely popular on YouTube with over a million views. It shows a male, obviously bored with his job get given a piece of paper which is a black hole, this appears through the short to be a gift, he uses it to his advantage to get what he wants, however he becomes greedy and uses it to steal. The shorts seems to show the message of karma, how he was obviously bored with his life so he received something that would improve his life, however for him it end badly because he has used the gift in an unmoral way.



A review from the IMDB

"The Black Hole" is a short and deep tale of greed of human nature. It is impressive how the writers and directors Philip Sansom and Olly Williams were able to make a short of less than 3 minutes running time without any line and succeed in transmitting one of the seven deadly sins ( "Avaritia") so perfectly and with right dose of humor. My vote is nine.[out of 10]

These reviews are taken from www.cleancutmedia.com

As always, Clean Cut Media is always looking to bring the latest news, reviews and insightful articles in media influence on our culture. Clean Cut Media will also periodically post excellent pieces of advertising, well made videos and overall creative pieces of work. Considering so much of advertising these days resort to cheap emotional grabs, vulgar non-relevant references to sex, as well as send subtle messages that is detrimental to the way we view the world, the only true requirement to show on this site is that it is Clean Cut, thus the name! However we may post non-clean pieces of art for review and discussion. If you find any pieces of work worthy to share or review please comment! We’ll contact you directly and if you wish you can contribute your insight for the entry.

Short films require immense creativity and planning because an entire story must be condensed into 3-5 minutes. This piece is well done. Quick Commentary follows.

The Black Hole
Moving Towards Desire
What I find interesting in this short film is how the main character slowly gets more and more tempted to push the limits. He starts off just fascinated with his new discovery. He tries it out on the vending machine and ends up eating his reward. However once he gets a taste of the “power” of his discovery, he then decides to use it to enter a locked office to see what is inside. Then his eyes light up as he sees a safe and uses it to access some cash. Then rather than being happy with what he found, he decides to take it all. Both in his expression and his actions the small steps he takes towards what is wrong only escalates. I believe this is very true to reality.

Flight or Invisibility
Someone asked me recently, if you could fly or be invisible, which power would you like? I would easily choose invisibility, however I also acknowledged how I could imagine myself slowly getting myself into really bad trouble and morally questionable situations if I had that capability. Could you say with confidence you would never abuse such a power?

Getting from Point A to Point B – Subtle Power of Desire
This character probably never intended to steal hundreds of thousands of dollars and if he was told he would, he probably would laugh at the thought. But all it took is the access and slow seemingly harmless steps and there he was stealing the money he probably never dreamed of stealing. This is a short film so the progress went quickly, but we can see this happening in the real world across longer periods of time. No one starts wanting to steal, wanting to murder, wanting to commit adultery, wanting to get drunk, hurting people and betraying trust relationships. How many times have I found myself in point B and wondered how I got to this point. So how do we get from point A to point B? Gradual steps. It would be foolish for us to think we are not capable of doing really bad things (yes even murder!) just because we can’t imagine ourselves getting there. It is the small subtle steps that goes unnoticed that contribute to our moral degradation. It is so important for all people to be on our guard to protect ourselves from becoming insensitive to pushing boundaries and rationalizing what we do.

I found this short really interesting. What I liked the most was the titles, as they appeared through an actual black hole. The fit the movie and looked really effective. I also like the fact that there isn't any dialogue or music but the film is still good quality.

Strangers

This is another very popular short film on YouTube with over a million views. Like I said in my previous post, shorts are given the opportunity to tackle important and sometimes difficult issues. Strangers tells the compelling tale of two young men, one Arab and one Jewish who are motivated by fear to overcome their racial prejudice and hatred when suddenly confronted with a menacing gang of skinheads.



This review was taken from http://ereztadmor.tumblr.com/strangersshortfilm

I enjoyed watching the short film, “Strangers” and consider it a “must-see” film. This short film review imparts to viewers what I like about “Strangers.”The short film does not have dialogue and message was conveyed through facial expression, signs and symbols (of what each group represents). It is a story about a Jew and a Muslim, who has a racial division, and what brought them together.

The short film started with a man who stepped onto the train and sat in one of the seats near another man. At that point, the group to which each character belong to were being established. Both men looked at each other in an unfriendly manner. The man who entered the train and took a seat is a Jew. The viewer would guess this as he discreetly played with his necklace (sign of Israel). Meanwhile, the man already seated is a Muslim (as shown by the characters in the newspaper he is reading). Clearly, both men dislike each other from history (“Six-Day War,” June 5, 1967 to June 10, 1967, between Israel and the armies of Egypt, Jordan, and Syria).

Meanwhile, a third (3rd) group appeared in the train, the Nazis. The Nazi symbol was prominent when one of the men drew a Nazi sign on the Muslim newspaper. Another Nazi sign is shown at the back of the head of one of the Nazi. The Nazis disliked the Muslim man as they started harassing the Muslim man.

Only when the phone of the Jew rang did the Nazis stopped harassing the Muslim man. At that point, it was very clear that the man is Jew since his ringtone was Jewish (it would have been nicer if the ringtone were shorter). From World War 2 history, Nazis also dislike the Jews. The Jew man knew that the Nazis would harass him next. He made eye contact with the Muslim man to run. Both Arab and Jew ran avoiding the Nazis.

I enjoyed watching this short film as the story unfolds and each character’s group was slowly revealed. The suspense grew as I watched their facial expressions (along hearing the background sounds).

Over-all, this short film was professionally made. It has a good story, the actors performed well, and it is very well produced. Though the story is simple, it made a profound impact.

I really liked this film because it was well shot and the plot was really interesting and again little dialogue is used but the actions speak louder.

What is a 'short'?

Our task it to make a short film, but what exactly is a short?

Short film is a technical description originally coined in the North American film industry in the early period of cinema.

Although the North American definition generally refers to films between 20 and 40 minutes, the definition refers to much shorter films in Europe, Latin America and Australasia. In New Zealand, for instance, the description can be used to describe any film that has a duration longer than one minute and shorter than 15 minutes. The North American definition also tends to focus much more on character whereas the European and Australasian forms tend to depend much more on visual drama and plot twists.

Since the 1980s, the term "short subject" has come to be used interchangeably with "short film," an international, academic term used to mean a contemporary non-commercial motion picture that is substantially shorter than the average commercial feature film. There is no clear definition of the maximum length of a short film, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences classify it as 40 minutes, while the Internet Movie Database refers to any film lasting less than 45 minutes as a short subject. The short-film form is to the full-length film what the short story is to a full-fledged novel.

Short films often focus on difficult topics which longer, more commercial films usually avoid. Filmmakers benefit from larger freedoms and can take higher risks, but they must rely on festival and art house exhibition to achieve public display. Most short films are better known outside the United States than within, due to less rigidity of audience expectation as to program content, arrangement and length outside the U.S.

Short filmmaking is also growing in popularity among amateurs and enthusiasts, who are taking advantage of affordable equipment. "Prosumer" or semi-professional cameras now cost under £3000, and free or low-cost software is widely available that is capable of video editing, post-production work and DVD authoring.

Very short films are sometimes considered as a category of their own. They are the film equivalent of microfiction, like the 60 Word Story. The International Festival of Very Shorts is a festival based in Paris which shows only films less than three minutes long. Filminute, the international one-minute film festival, has presented and promoted a collection of one-minute films across multiple media since September 2006.

Such films can also be easily distributed via the Internet; Across the Hall, for example, was solely distributed on the Internet. Certain websites which encourage the submission of user-created short films, such as YouTube, Openfilm, BritFilms and Newgrounds have attracted large communities of artists and viewers, whereas sites such as BBC Film Network focus on showcasing curated British shorts.

Welcome!

This is my A2 media blog :)
It's going to show my processes from coming with an idea for a short 5 minuite film to actually having the final film made.
I'm going to be working with Sarah and Phoebe (links to their blogs are in the sidebar) I was very happy with our group because they are both reliable and hardworking and I know I can count on them when making the film :)