Evaluation - What have you learned from Audience Feedback?

Final Product - Way Back Then

Ancilary Task- Layout of film review

This is a basic idea for a film review covering a single page in a magazine. It has space for both images and text. It is important to have a balance of both if you want to engage your readership for a film magazine.

Ancillary Task - Example of Film Posters

We decided before finally making our final film poster to find examples of a few film posters with a similar genre or theme, primarily that of Romance.

Use of music in our Romantic Tragedy

With the limited ammount of music avaliable due to copyright issues our music selection was made more difficult. We could not search directly for artists or songs we knew because we did not know these details about copyright free music. As a group we searched for different features our music had to have the most important of which were "sad" and "slow paced". We found the music required and we are very happy with what we have as we feel it will help create the correct moods and emotions for the audience

Research of music in the romantic tragedy genre

The romantic tragedy genre is heavily on reliant on music to create moods in moments where the main couple are not having a conversation. More importantly they are used in montages. The romantic comedy genre typically covers a long period of time as to realistically portray the development and length of a real relationship. This is so because the main way the romantic side of the genre is shown and deemed effective is the realism and the authenticity of a relationship. No one will believe that two people have fallen in love over a two week span. So with this said the montage is a good way of portraying long periods of time without dominating the bulk of the feature film. This applies equally in a short film as you have even less time to show development of a relationship. Equally music can help create the tragic side of the genre. With certain music over certain events even the most difficult audience can be made to feel the emotion you wish them to.

Having researched the romantic tragedy '500 Days of Summer' I have discovered things about the music that they use in the genre of romantic comedy. The genre of the music used for this film would come under the umbrella of the Alternative genre. Songs are mostly slow paced and are often sung by female singers. This is because the slow pace allows for feelings and tensions to rise as is needed, also The most prominent instrument is the acoustic guitar as it is slow paced and meloncolie like the majority of the music used in '500 Days of Summer'. Something I have noticed is that none of the songs used in this particular instance are not popular songs in terms of chart position and CD/download sales. They are typically songs performed by underground or indie artists.

Risk Assessment Form

Institutional Analysis

The problem with trying to distribute a short film to an institution is that there is not a large market or range of institutions that show or try to advertise a lot of short films. Because there are so few examples of mediums in which short films can be specifically distributed, it is easier to get them out to online platforms. With the recent development of youtube as a genuine media outlet, short film-makers now have the means to be become famous and popular without grand scale productions or large institutional backing.

There is a niche in that successful film-makers enter short films to be shown at something like the London film festivals or an equal festival in another part of the world. Sometimes features are shown on different channels affiliated with Channel 4. They have 5 minute short films shown some valid documentaries to the programmes on their channel or highlighting talented young directors. Though the issue with these is that it has to be screaned many times by a pannel of media experts before it can be shown by these institutions. This is a problem for a lot of young aspiring young film-makers. Its not that films arent good enough its that they dont have the media contacts to sufficantly get there their production 'out there'.

The institutions themselves have made efforts to show short films through other mediums other than just the mainstream, traditional ones like television. They have made strides to show short films on their websites. This is an option we could utilise but even then our piece would have to go through an ammount of screening and gain support from the institution.



One of the more well known institutions is Film4. They have slots in their television programming in which they showcase the work of young up and coming dircetors and the older work of established directors. This is often in the form of short films. They are a well known distributor of films in this country and therefore a level of success is attached to having work "on the telly" with both media-related people and those that arent. Film4 would be a plauisble option for our films institution as it does encourage and showcase the work of new, young directors.

The short film is something that is still heavily part of the academy and long established film institutions. The London short film festival is still an anually held ceremony which is held in high regards by the film academy. It remains the city's most expansive and radically explosive film festival into its 7th denomination this upcoming January. With other 200 films , London short film festival is exclusively for the work of Britain's most exciting up-and-coming filmakers. For 10 days the country's most creative and fiercely independant filmakers have their work brandished around the nations most prestigous cinemas. This would not be a particularly medium in which to show our short film as we are limited in both our skills as filmakers and the experience we have. The rest of the films in the festival would be of a much higher standard than our film due to a higher level of experience and would more than likely have a larger budget.

Questionnaire

We decided as a group to come up with a questionnaire in order to gain a greater understanding of how short films are perceived outside of media students. Short films aren’t watched by the majority of the general public so this questionnaire will help decide what a general audience’s view is to making a successful short film. By understanding what the general audience want from a short film we can make our short film more accessible and interesting for the casual viewer.

Textual Analysis of Terry Tate: Office Linebacker

Terry Tate: Office Linebacker is a series of short television commercials created by Rawson Marshall Thurber for Reebok. It was first aired in 2003 at the Superbowl. The Superbowl being the highest profile game in the sport of American Football. Terry Tate is an American Football player who has been hired by an office firm to administer punishment to those breaking any of the companies rules. The way he administers the punishment is by tackling the perpitrators around the office enviroment.

The cinematography used is fairly simple. Most common shot we see is a mid shot of an office worker performing a slight wrongdoing then Terry Tate charges at the officeworker and tackles them. Tate's victims are then out of shot usually covered by a desk or filing cabinet. After the first of said instances Terry is being interviewed in a room alone. This is the first time he adresses someone outside the office enviroment. This is a shot with Tate in the middle of the screen at a usual height because this is again a mid-shot but it could be argued that is a a master shot as the audience is more formally introduced to Terry Tate and as we as an audience see a label at the bottom of the screen saying "Terry Tate: Office Linebacker" . A different shot used is where one of Terry's colleges throws a soft drinks can into the trash bin when next to it is a recycling bin. Terry arrives with haste but as the company employee knows he has wronged he attempts to ammend his action by rummaging through the trash binto find the can. As this is happening the mid-shot of Terry's entire body gets closer and closer to represent that Terry is getting closer to attacking. This cresendos into a point of view shot with Terry Tate right in the face of the office worker who just in the nick of time finds his drinks can and places it in the recycling bin.

In terms of editing we obviously saw a great deal of cutting between the scenes with Terry Tate himself or his boss talking or the interview scenes of Terry. It could be said that the director used a degree of shot reverse shot in the scene with the recycling dilemma as we see both angles ( Terry and the victim). Most noticable is the uses of montage in the film. We see a collection of shots of Terry performing more usual office tasks like performing presentations and celebrating a fellow employees birthday this is used to show that Terry is fitting in, in the office enviroment. The other montage is of Tate tackling the same people he was fitting in with just moments before. These montages are in quick succesion to excentuate the comedy of what Tate is doing, reminding the audience that what he is doing is ludacris yet ammusing.

There are some intresting examples of sound in the piece. There is obviously a lot of diolouge between the characters which fits into the catogary of digetic sound. A lot of the diologue used by is aggresively adressing those that he has just tackled this is to go along with Tate being represented as a stereotypical American Football player who are often portrayed as violent and overly angry. Alternatively at other times Tate caringly adresses some of the female staff. This diolouge is again used for comedic effect as we see a contrast between the stereotype and then what we as an audience are seeing. A musical sting follows Terry Tate's first hit on an employee which then runs into the opening sequance accompanied by a score after the inital sting. The director also adds some pleonatsic sounds in post production to Terry Tate's tackles. These sounds are louder versions of what you would expect to hear. For example when Tate tackles someone into a filing cabinet which would usually be a fairly loud smack into metal instead sounds more like what we would expect from a car accident. This again adds to the stereotype that what Tate is doing is very dangerous and is the dominent male in the working enviroment which he also portrays in the earlier mentioned diolouge.

In terms of Mise en Scene Terry Tate: Office Linebacker has some very strong themes which will apply to the genre. An example of this is Terry's costume. He has the usual American Football apparell of a brightly coloured jersey and his hands are covered in athletic grip tape. This is in line with the American football side. In terms of the office side he is wearing black trousers and smart black shoes. This again continues with the theme of contrast creating humor. This contrast is again shown in the choice of settings. The office enviroment is obviously the most used which we expect but to fall in line with the American Football side of things we see Tate in his own area. This is a storage cupboard. It has Tate's jersey hanging on the wall to create an enviroment more similar to a locker room enviroment.

S.W.O.T

SWOT analysis is a tool for auditing an organization and its environment. It is the first stage of planning and helps marketers to focus on key issues. SWOT stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Strengths and weaknesses are internal factors. Opportunities and threats are external factors.

Codes & Conventions of a Short Film

Short films have a set of specific set of features that need to be utilised. As is evident in the name a short film needs to be shorter in length than a feature film. The length is usually between two and ten minutes. Though the length is a theme it is not the most important convention of the short film genre. There are other features that are more integral to the ideology of a short film.
More importantly a short film has a very strong and clear controlling idea. This is the one thing that must be clearly at the forefront of the short film throughout.
Aswell as this there is usually a very small cast of characters often only one or two. It is easier to follow just one story in the shorter timeframe rather than peeling off for different people's journeys in feature films like the Lord of the Rings trilogy. The protagonist remains allmost exclusively in the centre of the screen in the short film.
A regular occurance in a short film is that the ending is shocking and suprising. This is necessary because the audience of short films are likely to watch a lot of other media products from a range of institutions. If a certain short film is to leave an impact on the viewer it will need a shocking twist to engage the audience and force them to feel an emotion. If in a shorter length production an audience is unanomously upset or angry or ammused then it can be deemed as sucessful.
Voiceovers are common practice in short films. They are often used in shorter production as apposed to diolouge. It can be the voice of a narrator speaking over actions like for example in Tim Burton's Vincent. Or it could be the voice of the central protagonist voicing over their own action perhaps in the present or even speaking in heinsight in the past tense.

Definition of short films

Short Films
A short film is a motion picture that is considerably shorter in length than a regular feature film. An average film varies from 40 to about 90 minutes. The short film is the equivalent of a short story in the field of literature.
In the theatrical environment the short films are often shown prior to the feature film. It is usually considerably less complicated in terms of plot and only covers one or another small number of narrative threads. Most films of this genre focus on a single character or show one particular incident. The story can be seen to resemble that of a joke or fables told through the medium of the spoken word. A short film is more able to focus on difficult topics feature films often avoid. The short film-makers benefit from larger freedoms and make higher-risk films.


The short film genre splits itself into more sub-genres the most common of which are:
. Live action shot
. Animated short (hand drawn or CGI)
. Documentary short subject
. Experimental or more abstract short films