Film Poster Shot Ideas

We now have to start thinking about our film poster. So to create some ideas we went out into our school grounds and took some photos of possible backgrounds that we could use.
I uploaded them onto the photo site Picasa and have created a folder to showcase our photos.
http://picasaweb.google.com/fusefilms0/FilmPosterShotIdeas#

Animatic

After our storyboards michael decided to make a animatic to show our storyboards in a slow motion. This allows us to see what our film would look like when it has been finished.

After we had watched the animatic we had an idea of what we would like our film to be like.

Although we are 5 minutes short, so we will have to add a few more shots to the film to lengthen it. So when we come to editing again we will change the length of the shots.

Storyboards

We have now completed the storyboards,there are 44 overall. They have been uploaded to a program called Scribd, it allows you to view documents online.
Every storyboard shows the shot type and description of the shot.
We still have to decide a backing track for this film, which will run from shot 15 onwards. This will be decided very soon, once we have requested copyright.

The Running Man- Storyboards 1-44

Fuse Films On Twitter and Flickr

Our film production company Fuse Films are now on Twitter and Flickr. Flickr is a website to showcase photos, so we have imported some photos that we have taken onto this website to show our audience what we are doing. Twitter, a website that is based on status updates, again this lets us inform our audience of what we are doing by 'tweeting'.



http://www.flickr.com/fusefilms

http://www.twitter.com/fusefilms

Test Shots

As we are getting nearer to filming our final idea, we decided to film some test shots that can be put into our film.
We filmed a short sequence of Lizi running through school, we included: extreme long shots, low angled shots, mid shots and point of view shots. The most successful of the shots we thought were the low angled shot and the point of view shot.
With the footage we had we put it into imovie and created a short preliminary film. We wanted to make the split screen effect but had problems finding this effect so we may have to use the Adobe Premier Pro editing program. We are still in the process of finding a song for our footage.

Location Planning

After coming up with our Final Idea we decided to look for some locations to film our short film. We have decided to film at Lizi Woods house as she has the most ideal locations for our film. We still however need to look at other locations for the house and bedroom shots.

Roles and Responsibilities

To maximize the use of our time as we come up to filming and production we have decided to allocate roles to each of our group members. This ensures that we all have an active part in production of the film and ancillary tasks so that we will have enough time to finish by our deadline.

Roles

Filming

Director - Mike Fews
Camera Work - Josh Jotcham & Mike Fews
Editing - Josh Jotcham
Lighting - Dani Phillpott
Costume & Props - Lizi Wood
Blog Diary - Lizi Wood
Music Finder - Lizi Wood

Ancillary Task

Film Poster - Dani Phillpott & Mike Fews
Radio Trailer - Josh Jotcham & Lizi Wood

Influences For Running Man Idea

After coming up with a final idea i used the short film "Le Cheval" that i had watched as a big influence for this final idea.
I found out that if the running character keeps the same pace throughout the film when shooting it and use shots like long shots to show where the character is running from and to.
Also another influence was the film "Forest Gump", when he runs for a long period. The shot mainly stays the same and doesnt change throughout.

Running Man Final Idea

This is our final idea that we have came up with, we realised that if our running man character was running past famous Bristol landmarks it would look too much like an advert. So we came up with this idea instead. Final Idea

The film starts with a digital clock, the time turns to 6:30 and at the sound of an alarm, a student aged around 18 wakes up suddenly and rushes around the house gathering books and keys etc. He runs out the door and carries on running through the streets of a city and carries on running through more extreme situations such as the woods, a river. He carries on running with an air of purpose as if he is running somewhere important, the audience is left hoping he arrives there on time as he is running with urgency. He suddenly turns a corner and the screen splits and on one half the student see's the bus just about to leave, just as he starts to run to catch the bus, someone not looking accidently spills a drink down him, this delay makes him miss the bus he then turns to leave. The other half shows the man turning the corner and dodging the man with the drink, he then manages to catch the bus. The split screen stops and we focus to the man who missed the bus, he has just arrived home, he goes upstairs to change his shirt as he does he turns on the radio. All sound stops except for the radio, it tells us that a bus, the one which he was meant to catch, has been in an accident. While this is playing the scene has changed to the man on the bus, as the news bulletin finishes the man looks up in fear and the screen goes black. There is then white noise playing the credits up. The film then ends.

We will now need to storyboard this idea.

Film Ideas

We decided our target audience will be aged between 16 and 20 and that the subject of our film should relate to that age range.


We really liked the idea of a "Running Man" where he is running past famous Bristol landmarks like the SS Great Britain etc.
We now want to develop this idea further.

Technology in the Media

Because of Convergence media can now be accessed alot easier then just by watching it on Tv. Audiences can now access films through websites and blogs, very much like this one. Web 2.0 especially allows this as this allows audiences become more interactive through the internet.
Web 2.0 has become of great importance to upcoming film producers as it allows them to get to audiences that wouldn't of been possible before. They can upload their short films to websites like Independent Lens or a well known video channel- Youtube. This can make the company become very popular and the producer receiving more funding to create more films that are mainstream, blockbusters.
Another way of film companies and producers getting their film out to a wider audience is by using popular social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace.

Our group thought it would be a good way to involve our film company Fuse Films in other ways, by setting up a Fuse Films facebook page and Youtube channel to broadcast our films.
Youtube- http://youtube.com/fusefilms
Facebook-LINK

Tasks For The Holiday

As we have two weeks off of school, we will be editing our blogs frequently during, trying to complete pre-production tasks. We will create a shooting list, which will show the order of shooting the scenes, this will be useful as it will save time and extra work. We will also do our storyboards, including time, shot type and lighting. These storyboards will be accompanied by the shooting list. The storyboards are what show us the order of the scenes on the screen. When we have completed the storyboards we will scan in the sheets and create an animatic.

Group Roles

We have allocated group roles for the holiday:
Dani: Target audience questionnaire
Mike: Storyboarding
Lizi: Location planning
Josh: Set up facebook group for Fuse Films

These should be finished by 3rd November, this will allow us plenty of time to film efficiently.

Teacher Feedback

You have good evidence of looking in to genre but this needs to be followed up with some textual analysis of existing texts and links to the creative decisions that Fuse films are making.
It would also be good to relate your theory to your own project.

Codes and Conventions

I have looked at many short films and have seen many codes and conventions that are the same. Most of them include 1 or 2 characters and follow them in a part of their life. For example in 'Le Cheval' it follows a male character wanting to be like a horse and be free.

Most of the films have hybrid genres, again in Le Cheval it shows parts of a french, art house theme but has aspects of comedy in it to get across the message that the man wants to be a horse, this gives it a light hearted feeling. The use of hybrid genres make the film more interesting and can appeal to a wider audience.

A short film normally has 1 or 2 characters in it as the time is limited. The mise en scene therefore has to be of high importance as the character has to be introduced very quickly. In the short film Goodbye Mr Snuggles we first see 2 characters in tweed jackets and coming out of a manor house, this shows that they have wealth. Also the non-diegetic music in this film creates suspense when the clown is coming around the corner quickly in his car.

Short films purpose are mostly to put across a message and there is usually irony in them. Like in Goodbye Mr Snuggles the clown tries to kill the old man but ends up being shot himself.

Research -Short Films

As the genre for my short film is going to be mainly comedy, i will now research some short films that mostly follow this genre.
I first came across the BBC Film Network and found a short 6 minute film called "Goodbye Mr Snuggles" i thought this would be suitable as it was a comedy and was 6 minutes long so i would get a feel of how long my short film would have to be and what to include.



Length: 5:39
Genre: Comedy
Director: Jonathan Hopkins

Genre

Genre plays a big part in the research of short films, in this project i will have to look at whether my short film will follow the codes and conventions of a genre or not. Theorist Richard Maltby said " The success of Hollywood is reliant on the combination of predictable elements with variation". He is saying that all Hollywood films should follow the codes and conventions of their typical genre. So for example a romantic comedy would typically have a boy and girl falling in love, they would be young and it would be a predictable ending.



Another media theorist Rick Altman disagrees with Richard Maltbys theory, he says that " Genres are restricted and they do not allow or acknowledge the hybrid". He is saying that Genres shouldnt stick to the codes and conventions of that genre but have a blend of different genres.

I think my short film will follow some codes and conventions of a typical genre but maybe not all of them.
There are 5 different reasons why people watch certain films or television programmes, such as



1. Social


2. Escapism


3. Entertainment


4. Personal Identity


5. Information



This is known as the Gratification Theory.




We researched different genres of short films that we could look into and brainstormed ideas, by looking at some genres we realised it would be too difficult to create a short film about certain genres as we wouldn't have the equipment and it would take up too much of our time.


We decided by looking into different genres that we would want to mainly concentrate on comedy, although it may have elements of different genres, as we may not be able to just stick to the one. Therefore my short fim will not just be comedy but follow conventions of others.

Initial Ideas

Our initial idea, we looked at videos on Youtube. We researched short films and came up with an idea of a person running from watching a clip from the "Horne and Corden show" where a character is running throughout London chasing a woman named Julie, whilst he is running after this particular woman he passes many places on the way eg London Bridge. After this idea we decided to mindmap ideas around the theme of "the running man", we came up with the idea that he should be running to get somewhere on time so that he wont be late-eg- his wedding or the dentist. We then were given the idea from the film of "Sliding Doors" where it follows the lives of a woman with two different outcomes in one day-when she catches the tube and when she doesn't. This links in very well with our idea of a person running to get somewhere on time. We came to the conclusion that using a form of transport is a good way of showing the difference between two outcomes.

Target Audience Results

After researching into our target audience we created an audience questionnaire for our target audience and asked them about short films, we also showed them the few that we had watched from youtube with the idea of someone running and asked them what they thought of these.

Target Audience Results

Representation+Target Audience

Our group have decided that the target audience for our short film will be teenagers aged between 15 and 18 years old. This is because we thought about the distribution of our video and that our target audience would use sites like youtube which is watched by millions of people everyday. Also to advertise our short film we could use social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace.


In our short film we would want to include teenagers that are aged between 15 and 18 which is our target audience, teenagers are normally represented in the media as:


Boys
- Asbos
- Gun and Knife Crime (especially if they live in urban areas)
- Drink Alcohol

Girls
-Teenage Pregnancy
- Care alot about appearance
- Boys

This is a stereotypical view of teenage boys and girls in todays generation. Teenagers aged between 15 and 18 tend to watch programmes like The Inbetweeneers and Skins which targets this particular audience. As digital technology has taken a big step in recent years, social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace allow this age generation to view short films and interact with each-other. Also thanks to the digital technology progression short films can now be viewed on YouTube and this appeals greatly to our target audience.

We have decided that our character will be a typical University Student aged between 18 and 20. He will be wearing quite scruffy clothing like jeans and a tshirt which is a typical representation of a students clothing. His hair will be messy and this will show that he hasnt got time to make himself look presentable. This character is interested in Music (mainly indie), socialising with his friends, girls, drink and football- typical interests of a teenage boy.

Questionnaire

To find out more about what our target audience want, we created a questionnaire for people to fill out and complete.
It has been put onto our school email so teachers and students can do it. This is so we can get a view of what short films people want and like to watch, etc.

Questionnaire

Targets

Our group have decided to do a short film, we felt it would be a good idea as we did a short film for our AS level last year for media. So we knew that we would know how to go about making a short film and how it would work well between us. Last year our group worked very well together, so we had no worries about working together for A2.
Here are my targets that im going to set myself to ensure that this project runs smoothly:
1. use our time more efficently and manage it in a way that suits everyone.
2. plan in a way that we will all understand using mindmaps,lists and powerpoints.
3. have good management skills so that none of us run behind schedule.