Using digital technology was an advantage throughout our project as it allowed us to research widely into various short films including 'Lift' and 'Le Cheval 2.1' . 'Le Cheval 2.1' was of particular interest to us as it was a hybrid genre which incorporated an interesting running sequence, featuring a blend of art-house and comedy. The use of digital technology was effective and useful during the story-boarding process. First, we did drawings of our storyboards and scanned them in using the computer, which we could then change into an Animatic. This showed us how the shots would flow together and if they looked right in a particular order. We then uploaded the Animatic to YouTube and Facebook, which were essential to reaching our intended target audience. We also allowed for our audience to comment on certain aspects of the story-line and the development process. We did this in order to incorporate our target audience and involvement them in the development and finishing of our film.
Storyboard Development
Story boarding ideas
Story boarding ideas
In order to understand our target audience in depth we created a questionnaire, using Google Docs, and sent it out through our school email system. This enabled us to access our target audience, who were potentially our peers aged around 16-18. We incorporated ideas from our target audience as we felt it would be important to include what they want and like in a short film, their views also altered our initial ideas. We also felt that by incorporating our target audience into the planning and production process it would create a interactive feel to the overall project. The results from our questionnaire showed that our target audience was aged around 17-19, and wished to see an entertaining short film which featured some aspects of escapism. We incorporated these ideas into our short film. The escapism feedback allowed us to research wider into short films, and understand the aspects of escapism, we wanted to include a 'butterfly effect' theme in our short film. This appealed to the escapism elements our target audience wanted.
Our research into short film was aided by the Internet as it allowed to reach a wider variety of resources. Towards the start of my project I looked at a number of short films and short film festivals to get some inspiration, for a short film for example Independent Lens and DepicT. YouTube was essential as it hosts so many short films, also it provides an embed code which we can then use to post videos of interest on our blogs. I found this useful, especially when we were choosing what song to use for our film, as I could easily post three or four videos onto my blog and again ask for feedback from my audience, and teachers. As short film acts as a genre within itself, whilst researching and analyzing I did not see particular codes and conventions that we could adhere to. However, certain aspects, due to the short time span of a short film, are often used when creating a five minute film. For example, there is a moral high-ground, consequences, feel to a lot of the stories featured which is interesting to watch. For my research I found that many short films provide moral messages and perceptions on life, for example the short film 'Shelf Life' which showed a man being overly sensitive and cautious about his health and safety. However in the end his obsession caused his death, the message here is that wrapping yourself up in cotton wall can result in even worse consequence's. We felt that the role of a short film was to portray a certain message, therefore we decided to stick to these codes and conventions. Our main thought was to portray a karma/butterfly effect message, which implies that every action has a consequence. In order to achieve this we came up with a simple message which was equally thought provoking. In our short film, our main character wakes up late, which ultimately effects the overall outlook of the film, also he loses his hat which also alters the ending, as we use a split screen to distinguish between two characters. We believe our film's message is bold and in some ways true to life, as we related our story line to real life situations, for example missing the bus.
Shelf Life
In general, our planning and pre-production went well as we managed to use the Internet and web 2.0 to our advantage and it enables us to reach a lot of resources. From all the short films, I watched and analysed I was able to create one myself.
Our research into short film was aided by the Internet as it allowed to reach a wider variety of resources. Towards the start of my project I looked at a number of short films and short film festivals to get some inspiration, for a short film for example Independent Lens and DepicT. YouTube was essential as it hosts so many short films, also it provides an embed code which we can then use to post videos of interest on our blogs. I found this useful, especially when we were choosing what song to use for our film, as I could easily post three or four videos onto my blog and again ask for feedback from my audience, and teachers. As short film acts as a genre within itself, whilst researching and analyzing I did not see particular codes and conventions that we could adhere to. However, certain aspects, due to the short time span of a short film, are often used when creating a five minute film. For example, there is a moral high-ground, consequences, feel to a lot of the stories featured which is interesting to watch. For my research I found that many short films provide moral messages and perceptions on life, for example the short film 'Shelf Life' which showed a man being overly sensitive and cautious about his health and safety. However in the end his obsession caused his death, the message here is that wrapping yourself up in cotton wall can result in even worse consequence's. We felt that the role of a short film was to portray a certain message, therefore we decided to stick to these codes and conventions. Our main thought was to portray a karma/butterfly effect message, which implies that every action has a consequence. In order to achieve this we came up with a simple message which was equally thought provoking. In our short film, our main character wakes up late, which ultimately effects the overall outlook of the film, also he loses his hat which also alters the ending, as we use a split screen to distinguish between two characters. We believe our film's message is bold and in some ways true to life, as we related our story line to real life situations, for example missing the bus.
Shelf LifeIn general, our planning and pre-production went well as we managed to use the Internet and web 2.0 to our advantage and it enables us to reach a lot of resources. From all the short films, I watched and analysed I was able to create one myself.
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