Magazine Flat Plan

                                                          Magazine Flat Plan

This is my flat plan for the magazine double page that I intend to create in Adobe Indesign CS5.5. I have taken conventions from existing film magazines such as Empire and Little White Lies, such as the round corners on the main image, as seen in LWL and the symmetrically of the double page layout with the use of four columns to fill up the page.

Poster Flat Plan

Poster Flat Plan

This is my flat plan that I have decided to draw to show how I am going to design my poster for my short film. I have decided to follow conventions such as star ratings, brief statements, the lead characters, location, title and age rating.

The relevance of new technology to my short film

In this post I am going to explore the ever advancing power of media technology and how the increasing availability of production tools influenced the creation of my short film ‘Solitude’. When in the production stage of my film, I will be using a Canon 60D camera and Final Cut Studio for editing, equipment that can be used for professional results, but available to a public audience. These are points that I will be covering in this post, whilst also relating back to my five-minute short film.
Technology is ever advancing, none more influential and apparent then that of the media industry.

The age of digital technology has arrived, we can watch films on computers, read papers, books, put anything we like on the world wide web, watch 3D HD TV on 90 inch screens from the comfort of our homes. In terms of film, the industry is still dominated by the classic 35mm film way of shooting, which although expensive, gives fantastic quality thus making it the industry standard camera. Low budget films would normally be filmed on tape, something that is fast becoming obsolete due to the recent introduction of DSLRs that can take glorious full HD film straight onto SD card for a very reasonable price. These are great for amateur and freelance filmmakers, but are they used in the professional field? Yes they are. A recent season finale to American hit TV program ‘House’ was filmed entirely on a Canon 5D Mark II, a top of the range stills camera which gives glorious quality footage with a wonderful shallow focus pull, no tape or film was used in the making of this particular episode. For instance, my coursework project last year was a horror film called ‘Wuthering Heights and Werewolves’ that was shot completely on Mini DV Tape. But now, only a year later I am filming in Full HD onto a SD Card instead of ‘low quality’ tape.

“The making of the new and the re-arranging of the old” (Bentley 1997). In this quote, Bentley says that in order to create a product that is fit for purpose you have to carefully research the conventions of existing media texts that are from a similar genre, and pitched at a similar target audience, to the product/products you intend to produce. But, if you’re re-arranging the old the technological advances are going to be quite different in my medium of film. In the short films that I analysed, such as ‘The Siren’ by Alex Nevill, were all shot on DSLR cameras, such as the Canon 7D giving the films a professional high quality and depth of field to match. I followed the conventions of these short films by also shooting on a DSLR, a mid range Canon 60D which puts the high quality footage straight onto SD card, giving fast, tape less recording. For my editing I used a program called Final Cut Studio, used to edited films such as ‘300’, ‘The Social Network’, ‘Jarhead’ and ‘X-Men’. This product is a simple to use, professional standard program which I personally brought before I began editing my film. A week or so after I spent money on this program, a totally new version came out, which puts into perspective the advancing technology in editing and the professional film industry. Most film editors don’t use Final Cut Pro, but use a program called Avid Media Composer, a more expensive and complicated film editing solution. This program has been around for longer than Final Cut; therefore, just like 35mm film, people still seem to use it as a professional grade way to edit their films. Putting these products at a relatively low price makes them available to the mass public, which is something that really benefited me in the making of my film.

Gauntlett (2007) says that new media (and new media technologies) erodes the boundary between producer and audience to the extent that it makes little sense to talk about media audiences at all anymore: “Conventional research methods are replaced—or at least supplemented by new methods which recognise and make use of people's own creativity, and brush aside the outmoded notions of 'receiver' audiences and elite 'producers'”. With the availability of professional grade products, what stops any of the general public being a filmmaker? Therefore your audiences are no longer ‘receivers’ but ‘producers’. In my opinion, this has impacted my film in a very positive way, because as a low budget filmmaker I can now make a professional grade product, without the Hollywood budget. Examples of these equipment are the rise in DSLR filming, Final Cut Pro and special effects tools like Adobe After Effects.

When new media technologies are concerned, distribution within the postproduction of the film industry is an interesting area. In this digital day and age, piracy is a huge problem; with a whole spectrum of illegally uploaded films available online, filmmakers need a plan to how they release their products on the market. When low budget film makers can’t get funding from media conglomerates or huge production companies, digital technology makes life easier for them to reach a wide audience, through websites such as the UK Film Council, the UK Media Desk, BBC Film Network and Big Film Shorts who can host films online and have a big influence over film festivals, therefore promoting low budget films and reaching a great audience. “A new generation of UK media power players are ditching the traditional gatekeepers and going straight to their audience via the web” (Plunkett 2008). This brings me to a big point, that of online distribution which is becoming a popular method of reaching the masses, not just in film, but also in all of the media, TV, papers and magazines. Films can be released online, uploaded and streamed from websites such as Youtube, Vimeo or Dailymotion or purchased from the iTunes store.
My film will be uploaded to sites like Vimeo, so that people can see what I have created, whilst also posting links to it on social networking sites to gain more interest. The use of social networking site such as Facebook also helped me to get my audience research when in the preproduction stages of creating my film, something I wouldn’t have been able to research into more than two years ago.

Even the methods of using files to research and present coursework have changed. For instance, my media coursework this year was all done digitally whereas only a year ago, the same media coursework was all done on paper format and submitted the traditional way. The reason that my recent coursework is laid out in a blog format is because of the ever-changing advancements in technology and the accessibility of being able to access and view my work from any computer.
The fact my work will be all online also creates less paper usage and whilst not doing damage to the environment, also creates less confusion searching through each sheet in a place that I know is secure and I won’t lose it.

Another important reason is that the media industry is so fast paced that to be part of it you really need to keep up with the different methods within the industry, and within the past five years, blogging has become more and more popular with more and more relevance to our subject.

To sum up, I feel that the advance in new media technologies really seems to work in my favour, as it has reduced the cost of products that would have been thousands of pounds a few years back, therefore making them more available to people such as me. With the use of this new technology being available, I believe I have created a professional grade film using cameras, online distribution and editing software.

Audition

Here is an audition by my friend Joe for the part of the brother. I personally decided that Joe wasn't suited to the part, and I believe that his acting wasn't as good as Dan Annear's, due to his stammering, lack of facial expressions, looking at the camera and forgetting his lines.

Casting

After watching films with such powerful subjects, such as ‘Hunger’ by Steve McQueen or ‘Tyrannosaur’ by Paddy Considine, you can really see how the use of acting in such a powerful manner can really influence your film in a really positive way. From analysing the success of these independently British films, you can see that the actors have won more awards then the director. For instance, Olivia Colman’s harrowing performance in ‘Tyrannosaur’ won numerous titles, such as best female lead at the British Independent Film Awards. This film is exactly the target audience that I would aim for; Social grade C and above, the kind of people that would watch independent films, or attend film festivals.

Acting can make or break your film, and with this in mind, I have decided to audition actors for my film. I have approached the drama department at my school and asked for two actors, one of about Year 7 – 8, and one who would be this person’s brother, about Year 12 – 13. The head of the drama department let me know about outstanding actors in these age groups, and subsequently I tried the suggested actors. The first, Jake Clutsom (age 12), was very keen to be involved so we exchanged contact details and I gave him a copy of my up to date script. I gave him about a week to read through it, and then met up with him again to see what he thought. I know that having a good director to actor relationship can really make your film work. I asked him if there was anything that he understood, or particularly didn’t understand, because my script is very surreal and I can’t say that I was too sure of Jake’s level of understanding. He seemed to understand and like the part, so I told him that I would let him know when I would need him for filming.

My next actor, Dan Annear (16), would be playing the part of the brother, a particularly difficult part to play in a hospital bed. I knew that if his particular monologue was delivered perfectly, then this could really make his scene spectacular. I caught up with Dan, and discussed the possibility of being in the film. He was very enthusiastic, and I told him that I would like him to audition for me, which I have filmed. I thought that the audition was fantastic. He was everything that I envisioned the brother to be like, he loved the script, he was keen and we got on well. The part of the brother, although hard, unlike the part of the child, is only brief. After auditioning Dan, I knew that he would make the most out of his brief time on camera, by giving a fantastic performance.

The next stage in my casting was to find a character to play the elder in my video. For this, I asked my drama teacher if she knew of any elderly actors who would be keen to be in my film and would have enough free time to help me out. The head of drama recommended an actor named Rory Wilton, who was keen to be involved. Rory was the main reason that Ricky and me wrote the play, because the brother’s experience of death in the screenplay is based on Rory’s real experience when he had heart problems and died for 3-4 minutes. Having him involved would really have been spectacular, but unfortunately Rory was rushed to hospital with more heart problems and had to rest, which means he couldn’t be involved in the production. I had to find someone else to play the part, and I knew a family friend who had studied drama. Although he doesn’t have much experience, Derek Rushton was very keen to be involved in the film and the fact he is retired gave him a big advantage over Rory, as he had more free time. I emailed Derek a copy of the script and he enjoyed reading it and fully understood the part and process that he had to have creative input into.

Claude Levi-Strauss was a structuralist philosopher who was fascinated with how much the world is described in terms of opposites (“binary opposition”) – night/day, good/bad, light/dark, good/evil etc. He observed that these oppositions tended to structure texts narratives. Through using contrasts between ages with two of my characters, I also used Claude Levi-Strauss’ Binary Opposition theory to help structure my narrative and create a far more intriguing storyline, that’d really draw the audience in.

 

Advertising in the film industry

Without advertising, the film business would not achieve nearly the success that it does for the movies that are released. Although some movies are able to depend upon word-of-mouth to get viewers, that is not the norm. Movie advertising is the key to success. People who work in the movie advertising business must understand a variety of marketing practices in order to be successful in promoting a wide variety of films. "The making of the new and re-arranging of the old" Bentley (1987)

To create a market successful product you need to look at existing and similar media projects, and take inspiration from the way they target their audiences.

This shows that movie advertisers need to know how best to take advantage of their target audience through the success of existing advertising techniques that have been used on similar films to successfully advertise their movies.



Movie theater advertising is one popular method used to promote future movies. What better opportunity is there for movie advertising than in movie trailers? There is already an audience available who are present to watch a movie, and so the previews that run before films can be a great way to reach out, inform and draw in. Movie advertising specialists can also take advantage of movie rentals and provide valuable previews to advertise future videos or movies on DVD movies.



Digital movie advertising is one of the most exciting new venues for promoting films. It can be a great way of capturing the interest of viewers and priming them for future movies. Multi-media websites are being built for new movies, which provide clips and cast information, as well as games and other interactive features. Another popular way to use the Internet is purchasing pop-up ads that appear when relevant sites are visited. Film advertising methods can also include placing a small clip of the movie in an advertisement so that it begins playing as soon as a site loads.



In terms of my film, I doubt that a short like mine would have sufficient funding to achieve some of these methods of advertising, although websites such as Lovefilm will use a film each month on their website design, which could be a good means of advertising for my short. The design on my poster would be suited directly for online advertising on websites, or a cut down version of my film for a trailer.

'To what extent does a film's budget affect it's outcome?'

To what extent does a film's budget affect it's outcome?

This is a study that I have recently written around the question 'To what extent does a film's budget affect it's outcome?'. When writing this, I researched into real examples, such as 'The Blair Witch Project' and 'Tyrannosaur' in terms of funding, equipment and possible cinema popularity, gross profit or loss.

Genre and conventions essay

This is a recent essay I wrote concerning the genre and conventions that have shaped the pre-production of my short film:

To gain experience in the common conventions of short films, I have analysed various products such as films that have premiered at festivals and recent University graduate projects. Through viewing these films online, I discovered that all of them contain common themes such as the length of time, stretching from three minutes to thirty minutes being classed as ‘short’. All of the films that I watched had a strong sense of narrative and character theory containing linearity, a cause and effect, enigmas and finally a resolution. A great example of this is the short film called ‘The Siren’ created be Alex Nevil, based around an old man seeing visions of a beautiful young lady. “Linearity of cause and effect within an overall trajectory of enigma resolution” (Barthes) This quote explains that the film has a certain linearity to it, such as a beginning, middle and end. The beginning being this elderly man wandering around on his own, the middle being when he sees this beautiful young lady and the end when he finally goes out to sea and meets her.

In two short films that I analysed, ‘Get off my land’ and ‘The Siren’ the filming takes place in the countryside, which is something that I also will do for my film as it has a scene that takes place by a river. I think that although this setting seems like a common convention, it all depends on the plot and location hunting that can be very varied depending on the genre. In some senses I broke the conventions of location as most other films are set in cities or built up areas, these are places that you are more likely to pair up with drama and social realism. The use of colloquial language and swearing is very prominent in ‘Get off my land’, which creates a real gritty mood to the film as well as giving the film a more adult and realistic feel to it. This isn’t something that I intend to use in my film because I really want it to be able to be viewed my people of all ages, which in turn doesn’t follow conventions of dramas and social realist films which tend to have age certificates of 15 to 18.

In ‘The Grammar of Narrative’, Tzvetan Todorov developed a theory of narrative structure, which I studied and followed when I began turning my script into a screenplay. In some senses my plot follows Todorov’s theory, as there is state is Equilibrium, before the character’s dies, Disruption, when the characters dies, Disequilibrium, when he is dead reviewing his memories, the resolution, when he realizes he isn’t scared of death, and the new equilibrium, where he is finally back in peace. Whilst analysing current existing products, in terms of structure, the title of each film seems to fade in after the final shot has actually been shown. Personally, I think I will do this to cause dramatic effect, as the title would make more impact if it were shown after the film has ended at a very poignant moment.

Vladimir Propp, in his 1928 book The Morphology Of The Folktale, concluded that regardless of the individual differences in terms of plot, characters and settings, such narratives would share common structural features. Propp’s key characters are:

1)    The Villian

2)    The Donor (who helps the hero with an object)

3)    The Helper (someone who helps the hero)

4)    The Princess (the prize for the hero)

5)    Her Father (someone who rewards the hero)

6)    The Dispatcher (someone who sets the hero a task)

7)    The hero (the protagonist)

8)    The false hero (a deceptive character)

Most current existing short films that I analysed follow Propp’s character theory, but I feel that I broke this convention when I began writing the script to my film. This is because most products that I analysed were over five minutes long, where they could fit in the necessary amount of characters to keep the conventions of Propp’s key characters, but my film is only five minutes long with three characters. The Elder, who dies, the Child, who guides the Elder through his past and the Elder’s brother, who shows the Elder that death isn’t anything to fear. This could relate to Propp’s theory, as the Elder is the Hero, the child is the helper and the brother either the donor of the dispatcher, who sets the hero a task to live his life to the full, and not wait for death to take him.

The film is heavily based around the theme of death, so consequently I have storyboarded interesting camera angles and shot types to create this atmosphere, such as long shots from eyelevel far away from my main actor, to create isolation, loneliness and looking in on someone else’s solitude. This relates to certain aspects of cinematography from ‘The Siren’ which the viewer can tell has been carefully crafted to really connote the aspects of bleakness and loneliness that old age might bring. A shot that I planned into my film was when the elderly man is passing away at the beginning of the story. The shot was a high angle shot, looking down at the elder in his bed, connoting the insignificance and weakness of the elderly man, which consequently contrasts with the rest of the film where the man isn’t weak or insignificant at all. This, along with all of the other planned cinematography for the hospital scene was influenced by ‘Hunger’ by Steve McQueen, which features a section at the end of a man in the bed who is starving to death. The final shot on the character is looking down on him from above, which I think works perfectly because it creates a great contrast between the strong character before he started starving and the frail, insignificant man in the bed who is slowly dying.   

As Bentley said in 1997 “Creativity is the making of the new and rearranging of the old” to create a market successful product you need to analyse, break down, understand and follow conventions from existing media products. Personally, through looking in depth at films such as ‘Get off my land’ by Douglas Ray, ‘The Siren’ by Alex Nevil and ‘Hunger’ by Steve McQueen I believe I have gained inspiration for my film in terms of cinematography, narrative and location. Through these conventions, I hope that my film will be a professional and commercially viable media product.

Script and storyboard analysis

Through the amendments to my script, I felt that I had to build up a sense of representation through camera angles, narrative structure and character development, whilst also following common conventions of existing media products to help create a market successful film with my target audience.

To gain experience in the common conventions of short films, I analysed various products such as films that have premiered at festivals and recent University graduate projects. Through viewing these films online, I discovered that all of them contain common themes such as the length of time, stretching from three minutes to thirty minutes being classed as ‘short’. All of the films that I watched had a strong sense of narrative and character theory containing linearity. “Linearity of cause and effect within an overall trajectory of enigma resolution” (Barthes). A great example of this is the short film called ‘The Siren’ created be Alex Nevil, based around an old man seeing visions of a beautiful young lady. The way that the film is structured, with a very definitive beginning, middle and end, helps to tell a story and leaves nothing unresolved, in some senses, helping to create more enjoyable, easier viewing. To some degree, this is something I would like to create in my film as it would help make it flow in an interesting and professional manner, however some issues in my film I would like to leave unresolved to create tension keep the audience thinking after they leave the cinema.

In two short films that I analysed, ‘Get off my land’ and ‘The Siren’ the filming takes place in the countryside, which is something that I also included for my script and storyboard as it has a scene that takes place by a river. I think that although this setting seems like a common convention, it all depends on the plot and location hunting that can be very varied depending on the genre. In some senses I broke the conventions of location as most other films are set in cities or built up areas, these are places that you are more likely to pair up with drama and social realism.

In ‘The Grammar of Narrative’, Tzvetan Todorov developed a theory of narrative structure, which I studied and followed when I began turning my script into a screenplay. In some senses my plot follows Todorov’s theory, as there is state is Equilibrium, before the character’s dies, Disruption, when the characters dies, Disequilibrium, when he is dead reviewing his memories, the resolution, when he realizes he isn’t scared of death, and the new equilibrium, where he is finally back in peace. Using this narrative structure helps to create further interest in the film, especially when I leave certain issues unresolved, then the audience would be more likely to research more into the plot or wait for a sequel/another film from the same director.

The use of representation within dialogue is also very poignant. In one particular scene, a child goes to meet his brother in hospital who has been in an accident. The teenager is very sarcastic to his brother, and when asked about how he is, he says “Being stuck in a hospital bed with wires poking out of me? Oh yeah it’s fantastic, dream come true mate.” This relates to Stanley Hall’s theory of storm and stress: “Adolescence is inherently a time of storm & stress when ‘all’ young people go through some degree of emotional and behavioural upheaval, before establishing a more stable equilibrium at adulthood.” Stanley Hall (1904). The fact that the brother is being rude and sarcastic is a stereotypical representation of youth and so is the fact that he has been in an accident, as this piece of narrative lets us think that he is a reckless youth that has been messing about.

To sum up, through conventions and gaining influence from existing products I feel that I have started to create a product that represents the needs of my particular target audience through films that have similar audiences and the use of structure, camera angles and dialogue. Whilst also creating an interesting and powerful film, these things will also help to create a market successful and commercially viable short film.