AICEMediaStudies

  In order to learn more about the short film creation process, I watched a YouTube video. The video outlines some of the basics.  The video was decently useful for some friendly reminders before I start making my film. He gave me some ideas to improve my storyboarding at the beginning and also how to come up with ideas. I decided to look at his past short films and they all look pretty good. I also was wondering though, how many people he expects to be working on these. With everything he is saying, it seems like this was meant for people with a budget. Because I basically have no budget, I was looking for tips on how to make a good movie without the cost. Also, the materials he shows are very high quality. I maybe wanted to know about lower quality sets as I cannot move a camera on a dolly etc. I like his points at being smart with your decisions, however. Such as that you should be careful with what actors you choose because of time frames and also their abilities. I don't ...

 Conventions within the film: This film has a constant flow of dramatic tension. There are several times where there is a build up of ambient sound as the main character’s fear level rises. After this build up, however, it returns to silence.  The use of car sounds creates a sense of dread for the audience. They directly reflected the amount of tension present in the scene. The constant click of the reverse blinker represents a rise in the tense atmosphere from the silence that was broken. There are various shots from the backup camera of the car. This is because there are some things that only the camera picks up. It gives off the feeling that the camera is more alive than just a camera, with it having its own viewpoint. When all of the car sound effects occur at once, the suspense is at its maximum. There is a car alarm and a frequent change of camera angles with constant cuts. The shot lingers on the blinking lights of the seat overlay to express the main character’s disbel...

 

 Conventions within the film: Use of silence throughout beginning scenes. No non-diegetic sounds increases the feeling of emptiness with small diegetic sounds breaking the silence occasionally. The long pauses between any sound also contribute to this feeling. Long takes with no camera movement. These are used to drag out scenes and make the scene feel mundane or even painful at times. During some of these scenes, the camera is placed in a stagnant location. These out of the way locations are reminiscent of security cameras or something similar. One shot in particular is on a shelf at a low angle, putting the audience in that position as if they were watching from that shelf. The pace is slow throughout, but towards the middle and end more things begin to happen at once than before. Sounds such as the music player constantly echoing in the scene give more of a feeling of dread that something bad will happen. After that scene there are more ambient sounds typically heard in horror m...

  Conventions within the film: Often cuts to new camera angles. The camera is positioned either inside the booth to show how small the space is, or outside portraying how vast and empty the area around the booth is. Eyeline matches of the main character looking out the window to see what they are seeing.  When he opens the window, the camera starts outside the booth. Then it slowly zooms in on the man until it is right where the window used to be. This represents the two areas, inside and outside, converging.  When he is looking up from under the desk, the camera is panning upward at a low angle, still staying true to the eyeline match. The sudden sound of the couple walking by disrupts the tense atmosphere with only non-diegetic ambient sound and heavy breathing up until that point.  The use of the window is mainly to portray safety throughout the film. The scene with the window opening is the part where the man is the least safe. He is also the most fearful for him...

  In order to research and prepare for making my short film, I compared a short called Le Jetee and an article that describes 12 Monkeys. Le Jetee is a short film and 12 Monkeys is a full length movie based off of the film. My original google search gave me a description of Le Jetee and I think I will like it a lot. Short Film: To be brutally honest, Le Jetee left a mediocre impression on me. I like the foreign feel of the film and the introduction felt like where I got the bulk of the information. It was hard to process everything after the introduction, to be honest. There was so little and so much going on at the same time if that makes sense. There were images throughout which were kind of confusing but it made a bit of sense after I looked up how old this film was. I really didn't get the plot other than the parts with like time travel and Paris. It may have been a dystopia but I couldn't really tell. This might help with my mystery genre with the style of Le Jetee. I want...

  I compared the short film "9" as well as the full-length movie "9". I am excited to watch these as I have heard good things when googling both of them. I am interested to see how the intricacies of a short film differ from a long film. I did some background research which made me even more intrigued by the short film, which I have never heard of. On the other hand, I had seen some advertisements beforehand and the trailer for the movie. Full-Length Film: The movie starts with a scientist making 9, the main character which already gives us so much more information than the short. We also have an early plot point with the Talisman and 9's meeting of other characters like 2. I think that 9's personality changes too much though. In the movie, 9 is brave and is making the first moves. We also have plot points with the brain that creates monsters which confused me a bit. In this film there is dialogue and honestly, I preferred the animation in the short film to ...

  Another genre we hope to incorporate into our film is the thriller genre. Thrillers have darkness in scenes that are emotional. Most scenes don't have a lot of brightness. They use wide shots to show the area, if there are fight scenes they use a multitude of shots like birds-eye view, medium shots, and two-person shots depending on what's happening. They use track shots during fights and zoom-ins to show the importance of certain objects. Costumes: tattered clothing, or dull-looking clothes they don't usually use anything too special. Actors: they use people who can really create emotion in people. Makeup: they use fake tears or blood to show physical pain or emotion. Props: They use breakable props in order to not hurt anyone. Setting: Usually dark and changes ending up being light near the end. [ ] Tend to have a lot of emotional plot points and try their hardest to evoke emotion by using things like children or characters you can relate to. Use songs that create ...

  Just from our pitch, one could guess what genres our film would fit under. There are obvious elements of horror and thriller. There are also broader elements of drama that one could connect to our pitch. while we plan to include each of the genres into our film, we want to focus mostly on just one. That one genre is horror. Initially, we were thinking of making it drama instead but, we wanted to focus more on horror. We felt this because the horror genre is much less broad than the drama genre. We also feel that too many movies are put under the drama genre and we would like to diverge from all of them. Our short film introduction we did last year was a drama film. But, it had elements of horror as well. The biggest difference in the writing of horror movies versus drama movies is the character development. Horror Movies tend to have less character development. [ ] Drama movies tend to have more character development. That will be the main difference between our film o...

  The horror genre is a well known and popular genre. It has stood out as a genre because of its many unique conventions and clichés. Some common camera strategies used in the horror genre are close up angles. Close up angles can be observed in many horror films both new and old. They are so widely used in the genre because they simultaneously make the audience focus in on a key point and reduce the information they are given about the rest of the scene. By making audiences focus on a single thing, it increases the tension and their investment in that thing. If it is a character, they would feel more shocked if they were to suddenly die while in the close up shot because they were so focused on them. Along the same lines, close up shots reduce the information the audience can gather about the surrounding. This increasing the tension of the scene. When the tension finally snaps, it makes the audience that much more shocked. [ 11:36 PM ] The horror genre is a controversial g...

  One of the genres we wanted to explore was drama. So, we researched and put together an overview of the genre. This overview includes the various aspects that make up drama films. These aspects include the camera angles and lighting used in these films. Some other things mentioned are the Mis-En-Scene and plot structure of drama films. After going through this research process, we were able to identify defining features of the drama genre. Dramas generally have plots that are serious in nature with high-stakes conflicts. They also normally have exciting or emotional situations that play into the story and characters. There are various techniques that are used to make these serious scenes and tense moments. For example, low-key lighting is often used to enhance the moodiness of a scene, to convey darker emotions. The lighting works alongside the camera movements and sound choices to make scenes look realistic, and maintain its serious nature. [ ] Especially the diegetic sounds, ...

  Our film's pitch was "A group of friends explore a creepy forest and mysteriously die one after another." Right off the bat, the pitch sounds like that of a dramatic horror movie. That's because it is. Our vision is for a scary movie with dramatic moments. But, we are not sure of the specifics yet. We think we will possibly make the movie of the horror, thriller, or drama. We lean towards the horror genre because we plan to shoot our movie in a spooky place. Namely, the dark forest. We were also thinking of possible shooting it in an abandoned building. But, that is only possible if there is an abandoned building available. Also, we plan to have killing in our movie. We are not sure what the killing will look like, however. Killing is a popular staple of the horror genre. However, we do not want to confuse our idea with a film that includes killing but is not horror. [ 11:36 PM ] Another genre we wanted to research is drama. Drama is a wide-ranging gen...

  A group of friends explore a creepy forest and mysteriously die one after another . This is our group's pitch for our film. This pitch may sound similar to the pitch of Nicholas and I's Media Studies AS level film introduction. That is because it is. We really enjoyed the idea we had for our last project and want to expand on it. Kyle, our third group member was also involved in our film introduction from AS Level. He was an actor in the film. In fact, he was the actor with the most screen time. The short film will have the genres of mystery and horror. We plan for the tone to be serious. Hopefully, even scary. There are many ways we have thought of makin g -he idea from our AS Level project more in depth. We do not plan to use footage from the last project. Instead, we will simply use the idea as inspiration and make something new from it. Perhaps we will make one of the students in the group the culprit. Or, even the camera man. Our group has toyed with th...