Short film Review 3

How to Spot a Pyramid Scheme

This short film was basically drawn throughout, making it clear of what a Pyramid Scheme is and how to avoid it. In the short film it had diagrams and such to show the structure of the scheme. The language that was used was also clear and slightly technical, targeting the message to views who are entering the work industry and those who are already in it.

Man

Man is about a film is also simply drawn, and shows what the effect of man is on the world. There is no voice over in this short film as all we were doing was following the man through his journey across his world, seeing how he treats natural habitats and animals. Due to the simplicity of this film, I would say that the target audience are children from twelve and onwards. This is making people more aware of their actions to the environment, showing them the slightly explicit impact of each of the actions. The main character is presented as a stereotypical western man as the majority of the worlds richest people are mainly men and in the western side of the world e.g. USA, England, etc. How the character is drawn is simple and also shows him 'big bellied', to some this made represent greediness.

Comparisons:

When comparing these two films with one and other, a similarity they had was that they were drawn in a basic way, projecting their messages to their targeted audiences. Due to the simplicity of the images drawn, it meant that the audiences could focus more on the message the short film is trying to project.

The difference between the two short films is that the first one had a voice over, whilst the second short film didn't, both were equally effective for the message they were each trying to present to their audiences. In the first one 'How to Spot a Pyramid Scheme', it deeply went through how you could identify a pyramid scheme, how it effects each of the individuals within the pyramid scheme. Whereas in the second film 'Man', it didn't have a voice over, instead we watched how each of 'The Man's' actions effected the environment. 

Narritive

What Makes up a Narrative? (Structure)

Linear:

A linear story is when the storyline itself is presented in chronological order in the film, showing the cause of effect of each decision the characters make in each sequence. Linear films are quite popularly used in the industry as it is easier for the audience to understand, making them more bankable. Linear films are found mostly in films for children, and are also found in many adult fils too. An example of a linear film is The Hunger Games, this is because, at the beginning, you see how the main character, Katniss change and develop throughout the film, without physically creating flash-backs. The audience sees how she improves her archery skills as The Games continues.

Non-Linear:

Non-Linear films are not set up in a chronological order. Here they disrupt the structure by creating flashbacks, starting the film from the middle or end, than from the beginning and allows the audience to think a little more about the storyline than they would do in linear films. An example of this is Back to the Future.

Three Acts:

Linear films are separated into three acts: Act 1, Act 2 and Act 3, these acts are what makes linear films easy to understand. Some non-linear films still follow the Act 1, 2 and 3 structure such as Groundhog Day. The reason that not all non-linear films include the three acts is due to the way they are set up.

Act 1

In Act 1, it introduces the characters, scenery and tone of the story, in this act, the audience will then start to feel like they really know the characters introduced. Next, in between Act 1 and 2, there is a tipping point which disrupts the 'peace'. By having this disruption in the film, it changes the tone of the film, which then starts to change the audience's view on the characters introduced at the beginning as then it sets the tone for Act 2. 

Act 2

Act 2 is the transformation stage for the character, making this part of the film the right of passage for the character. Between Act 2 and 3, there is another tipping point, this is when the action from Act 2 starts to settle, for example, in Lord of the Rings: The TwoTowers, after Frodo finally destroys the ring and the battle is won. 

Act 3

Act 3 is when the characters return home. This wraps up the journey the character has had during in the film, returning the film's calm setting we as the audience, witness at the beginning.

Identifying Three Acts in Selected Short Films:

Ideas Are Illegal (By Edward Bulmer, UK)

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This story is about a world where ideas are illegal, where workers in a factory are made to wear giant light bulbs on their heads, the light bulb representing ideas and to effectively not use the light bulbs on their heads as it is illegal to have ideas.

Act 1

This is where we are introduced to the factory, scanning the factory workers of how bland, simple and identical everyone is to one and other. 

Act 2

Act 1 is then disrupted, by one of the workers starting to develop ideas in their mind, represented as bright colours, standing out from the dull black and white surroundings. The worker's light bulb then turns on, leading everyone to draw their attention to the sudden bright light. The worker is then chased by a giant hand and you can also see how the ideas start to get bigger and get more colourful. As the Worker hides in the dark, and starts to unwind the light bulb on their head, the ideas are then rapidly popping up, and is then suddenly stopped when the worker drops the bulb on the floor, leading it to smash. 

Act 3

After the light bulb smashes, everything returns to normal and everyone remains emotionless and identical to one and other. 

Meow (By Breech Asher Harani, Philippines)

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Act 1

This is where we are introduced to the character, walking to her door in the dark. When she hears the sound of the cat meowing in the background, that is when we see how the atmosphere change as the character turns on her phone's torch to go investigate.

Act 2

When investigating, the character walks down a dark alleyway, which is where her phone runs out of battery, leaving her in the dark. there are a lot of close-ups and the girl hears a loud sudden screech and so runs into her house. Even though she has ran into her house, we know that the action has not stopped there are still close-ups of the character as she backs away from the door. We then see a figure appear behind her, which then startles the character.

Act 3

The short film is left on a cliff-hanger as we all start to wonder what or even who that was meowing. Even though it may be an instinctive thought to think that the girl gets killed at the end, this may not of actually happened.

The Fish and I (By Babak Habibifar, Iran)

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Act 1

At the beginning we are introduced to a goldfish near broken glass on the floor, we are then shown hands searching the floor for the fish, and then we are then introduced to a man, whom we soon find out is blind as instead of frantically looking everywhere for in fish, instead the man is feeling surfaces and gutters.

Act 2

When the man finds the gutter, panic starts to arise and he starts to take his shirt off and stuff it in the gutter, then he starts chucking water on the floor so that his fish is able to swim and not die. After searching his flooded floors, he then excepts the fact that his friend is gone forever.

Act 3

But when the man excepts that his friend is gone, not soon after the goldfish swims to his hands and swims under to let his friend know that he/she is alive and safe.

Women in the Media Industry (Sexuality) - Secondary Research

In 2015, 17% of the top grossing films had a female lead. Women generally, in modern day films, play a particularly strong presence in the comedy, romantic comedies and action genres. Amy Schumer, Melissa McCarthy, Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, and Anna Kendrick are prime example actress' who have starred in hit movies, demonstrating that funny women are bankable in Hollywood.

Amy Schumer has reacted to these statistics and so created her own production company, called the Pacific Standard Films, with the mission to tell stories about women.(https://www.glamour.com/story/reese-witherspoon-women-of-the-year-speech)

For this analysis, we compare films with male leads, female leads, and male-female co-leads. The co-lead category includes ensemble casts where both men and women are featured roughly equally. Films with multiple male leads or multiple female leads were folded into the male lead and female lead categories, respectively. The GD-IQ shows that male characters dominated both the screen time and speaking time in the top grossing films of 2015.

In films with a female lead, male characters appear about the same amount of time as female characters (24.0% compared to 22.6%). This means that even when women are featured in a leading role, male characters appear on screen just as often.

(https://seejane.org/research-informs-empowers/data/)

In 22% of our films, actresses had the most amount of dialogue (i.e., they were the lead). Women are more likely to be in the second place for most amount of dialogue, which occurs in 34% of films.

The most abysmal stat is when women occupy at least 2 of the top 3 roles in a film, which occurs in 18% of our films. That same scenario for men occurs in about 82% of films.

The amount of dialogue, by age-range, is completely opposite for women versus men. Dialogue available to women who are over 40 years old decrease substantially. For men, it’s the exact opposite: there are more roles available to older actors.

(https://pudding.cool/2017/03/film-dialogue/index.html)

http://womenintvfilm.sdsu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/2016-17_Boxed_In_Report.pdf

Why We Go On Reconnaissance?

Finding a location for a film based on the script is rarely a simple task and for that reason is usually the first job to do when you have the storyline of the film completed. After finding the perfect location to shoot the scene, you must then go to the landlord to get permission to do so. This could lead to many complications, for example, to film at The Royal Crescent, the location manager must get the permission of everyone living there or to whoever owns a part of the building, there is also permission from the city council as well as then they are able to inform tourists and residences of the production so that they know when the building is open or closed for viewing or to go back to. Failure to get permission from these specific people mean that the location cannot be used to shoot the scene.

When locations which fit storylines, the shooting will then commence, this is a true challenge as when filming, directors and cameramen must ensure that they capture the scene needed in that location at the right time and weather, for example, if the scene required a bright sunny day with a slight bit of wind, if it were to rain, this would restrict the directors to shoot that scene, later on delaying other shots. When choosing a location abroad, it can lead to a lot of complications due to government corruption and bureaucracy abroad.

Crescent Scouting Report

Is the Crescent Suitable?

The Royal Crescent automatically creates a wide and over powering effect when filming the building due to the curve and sweeping effect of it.

I believe The Royal Crescent is suitable for a Si-Fi genre film as, for example in Star Wars Attack of the Clones, they used an old grand building called Plaza de Espana as the palace in Planet Naboo. Plaza de Espana, like The Royal Crescent, is a massive semicircular structure located in the heart of their cities, containing large amounts of history and culture.

The Royal Crescent also has a large supply of space and resources around it, such as grass area, a telephone booth, the walking path up to the building, and many more. So when actually coming up with our storyline for our Si-Fi film, the time era of when the building was built, doesn't have to necessarily restrict the story as we have the flexibility to nit pick what we want in different shots.

Animation

In today's lesson, we were introduced to the basics Animate. We were shown an example of an animation of a flower eating a butterfly, we then had the chance to experiment ourselves by drawing our own.

My animation is about photosynthesis, how a flower reacts to the sunlight and then reacts to the darkness.

At the beginning, it took me time to get a full grasp of layering each of my drawings, and also using a drawing pad for the first time. I found the process very repetitive and time-consuming as within each layer I had to redraw certain parts of the animation, but I found that when I persevered and made my animation a little more simple, I understood the basics and what I was doing more.

Short Film Review 2

Sherm the Energy Saving Worm

This film was made to create an awareness of little things we do at home that can benefit the environment such as, switching off lights when you leave a room in your house, or whilst brushing your teeth, to turn off the tap when you are actually brushing and to only turn it on for when you rinse your brush. This film is more or less targeting younger people due to the simplicity of the video such as the wording of things and the visual basis. 

How We Die

This short film was made to create awarenesses of how people could die, the video shows that no matter where you are in the world, whether you are in a poor or rich country you will somewhat die anyhow. The video then goes onto the different factors of what could cause death in the different areas of the world, for example in poorer countries they will have more diseases which has a high influence on how citizens die, and for richer countries, even though they are seen to be more sanitary, they have factors such as smoking and eating large amounts of fast food which can cause cancers and heart attacks. The main message of the video is that no matter where you are, you will soon eventually die. This video is targeted at younger people too, this is due to the silliness of it whilst also being serious, making younger people aware of their actions which could be deadly.