In
what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Short films have to have a clear equilibrium, disruption and resolution in a space of time shorter than that of a full length film. To get around this, they have to change how genre conventions are used. This is what we tried to do with our short film. We wanted to take the conventions of a thriller genre and change the way they are used to make an exciting and thrilling film that only lasts 5 minutes. We looked at a few other short films to see what they did to make these short films interesting.
THE MAIN PRODUCT
Narrative
In researched short films
Narratives in short films are not at all complex; they don't have time to be complex. All the short films we saw had a very clear beginning, middle and end. They also lacked sub-plots, there is only one story going on in the film.
Todorov's 5 narrative stage are easily applied to the short films I saw. For example, the short film Silent Things had a clear:
- Equilibrium: The start of the film when the world the characters live in is 'normal'. The two friends in Silent Things are flying a kite on the beach in the equilibrium
- Disruption: An event that takes place that causes the world to lose equilibrium, and the characters, or protagonist, have to resolve the problem. The little girl that the man meets on the beach causes the disruption in Silent Things, as she gets in the way of the man and woman's friendship.
- Confrontation: How the protagonist attempts to make things right. This takes up the majority of a feature film, but it's harder to see a confrontation in some short films. In Silent Things, I believe it's when the woman goes to the dock and tries to get to her friend who is having a panic attack.
- Resolution: When the disruption is dealt with, like when an antagonist is defeated. We don't see the resolution in Silent Things, but I believe it would've been when the girl leaves without the man, and when the friends patch things up between them.
- New Equilibrium: The very end of the film, when the world the characters live in returns to a normal (or slightly different) equilibrium. The scene at the end of Silent Things is very similar to the scene in the opening; the two friends are flying a kite on the beach
I also noticed that the short films I saw had little or no dialogue, allowing for the visuals to tell the story. Black Hole is an example of a short film that used no dialogue, but the camerawork and mise en scene made it clear that the story was about a man in a boring office that finds a mysterious piece of paper.
A few short films used restricted narration. Lovefield used restricted narration; throughout the story we believe we are following a murderer trying to dispose of a body. However, at the resolution, we find out that the man was helping a woman give birth.
In our short film
Our short film, Exhibit J, is about Detective Neeson trying to find the serial killer J. The way we told our story meant that Todorov's theory can't be applied to it. With Todorov's Theory, the story looks like this:
- Equilibrium: Exhibit J doesn't have an equilibrium. We felt that putting the viewer straight into the disruption would ensure the viewer is interested from the start, and we didn't have time to build up to the serial killer's first murder.
- Disruption: The start of our short film, we see flashes of J near different locations (where the murders happened), in front of an evidence board, which shows the victims.
- Confrontation: The confrontation is our whole short film; the detective visits two locations trying to find and capture J. In the first location, J escapes, but kills the detectives sidekick in the process. In the second location, Neeson finds J and a chase ensues.
- Resolution: The resolution doesn't resolve anything, because J isn't brought down. Instead, the detective is stabbed and killed by J.
- New Equilibrium: Exhibit J doesn't have a new equilibrium either. Instead the world of Exhibit J is even worse than before, now the detective responsible for finding the serial killer has been killed.
There is a lot of restricted narration, as you would expect with a thriller piece. We don't find out about the serial killer's identity, nor do we find out what happens after Neeson is killed; the story ends when he dies.
One issue we did have with the narrative was the amount of dialogue used. Looking back, it might have been possible to use less dialogue than what we actually used. The opening minute of the short film has too much dialogue for my liking. Fortunately the rest of the short film has very little dialogue, as we let the visuals explain themselves.
Genre
In researched short films
Short films can sometimes be difficult to pin a regular genre on (comedy, romance etc). They don't tend to use conventions of a genre normally.
The Last 3 Minutes is an example of a short film that doesn't conform to a single genre. It's not a thriller, because it lacks suspense and mystery, nor is it a comedy as a story about a man dying isn't very funny. However it does have some romance in it (his love life), but also some action (his time in the war), but not enough to pin the film to either genre.
The genre theory of repetition and variation comes to mind. Short films include different conventions from different genres, and these conventions combine together to make new conventions, like chemistry.
One convention to come out of this for short films was the use of little or no dialogue. Lovefield, The Fly, The Last 3 Minutes and Black Hole are some of many short films to use less than 10 words in the whole short film.
In our short film
Unlike most short films, our short film genre is quite clearly a thriller. We use lots of thriller conventions, like suspense and mystery. Mystery is used in our piece through J, who we never know the identity of in the film, nor do we know why he murders.
We build suspense in the final scene with the foley we hear of a woman screaming, Neeson finds the warehouse and the body inside it. This builds tension as the body indicates that J is close and that they may be about to meet and fight.
Characters
In researched short films
The characters in short films are mostly very simple characters. There isn't any time for character development or backstory in a short film, so they save time by making most of the characters in short films quite relatable.
For example, the lead from Black Hole starts the film off as a man working in an office. We can see from his facial expression and body language that he is tired of his job, which is something lots of people can relate to.
Also, the main character in the short film iThoughts is a young, shy boy who is struggling to find the courage to talk to a girl, and the thoughts in his head show self-deprecating comments. This is relatable to some youngsters who have a crush on someone, and hate themselves for not being able to talk to him/her.
In our short film
We tried to make our main character Detective Neeson relatable to people who are dedicated to their work. All we see Neeson do in this film is work, we don't know about his family or any of his past times. Like the short films we saw, we don't give him backstory as we didn't have time for it.
J, the antagonist, is not relatable at all. But we tried to make him more interesting by adding enigma to his character. He wears all black and a mask, which hides his identity and adds a sense of mystery to him.
Mise en Scene
In researched short films
Because short films tend to use less dialogue than normal films, they rely more on the mise en scene to tell the story. Some pieces of mise en scene have lots of meaning, and in some short films, a single prop can be a very vital part of the story.
In The Last 3 Minutes, the old man's life flashes before his eyes as he looks through a crystal. You can tell the crystal means a lot to the man because he grasps it when he starts having a heart attack, and we see that he's had it since birth, when he was given the crystal as a baby.
The kite in Silent Things is a symbol or peace or normality, because the man flies the kite before meeting the girl (the disruption) and after she leaves, but not while they're 'friends'. Also, there's the hole in Black Hole, which I believe symbolized responsibility, because the man used the hole irresponsibly, and he paid the price.
In our short film
There is one piece of mise en scene we used with importance was J's murder weapons. We use a murder weapon twice, both where the murders took place. We did this to show the audience how brutal the murders were (hammers and screwdrivers aren't exactly sharp), and how elusive J is, because a good murderer would hide the weapon, but J leaves his weapon at the scene with no evidence of his identity (like he's vanished)
We also put meaning into the clothes the main characters wear. Neeson is wearing a suit, which shows us how committed he is to his work compared to his colleagues, who are all (except Jess) wearing casual or scruffy outfits, which shows us how little they care for their work.
J wears all black and a mask, which creates enigma for the character. The mask we use is also used in V for Vendetta and originally represented Guy Fawkes. This makes the character more intimidating, as Guy Fawkes was evil and the V for Vendetta guy was very brutal and extreme.
Sound
In researched short films
Short films I have seen don't use a lot of important sound techniques to help tell the story. Most short films I have seen use only diegetic ambient sound and a non-diegetic soundtrack, with a little bit of dialogue.
For example, The Fly only has some dialogue at the start, and the rest of the film is a man in a car trying to kill a fly. There is no non-diegetic soundtrack, there is only ambient sound and some foleys of a fly buzzing around, which is the disruption.
Black hole is a short film that's sound is only taken up by ambient office sounds and the vibration foleys from the hole when the worker uses it. Post It Love's sound editing also only consists of only ambient sound, a non-diegetic soundtrack and some foleys that fill in gaps
In our short film
Throughout Exhbit J, there is always a non-diegetic soundtrack to cover the silence. We don't have a lot of ambient sound, although there is some in places in between bits of dialogue.
One of the most important foleys we used are the scream foleys we used. They indicate that something bad has happened (J strikes again). We also used foleys for some of J's footsteps, like when he murders Officer Jess and also the message alert when J messages a clue to Neeson.
Editing
In researched short films
Some short films use more interesting editing techniques. Some short films, like Lovefield and Post It Love, only use titles and cuts between shots, which is the basic way of threading the plot together.
Black Hole uses some high-level editing when the worker uses the hole. His hand seems to vanish when he puts it inside the hole. They use some very refined split-screening technique to do this.
iThoughts used an interesting editing technique in the short film. There were lots of titles, but the titles move around and distort a lot, which shows us the main character is trying to compose thoughts, but struggles because of the girl.
In our short film
We don't use many interesting editing techniques in Exhibit J, we main use cuts and titles to tell the story. The most interesting editing technique we use is the flashing of the murderer used at the beginning and end of the piece, which involved quick cuts between J and the evidence board.
THE POSTER
Posters I have researched
For our poster we had to research 2 types of poster: Thriller posters and short film posters.
Most thriller posters I saw followed the same kind of formula. They each had a black background and two pictures that hint at what the plot could be, the title in between those images, in white or red and in a no-nonsense font or a font that looks like it's been written in blood. Also in between the pictures, but just above the title, was the name of the actor that played the lead
At the bottom of the of poster is where you'd find the credit block and any other information (in white). The release date is included in the information in a different colour (normally red), so it stands out and makes the date seem dangerous. Above the information is a tagline that also gives the audience an idea of the plot and also hooks the viewer. Shutter Island is an example of a film poster that follows this formula.
Short film posters are more simple than thriller posters, as there is less budget and less to attract the audience to. Short film posters use one image that takes up the whole poster instead of two, and the title is usually in the middle, but can be placed at the top as well. They also don't give us the name of the actor who played the lead.
The credit block is still at the bottom, except there is usually less information. There is no release date as most of these short films are released online, and there is rarely a tagline used.
Our poster
We decided to try and merge these two genres of poster into one. With have two short film posters, and they both follow similar conventions.
They both have a single image, one of the posters has an image of J taking up the middle of the poster in front of a black background, and the other image takes up the whole poster. Both posters have the title near the lower middle of the poster, and both have the credit block at the bottom of the poster.
I feel this combination of poster genres worked out well, as the end result seemed to create a poster that both informs and attracts potential viewers to the short film, and we ended up with a final result which created the tone we wanted to create for our poster.
