Post 3a: Target Progress.

In June, I had set myself five S.M.A.R.T targets including keeping on track with my blogger and it's organisation skills and improve my independent study areas. It has now been four months later, and I shall review how I have done since I set these for myself.

Target 1) organisational skills
I feel that in the last four months, I have improved my organisational skills, as I have kept on top of most my work so far, and have kept this standard quite high compared to last year. I also mentioned deadlines in my targets, and I feel that all the work I have been set has been achieved mostly within the deadlines set, however most of our work has been in the form of independent study. I will try my best to keep this up throughout the year until the end, as this will help improve my work for the end of the year.

Target 2) improve technical language
As I found last year, my technical language was somewhat lacking, and this was mainly because I rushed all of my work, and tried to get it all down at the last minute. I feel that this time round, I have improved my language, as I have spent more time on my Blogger, and spent time choosing the right way to put sentences so that they are technical. This will inevitably help me in the exam, as I will show I have the right terminology and hopefully get more marks.

Target 3) Independent study
Last year in my Blogger, I did not have the will to do my own independent study, however as this year most of our work was done in the form of independent study, this has helped me to get the motivated to do my work. This has helped me as I know I may not have done so much, if I had to do this all by myself. I know I will carry on my personal study. This too will help towards the exam, as the better I do in this area, the more chance I have of getting a higher mark.

Target 4) Edit suite
I previously stated that I wanted to improve my skills when using the edit suites, however I cannot comment on this yet, as we haven't started working on the edit suites yet.

Target 5) Blogger. I feel that I have improved in my Blogger this year a lot more than last year, as I have pushed myself to do the work more than previously. I have also along side this improved in my layout of the blog with images and colours, and I will carry this on in the future. I also said that I would be able to help others with their Blogger's if they were in need of help, and this has happened this year, and I was relieved that I was able to help them. Again, this will help towards my final mark, so doing the best I can and as much as I can in this area will help with my final overall grade.

I think to help me achieve these targets to the best of my ability, I need to spend a lot more time on them, and completeing them as soon as possible, as this way I will be on top of what I have to do.

Post 8: Decisions & Revisions.

Initial Thoughts

When I first started thinking about creating a script, I knew that I wanted to do a thriller short film, as this is my favourite genre, and am familiar with the conventions of a thriller. While thinking about the setting, I decided to keep it around school, as this was the easiest and most accessible place to film. This then helped narrow down my main character, and the basic story line. My preliminary thoughts, included having the main character as a girl student at A level.

As I had chosen the genre thriller, I knew I had to play on the stereotypical story lines of a thriller. I came to the conclusion of using a 'dare' theme, which can be manipulated really easily into a thriller. However, after much deliberation, I changed my mind to this, as I couldn't make my mind up as to how to intertwine this together. My thoughts included:

*A few friends playing dares at the back of a classroom, and being dared to do various things, and stemming from this the dares could include

          - going into an abandoned room in the school

          - going into an abandon shed just outside of school

          - deliberately annoying the teacher to get them sent up to t he head office

*Friends playing dares at break time 

*The main character daring herself to do something she wouldn't

I also came up with the idea that a teacher would ask the main character to get some more books or another element, and after refusing a few times, she is forced to, but on her journey she has vivid flash backs to a previous event that no one knows about, as this could play on the thriller theme well.

However after trying to narrow an idea down, I re evaluated the genre of thriller to try and get ideas. That was when I came up with the idea about a girl walking home. My thoughts on this included:

*Walking home when it was dark maybe

*Being tormented on the way home by someone of something

          - name calling

          - laughing

          - things thrown at her

*Taking a trek home through the woods; this was because there was a woodland area near our school, which could be easily accessible, and fits into the theme of a thriller.

However, when I pitched this idea to my classmates and teachers, it became clear to me that this was a little bit too stereotypical. Some of the comments that I received included things like it felt too studenty, and there wasn't much of a story line. So, re-evaluating my ideas I came up with a similar idea, but changed the setting a a little bit about the character. I came up with:

*The girl being a bully

*She is the one being bullied on the way home, as this isn't expected

*The same similar tormented techniques as mentioned earlier

*Walking to school while this was happening

*Changing the setting to something more realistic surrounding such as a street, as this will not create too much predictability

After these changes I have made to my story, I feel much more confident that I can make this short film much better.

Basic plot line:
Lucienanne is known for being a bully at her school. But she has a hard home life. Regular arguments with her father occure before Lucieanne makes her way to school in upset and anger as usual. However, something or someone torments her frequently on that journey. Names being called, laughing and other such things freak her out. She has no idea who these people are or what they are, but she knows theres someone there as this has happened for some time now. It isn't for a while until you find out that it was the victims she regularly picks on at her school have done this in order to get their own back.

Research
I did lots of research in order to find out information that could either help or rule out some ideas about my character. These are some of the websites that I found informative, and that would help in my short film.

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:83i-WWPTYSoJ:www.athealth.com/consumer/disorders/aggressivegirls.html+girls+aggressive+bullying&cd=6&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk
From this website, it was talking about the idea of girls being just as, if not more aggressive than boys. "The patterns of aggression in girls are different than in boys." So, I will have to make sure that I do not use all the typical ways of bullying that I am used to, as they are clearly different from what I am used to.

I found this really interesting website in which peers would give advise on how to get back at people who have bullied them, which I found really shocking.
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080522201744AAP98Vq
There was some disturbing answers such as, "From the first bad look the person gives you or if he does anything that annoys you, fight back and show him that you are not someone to F*ck with" and "grab a baseball bat and take out his kneecap." These online sugesstions can make the idea of my story line more likely and realistic.

This website gave me family and genetic reasons that could affect the bahaviour of a person, if they were an only child; http://www.personalityresearch.org/papers/eischens2.html 
"Because only children lack siblings, they lose the immediate availability of others near their own age with whom to interact socially." This therefore could be another factor that can realistically affect a students behaviour towards others.

http://www.teachersandfamilies.com/open/parent/ra3.cfm
Within this website, there was many factors that would help me to understand why a bully would bully other people. "Perpetrators might be driven by jealousy, need for attention, anger, and fear of (or need for) competition." Here, if my character was an only child, with a broken home environment, she would need a way to get attention, and this could be how she becomes a bully.

There have been psychological researches which include the social learning theory; this is where the child learns through observation and modelling, and they will copy this behaviour themselves. This was conducted by Albert Bandura and he also looked at classical and oparrent conditioning. These are where if the behaviour is rewarded, then it will be carried on, and if the behaviour is punished, then the child will learn not to do that again. This could fit in with my character, as she could have been badly behavied and not punished for it, therefore she has grown up thinking that its okay to behave like that. 

There is another biological reason for a child's behaviour, and this is because of a mutation of the MAOA gene. If both parents have this gene then it will be more likely that the child will have this gene and become more agressive.

http://uk.askmen.com/celebs/entertainment-news/winona-ryder/winona-bully-revenge.html
This website shows a newspaper artitle about a woman who was bullied herself while at school, and since then she became famous, refused to give an autagrapgh and said "you remember me? Remember in seventh grade you beat up that kid?...That was me. Go f*** yourself." This may not have been the most aggressive reaction, but this shows that bullying stays with you, and they will get their own back, even if it is minor.

Character Profile
Lucieanne, an only child, is a seventeen year old student, still attending school and is in year 12. She studies English, Psychology and graphics. She lives at home with he father, but they do not get along as he is a lazy man who hasn't got a job and has a short temper. They argue frequently and this is obvious that it has affected Lucieanne. Her mother is not in the equation, but unsure as to why. Her attitude towards life is quite laid back with a slight lack of esteem to push herself to do well. She has a reputation around her school to be misbehaved, and more often than not is in trouble.

While collecting the information for my character, there was some problems that I came across. I wanted her to have a broken home, as this can be easily shown on screen, and people can make the connection between misbehaviour and problems at home. I thought I would take the mother out of the equation, as this can emphasise the point even more, but I didn't want to make a bigger deal out of this then necessary, as I cant portray enough information in the amount of time that I had to get this message across. Also, if I leave this piece of information out, it makes the audience intrigued as they do not know.

Another element that I had trouble with, was what subjects to give her to do, as initially I had her doing BTECs and health and social care, and these subjects are too stereotypical for a misbehaved student. I also wanted to give her some intelligence, as otherwise the film would be too dark. But, I had to be careful here, as in reality, a student like this wouldn't be allowed to stay on the course or even in school if they were that badly behaved.

The final factor that I came across was the name. I didn't want to give her such a stereotypical name that people will work out straight away that she was a bully. This is why I liked the name Lucieanne, as it seems like a nice innocent name, and can throw the audience off if they see a different personality to the name, which is a common theme in my film.

Post 7: Creating My Own Script.

Our task for the start of the lesson was to take it in turns to relate what happened in our evening the day before, in one minute. I found this task a bit silly at first, but it all made sense at the end. After we had all contributed to this, we all agreed that this was quite difficult to do, as we estimated the time to speak much less than it was, and ended up running out of things to say. This showed us that when we are creating our scripts, it may not be as long as we think. But this task also showed us that we all chose different pieces of information to tell, and what to keep back. For example, none of us in the class shared how we got home from school, just that we came home from school, also, none of us claimed what we had eaten, just that we had eaten. This opened our eyes as we leave out small pieces of information which we view as insignificant, as we already know it, but others do not. We have discussed that when writing our script, we could assume that people would know what we are talking about, and we need to be careful on this subject.This is also vital in our script, as we do not want to leave any piece of information that will help our script. Overall, this task helped me to understand a few lessons in script writing that I hadn't considered before.


Signs

'Signs' was a short film that we watched as a class, and discussed what made this a good film. Some of the points that we came up with about this short included:

* The narrative of the story wasn't too complicated; it was basic, but told effectively. As there was no dialogue included in the short film too, this made it especially more important to establish the character and the story, as it was not told in the typical way. This was done by character movement, and further on in the story, words. From this, I need to take care when telling the narrative, as if I do not portray the message that i want, this will confuse the audience. Also from this short film, I can also consider how much dialogue I really need, as it can be done without.

This was one of the ways this character communicated with another employee. This is a good way to tell the narrative, as there wasn't any dialogue, yet it was still giving information to the viewer.

* The character in the short film was easily recognisable by his characteristics, and we could all relate to this character. Even in the first forty seconds, we could establish that this character was lonely, lost, needy and scared. This was through the camera angles, and also a hand held camera, as these helped portray our view of this character, from the outside. This is important to think about, as we need to base our characters on stereotypes, as this helps the audience to understand the character easily and quickly in our short film.

From this high angle, you can clearly see he is on his own, and by his facial expressions of looking down, this signifies how he is feeling. The high angle also gives him a lower status than the viewer and others in the shot. Also, this is emphasised by everyone else around him showing contentment, and this makes his loneliness look larger than normal.

Here, this lower angle shot shows how small his character is, compared to everything around him, the big city, large bench, and this shows that he is alone in a large city. Here the scenery overpowers his character, which draws the attention not onto him, but the setting. This is a good example of how I can create a similar feel to the setting to create emotion.

* Reflecting on this short film, we could easily work out the character's want, need and obligation; his want was a job, his need was to be loved, and his obligation was to live up to his expectations from his parents. This however was only the class average of what we thought they could have been, and there was probably more ideas around each of those areas. I therefore need to establish what my character's want, need and obligation is before I start, as this will help me build up the character and also this will help me to put the messages across easier.

While watching this short film, we kept stopping at key parts in the narrative, and discussed what we thought would happen next.

This was one of the points where we stopped and had a discussion about what we thought would happen next. We shared many ideas, such as the main character becoming depressed or he would go ballistic. This little activity showed us that we need our short films to have twists that people wont see coming, as this will keep them interested in our short film. 

We also discussed what sources would help for a dramatic or documentary project. We came up with many examples such as:

*Watching that genre of film or short film

*Personal imagination, experiences or fantasies 

*Books or adaptations of them

*News stories

*Dreams or nightmares

*Television programmes

*Family or friends

*Urban legends, myths or stories

*Social networking sights

*The environment around us or places

*Social class

*Social issues

*Real life events

*Religion

*Magazine articles

*Memories

*Historical events

*A specific character

*An image

Although these are elements for documentaries or dramatic films, they can also help in other genres, as they can all be used as inspiration for each of them.

There are eight key points we need to think about before writing our scripts, and these will help us to perfect our scripts. These will also help us to narrow down our narrative and to make sure we understand our story in every detail.

The first thing you need to establish is the main charatcer. There should only be one main character, as there isn't enough time to have more than one main character. This could involve things like their age, what their personality is like, how they talk and what they look like.

The character's world is also important, as this can have an effect on their personality, and this can also be used in the narrative. This could involve how they perceive the world, or what is a big part in their life.

Within your narrative, the character has to face a problem, as this is what makes the story interesting. This can be either external like a person physically stopping them from carrying on, or an internal problem, like the character being too shy to talk to someone they like. This part is the main part of the narrative, as it's what makes the story interesting.

The character's want is what they drive to do and what they really want from life. This can be for example, to be loved or to have attention. This becomes obvious in the story.

The character's need is basically what they need to do. For example, an adult would need to go to work, and a teenager would need to go to school or a parent would need to look after their child; just like their role.

Obligation means to carry out one's duty or custom in certain aspects in life. This can also have an impact on the story, as this can get in the way of the character needing to do something etc.

Within the story, there has to be a turning point which is the building up towards the main plot. This is important as it starts wetting the appetite of the audience and keeps them interested and wanting to carry on watching the film.

This is the part in the story where the character overcomes a problem or the first turning point. This would usually come at the end of the story and creates a new equilibrium for the character, and the audience will feel relief for the character.

All these points will help to ensure that our story makes sense and has all the elements needed to create a successful short film.

Independent Study Areas.

Cinematography
The dictionary defines cinematography as 'the making of lighting and camera choices when recording photographic images for the cinema.' I need to think about this as this can change the atmosphere of my film in the future. 
Some of the techniques to create this effect include filters, and these are used to dramatically tint the film, and this creates atmosphere. These would also be altered depending on the genre of the film. For example, the film 'Wall Street' uses a gold tint in the opening sequence as this makes the atmosphere link to money, capitalism and greed, which is all around the film.

Memento
I will be exploring the narrative, the timeline and the internal monologue voice over in this film Memento. When we had a person come in the other week, she had mentioned this film, so I decided to go and watch it and see what it was like.

Memento (2000) is an American psychological thriller about a man who has a memory condition, anterograde amnesia, which disables his brain to attain new information. He has to tattoo himself to remind him who he is and what has happened in his life. This film also starts at the end of the film, where the main character kills Teddy, and through flashbacks, it shows you how those events lead to that. This film has has received praise for it's unique, nonlinear narrative structure and themes of memory, perception, grief, self-deception and revenge.

Through coloured flashbacks, the audience learn about his life and what events have happened previously. There are black and white scenes, which show the present time, talking to a mysterious caller about the murder. The complex flashbacks were easy to do in film, as they had quite a lot of time to complete this in, however this would be too difficult to do in our short film, as there wouldn't be enough time to construct the time line and the past, and wouldn't be able to make sense in five - six minutes. This however has opened my eyes as to ways in which to tell the narrative. This film wouldn't have been half as interesting if it wasn't told the way it was.


When I was watching this film, if i hadn't had known about the timeline jumps, I would have been quite confused, however, it still took some getting used to, as I hadn't seen many films like this. I liked this because it was something different, and showed a different angle on how he lived his life, as it felt as if you was going through the same journey he was when he was trying to remember pieces of information. This helps the audience gain an emotional connection for the main character, as they feel empathy for him, watching him go through that routine daily. The confusion of the narrative also helps the viewer to understand the same confusion he has to go through all the time, therefore deepening the emotional connection.

There was a constant internal monologue from the main character, and this made you feel that you was a part of him, as you can hear his thoughts. That on top of the confusion of the narrative made you as an audience feel like you knew him as not just a character, but like a human being. This also helped the audience understand what he was going through, and how he felt.


From my own reading of the booklet that Becky Knapp gave us, it gave me many ideas of what I need to think about when writting my script. some of the main points that I picked out for myself to think about include:

*Each stpry requires three basic elements - A world
                                                               - A character
                                                               - A problem
      The world has to somewhere familiar, as I need to establish this quickly in order to save time later on to develop the character and the problem. Their world can be anything as long as it is visually able to show on screan and the auidience can understand.
      A few questions I can ask about the character can include who are they, what are they like, where do they live and what factors can influence them. There should only be one main character, as the film is too short to introduce another main character, and we do not have the time for this, A film with more than one main character would be seen as a feature film and we are not looking at these at the moment.
      Some questions that I can ask myself about the problem can include what is the problem, how will the audience recognise the problem, are the stakes high enough and am I telling this from the right point of view. With regards to to problem, there are many avenues to which I can go down. There are two main bodies that the problem can come from, either internally or externally.

*Another thought that came up that was raised by Daniel Mulloy and that was about the budget. He had to use a single location as this was all his budget would allow for. In my short film, I will have to consider to settings and areas that are easily accesable and wouldnt involve money, as we do not have a budget other than what we would be willing to pay. This will ultimabtly affect the storyline, as we cannot do a school film in a house etc.

* There are three main things that are driving the character in any short film, and these include:
   - A want
   - A need
   - An obligation
The basis of the film is what makes it hard for the character to pursure their want, their need and their obligation.

*Another important aspect of the film is the tone of the film. The tone of a film i slinked to the genre. As we are only creating a short film, we have to stick to one tone throughout the film, whereas if we were creating a feature film, we could have a change in the tone.

*There are ten easy ways to test whether our ideas have all the elements needed for a short film. They include; - A title
            - A genre or a tone
            - A setting - a time and a place
            - Main character
            - A want, a need and an obligation
            - An opposition
            - A catalyst for change
            - A climax
            - A resolution
            - How the audience feels, or the theme

These are really good points that I need to think about before I produce my short film, and they will help me to finalise my ideas.

Class Notes on Audience Theory Reading

Philip J Hanes


Philip J Hanes stated that texts have many different possible meanings, which are then interpreted by the audience. Andrew Hart believes that audiences are vital in communication, as the media wouldn't exist without them, as it wouldn't have a propose. The Frankfurt school developed the Effects model. The main idea of this, is the Hypodermic syringe in which it believes that a person is vulnerable to media messages, as they believe the audience is injected with the thoughts, attitudes, opinions and beliefs of the producers through the media without any questioning.

I think that this explanation is relevant to the time period, as this was their only source of media, and they wouldn't have known any different, and would have believed anything the read or heard. when television was first introduced in the 90's, research showed that violent programmes reflected into their society. But this was later discarded, as they came to the conclusion that media wasn't the primary source of violence in society, but personal contact and religion was a more likely influence than the media. This effects model has been described as an inadequate representation between the media and public as it does not take into account their own beliefs, opinions, attitudes and ideals. I agree with this second idea, as everyone has different personalities and is entitled to their own opinions. Also, people who are in favour of the Effects model are assuming that the audience are passive in interpreting the text, and that the text is very powerful in influencing the audience. Overall however it is impossible to measure the effects of the media.

Uses and Gratification Model

Theorists do not look into how the media effects audiences, but how the audiences were using the media, and how the audience's point of view, in relation to the media. As audiences have specific needs, they actively turn to the media to consume these texts to satisfy their needs. Here, they have a choice of texts to choose from to satisfy their needs, and according to the effects model, the audiences are seen as active rather than passive.

Bulmer and Katz suggested four main needs for audiences:
-Diversion - a form of escaping from everyday life pressures and stresses
-Personal Relationships - the viewer gains a companionship with the characters, or through conversation with others about television.
-Personal Identity - where the viewer is able to compare, explore, re-affirm or question their life with the lives or situations of characters on a programme.
-Surveillance - this is where the media is looked upon for information about the events around the world.
There are some limitations with the Uses and Gratifications Model. The model implies that the message that are put across in the media, will be read the same by everyone watching, and does not consider how the messages will be read differently or any other factors affecting their interpretation. Another limitation concentrates on why audiences consume media texts rather than investigating what the meanings and interpretations are formed and in what circumstances.

Both of these models ignore the audience and their social background and how they form the interpretations of the media messages and their specific relationship with media texts.

Gaultlette

Post 6: What makes a good short film?.

For our lesson, we had a short film producer called Becky Knapp come in to talk to us about short films and their scripts. We talked about a variety of topics, such as what short films include, and what not to include, and some of the basics about how to write a script. Here are my notes from the lesson, and I will point out some of the thngs that I have learned form her talk.





 

One of the main points that I learned form this lesson was around the main character. We learned that it would be easier to only have one main character, with one idea, as it would be too complecated to have more than this in the short space of time that we have, and would confuse the audince. We also need to make sure that the character we make up will be able to fit in the plot, the stucture and the dialogue, so it would be a bad idea for me to use a british dialect dialogue for a scottish actor. 

We also need to show the character being confrounted with a problem or an obsticle. These can be internal, like being too shy to talk to someone, or external like a traffic jam. These problems too can remain hidden from the character or the audience, depending on what type of genre we choose. They also need to have a world that they live in, and this needs to be familiar to the audience. This is benefitial to uis as script writters, as this gives us more time for the narrative, as the audience are familiar with the surroundings.

We also need to show what's at stake for the character, as this is what makes the narrarive of the film. This can include many things such as death, disease or a broken heart, and these again are recognisable for everyone, and helps with our short film.

Another important aspect that we need to think about is the tone of the film. This is directly linked with genre, so this will be easier once we have chosen our genre. But we need to be careful, as we have been warned that it is easy to divert from this through our film, so we need consistancy.

We also need to be aware that our caracter isnt too passive, as this can become boring to watch for the audience. To avoid this, we can think about aspects of the character that can make them different and interesting, such as traits, these can be emphasised and used in the narrative. Through Mise-en scene, we can show a change in the character, by their clothing and the colours that they wear, and this can change depending on how they are feeling.

Becky Knapp also gave us a few hand outs, including two scripts, 'Donna' and 'Does God Play Football'.

When first reading the script "Donna" I understood the main body of the short film, but it left me uninterested in the story, as I wasn't intrigued by the story line. It also felt just like a story without any dialogue, and when there was dialogue, it was written in the accent, which made this hard to follow along. On the other hand, when I started watching the short film, it pieced together, but I was still not that interested in the story line, as there was nothing that stood out to me as a viewer. If i had a child, grew up in familiar conditions or had gone through the same neglect as 'Donna' then I may have felt a connection to this short film, but having not experienced this myself, I felt it hard to grasp, even though I knew what was going on. As a page of script writing was equivalent to a minute of filming, the vast description put me off the film, as I am not much of a reader.

Compared to "Donna", "Does God Play Football" intrigued me more, as there was more dialogue in the script, and this made me feel like I knew the character 'Tommy' better. This short film also had more of an attention-grabbing story line, and one that I could understand much clearer than "Donna". on the country, I got more of a feel of the tone, atmosphere and setting in "Donna" than "Does God Play Football". This showed to me that there is a real importance for the direction and setting of the scene. In my script that I will be writing in the future, I think I will aim to try and use around 50/50 of dialogue and description, as this will hopefully grab the audiences attention as well as helping them get an understanding of the tone, atmosphere and the storyline.


This exercise has shown me, that what i may try to convey on paper, may be read differently to other people, and may be conveyed much differently on screen. I therefore need to be very careful when writing my script, as I may not be able to show what i want. To do this, I will write my script, and show it to a few people and get their opinions and see whether I was able to achieve this, if not I shall get feed back and re-write it until this is done. In this way, it will show me the best way to write, and will help later on when in a group doing our real project.

The Times Article
after reading The Times article, i noted down some of the key points;

"there is no hard and fast rule" in short film making.

Why Am I Making This Film? Most people use short films as a tool for learning and testing ideas. This can also however, be a way of showing their skills and talents in certain areas in a short film. When making a short film, you have to always keep in mind the budget. For example, if you only had a couple thousand pounds budget, you would want many special effects or car chases, as this would be too expensive for the budget.

What Is A Short Film? A short film is roughly around under six minutes. Anything up to thirty minutes is a feature film. Therefore, it would be hard to fit a really long story line in under six minutes, and best to only have one main character, with one problem.

Finding A Story. There are three basic elements when constructing a story; a world, a character and a problem, and as mentioned before, it is always best to focus on one character and one problem as you do not have the time in a short film to develop and establish the character. Short films are best done in real time, as a small problem wouldn't last over a couple of days.

-The World. It is easier to set a short film in a familiar setting or event, for example, a school environment or a wedding. This will help the audience, as they are already familiar with those surroundings and can identify with them on an emotional level. This also gives it a finite time frame for the short film. 'The journey' is popular as they can use the journey the character makes as the setting.

The Character And The Problem. There are a few questions you would need to consider when choosing the character;
~Who is the main character?
~What is their problem?

~How will the audience recognise their problem?

~Are the stakes high enough?

~Am I telling the the story from the best point of view?

Audiences must be clear about who the film is about, otherwise this will be confusing for them. The drive from the character in the short film must be either a want, a need or an obligation, and this needs to be clear to the audience; this does not always need to be clear to the character straight away.

Making Problems Manifest To The Audience. When watching short films, as well as other films, the audience need to see what the characters are doing and this shows us what they are feeling and thinking. This can be done for example, by a voice over.

Are The Stakes High Enough? If a character is around a life or death situation this is clear to the audience that the stakes are high, and makes it much more interesting for them to watch. If the characters car broke down, this would be an uneventful story line, whereas if you convey that this is a massive deal to the character, it will make the story line more lively. Unless you show that it really matters to the main character, it will not come across as a life or death situation.

Am I Telling The Story From The Best Point Of View? Sometimes, changing the point of view in the story will make the ending and the whole story completely different. For example, if Cinderella was told by one of the ugly sisters, the ending wouldn't have been a happy ending, it would be a cautionary tale and people don't want to see this. Telling the story from another point of view can change the meaning of the story and have an impact on the ending.

What Does My Story Mean? When making a film, you do not intentionally input moral codes within your story, but this is always evident in each short film. This is because we've grown up thinking certain moral standards are either good or bad and these will influence what we will or wont include, and how we will show these. Once the beginning and the end is evident to us, we will need to define and develop the script in relation to...

The Tone Of The Film. Tone is directly connected to the genre. For example, the tone of a horror would not be upbeat and happy, it would be dark and mysterious.

What i learned from this: I have realised that in preperation for my script I need to first define my character, the problem, and their world, and from this I will be able to easily link the beginning, middle and end. I also didn't think about any moral messages that I would have in my film, so this has given me much to think about. Another point that I havent really thought about, was the tone of the film, so I need to give this some consideration in the future.

Post 5: Audience Theory and My Short Film

After talking about short films, we were given the task to watch a few short film. After watching these, we were asked to analyse these on the following points; I will be looking at four short films includind 'Doodlebug', 'About A Girl', 'Wasps' and 'Cubs'.

http://klsmediadepartment.blogspot.com/2010/09/audience-theory-student-powerpoints.html  This is the link to our power point following our reading, but here are my notes on Audience Theory;

*Preferred Reading / Dominant hegemonic position: This means that the viewer can easily recognise the moral, social and other messages that the produers wanted to get across. For exapmle, if a male character robs a bank, and gets put in prison for it, everyone will read in the same way, that commiting robery is wrong.

*negotiated hegemonic position: This is when the audience understands the messgae that the producers put across but adapts the reading differently than what they initially wanted. For example, a woman in a red dress, the audience may read it as a woman who is a romantic or who is being sexual, but the producers wanted to just to be dressing smartly.

*Oppositional hegemonic position: This happens when the audiences understand the message the producers wanted to put accross, but they do not agree with this. The audiences upbringing, theyre religion, or even theyre age can change this in each case. For instance, someone an older person who will watch a coloured person go to jail, will be different than someone in this generation, as they will believe this would be racist.

*Aberrant Decoding: This means that the audience reads the text in unpradictable ways. This has been discussed by Philip J Hanes.

*moral panic: This is the intensity of feeling expressed in a population about an issue that appears to threaten the social order by the media. For example, if a television programme focused on bomb attacks, many of the audiences may feel anxiety as to this happening in the real world.
*mode of address: This is the way the producers put the message across to ther audience. For example, an internal monologue could show how the character is feeling, or a series of shots could also show this, along side body language.


*Profile the Target Audience: This is the descriptive writing of who the producers want the media text to be aimed at. For example, teenagers aged 13-18, male and female.
*concidering the viewing environment: Here, the producers have to think about where the person would be watching the media text, as this can change depending on where it is watched. For instance, a person would view a tragedy in a soap differently by themselves, than if they were watching with friends.

Doodlebughttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WhKt_CkXD0

This was a short film, totalling 2 minutes and 59 seconds. It is about a man trying to catch a 'bug', which turns out to be himself trying to catch a 'bug' which is himself, and so on.

Prefered reading/ dominant hegemonic position:
From this short film, the message I got, was that the funny side to having some sort of problem in the head, as this film plays on you psychologically. This was mainly because of the whole idea of it all, which in itself is quite weird, yet it is portrayed in a funny way, but showing how determind he was to catching the 'bug' even though he could see it was himself. An example of the funny side to this short film, is when the main character is jumping high and dashing for the 'bug'.

Negotiated Hegemonic Position:

I think the negotiated hegemonic position was unclear to the audience, as i think the main idea that the majority of the audience would read from this short film would be the light hearted attitude towards the situation, however this short film explores a deeper psychological attitude towards the main character, leaving the audience questioning is mental state and maybe their own.

Opositional Hegemonic Postition:

From this short film, I can see that the producer wanted to question the mental state of the character, but personally, I feel that this short film is more about the funny side of it the story line and how the character behaves, rather than the deeper meaning.

Moral Panic:

Personally, I dont feel that there was any moral panic in this film, as there is nothing that jumps out as a moral issue to be worried about. Some could arguee that the psychological problems could affect people, as they would be questioning

i am quite sure that the majority of the audiences watching this short film would have the same view towards it; it was a funny clip about a character with a questionalble mental health state, and therefore think that some of the audiences wont grasp the philisophical and psychological side to it, asking questions about life.

Mode Of Address:

i believe that the main mode of address in 'Doodlebug' to be that it makes fun about the mental state of the main character, by making using such a comical story line. on the other hand however, this could just be a playfull short film that just wants to give the audience a laugh.

Main Target Audiene:

i think that the main target audience can be many, as there isnt a challange on any age restrictions, whiich makes the film viewable to anyone. this film is also comical, which also could be for many target audiences, however the audience would have to have some knowlegde of certain mental states of people, which suggests an older age audience. I think that this can be watched by most ages as I think this is more of a comical short film than anything else.

The Environment:

the environment in which the audiences view this short film can change the tone, mode and meaning of the short film. If they were watching it with friends, like i did, they will only see the funny side to the short film, as this was wha happened to me. however upon looking at it at home by myself, i began to look deeper at the hidden meanings of this short film. This can also be true for age, as a younger viewer would also just focus on the comical side, and and older viewer would read the hidden meanings. your background history can also change this, as someone with a higher status wouldnt so much relate to the situation of catching a bug, whereas someone of a poorer status would more likely relate.

Wasp

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rL0lq4fxpQ (part 1)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAsBC9-W6Lc&feature=fvw (part 2)

'Wasp' was a short film is about a single mother stuggleing to keep her four children. She is torn between being a mother and going out meeting guy mates.

Dominant Hegemonic Positions:

I felt that when I watched this, I found myself feeling sorry for the main woman, as you could see she was struggeling, trying to help her children, but also how she was still a young woman who wanted to go out with male friends and have a good time. I also felt that there could be a moral message about having children at a young age, as you can clearly see the neglect the children have, and for this, you automatically dont feel happy towards the main character, but seeing her trying to help her children, like when she spends her money on crisps for her kids, instead of a drink for herself, but this is an ongoing battle through out the short film. This too could link into a moral message, that she shouldnt have the right to look after her children if this is how she treats her children. Also from this, I found that the male role was dominant, and I didnt like how they portraid her as like a slave to him, buying him drinks because he said so. But this is turned around when he doesnt react in the typical way a male would react to founding out the news she had four children, which was a nice way to end the film, I thought.

Negoticated Hegemonic Postition:
I think that another message that could be read from this could be about her attitude. Through out the film, the main character changes her mind, and is quite unsure as to what she wants, as she tries to fight for her children when she confronts the mother of the child that bulied her child, whereas at other points in the film, she cant afford food or shoes or even a babysitter for her children, and ends up putting them in danger. This comes across that that the woman has an unstable mental health. This alongside the fact that she has had four children, which she knows she cant look after, and this could also link into the idea that the woman shouldn't take care of her children.

Opposisional Hegemonic Position:
As a woman, I reject this idea that she should have her children taken away from her, as even though they have suffereed from neglect, which is a behaviour which I reject, she is trying. This may not be the case for someone else, for example, a male may say that because of the neglect, no matter what, the children should be taken into care. Age too could affect this, as someone of older generations would see how she has had children out of wed lock, and they would automatically rejet this idea and think that she is a bad parent and should have her children taken away.This too can be said if the person watching is religious.

Aberant coding

read in unparadictable ways

m.p

a.d

m.o.a

t.a

e

Cubs

d.h, n.h, o.h, m.p, a.d, m.o.a, t.a,

About A Girl

d.h, n.h, o.h, m.p, a.d, m.o.a, t.a, e

what I will consider in my own short film script.