DEVELOPMENT OF SHORT FILM

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Short Film Analysis

L-CAGES. = Lifestyle, Class, Age, Gender, Ethnicity, Spending Power.

MIRA= Media Language, Institution, Representation, Audience.

Lifestyle= What things are they interested in? e.g. sports

Class= Working, Middle, Upper, e.g. Level of Education, Job?

Age= Children, Young Adults, Mature

Gender= Male, Female, All Genders

Ethnicity= A group of people who share common culture, traditions for e.g. spoken language, religion, culture.

Spending Power = Disposable Income (Money to spend) or tight budgets.

A* Challenge= Different films would have different target audiences. For example Black Hawk Down would attract much more of a mature audience while Cars 2 would attract more of a younger (kids) audience.

Portal No Escape:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4drucg1A6Xk

Portal No Escape:

Target Audience= Both male and female.

Ethnicity=Maybe geared towards white males/females.

Genre= Action, Adventure, Fiction

Grading/Color Scheme= Orange,Blue, Black, White.

Music= Hard hitting, sorrow, sad, adventurous, hopeful.

Class= Lower,Middle,High.

Age= Teens-Adults

Lifestyle=Fast Paced, Action.

Spending Power= Low-High.

Media Language=A live action short film to promote a video game.

Institution= Independent Film Maker (Dan Trachtenberg)

Representation= An original idea thought up by valve.

Audience= Teenagers-Adults, all genders.

Spellbound:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAilaHrmPpg

Spellbound:

Target Audience= Females.

Ethnicity= Geared towards white females.

Genre=Animation, Fiction, Family.

Grading/Color Scheme= Blue, Black, Pink, Yellow, White.

Music= Cheerful, Scary.

Class= Middle.

Age= Kids

Lifestyle=Animation Films.

Spending Power= Low-High.

Media Language= A short film for kids.

Institution= 2 independent animation/film makers. (Ying Wu and Lizzia Xu)

Representation= Some stereotypes. (Normal middle class white family)(One sister is always better than the other)

Audience=Young Females (Children)

Compare the target audiences for both films:

Portal: No Escape is clearly geared towards a more adult/mature audience. The short film starts off pretty dark with a woman suddenly waking up to a mysterious cell with her medical gown covered in blood. The violent and dark nature of it isn't suitable for younger audiences. Children watching this might be horrified while more mature audiences such as teenagers/adults would enjoy the dark aspects of it, along with the plot twist at the end of the short film. The ending of this short film is quite depressing because the female protagonist finds herself still trapped in the facility she was put in. This short film is most likely targeted for teenagers to adults as it is fast-paced, violent and mysterious.

On the other hand, Spellbound is clearly targeted for children. Most animation films are aimed for children such as CARs or Toy Story. The start of Spellbound is very different from Portal. It starts off bright and calm with cheerful music going off in the background. The appearance of the monster acting as the "villain" is also common in child films where they encounter a dangerous villain but defeats it at the end. Spellbound ends on a cheerful note where the sister hugs the other sister and cheerful music is playing in the background.

The audiences for both films are very different, Portal's short film is definitely geared towards teens and adults who are looking for a short film with fast paced actions in a mysterious yet dangerous setting. While spellbound's short film is aimed towards children where there is a happy ending and everyone is safe.

2 MORE SHORT FILMS:

Killzone Extraction: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZ4FGm9Fwvg

Killzone Extraction:

Target Audience= Males

Ethnicity= All ethnicity.

Genre= Action, War, Fiction,

Grading/Color Scheme= Black, Red, Tan, OD Green.

Music=Action, Fast Paced,

Class= Lower,Middle,High.

Age= Teens-Adults

Lifestyle=Fast Paced, Action.

Spending Power= Low-High.

Media Language=A short film aimed to promote a video game.

Institution= A group of film makers called "Pwnisher" (The main director is Clinton Jones)

Representation= Original Idea with some stereotypes. The "ISA" being labeled as the good guys as they are our main focus, and the enemy forces being labeled as the bad guys. (The helghast)

Audience=Teenagers-Adults (Males)

28 Seconds Later: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bt30RC4uvAs

28 Seconds Later:

Target Audience= Males

Ethnicity=All ethnicity.

Genre= Post-apocalypse, War, Action.

Grading/Color Scheme= OD Green, Black, Red and White.

Music= No music.

Class= Lower,Middle,High.

Age= Teens-Adults

Lifestyle=Fast Paced, Action.

Spending Power= Low-High.

Media Language=A short film to promote a movie. (28 weeks later)

Institution= Fox Atomic, UK Film Council, DNA Films. (Produced by Lawrence Glover, Directed by Damien Wasylkiw and Phil Stoole.)

Representation= An idea thought up by Damien Wasylkiw and Phil Stoole. There is one stereotype however, where the military is always overran by inflected and killed. ( Alot of zombie movies/series portrays the military as incompetent to fight zombies as is always overruned/killed)(Examples include Fear The Walking Dead and The Crazies)

Audience= Teenagers-Adults, males.

Film techniques that can be acquired from the short films to be used in my short film:

1. POV Shots. (To make the audience feel like they are the character)

2. Shaky Camera (Makes the film feel more chaotic)

3. No music during action sequences. (Makes it more realistic and immersing)

4. Two shot+Blur. (Have a scene where there is a two characters, one is sitting near the camera which focuses on him. The other character is behind, blurred by the camera but can be seen)

5. High Angled,+Over The Shoulder+Three shot.

6. Extreme Close Up (To show details of the character)

7. A long two shot (Zoomed in on the characters to show both the person's features and surrounding environment)

8. Shaky Cam+Tracking Shot (Follows the character while showing the chaotic environment)

9. First Person Shot of a Scope. (Shows what the character is looking at from his perspective)

Link To Full Blog With Pictures

Casting List

Official Roles+Specialism:

GENRE RESEARCH:

Research Into Role: "The Perfect Boy"

“The Perfect Boy” is one of the main antagonist of the Gratifly film, alongside the fly itself. To accurately act and portray the perfect boy is a hard task, in-depth research must be done on my character to put me in the shoes of the antagonist, this research would add authenticity and give the target audience a more mesmerizing experience from the character.

The Perfect Boy can be described as an outgoing and sociable person, however he tends to stick to his close group of popular friends who are often snarky and bully-like. These “friends” are represented by white masks and popular brands, showing that they are a part of the same group, the mass media believers. The white masks show the unity they have in their popular group of friends even if they are different “brands” (Nike, Adidas, Mcdonald's, Apple etc)

I took inspirations from different characters from various drama,comedy and action films. The first example of this are the first antagonistic character from The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, the character of “Clay”, a stereotypical male jock. The second example is the character of “Thomas” from the comedy-action-drama movie called “Project X”.

"Clay" from The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift

Clay's character can be seen at: (1:43-2:04, and again at 2:55-end of the clip)

Clay is the first antagonist the protagonist of Tokyo Drift encounters, he is the most popular boy in the unnamed highschool because of his status as a football player along with his parent’s wealth. The similarity he has to the perfect boy is that he is shown to have a lot of friends supporting him throughout the shot-screen time he has, often teasing the protagonist in favour of Clay. (In the case of the perfect boy’s, it’s the group of white masked people sitting next to him)(In Clay’s case his friends are also football players). However unlike Clay, the perfect boy doesn’t get taunted and humiliated by the protagonist.

"Thomas" FROM PROJECT X

Thomas's character can be seen at: (0:00-1:44)

Another movie character I took inspiration from was the main protagonist called “Thomas” from the movie Project X, a comedy-action-drama movie. Thomas has just accidentally hosted the best party in the history of the US and has become popular in a matter of minutes. He is now living in the fame, where he is the most popular kid around both during and after the party. However throughout the party, things start to go wrong and the party ends in total chaos with riot police being deployed. Thomas and the “Perfect Boy” has similar traits such as being the “quiet” but “brave” person of the group. In Gratifly, I would want to perfect boy to be more quiet and have no speaking roles as the audience can focus on the protagonist (Richy’s character)

As you can see in this clip, Thomas doesn’t have much of a speaking role but his friends always back him up (To the point of tasering the neighbor). This is similar to “The Perfect Boy” who doesn’t speak at all, but has “The Fly” and his friends to back him up.

"Tom Hanson" From 21 Jump Street

Tom Hanson's character is seen between (0:29-3:00)

Another movie character I took inspiration upon was “Tom Hanson” from 21 jump-street, a famous comedy film. Even though he was a minor character, he was an undercover DEA agent who spent 5 years infiltrating a street gang under a different alias of “D.B.” along with fake facial features such as a fake nose and wig. The perfect boy also happens to be an undercover MEPA agent with similar objectives. (Tom Hanson’s was to infiltrate the gang and be a mole, The Perfect Boy’s was to infiltrate the school and find information regarding the protagonist and turn him into a mainstream media follower, or the mole in 21 jump-street’s case.)

-Video Above Shows A Scene Similar To Our Short Film-

Bruce Nolan (Bruce Almighty (2003) ----> Played By Jim Carrey.

In the first section of the Film, there are scenes where the 2nd protagonist/antagonist (who is actually god) controls situation around Bruce causing him to feel either happy, sad or angry.
An example of this is a scene called "Give Me A Sign". Bruce asks god for signs or signals to aid him in his life, god then sends warning signs to take caution on the side of the road along with a truck filled with caution/stop signs. Bruce merely ignores this and continues forward eventually crashing his car due to ignoring the warning signs.
This links to our short film as we the protagonist has a “hidden and unknown identity” controlling his life (Such as making his food disappear or making the toilet speak to him) similar to Bruce having god control the environment around him.

Protagonist Research

Antagonist Research

-Video Above Shows A Scene Similar To Our Short Film-

God ----> Played By Morgan Freeman, Bruce Almighty (2003)

The relationship between God and Bruce in the film is both similar and opposite from our short film. The similarities are that the “Unknown Entity” in our film controls the protagonist's environment which affects the way he behaves and the way other people look at him.
The opposites are that God in Bruce Almighty does things to aid/improve Bruce’s life while in our Short Film the entity is harming/bullying the protagonist.
As shown in the scene in the video provided, God nearly kills Bruce with a semi-truck to get his message across then revives him at the end. In our short film the Entity pulls away the protagonist from socialising with people and makes his food disappear to get his point across. (That the entity is in control and can play with the Protagonist like a Toy)
Both God and the Entity have similar powers that can control a person’s environment and affect how they live their lives.