My group member's initial ideas

At the start of our course, each student had to come up with their own idea for a 5-minute short film and give a presentation on it, including aspects which would need to be considered to create the film; such as, location, props, potential problems, etc.


My idea: was a fantasy/festive family film and revolved around the idea of Christmas and Santa instead of the typical thriller film. The main plot of my film was that Santa would be going around the houses on Christmas Eve and would get sucked in by a dolls house chimney which was a present and then end up stuck inside the house as a miniature Santa so that he was not able to go and finish the rest of the deliveries.


Pros:
- The genre was different to what the other groups members had thought of.
- Detailed plot thought out.
- It would provide a chance to use green screen and so those effects would look very good in the film.
- It could all be shot locally and didn't contain any fast-paced action shots which would make it easier to film.
- I wouldn't contain any violence or swearing for example and so would be suitable for a wider audience.
- It provides good convergence opportunities for promotional toys etc.


Cons:
- The green screen effects may be very hard to achieve to a high standard and therefore may look unprofessional within the film.
- Due to the film being based around Christmas it had lots of 'snowy' scenes which would make it hard to film around the weather and would look unrealistic using a snow machine.
- It is a seasonal, festive film and so may not be of interest after Christmas time.
- It may miss out a vast age range; as children would enjoy it, and their families may watch it around Christmas but teenagers to young adults may not.


I felt my presentation was quite detailed and informative after carrying out a fair bit of research into each aspect; lighting, sounds, location, potential problems, props etc. However, my idea seemed fairly limiting to the group to link new ideas into it and so we decided to look at how we could use the other members ideas.


Matt's idea: was based around a fairly average man who was trapped in a dead-end, boring job but he dreamt about what his life used to be like when he was younger and where it all went wrong for him. The idea seemed to be more of a romance, with hints of psychological thriller.


Pros:
- Combination of genres.
- May appeal to a large age range.
- Some ambitious locations


Cons:
- Loose ending would need to be thought about in detail
- Ambitious locations
- Similarly to my idea, it focus's on the weather in order to create the right atmosphere for most scenes


Overall, Matt's idea seemed fairly feasible to create but needed some contribution from our other groups ideas in order to form a more solid plot.


Richard's idea: was all about going through the journey of a young man's memories whilst he appears to be lay down in a grassy field. However, the big twist in this plot is that later, the camera pans out and we find that it was those events which led up to him being stabbed and he is lying there with a knife in him. His presentation came across extremely thought out; consisting of a slide-show as well as including a more in depth idea for the treatment and parts of the script.


Pros:
- Very unexpected and effective twist in the plot.
- Seems as if it would reach a broad audience.
- Incorporated changes of mood and setting, however may include weather like he previous two which can prove difficult when needing to film.


Cons:
- It would require a lot of good quality editing to look professional.
- Flitting between settings and times could confuse the audience with the plot.
- Doesn't fit into a specific genre.


This idea seemed to be the one that would be most effective to produce with possible additions from other ideas. However the presentation could have been a bit shorter and a lot less writing to make it easier to understand and keep interest.


Jodie's idea: was slightly unclear as to the actual plot idea but was based around a glass of water which would empty itself during the night, however turned out to e a practical joke played on the girl by her sister. The presentation had lots of images to help follow the story.


Pros:
- Based around young character's which would relate to a large audience.
- Had a clear twist in the plot.
- The locations were easy to access.


Cons:
- The plot didn't feel as though it would last for the 5-minutes.
- There weren't many ways to change the plot by adding our other ideas to it.
- The plot wasn't very strong.


The idea seemed okay initially but then after listening to the whole presentation, there were problems with how the story of the glass would actually be able to be created and it didn't seem a good basis to start on.


After listening to each of our group's pitches, we decided that a combination of Matt and Richard's film ideas would make a good film and so we began working on that basis. As a group we have chosen to merge these two ideas because we feel they could link together as one really easily as they have some similar aspects about the plot to them. Also because mine and Jodie's ideas were very much unchangeable plots to link into the others. We also feel we will be able to make the most of different locations and shots by using Matt and Richard's ideas to create a professional outcome and the plot seems as though it will run for the desired amount of time; 5minutes.

Shorts Research

Examples I have found which I thought to be influential were 'the black hole' from future shorts because it has an unexpected twist at the end and also likewise in the short 'Goodbye to the normals.' Goodbye to the normals has 64,928 views and the black hole has a huge 7,780,782 views. Viewers comments on the black hole have claimed it made themselves feel claustrophobic, they could tell the moral of the story was about greediness, it is amazing and wonderfully simple and there were many more positive comments. All of these comments prove that the film was high quality, very worthwhile and of importance to many who watched it.













As you can see from these films they all fit the general pattern of;
- being shorter than 10minutes.
- they are creative and experimental.
- use a small cast; usually 1 or 2 characters, with one of them being the main focus throughout. This may be because short film are too short to have complex characters and plots and so focusing on a small number of characters make it easier to follow the plot.
- they all have a twist to the plot, to form an interesting watch because they are so short.
- they tend to work upon the basis of an everyday situation so that their audience can relate to it, but then put a twist on it to make it often comical or surprising to watch. The shock factor of the twist is what makes them good to watch.
- My examples have all used everyday characters and everyday locations, again enabling the audience to relate to the situation which makes the twist in the plot pleasant to watch. It also makes it more believable.
- Due to short films being low budget, they have all got fairly plain and simple white writing for the titles and simple scrolling credits.
- They all use an ident at the beginning 'Future Shorts' in this case, clarifying what we are watching and where it has come from so that you can find more if you liked the first video you saw.

My group members

I am in a group of 4; myself, Jodie Wilkins, Richard Dawson and Matthew Bradley.

I feel that Richard has an extremely high strength in the editing aspect as he enjoys making edits in his own free time as well. This will work well when it comes to editing the actual film and also for creating a film poster in Photoshop because using that programme is what he is particularly talented at.

Jodie quite likes to know how she wants things to be done and confident in achieving this within a group and so i think taking a director role whilst filming would suit her.

I think Matt is quite creative and musical and can take a step back to evaluate situations to come up with more feasible options. Therefore I would think Matt best for creating the soundtrack and directing.

For myself, I feel I am fairly creative from studying Drama and English and so would enjoy creating/producing aspects such as the storyboard, script, poster and filming/directing actors.

I think within our group we are all fairly creative people with our ideas and put these forward so that we have a larger choice when it comes to making decisions which works well and we are all able to input our thoughts. 
The work load will be shared out fairly so that one person is not left to create the script, get props, and organise the filming, to name a few. We all plan to take turns in the filming and directing of the scenes and will all be there to make any decisions and input our ideas when it comes to finding our actors, as we have already been doing with decisions concerning our treatment.

Introduction to shorts

I am creating this blog to follow the process of creating a 5-minute short film for our A2 media studies. A 'short film,' in the early period of cinema was a technical description first known in the North American film industry. In North America a short film is usually one between 20 and 40 minutes. However, in other places such as Europe, Latin America and New Zealand, for example, the film duration could be between 1-15mintues. In North America a short film also has the focus much more on character, whereas places such as in Europe it is much more on visual drama and plot twists. In other cases, short films are used as showcases for cinematographers and commercial directors.