Short film evaluation.

Short Film Evaluation

For this project that we we were set we had to think up of our own short film idea that was appropriate for our audience that was 16+. We were put into three's and we watched some short films from different genres and we ended up watching one called "ashes" by Sophie black and to be honest in my opinion i thought the film was really weird, i didn't really enjoy watching it. I got that this film was about sadness and happiness but also about love, anger and fear and I absolutely hated it but i loved "the truth about meeting a woman" by Tj Misly, it was basically about a guy who made up different scenarios in his head to apply fear and avoid speaking to them. It was this that inspired me to create "one minute man". It was about a man going through some "difficulties". Basically what had  happened is he'd lost his virginity to a girl that he'd just met so basically a one night stand and the girl tells everyone. He finds out when someone sticks a sticker on his back that says "One Minute Man" and then all these different thoughts keep on going through his head about how his reputation is ruined and how he'll never show his face again. I think its a pretty hilarious idea and i hope it makes people laugh. 

My primary research was a survey I did on survey monkey. The survey came back as most people liked horror, adventure and comedy. So that's another reason as to why I chose to do "one minute man". My secondary research was the short films we watched that i explained above.

My pre production went okay, we did the story board and thought it went decent but when we actually started filming we added a pan shot at the start which wasn't in there on our storyboard and then we realised that the shots were in the wrong order so we followed the story board half and half ish. We did our shooting schedule and followed it in the right order, well a bit better than we followed the storyboard anyway. We shot at least five shots for each shot we needed so that we could pick what one was the best to use and that we 100% got it right.

The editing (which i thought was going to be the hardest point) actually went really smoothly! There was no crashes in the computer where we lost all our work or anything or forgot to save, the computers did lag and nearly crashed quite a few times though but that's okay compared to some of the other times when the computers would totally crash. The sorts of software i used were Adobe Premiere Pro CC 2015. This system was very useful as it let us add in text, cut and paste video clips and sound etc and also let us manage those sound tracks easily. We used the razor tool, the add text tool, the sound management tool to make sure the voiceovers were louder than the background music so you could hear the voices, the track select forward and backwards tool, the speed/duration and the fade in effect at the start of the film. 

EVALUATIONS

1. Intro. For this project we were asked to. Etc.

2. Research. Primary and secondary. Primary research is like questionnaires and research you did by yourself and secondary is someone else's research.

3. Pre-production. All about planning and your shots and your story board.

4. Production. Talking about specifically what you did or used and what camera you used and what you found easy and difficult etc.
5. post production. Editing, tweaks, printing it, uploading it etc, finalising your work.
6. Conclusion. What would you do differently, what is your opinion on the short film and does it meet the criteria etc.
7. Peer feedback. Pick out 2 students and get them to look at your final piece of work and see what they think. 
8. Target audience. So like age ratings (BBFC), do a survey and look at their demographic information, socio-economic etc.Also taking into consideration their favourite film genres.
9. Inspiration. Directors, themes etc. So what inspired me for 1 minute man was THE TRUTH ABOUT MEETING WOMEN by T.J. Misny & Paul Gale 
10. Images. Print screens and snips are welcomed. Makes it more helpful.
Keep to the production schedule and if not then go back to your production schedule and reflect on what went right and what didn't or do a new one.

Filming and reviewing

In this lesson we watched a video on YouTube by someone called Gary Turk, the video was called "it's your future" and we had to go through this sheet and basically write down the composition of the shots and what types the shots were and why its good to vote and i also learnt what the suffocates were etc, here's the screenshot for you to see:

After that we went out and had to go out and film for our short film, we went to St. Mary's rest garden and went to film, we didn't have much time to film so we only managed to get about 2 shots done but hopefully next week we can get all of our shots done in a quick time and get back to editing. Here are the shots below for you to see: (It wouldn't let me upload the videos)

In the last part of the lesson we then had to review other peoples work so we went over to Jake, Sams and Linda's' group and reviewed their footage, although there wasn't much footage to view we did our best and came up with improvements and strengths of the clip:

BBFC and case studies

BBFC - British Board of Film Classification.

Not run by the government and set up in 1912 (103 years its been around for). Has been classifying DVD's since 1984 when the video recordings act was past. (when looking at classifications for games it would be PEGI)

U - 4 years old and above  (UP, Nemo, Toy Story etc) very mild amounts of offensive language like damn or hell. Violence is very brief and mild and anti social behavior would be disproved of.

PG - All up to the parents and its the parents fault if it goes badly, (saving Mr. banks, Home Alone) no theme that's inappropriate, star out swear words like shit and son of a bitch. Sex is basically what parents would get but children wouldn't. Violence is mild, some blood but no detail.

12A - Adult supervision (12 is their supervision but the A overrides it, the late Harry potter films are rated in this rating)

12 - No one younger than 12 can see it. The F word can be used. Violence is moderate but wouldn't dwell on detail, maybe a glimpse of gore. Anti social behavior and drugs is very minimal. (21 jump street)

15 - Frequent strong language can be used and sex can be used but not full on see it, sexual nudes allowed like a side boob etc but no strong detail and some discriminatory scenes because by time you're 15 you know right from wrong. Strong violence can be strong like in "Saving Private Ryan" but no the strongest of violence. Horrors can be 15 but cant linger on sadistic sexual activity etc.

18 - Adult free to watch whatever as long as it isn't illegal or potentially harmful. No theme prohibited as 18. Very strong violence, language, real sex (Fifty Shades Of Grey or Saw). Strong and detailed full nudity is allowed and can  be fully explicit. An 18 film might contain depictions of real sex as long as the film isn't sex work (porno's). Strongest gory images are sustained, drugs can be shown but even at 18 it cannot show harmful things as good like taking cocaine etc and if you do it is against the law.

For the second part of the lesson we had to find 2 films that could be a similar rating to our short film and then say why it got the rating it did and surprisingly "The Dark Knight" had been rated a 12A because apparently it didn't have detailed violence or gore. The quote here tells you about it:

"The main classification issues in The Dark Knight are violence and threat. BBFC Guidelines for 12A at the time stated ‘Violence must not dwell on detail. There should be no emphasis on injuries and blood’ and ‘Sustained moderate threat and menace are permitted. Occasional gory moments only. The examiners who classified the film agreed it met the Guidelines criteria, however, there were a significant numbers of complaints about the 12A rating from members of the public."

The BBFC received a number of complaints for their insensitivity over the rating of the film because the Joker is seen talking about his scars while wielding a knife and this drew in a lot of complaints considering the rising number of knife crime in the UK around teens and knowing a 6 years old could see that film with an adult is quite worrying. The 2 quotes below also tell you more about it

"The BBFC received 364 complaints from members of the public in 2008 about ‘The Dark Knight’. In the general, the complainants felt the film was too dark and too violent for children. The bleak tone of the film, the 'adult' nature of some of its themes and the 'unhappy' ending were cited as not suitable for a film rated 12A, to which under-12 year olds could be taken, if accompanied by an adult. There were also concerns expressed that the knife threat in the film was inappropriate and insensitive in the current climate, and could encourage copycat attacks."

"The threat in the film is most frequently seen when The Joker wields his preferred weapon, a knife: in one scene, he plays with the knife inside the mouth of a thug, and in another he presses it close to the heroine’s face. The Joker's slow, menacing descriptions of how he got the knife scars on his face add a significant edge of terrorisation to these threatening scenes. Public concern – then as now - over the issue of knife crime and gang violence was particularly high, due to prominent media coverage of teenagers in UK cities dying from knife attacks."

Here is the link: http://www.bbfc.co.uk/case-studies/dark-knight
insert pictures

For my second case study I'm doing about a film called "attack the block"

"Attack The Block is a British horror movie directed by comedian Joe Cornish. It is set in a South London housing estate and follows a group of teen muggers, who form an unlikely alliance with a nurse they have robbed, when aliens attack their tower block." Here is states what the film is about although id say it was more a sci-fi, comedy. The below quotes states that they didn't request any form of category and were given a 15 because throughout they use over 50 uses of "fuck" and some uses of "motherfucker" throughout and just this alone makes it a 15.

"The film was submitted to the BBFC with no category request in March 2011. If they wish, distributors are allowed to signpost to examiners which category they would prefer for a work, although in this case they did not do this. Nevertheless, it is clear from the characters, the tone of the work and the general address, that it had strong appeal to older teenage viewers.

The film contains frequent strong language from the start, with over 50 uses of 'f**k' and some uses of 'motherf****r' throughout. Under current BBFC Guidelines, where only infrequent strong language is permitted at 12A, the work was automatically therefore a 15 category within the first reel."

For the third case study i covered a film called "click" made nearly 10 years ago now.

"Contains strong language and moderate sex and drug references" is the first thing you see as description of this film although this film is actually really funny and because it only has "moderate sex and drug references", the film summary is here below in a quote for you to see but other than that it doesn't really have any explanation as to why its rated a 12 but if its using strong language and moderate sex and drug references then you can kind of see why it was rated as that.

"Adam Sandler plays Michael Newman, a family man whose busy career as an architect doesn't leave much time for his wife, Donna (Kate Beckinsale), and two kids. Unable to figure out which of his many remotes turns on the television, he goes shopping for a universal remote and finds the perfect device through Morty (Christopher Walken), who gives him a one-of-a-kind remote with magical powers. With each click, Michael is able to control his career and personal life. But complications arise when the remote starts to overrule his choices."

Our group decided on a 12A rating for our short film because it has references of sex.Here you can see exactly why we rated this film 12A with the link below. "Sex may be briefly and discreetly portrayed at 12A or 12. Verbal sex references should not go beyond what is suitable for young teenagers. Comedy may lessen the impact of some moderate sex references or innuendo but frequent crude sex references are unlikely to be accepted at this category. There may be nudity in 12A films but nudity in a sexual context should only be brief and discreet."

http://www.bbfc.co.uk/what-classification/12a-and-12

"Films classified 12A and video works classified 12 contain material that is not generally suitable for children aged under 12. No one younger than 12 may see a 12A film in a cinema unless accompanied by an adult. Adults planning to take a child under 12 to view a 12A film should consider whether the film is suitable for that child. To help them decide, we recommend that they check the BBFCinsight for that film in advance. 

Copyright group task

http://www.bbc.co.uk/filmnetwork/filmmaking/guide/before-you-start/copyright

What would we have to do if we want to use a still image like a picture of sonic etc or someone else's photography, basically how would we get conformation.

Intellectual property is something unique that you, yourself have physically created. So just an idea alone is not intellectual property. For example, literally just an idea for a book or music track doesn’t count, but the words you’ve written do. Kind of like you need physical proof.


"Intellectual property (IP) refers to the ownership of an idea or design by the person who came up with it. It is a term used in property law. It gives a person certain exclusive rights to a distinct type of creative design, meaning that nobody else can copy or reuse that creation without the owner's permission." https://www.google.co.uk/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=intellectual+property+simple+definition so basically intellectual property means that if you think up of something completely unique then create that you can copyright this so no one can use it without your permission.

https://www.gov.uk/using-somebody-elses-intellectual-property

https://www.gov.uk/using-somebody-elses-intellectual-property/trade-marks

https://www.gov.uk/using-somebody-elses-intellectual-property/patents

"You can’t copy or use copyright material without permission. For example, you can’t buy a painting and then use copies of it for a book cover, or buy a CD and use a track from it in a film." This is an example of what you cant do, so if i wanted to use Picasso's painting as a book cover or use one of drakes instrumentals as background music for a short film and i did and never asked them if i actually could then that would be copyright.

To use something protected by copyright you must either:

• agree a licence with the owner to use it
• buy or acquire the copyright
• confirm that your intended use falls within the exceptions to copyright"   https://www.gov.uk/using-somebody-elses-intellectual-property/copyright

"A person can give permission if they are:

• the person who made it (the creator), or their family or heirs
• the creator’s employer, if it was created it as part of the creator’s job
• a person who bought, acquired or licensed the rights
• an organisation representing the copyright owner" 

Here is an example of who can authorize a copyright for you.

https://www.gov.uk/using-somebody-elses-intellectual-property/copyright

"The creator may still have certain rights regarding how their work is used even if you’ve bought the copyright.

Authors, playwrights, composers, artists and film directors have the moral right:

• to be recognised as the creator of the work when copies are made available to the public
• to object to the work being altered in a way that has negative effect on their reputation
• to not have someone else’s work falsely attributed to them

Performers, eg actors, dancers, have the moral right:

• to be recognised as the performer of the piece
• to object to the performance being altered in a way that is damaging to their reputation

The creator or performer of a piece of work to which you own the copyright must tell you if they want to exercise these rights.

They can choose whether or not to use their moral rights.

Moral rights can’t be sold or transferred in the same way as copyright. They last for as long as the piece of work is covered by copyright." All of this is basically saying that there may still be moral rights tied into it all like if i created a cool picture but i set the moral rights to no violence portrayed by this image and someone wanted to use it for a violent theme i would have to decline unless they agreed to my moral rights.

"Having the right type of intellectual property protection helps you to stop people stealing or copying:

• the names of your products or brands
• your inventions
• the design or look of your products
• things you write, make or produce

Copyright, patents, designs and trade marks are all types of intellectual property protection. You get some types of protection automatically, others you have to apply for."

The above quote is basically stating what the copyright does to protect you and how it legally protects you if you wish to use copyright.

Sams group:

Music and sound in short film and the implications of copyright.

Use music for private and research studies, can get a copy and criticize it, can produce a backup so you can listen can listen to it later up. CANT directly copy their music, rent or perform or broadcast it to the public. cant use sound that you've found unless you ask the creators permission.

Berkays group:

Clips and images

Royalty fee is when you use something for profit and if you need to use the image you'll need permission from the photography or the people in the photo. Copyright lasts for 70 years so anything created before 1945 you can freely use and don't have to worry.

Simeons group:

Creative commons

Creative common means you don't have to pay for it, no one really uses it though because they wont get money from it.

Flickr, google, Wikipedia, Soundcloud etc use creative commons but you would have to check if it is copyrighted anyway. Some people will say you can do anything with it and others will say you can only use the music that has been created in their way, not manipulate them.

Script for the short film

"So yesterday was the day. The day that the V disappeared from over my head, no longer a part of me... I just hope that she doesn't tell everyone how long i lasted..."

*gets patted on the back*
*looks at note and realizes that his secret is out*
*reads note in his head*
Simeon: "oh no.. Oh this isn't good, everyone is going to find out now!"
Simeon: "what if everyone makes fun of me and I'm known as 1 minute man and my reputation is ruined I'm going to have to move college change identity move country delete my Facebook profile, Snapchat, Instagram and Twitter and..."

*Simeon runs*

The week before filming and story boards

In this lesson we were put into groups of three and i was put with Simeon and Sam. We also watched a short film and then had to decide which one of our proposals we were doing but we really struggled with what one to do as we couldn't decide on which one to do so we used the spider-gram that we were given to give all the pros and cons of each of our short films and we also asked other people from different groups to read our proposals and tell us which one is best. They said the "3 minute man" that has now been changed to "1 minute man" as we think 1 minute man sounds better was the best so we ended up doing that one.

For the second part of the lesson we had to go on to a website that let us create our own story boards. We then created it, snipped it, saved it and here it is for you to see:

 

Video and film Proposal

So this short film is called "3 minutes". Its basically about a guy who had a secret. His secret was between him and this girl who he had recently had sex with for the first time but he only lasted 3 minutes. He walks into the school/college/university/job etc and gets weird looks from people and people laughing at him so he starts to get paranoid and then it hits him that the girl has told everyone about their secret that he didn't last very long in bed when someone comes up to him and says "how you doing 3 minute man?" and when he realizes that his secret has been released he goes red, starts to sweat and then one guy says something to him, pats him on the back but when he pats him on his back he sticks a note pad there saying "3 minute man" then he runs off.

This is all still in the idea process so it may well all change and i know it seems like a sad story but its based off the humor off the inbetweeners humor so it'll be funny.

The kind of narrative structures that i would be including in my story would be that its open, so he runs off and it fades out meaning that there wasn't really an ending, its realist so it could happen in real life (people are cruel yes). I would say its multi strand as it'll be from the girls perspective of her being like "oh my gosh he knows i told everyone" etc and when he realizes that his secret is found it goes slow motion and everything else apart from him is blurred. Its linear meaning that it will go from start to end and it'll last between 1-2 minutes.

On a side note we were introduced to cross cutting this lesson also but only briefly. Cross cutting is basically where there's say a chase scene for example and its cutting from scene to scene but they both end up at the same ending so its 2 events happening at the same time but in the film its switching from each event and this is mainly used ti build suspense but they don't have too.

My soundtrack will be voice overs and there probably wont be any diegetic sound included so ill have a soundtrack behind it but the kind of sound track ill have is like just normal happy ,music with birds chirping in the background etc but when he realizes that his secret is found out it turns towards some comical dark-ish music.

My target audience is people that are aged around 12+. This film is also going to be rated a 12A.

Here is my spider gram for the proposal:

Secrets short film

In this blog i will be talking about what we learnt in today's lesson. We learnt about Narrative Structures, here is the following things we learnt.

• Linear/Non-Linear.
• Realist/Non-Realist.
• Open/Closed.
• Single strand/Multi strand.
• Diegetic/Non-Diegetic.

Okay so the first one you see here listed above is something called linear and non linear and basically what it is, is that linear means that the film you are watching goes in chronological order like start-middle and end. Non linear is where it isn't in chronological order so it'll have a flash back saying something like "20 years ago" and will then carry on from 20 years ago.

The second one you see listed is Realist and Non-Realist and realist means that it could happen in real life whereas non realist means that it couldn't happen, like Harry Potter or Lord Of The Rings.

Next is Open/Closed. Open means it leaves you on a cliffhanger like Maze Runner 2 which is really annoying but good because it makes you want to watch the next film, it means the story isn't finished yet and closed means that the whole film is finished.

After that you'll see one which is called single and multi strand. This means that when you are just watching a film from one persons point of view it is single strand but when you're watching it from more than 1 persons point of view it needs to be labelled as multi strand. 

Finally We have Diegetic and Non Diegetic sound. Diegetic is where you can see whats making the sound, so if i was in a film and i banged my hand on a table or was speaking to the camera that would be Diegetic sound. Non Diegetic sound would be where you cant see where the sound is coming from, so dogs howling in the woods in a film or doors slamming but you didn't see what doors slammed or it can even be as simple as background music and voice overs.

Here is a picture of my Spider-gram and the handouts that we had to fill in after we watched a few short videos made by other people.

Brainstorm for short film

In this blog im going to tell you about what my brainstorm consists of. Basically after watching the short film"The truth about meeting women" by tj misly i wanted to create a comedy and so im going to base this off the kind of humor that the film and TV show "The Inbetweenrs" is based off.

So in this short film its basically about a guy who had a secret, and his secret was between him and this girl who he had sex with for the first time, but he only lasted about 3 minutes. He walks into the school/college/university/job etc and gets weird looks from people and people laughing at him so he starts to get paranoid and then it hits him that the girl has told everyone about their secret that he didn't last very long when a girl comes up to him and says "how you doing 3 minute man" and when he realizes that his secret has been released he goes red, starts to sweat and then one guy says something to him, pats him on the back but when he oats him on his back he sticks a note pad there saying "3 minute man" then he runs off.

This is all still in the idea process so it may well all change and i know it seems like a sad story but its based off the humor off the inbetweeners humor so it'll be funny.

Critical viewing notes of "the truth about meeting a woman" by Tj Misly

In this critical viewing of a film called "the truth about meeting a woman" by Tj Misly it was basically about a guy who made up different scenarios in his head to apply fear and avoid speaking to them. He managed to fit so many (about 6) timelines in such a small space (4 minutes) because the scenes would just cut straight to it. The camera shots consisted of close ups, two shots, extreme close us and lots and lots of cutaways. The lighting for each scene was different but all of them visible enough. The emotions within the film was funny and it generally made me laugh so i enjoyed it and would watch it if it was made into into a longer hour and 30 minutes film.

as it was only 4 minutes long i didn't get a lot of time to write notes (mainly because i enjoyed it too and wanted to see more of the film) but i can remember a lot of it like the sound because the sound was upbeat and had a lot of diegetic sound in it with the speaking and the running etc. It also had non diegetic sound as well because of the upbeat background music and the voice coming out of the speaker at the end in the train station.

It actually gave me a few ideas about what i could do for my film, maybe something comedic to make people laugh? something funny to do with a secret that everyone finds out about.

Here are my notes:

Critical viewing notes of "ashes" by Sophie Black

In this lesson we had to do a critical viewing of a short film called "ashes" by Sophie Black. In this film it basically said about how the woman was doubting her relationship, how she loved him and had feelings for him but the relationship was killing her because the relationship was an abusive one, he also used to tie her up and have sex with her.

in my opinion i thought the film was really weird, i didn't really enjoy watching it. i got that this film was about sadness and happiness but also about love, anger and fear.

I thought the voice overs and the music they used was really good though because it helped portray the image a whole lot better, how the voice over was soft and the music was like soft orchestra, it was as if she was just accepting that she was being abused.

The camera shots were really good because you had a wide range of shots from, extreme close ups, to tracking shots and panning shots.

Here are some of the things i had written down quickly on my notepad

• sleeping in bed
• voice over
• soft background music
• sexual kissing
• man masturbating
• blood on woman's face
• her tied up on bed
• creepy
• watching her sleep
• quiet
• panning shots
• close up
• extreme close up
• fear, love anger and sexual-ness
• man beats girlfriend up