Looking at Short Films (British)

Looking back on my last post about some short films I had researched for some possible inspiration for our short film, I am now going to begin looking at some examples of British short films which I particularly liked and could help generate new ideas for our story line to our short film.

THE HEIST / Short British Gangster Film - TrueMOBSTER

I first researched a film called "The Heist" which is gangster film about a gang who terrorise the Atlantis Club in South London and steal anything which belonged to the club. In the end the gang stole a large sum of cash from the cashiers and injured the staff working at the place too. One of the gang members eventually double crosses his whole team and takes the stolen cash to the boss he works for, who physically beats him up when he asks to leave. 

My general thoughts on the short-films' plot is pretty poor since the story isn't really grasping and interesting. The gang terrorise a night club with the intention of robbing a few objects from the property as well as harming a few of the staff which they did do nonetheless, however there were no gritty or violent combat scenes to match with the gang members fierce muscle builds' and their weapons used to assassinate the staff. As soon as they finish talking to the owner of the club and gunned a few of the staff down they escaped from the premises, which in my opinion makes the plot seems unsuitable for a short-film. If this was a scene in feature film showing the daily work of these criminals, then I think I would have liked the scene a little bit more.

The pros on the contrary of this film is firstly the camera work. I really liked the use of tracking shots when the cameramen where following the gang members around the night club as they shot the staff. There was no shakiness to the footage which is factor I need to consider when I shoot our short-film. The props used are very realistic as they used airsoft guns for the interrogation scene and the members each had a plain masks to cover their faces up which is a unique costume design idea rather than using the typical balaclava we see in most gangster films. Despite the poor storyline, the actors did a very good job in their performance as they played each of their roles to a high standard.

OUR FATHER - World War II Short Film - Smashing UK Productions

This next film which I had researched is based during World War 2. In this short film, the war is experienced through the journey of Private Cole, a dramatic study of the contrasting nature between the innocence of childhood and the reality of war, and the emotional struggle that accompanies it. An odyssey of sorrow, friendship, innocence and adventure set against a canvas of war-torn France. 
This short film's storyline compared to the previous short film I had analysed is very emotional due to it's simulating experience about the lives of soldiers during World War 2. A story means the films is more interesting to watch since the characters emotions are expressed through their friendships and sorrow as they are making their way to their mission. Unfortunately, the soldiers were caught in action by group of German soldiers. A bloody gun fight takes place, and sadly several of the British soldiers get killed in combat. The friendships slowly break away as one by one they get killed by the Germans. Private Cole makes the quick escape after all of his friends are dead, however he shortly decides to commit suicide before he was murdered by the Germans with their machine guns. The sad ending makes this film have a unique feel to it to match with the sorrow theme of the war. 
There is a range of camera shots used in this film and were all very carefully made to fit every scene. Some of the shots include the shot-reverse shot, close up shots, wide shots as well as them all being colour corrected beautifully. There is a extensive use of shallow depth of field which in my opinion is a major factor is used effectively in this film too since the camera is only focusing on the characters rather than the having a deep depth of field and including the background as well. In many ways, shooting the background would have helped the audience understand where the location of this scene is (war zone). Enigmas like the sign post to Caen hint to the audience where they are which replaces the need to use a deep depth of field within the scenes. 
As far as I was aware, there were no real negatives I felt this short-film had since its covering a very powerful theme about World War 2. The short-film has won 5 awards including the Cannes Film Festival 2016 and Rhode Island International Film Festival 2016.

Room 8 - Winner of the BAFTA for Short Film 2014 - James W Griffiths

The last film I researched a BAFTA Short Film Winner called Room 8. This film explores the event of a prisoner being thrown into jail in Russia with another prisoner. The new inmate questions his other inmate about his identity, however the inmate answers briefly to his questions. The new inmate eventually points to a suitcase and asks the other inmate what it is, by which he responds with another brief answer "you will regret it". When the new inmate opens the suitcase he sees a mini version of the prison constructed inside the case. Amazed by this object, he begins to play with suitcase by sticking his hands into the case which results in a giant hand entering from the ceiling of the cell. Shortly after playing around, he finds a way how he can escape from the cell by opening the suitcase box and jumping out of the cell from the ceiling. The new inmate makes his way before he is then trapped by a matchbox by the old inmate who then locks him away in the desk draw with the rest of the other victims trapped in matchboxes.The matchbox acts as an enigma to determine the prisoners fate from the beginning. The cycle continues with the old inmate asking for another prisoner. 

This short film is undisputedly the best camera work I have seen in any of the short-films I have analysed, even compared to some of the American Short films I have analysed. The quality of the footage is very high considering this is a short film made by a very small team. There is also a variety of different shots used throughout the film ranging from shot reverse shots and close up shots of the characters faces. The use of visual effects is very impressive too considering this is a short film once again. Overall, it is very hard for me to criticise this short-film since it is as expected a winner from many short film competitions around the world.

Now that I have completed my research on both British and American short films, I am ready to begin brainstorming my ideas onto paper and consider the filming and storyline techniques I have explored in these short films.

Peter Gabriel | SledgeHammer

After I had completed some research into more short films which I could take inspiration from, we were shown during one of our Media Studies lessons, we were shown a music video called "Sledge Hammer" by Peter Gabriel. Even though Alex and I have decided to not do a music video together, we still needed to understand the basics about how music videos are shot and how this video became very popular during the 1980's. The music video features Peter Gabriel lip syncing the words of his song Sledge Hammer one frame at a time. The music video won a record MTV Awards at the 1987 MTV Video Music Awards and the Best British Video at the 1987 Brit Awards. Gabriel was also nominated for three Grammy Awards: Best Rock Male Vocal Performance, Song of the Year and Record of the Year. As of 2011, "Sledgehammer" is the most played music video in the history of MTV. It is overall considered by many to be the greatest music video of all time. It goes to show how simple ideas can have amazing outcomes!

The music video all in all was very fun and appealing to even modern audiences. The music video includes a variety of synonymous objects which link to the song's lyrics or at least have some reference to do with the song itself.

The use of animation/claymation however in modern music videos could be considered to be very outdated and not trendy for many casual modern viewers because of the few music videos which include animations in the sequences today/ Generally music in the 21st century are shot using studio-standard camera equipment and lighting, with some CGI being added too depending on the song. The music videos of today often do not link to the song's lyrics, which in some ways can help to create enigmas for what is happening or what is being expressed, but for the everyday viewer this can become very confusing indeed.

Overall this music video has not only given me and idea of what the basics of music videos consists of, but this has also inspired Alex an I about how successful a simple and fun music video like this can be. This is important for both to realise as we now need to start thinking about how narrative for our short film and to not over complicate it.

IMDb's Top 100

To continue my research into more Action/Adventure films which inspired Alex and I, I decided to have a look at what IMDb suggests to be the top 100 greatest films of all time. Many of these listed films were of Action/Adventure genre which was what we wanted to base our film's genre on.

Batman The Dark Knight

Rank #4: 2008 | Crime/Drama film | 2h 32m

Director: Christopher Nolan

Batman The Dark Knight is considered to be one of the best Action/Adventure films around and certainly stand out from any other film releases of the same genre. With over $1 billion in revenue worldwide, it is the 26th-highest grossing film of all time, unadjusted for inflation. The film received eight Academy Award nominations; it won the award for Best Sound Editing and Ledger was posthumously awarded Best Supporting Actor. This due to the film's excellent choreography of stunts and acting that most of the fight scenes are so gripping to for the audience. Nolan also used IMAX 70 mm film cameras which helped to achieve better resolution than standard 65 mm film. The additional 5 mm are for 4 additional magnetic strips holding six tracks of sound, which overall improves the sound quality and could be the reason why Nolan received Best Sound Editing. Although Alex and I do not have access to this type of equipment, it has still made us think twice about the importance of sound quality. Especially since this was a severe flaw we had in our Opening Sequence at AS. 

Inception

Rank #14: 2010 | Fantasy/Mystery | 2h 28m

Director: Christopher Nolan

Inception was directed by the same director who directed "Batman: The Dark Knight" which was Christopher Nolan. The use of CGI is excellent in this film due to the narrative of the film exploring the themes of dreams. Nolan's reputation and success with The Dark Knight helped secure the film's $100 million in advertising expenditure. The narrative on the other is very complex and can be difficult to follow for some viewers, which as I mentioned before is something Alex and I have to avoid because we should aim to have a simple narrative which can be determined by the actors.

The Matrix
Rank #18: 1999 | Fantay/Action | 2h 30m 
Directors: Larry Wachowski, Andy Wachowski

The Matrix is one of the most renown science fiction films of today. This film mainly gained popularity for its amazing visual effects and cinematography. The Matrix is known for popularizing an effect called "bullet time", which is a technique that heightens the perception of certain characters represented by allowing the action within a shot to progress in slo-motion whilst the camera appears to move through the scene at a normal speed. What I particularly like about this action films is the narrative because the ending allows the audience to think of an ending for themselves due to the film's relation with religious or philosophical themes. 

After researching in detail 3 excellent examples of films from IMDb's list of top 100 greatest films, this has aided my research in finding out what characteristics make these 3 the greatest. They all have excellent story plots, films like The Dark Knight and Inception lead the narrative into a clear direction, whereas the Matrix leads its narrative for the audience to decide. On the other hand, Inception and Matrix use a heavy extent of CGI which is something The Dark Knight does not use to film their action sequences. My next set of research will now be looking at the characteristics of the greatest British Action/Adventure films since the majority of the ones selected on IMDb's list are American, but also because our film will be in fact British as we will not have the same budget to replicate the style of American Films.

Media Language - The Notion Behind Signs

Media Language is the way in which a text is constructed to create meaning for a reader or viewer of the text. The text acts as an interface between the institution that has created the text and the audience that will receive the text. In this post I have produced a GoogleSlides slideshow showcasing all of the key concepts I have to be aware about in Media Language when constructing our product.

Looking at Short Films (American)

Beginning my research for our A2 Media Film, I wanted to look at some examples of previous and popular Action/Adventure films to help give Alex and I some inspiration for our short film. The selection I have researched here are showing the typical conventions of American films. Eventually I will make a follow up post showing some examples of British short films which I might like.

Sharp Fires - happyfoxproductions

I first looked at a short film called "Sharp Fires" which was about an assassin who holds a very powerful stone that the Elite Research Corporation is looking for. This film in my opinion was shot beautifully as the directors used a variety of camera shots including shot reverse shot and medium/long shots to film the fight sequences, and medium close ups to film the interview scenes. The film also incorporated a mix of high key lighting and low key lighting for different scenes. The lighting was something I felt we needed to improve in our Opening Sequence from AS because the footage had a bit too much low key lighting, which was perfect for the interview scene, however not so perfect for the fight scene as it was hard to see some of the movements which were happening throughout the fight. 

Sleeping Dogs - pwnisher

This next short film is one of my favourites out of the 3 I have researched. The camera work in this short film is excellent as the camera is moving around the actors and fight scene for the benefit of the audience, rather than using still camera shots between sequences. This helps to build atmospheric tension and makes the audience more involved in the film, which was a technique that we applied to our AS film. The film also has surprisingly a very simple narrative. The story was easy to follow and was similar to our narrative we used for our AS film. The use of props in this action film are also very good which is something we need to consider for our short film since this will make our fight sequences realistic, bloody and more like the ones of a real Action/Adventure film like "Kingsman". The use of lenses and camera equipment as well in this film helps to achieve a film look to the footage which is also a technique which we need to consider in our short film.

Retribution - juicified83

The last short film which I had researched was one of my other favourites behind Sleeping Dogs. The narrative of this short film is very engaging because of its similar plot to films like James Bond, or 24. The use of different camera angles and techniques like close up shots and shallow depth of field help to show the characters expressions better, particularly when the protagonist character is aiming to shoot the victim on top of the building. The use of CGI in the scene when he is finding the documents about the victim is also very good.

These 3 opening sequences have now given Alex and I some perspective into what ideas we could both generate for our short film. Improving from our Main Task at AS, we both think that we need to improve the lighting, quality of the footage and include more filming techniques into the film. We also need to come up with a better narrative which will include more connotations and enigmas to help us gain more marks.  

Codes and Conventions For Our Short Film

After deciding that our short film was going to following the codes and conventions of an Action/Adventure genre, I decided to analyse the key aspects Alex and I have to consider when we research and plan our short film as part of our coursework productions. This Prezi I created analyses these different aspects we need to consider in detail.

5 Factors To Consider When Choosing a Film Genre

In my previous post I was analysing some important differences I had researched between British and American films. These included the way in which they are both funded, the direction in which the storylines are taken as well as their significant budget differences. Since I am still undecided whether Alex and I will make our film British or American, I thought that it was important firstly to consider the factors required when writing a storyline for a film which is what this slideshow is explaining. This analysis will help me to generate my ideas for our film but also guide Alex and me how we will make our main task too.