This unit was all about Short Film. I stuck to the brief as I filmed and edited the footage which lasted no more than five minutes and I used a copyright free soundtrack and created my own titles. I worked alongside Katie-Louise on this project and our short film was called ‘Notice Me’ which was about a teddy bear called Harry and his owner Liam.
I am pleased with the final short film and I felt that putting my own twist on it and creating it from photographs only make the short film stand out different from other ones I had seen. For the voice over a member of my class was chosen as his voice had a tone to it that would suite our teddy bear character. Alex was the best voice that could have been used. For the line ‘Liam enjoyed his hobbies, however I certainly didn’t’ I decided that for this it would be a good idea to repeat a previous clip as a flashback, to make this clearer the footage was made black and white. I thought this was vital in order for the viewers to establish that this footage was a flashback. Towards the end of the short film I had the idea of taking additional pictures to make it look as if Teddy was getting ready to go to Sophie’s house and meet his female companion. We showed Harry in the shower and brushing his teeth and in-between footage we put in clips of Harry facing the camera for the viewer to perceive it as Harry is looking in the mirror rehearsing his lines.
A lot of pre-production work, planning and research were done before we went to film which proved valuable as no time was wasted on days of shooting. However, there were a few setbacks such as not planning out roughly how many pictures to take as when we came to edit we were short of footage meaning we had to go and reshoot on additional days. Another problem was not being able to work on our short film for a month meant that when we came back to edit we had lost the momentum and knowledge we previously had. Next time I would improve by doing further in-depth pre-production work.
I have entertained my audience by drawing out different emotions out of an audience. For example, humour as Harry witnesses Liam’s first experience and pity when Harry gets attacked at a party. Also, the storyline is one that can be laughed at and capture a range of people as everyone had a cuddly toy as a child who they grew out of later in life. Technically, a soundtrack was added to keep an audience’s attention and we cut the photographs at different paces to keep it interesting.
A lot of research into films based on teddy bears and Toys was done on websites such as Vimeo and YouTube to help us get inspiration. A short film done by previous students caught our eye immediately as it was done entirely out of photographs, this had a mega influence on how we shot it. The mainstream film Toy Story 3 was also a big influence as it is all about the toy’s owner, Andy, growing up and this is the theme we chose to use also. As this film was for children, I wanted to do something different and produced an adult version instead. The narrative structure was from the Toy’s point of view as like Toy Story but I thought it would be a good idea to give Harry human qualities such as the ability to process thoughts. The whole narrative is done in this way.
Kate and I both had equal responsibilities throughout this unit. We both decided who was going to do what pre-production work from the get go. This proved useful and it meant we never fell behind and we always updated each other on ideas. When it came to filming we took the majority of the pictures together but when we realised we didn’t have enough, we took it in turns to do the shooting. During the editing stages once again we both pulled our weight through to the final stages meaning we completed the unit with a short film we were both very happy with.
