Evaluation

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.

Codes, Conventions & Editing So Far

Our short film conforms to codes and conventions as it is less than 55 minutes, it has a small set of characters and has been produced on a low budget. We experimented with different filming and editing techniques and decided upon stop frame animation and we aimed to make it abstract and be as creative as possible with the storyline. There were no boundaries on our short film and it is quite controversial as it is a very mature film with an element of immaturity due to the teddy bear reference. It is not at all cliché and doesn’t have a specific genre; this allowed us to work more freely. The pace of our film was also quite fast as we didn’t have enough time to build tension or a storyline as a feature length film would. We didn’t work with professional industry equipment and we worked in a small team.

I have previously blogged about films that have influenced our short film. They have been teddy bear based as from the beginning we wanted to mix the themes of childhood and adulthood. The use of camera was influenced by a short film we had watched by previous students who has done the same unit as us. It was completely in photographs and we felt this was a different approach to short film and adapted it into our own. A mainstream film that we took our idea from was Toy Story, as we had recently watched it, it was fresh in our minds and proved that a person’s childhood always stays through them throughout life and it also displayed the transition between childhood and adulthood. Our target audience is very niche. It is for those who enjoy abstract films and over the age of 15. It is slightly humorous so could possibly reach out to a slightly wider audience. We have reached out to them using adult reference, a range of emotions throughout the short film can be exposed, humour, it is very relatable and the idea of innocence that is shown in the teddy. I would like to exhibit my short film on youtube as it is a very famous video website so it could be easily accessed. I would also put it on vimeo as that site is visited and used by breakers into the media industry. Short film competitions and festivals are a good way to get my work out there and to watch other short films for further inspiration.

Editing So Far

So far, editing has gone successfully. We have most of our footage edited and our voiceover is completed. There have however, been a few changes to our original idea. We wanted to do things such as make the teddy walk in stop frame or throw up but we couldn’t because it proved hard when it came to filming. We also wanted to do some focus pulls on the camera but because we were using a standard compact camera, we didn’t have the option of doing so.  The person we intentionally wanted to be the voice of our teddy later changed to another person as we came to a joint conclusion Alex’s voice matched the character of our teddy well. We changed the intro of our short film from outside to indoors as we would have had continuity issues; the teddy would appear outside the suddenly be indoors. We felt this didn’t work well. We needed to reshoot due to lack of footage, when we were filming we were convinced we had enough photographs but because our whole short film is in photographs, we should have thought through how much pictures we would need more thoroughly. When we are able to edit again, we will continue to finish our short film by filling in any gaps, adding a sound track and making titles and credits. Over the Christmas holidays we will take the time as an opportunity to take more photographs.

Storyboard

Presentation: Notice Me

Edit- Week Three

We wanted to record our voice over first before we added more pictures so were knew how much space we had to contend with. Our teacher suggested auditioning more than one person for the voice over so we had variety of voices and then we could chose.
We spent the first lesson of this week getting a camera out and finding a room to hold our voice over auditions, Our first person was Sam Ab his voice was an excellent "teddy bear voice" it was mature and fitted the style of the bear we was using for the film, we spent the whole lesson going through the script; highlighting sections we wanted him to say differently.

The second lesson we uploaded the voiceover from the day before, we listened and edited sections before we held our second set of auditions for the voiceover. We chose Alex for my second voice, he had a lot of enthusiasm and gave a dramatic edge to the voice of teddy, we uploaded it and edited sections.

After listening to both it was a hard decision but we chose Alex for the teddy.

Edit - Week Two

We wanted a second opinion on the photographs we had already taken and if the style of the film was acceptable due some sexual references. We was told that the photographs appears too quickly and the pace was far too fast and the audience weren't able to focus and follow the story. So we changed this and slowed the pace down because we also had to think about how the voice over would fit into the rhythm of the film.