Audience Profile

A2

The demographics for my target audience are those who are aged at 18 to 24. The reason for this is is that the short film will contain graphic images and violent underlying themes, that the effect theory would show to be as desensitization for younger audiences. Also in terms of psychographics, the short film is a thought provoking piece designed to make the audience uncomfortable and to shock, so psychologically in theory people aged 18 and above should be able to handle the mentality behind the film.

 Also in terms of demographics, the film would be aimed at the social category C1. This is because this class of society would become more enthralled by the psychology behind it and it the narrative’s conclusion would play upon their minds afterwards.

The main audience in terms of gender for this short film would probably be female over male. I believe this because from speaking with different social circles, the number of female people that have seen psychological films such as ‘Shutter Island’ and loved it were much higher than the males.

Also other genres and things the audience would be into watching, would be things like horror and thrillers.

Reception theory apllied to short film

The individuals in the audience will have numerous different reactions to the narrative. Some will decode the enigma and twist in the tale faster than others, and others in the audience may not agree that the conclusion means the same as their opinion. The film would be left to an open interpretation for all to debate over.

How are short films distributed and exhibited?

One of the main ways the short films are distributed is via social media and social networking sites such as YouTube. The film maker will upload it to a site such as this normally to obtain attention from anyone who has access to the website. Money can be made in advertisements on YouTube so the film maker can in theory get their budget back over a period of time providing it becomes popular. The problem with YouTube is that it will realistically only give a person an audience if it is a popular video, if not the film is in essence a waste of time, so another form of distribution is available to film makers.

Film festivals such BFI are a great way to get a short film distributed. A person can submit a film to the company in the hopes that the festival plays it to an audience in an independant cinema; so these festivasls also act as exhibitors. From these festivals potential directors, film critics, and scouts can decide that the director of the short film is highly talented, or has the possibility of becoming that, and induct them into the film industry.

Representation

Representation in short film of characters is very limited. The characters in short film are normally limited to being just represented by their actions rather than by the mise-en-scene of clothing. For example a single mother is easily identified in short films by walking around in an exhausted fashion, normally moving around as though they are on autopilot. The reason behind the representations of characters being represented by a small portion of what could be potentially used is that the film is set to a strict time limit and therefore the audience are forced to think more at the connotations that the camera portrays about the character. In a way this is more effective as the audience then engage in the representations more to try and form their own notions of what the narrative and its characters really mean.

Representation in feature films on the other hand is much more different. The producer and director have much more time and larger budgets to create their representations of things such as characters and gender. For example feature films have the ability to back track into the persons life and background either through verbal communication or by flashbacks. 

Media Language

The media language in short film for cinematography usually consists of different shots for the majority of narrative. The same shots of middle close ups are among the most repeated shot types, this is because these shots allow enough to be seen, and as short films are limited to showing the bare essentials, these shots can get the points across. In terms of editing jump cuts are used to show a period of time that has passed, again this because you are very limited in what you can show to tell the story, so jump cuts help to bring you to different times in the narrative. Also most short films are told from non-verbal communication so the shots that are picked must be clear and obvious to show the main denotations and connotations in the short film.

 

Presentation on short film

Clip extract to show type of character relation 

between protagonist and antagonist.

How are short films made? What are their sources of funding?

Short films are made by a number of different individuals and companies. For example short films are made for ambitious and up and coming directors who want to make a name for themselves in the industry; so for these individuals the source of funding comes from their own pockets and they fund themselves. Another way these types of people make films and recieve funding is by going onto websites such as http://www.bbc.co.uk/filmnetwork/filmmaking/guide/before-you-start/funding#sources  to get donations and tips on ways to get funding for the short film.

Another source of funding for short films is companies who hire short film crews to create a promotional video for their product. A prime example of this is the use of live action video's for video games, the franchise 'Call of Duty' hired a film crew to create a promotional piece for their upcoming game, also using film stars to add more appeal. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuzaxlddWbk

Application of Theory's to short film

Bathes code of enigma can be applied to the narrative of the film 'In Bruges'. The enigma runs throughout the first section of the narrative whilst an equilibrium is in motion. The two disfunctional protagonists have been sent to "lay low", and we know not why this is, or what crimes they may or may not have committed. As the narrative progress's we unravel the heinous crime that Ray committed unintentionally. This then enters Bathe's code of culture, as the gangster culture is revealled by the antagonist Harry, who goes to kill Ray for his sins and the phrase "You can't kill a kid and expect to get away with it" is constantly repeated reinforcing gangsters morals. 

From this I have come to understand that in my short film whatever the narrative is about, the ethics and morals of the lead characters have to remain constant throughout and lead to the conclusion of the plot.

In terms of Vladimir Propps theory, this film has an unconventional set of stock characters. For example the character Ray in reality would be seen as a villain and a low life; in reality the audience would not associate or sympathise with him. But in the diegesis of this film the character is shown as a tragic hero who understands the misdeeds of his past and therefore sympathy is created for him. So from this theory I can use the notion of having a troubled protagonist who has a dark history and try to create audience sympathy for him.

 

For our media product to be successful, we did a number of things. The first was through the use of Reception Theory; this could be seen through our use of mise-en-scene. The character was dirty smeared with mud and blood. From this the audience could automatically make their own perceptions of the character, such as him being homeless, violent and trouble. To add to this, the bleak forest backgrounds added another layer for the audience to converse with others; the environment and desolate atmosphere give clear indications as to what type of narrative and genre this film will be. The character being alienated from society in this way sets up the generic formula for a zombie movie. The reason reception theory was helpful here was down to the timing in which we created it, at the time both television series such as The Walking Dead and films such as World War Z were being shown and in production, which were both large successes; so this showed us that our genre was a guaranteed to be successful.

 

The syntactic and semantic ideas that were placed into the product were all generic conventions of the film style. The zombies in the opening we deliberately set to appear from behind and out of focus to the audience to create the element of an enigmatic outcome, in traditional zombie films, the character in the opening shots would normally play an opening victim to which are slaughtered. But we decided that we should surprise the audience and make the opening character a hunter of the dead to add new originality and engaging plot. The semantic props that were used were things such as an bow and arrow set which we have learnt from other zombie products, is the silent weapon of choice to use in this scenario.

Why do short films get made

Short films are made for a number of reasons. The first reason is that they cn be used to promote a product, for example the video game ‘Army of Two: The Devils Cartel’ had a live action short film created by a short film production company to gain interest from fans of the franchise and people looking for a new type of game to play. In the behind the scenes footage the team reveal that the actual game company gave the production team the real masks for the film and told them to create something with them. So the reasoning behind people creating short film is that even though the film itself may not make any money, the actual product that the film is promoting will benefit and make the money.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vgo-7iYXiE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_60335&feature=iv&src_vid=6vgo-7iYXiE&v=q7l8t2B3K9w

Another reason behind short films being created is to raise awareness for certain issues, such as a council trying to raise awareness on a social issue. These films are not profit designed in terms of money, they are created to hopefully benefit the society around them and the audiences to profit from knowledge of events that happen around them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0ADc-r4ub0

The final reason for short films to be made is for things such as school and college projects, or people trying to obtain recognition in the film industry. By creating a short film and placing it either on the internet on websites such as YouTube, or entering them in film festivals such as http://www.encounters-festival.org.uk/ . In doing this, it allows people to see their talent and provide opportunity to get into a serious film production.

Narrative

The narrative of short film follows a set of comventions that are very rarely altered. In short film an enigma or dilemma or both are presented within the opening minute, and an ambiguity tends to encase the protagonist if it contains one; the narrative of short film is different from that of a feature film as short film is only allowed to show the essentials in terms of scenes, to tell the narrative, and usually these scenes show subtle hints as to the conclusion of the plot, and usually the subtley's are shown more once you see the film for a second and third time to uncover the hints that lead to the twist in the tale.

  

Genre

Genre is the part of any media product be it film, television or print. The genre is something that is defined from the codes and conventions it follows; for example in the genre of horror, we expect there to be some form of enigmatic antagonist in which either an indivdual or group must overcome in order to reach an equilibrium. In terms of short films, there is never a set genre, as there are so many different variations, but one convention that can be placed into short films and in a sense create a separate genre known as 'short film' can be seen as there being almost always a twist. The climatic points in each short film lead into twists so that the audience are either shocked or provoked into reflecting on what they have seen. 

 

Genre can also be seen as seasonal. Around the time of mid November to the end of September, a spate of feel good films and also Christmas films are released; this is down to the institutions that are producing and distributing these films seeing an opening in the box office where profit margins will be at there highest.

Genre aims to target specific audiences to the product, for example not everybody enjoys seeing a 'slasher' film such as Friday the 13th. In being specific with genre you can tell whether or not you media product will be successful, if you look at the current trending of films in today's society, the genre of 'Superheros' has soared, so your target audience creates a large impact on the type of genre you are going to use.

In modern society genre has become a harder concept to define due to the sub-genre coming into existance. Now films and other media products can branch off into things such as 'action' and 'comedy'; and a prime example of genres being split further, is the zombie franchise and genre. A decade ago zombie films would have been classed under 'horror' and they show the generic formula for a horror product; they include monsters, fright and fast jump cuts to close ups of the creatures features, but as a particular film trend under a generic category gains popularity it splits off into its own genre such as the zombie genre.

In relation to short films, the iconography behind them is to entertain for a short period of time and grip the audience's attention. A lot of the conventions involve having a much smaller cast than that of a feature film, and the narrative is shown with only the absolute essential scenes to get the narrative to its conclusion, also the most obvious generic convention of short films, are that they are short, approximately under thirty minutes in length.