Rick Altman's Theory - Syntactic Approaches

Syntactics are more concerned with the realtions between the elements and structures of narritives in genres. For example romantic comedies all follow the exact same sequence of events in the structure of their narrative; characters that are binary opposites of one another meet by unexpected chance and instantly clash, these interactions and meetings continue to happen for the first thirty minutes, and they then are drawn to one another either by a sad event occuring to one of the character's or the sexual tensions ends and they come together. From this point one of the characters will do something to portray the other, they will fall out of love and then the other performs a romantic act to win back the love. If a genre doesn't follow the structure they are supposed to such as in romantic comedies individuals in the audience will be confused and disreguard the product.

Rick Altman's Theory - Semantic approaches

The semantic approach to to film is the idea of generic conventions. The audience expect when they watch a product such as a film or television show certain conventions have to be placed into it, for example we expect to see in the genre stock characters such as the vulnerable blonde woman, and a large either masculine murderer or ominous and enigmatic spirits at work; the sound effects are set to be very sharp pitched sounds that are loud and build up the tension just as much as the actual footage, we expect to see if the antagonist in the product is human a melee type weapon such as a knife, and in terms of location and shooting styles we expect many close up shots to create a trapped atmosphere and they tend to be set in abandoned environments. Without these conventions the audience would not consider the film to be the genre it claims to be and therefore be confused by what they were actually viewing.

The audience for short film

Demographics

The main demographic groups for short film are from group A - C1. These skilled professionals are looking for potential in rising film makers, usually to recruit them into the industry to begin to produce feature films and show; alternatively from observing these shorts a person could be offered a place on a professional film making course.

From the perspective of students, they are usually placed in group E but there financial backgrounds (in terms of their parents careers) are normally based between group A - C1. So students at school, college or university are a general audience for short film because they study these short films for inspiration and technical tips on how to create their own products. Short films general audience also tends to be anyone interested in media, this is reinforced by the fact that most short films are viewed on websites such as YouTube and are searched for by people seeking media inspiration.

Succeeders

These tend to be people high earning and achieving people who earn a large sum of money and believe they have control over situations. The reason they would be interested in short film, is to find an individual to invest their money into to produce a successful product in which they can return a profit.

Aspirers

These tend to be relatively young people such as degree graduates that are aiming to get higher and further in their life and career. These people would be looking into doing heavy research into the media industry, in particular the film industy aspect so that they could gain knowledge and inspiration for their own creations.

Individualists

These generally tend to be people who wish to stand out from the crowd and make their own mark on the world. So members from this social area could be looking into short film to create their own original piece to present to obtain recognition.

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.