Research: Brief 10 - ShortFilm

A short film in its entirety, lasting approximately five minutes, which may be live action or animation or a combination of both, together with:

• a poster for the film
• a film magazine review page featuring the film

When it comes down to this brief I believe that very specific skills are required in order to pull off the professional look that just about every short film has in the modern age. This is because I will have to research and develop my film making skills in order to improve upon previous work. Furthermore holding an audience for five minutes will be a challenge due to the fact that I have never made anything good over two minutes. In order to achieve a professional look for double the amount of time I am used to I will have to research conventions for different genres of film and see of I can use them  or defy them if I was to make my own. Furthermore I will be looking at past examples from A2 students to see how close they got to creating a professional short film.

• An Exciting & Original Idea - This will make the short film stand out from the other cliche ideas that over saturate the current film market. Original ideas usually are inspired from past films or videos so it is always good to develop the idea before making the idea looking at conventions and how the will shape the film.
• A Strong Script - If the film has dialog it is important that it sounds natural and complements whats on screen, without this the film will feel flat because the actors won't be selling the world that the film is trying to create.
• Good Acting - Acting can make or break a film thereofore if the characters are not played by the correct actor it can be hard to believe the story. To avoid this I usually use just one actor or maybe two actors who speak so I can cast them correctly.
• High Production Values - This is important because the right equipment can make a film look more professional than it actually is for example audio is usually a big issue in the student film making genre. This is because of bad equipment.
• Make It Short - By using time wisely you van make sure that you are griping the audience throughout instead of dragging out the story.
• Strong Beginning - The strong opening is important in order to keep the audience watching.
• Avoid Repetition & Punchline Twists - By analsying the story and script it is easy to change conventions in order to surprise your audience and keep them gripped.  

The first film I analysed as an example was 'Real Gone', the reason I wanted to look at this is because it used a very interesting topic to achieve comedy. I want to look at comedy because I want to try and make my own comedy short film for this assignment. I am comfortable with slapstick however this film raised the bar and very nearly crossed the line by combining drama and comedy. The film is a personal favorite of mine; the use of VFX to sell the story and improve shots: the fire, gun and TV. The color correction was based off the TV series called 'Breaking Bad', I dunno if you have herd of it. This is crossing the line of television and film, again something which is rarely done. The cinematography of the film really worked well with the story this means that while making a short film I would have to think about lighting as much as directing in order to improve my short film.

The second short film I looked at is a fan made short film about the power rangers, the film is titled 'Power Rangers Unauthorized' and is set in a much darker universe to the power rangers I grew up with. The opening was extremely interesting because it opened in first person, which is an interesting shot choice to open a film. It is these conventions that are usually broke within short films and that is why I love them so much. The action further takes place at the beginning to grip the audience, another aspect I would like to explore. This shows that short films can be used to explore other ideas about the same character however this is heavily VFX and is out of reach when it comes down t me doing it.