Comedy Genre Short Film...

At the beginning of the A2 course, we had our first practice of making a short film. We were given a stimulus to base our short film around and a genre (a documentary style comedy) , and the rest was left to us. Unfortunately, we had a short time limit of 1.5 hours to shoot, so the idea and actors had to be gathered quickly, leaving little time to plan and story board properly. However, I think -judging by my teacher and peers reaction anyway, it turned out to actually be quite funny.

 So here is "A Day in the Life of a Computer Geek" (click on title)

Why it works:
-I think that this mockumentary piece works well because we had a limited time to think of the idea and shoot, and overall the story came together well.
-Also, the choice to shoot it all with a hand-held camera gives it more of a 'real' documentary feel because most documentaries are shot as things happen, so there's no time to set up tripods etc, so the majority of any documentary that follows someone throughout their day is shot hand-held, so the frame is a bit shaky.
-I also like the fact that the actors are pretty good despite being given such short notice to prepare and how most of the dialogue was improvised. I feel like they really fit well into their character stereotypes and make it humorous.
-The sound also contributes to giving it a 'real' feeling- the busy sound of the common room where Keith and his girlfriend are talking demonstrates where they are and how they are almost drowned out by their peers.
-The reaction from my teacher and fellow students leaves me quite confident that the comedy genre is apparent through this short film, despite comedy being a hard genre to work with because of people's varying sense of humors.

Why it doesn't work:
-We were given a very short space of time to shoot and edit, therefore some of the shots and editing could have been vastly improved. A lot of the shots were improvised based on what looked good at the time, and weren't given as much thought as they would have, had this been a final project.
-Also, it is noticeable that in some scenes the dialogue is quite quiet or drowned out by background noise such as the wind outside, noises from other people or just general background grain. This could have all been edited out if we had more time.
-If the editing was smoother and there was more flow to the piece as a whole, it would be much more effective as a mockumentary, however the fact that it was rushed lets it down a lot because it brings the quality of the piece down.
-The script was almost completely improvised on set, therefore if it was thought through and story boarded first before shooting, the acting could have been improved and we could have tried to make it funnier for the audience, instead of thinking of what we think could be funny spontaneously. This ties in with what was mentioned before- comedies are hard to film because everyone has different perceptions of what if 'funny' and what isn't. For example, we (the shooters and actors) found it funny, but that's because we specifically used our own sense of humor in the story. However, if a complete stranger was to watch it they might find it incredibly unfunny or boring. Which hopefully they wouldn't.


-KW

What is a Short Film?

Background:
Short Films have exsisted and been popular along side Feature Films throughout the early days of cinema. In the 1920's especially, short films of the comedy genre were increasingly popular, with the early work of Charlie Chaplin being one of the most popular among that time. Cartoon shorts also proved to be very popular, especially in the 1930's during the Great Depression, and are even enjoyed by younhg children today. Cartoon shorts such as 'Woody Woodpecker' and 'The Pink Panther' that were made in the late 60's-70's that were so popular that they are still often consumed and enjoyed today via children's TV networks.
Animated Shorts still continue to dominate the Short Film industry, with animation giants such as Pixar producing Short Films to display before screenings of their Feature Films. Other large companies such as Disney have also been known to produce Short Films, or 'Short Subjects', such as 'Mickey Mouse', which then developed into a full series of Shorts about 20 minutes each in length.

Defenition:
A film that is not long enough to be considered a Feature Film, usually lasting between 5-40 minutes. Anything longer than 40 minutes is then considered to be a Feature length Film. Anything less than 4 minutes could still technically be seen as a Short Film, but they are sometimes reffered to as 'Short-short Films' and are considered as a different category.

Reception:
Short Films are often shown right before a company plays its Feature Film. An example of this would be Disney Pixar, who since 1995 have created animated short films to screen before the showing of their actual animated film. Some include 'Day and Night', which was shown before 'Toy Story 3', 'For the Birds' which was shown before screenings of 'Monsters Inc', and more recently 'Blue Umbrella', which is currently being shown before Pixars latest feature, 'Monsters University'.

"Day and Night"- Disney Pixar

Short Films tend to rely on Film Festivals, such as Cannes Film Festival and Sundance Film Festival to gain recognition from the public. Film festivals allow people to see recent short films or short films made by a particular director or that are part of a particular genre that is being celebrated. Short films are also eligable for awards at prestigious award ceremonies such as the Oscars and the Golden Globe awards, however their awards aren't as well known as the major awards and aren't as publicly known.


-KW

First Post...Short Film Project Introduction

This year the focus of my blog will be shifting from film opening sequences to short films, where we will eventually create our own short film.

This project will be challenging as it is a massive step up from AS, because it requires making a short film between 4-6 minutes long, whereas the film opening was only required to be between a minute and 2 minutes long, so a lot more work will have to be put in.

 This will also be more difficult as in short films, a complete story has to be told- in film openings, the sequence literally just sets up the story so that it can be continued later, leaving the viewer anticipating and with a lot of questions, as well as a desire to continue watching.

As far as research and planning goes, it should eb about the same, however a lot more effort and time will need to be put in as the subject is wider than before.

In this project we wil be put into small groups and work out a way to split the project tasks evenly, so as to minimise the chances of rushing anything and also to get better results at the end of the year.


-KW