Everyone knows that the best way to get anything show is by the internet; so we as a group decided that we'd take this route to show the public our work; with lazydays already published on Vimeo, Youtube and various posts on facebook all that was left was to enter it into into as many online competitions as possible. Louis had found a competition via youtube called future shorts and sent Lazy Days off:
Submission received
Dear Louis Spanswick O\'Brien
Thank you for submitting Lazy Days to us. If you have chosen to submit a DVD copy of your film, please send it clearly marked with your Submission Number to:: FUTURE SHORTS, 71 Leonard Street London EC2A 4We look forward to receiving your film. Please note that we cannot return preview copies.
Submission ID:: 0000005520
All the best, Future Shorts Programming.
To distribute a short film you have to go through the process of getting your short well known, there are many ways someone can do this, the main one being sending the short film to multiple free online streaming websites such as youtube vimeo and veoh, as previously stated we've already submitted our work onto youtube, vimeo and facebook so now as a group we are submitting into competitions, another competition we are submitting to is the BBC film network; this is because the BBC is a well known company and if we submit our work we'll get some reckognition as they offer lots of things for students and praise their media work.
Lazy Days doesn't target a specific audience; this is due to the fact that short film in general doesn't have a specified audience, the people that generally watch short film are the public who stumble across short film, the majority of short film is on the the internet and video streaming websites so its not difficult to find. without a specified audience short film has alot more freedom and can appeal to anyone who knows about short films and attends festivals, Lazy days targets such a diverse audience mainly the super fans of short film that show deep enthusiasm for short film no matter the genre; Lazy Days also targets the Youtube audience; which is for the majority older males aged 20-30; directly as the majority of youtubers do comdey sketches and post them for the whole world to see, lazy days fits in with this audience because the narrative of our short is exactly what youtube is about, short and sweet with a comedic quirkyness to brighten someones day. the main reasons i feel lazy days appeals to both of these audiences is due to the pace of the editing; its snappy and up beat, this directly appeals to anyone who sees anything of comedic value as it grabs attension, the music for lazy days alongside the editing appeals to people who watch it as i've proof tested this by playing it in an empty room at home with the sound up and seeing who comes in because of the quirky cowboy music during each of the television stalkings; it works to say the least and makes people smile, these are incredibly attractive qualities for our internet and short film entusiast audience.
Our influences clearly show that we have an audience; which is predominantly male due to the fact that The Mitchell And Webb look and Withnail and I are very dark comedys that target males to laugh at things you wouldn't normally see happen; esentially exactly what lazy days is all about- with the distinct comparisons between the influences and our short film its clear that the audiences is for mainly males in their 20's-30's who have a passion for technology perhaps an obsession which directly links to the moral message of our short.
As directed in lesson we've shown our short film to the year 12s who had been taught nothing abotu short film atall, and came only bearing the knowlege that they've aquired without any teacher guidance. we had to aquire feedback from the class with a questionnaire that we'd handed out. The feedback was very interesting to read, and we'd realised some errors we'd not previously seen in lazy days before, issues such as the lighting being too dark and some students not being able to see what was happening. Another major issue that was presented to us due to the feedback was the narratives ending. "i felt it lost my interest towards the end..." looking back at each persons comment on the ending being a let down i couldn't help but agree to each of their critisisims about it. the feedback from the year 12s made me realise that Lazy days was a good piece or work, however it needed a few minor changes such as changing the colour balanace and making the ending more engaging for the audience to make it so much better than it already was. The year 12s pointed out the key things that made lazy days work, these were the music, "i felt the music should have been for a cowboy movie however it worked!", one major part of the questionnaire i'm pleased about is the fact that everyone that did it had such a mixture of different opinions on what the moral message of lazy days was, i felt this was a huge success on the groups part as we were all undecided on what our moral was, we each had our different perceptions of it.
Attempts were made to get other feedback for lazy days by postion the video on facebook, this didn't turn out as planned as the only person we were to get feedback from was my mother, who's idea of feedback was "how did you get the tv into the fridge?" but with all of the feedback from the year 12's this didn't create much of a barrier when it came to looking at the feedback individually.
As a group we still all had the influences from our initial idea of "Tramps" which were for the majority aged comedic influences such as Withnail and I and The Mitchell and Webb Look. For Lazy days we still had these influences in mind and more. The way the idea was formed was very simple, literally I saw someone following someone carrying a television behind them; this influenced the idea completely as I thought "wouldn't it be weird if the tv like appeared in random places" so with the idea fresh in my head I storyboarded the initial idea and created a mood board so the idea started to take flight. Then I began to look around for influences, and as tramps failed the influences for it were fresh in my head and with discussion with the group we agreed that we wanted Lazy Days to look like Withnail and I with the darkness and have the quirkiness that The Mitchell and Webb Look have in their comedic sketches.
With Lazy days completed I've reflected on the things i think need changing and the things i think work well. looking at short films in general I've come to the conclusion that short film itself is just an acted short narrative. with no specific codes and conventions i feel that Lazy Days fits perfectly to this as its clear to the audience that our protagonist is a lazy man and spends his day doing nothing but sitting on the couch. with no specific codes and conventions for short film i find it hard to specify what makes and what breaks Lazy days. when talking about the specifics that lazy days has to offer the short film audience the only things i can see relevant are the fact that lazy days is roughly 4 minutes long which completely fits short film as it is under 90 Min's (which is feature length film) which classifies it as a short film. Lazy days has the quirky gimmick of having a strange moral message that most short films have such as "killing time at home" which has the moral gimmick of playing on the fact that friends are disposable through using the website "disposable friends.com" to buy friends, lazy days has the moral gimmick of having the tables turned on people watching television by having the television itself staring that the person and seemingly stalking him giving the audience freedom to find a moral message; some moral messages that have come up all fit such as "don't watch too much TV"- "society is too dependant on technology"-"life catches up with you"- i feel this is an incredibly strong part of lazy days- the freedom of allowing people to come up with their own moral, unlike some short films that have a guided moral that is pushed at the viewer.
What works and what doesn't
Lazy days has alto that works with it, this is mostly due to the fast paced edits and the beginning more specifically the bus stop scene because it just flows perfectly for the audiences, so smoothly that they wouldn't necessarily notice the television appearing if that was one of the first television appearances during the short. due to the narrative being so simple there is so much room for improvement with the aesthetics of the piece, the colour throughout the piece is too a little bit too dark for the audience as we've shown the piece to the year 12s and they found it hard to see what was going on in certain areas so colour correction is a definite area that needed more work to it.
Personal Opinion Of Lazy Days
I feel that Lazy days is a nice overall complete piece, i feel that the music fits well and conveys a lazy atmosphere, the exact atmosphere we wanted to create. the comic cowboy track gives the television scenarios the quirkiness they needed to add the humours effect. The track is still annoying but there weren't any other tracks that could have been used.
I feel that Lazy days was lacking, it needed another Television scenario to keep the mood, and the last laptop scenario needed more to it; there was too much of a build up to nothing, it would have been better if the television was next to the protagonist in bed.
The reaction to the television in the fridge was ; i feel, lacking, it needed to have more of a reaction perhaps exaggerated like the bus stop scenario...
overall i see the outcome of lazy days is allot better than i initially expected this is due to the fluid motion of the cuts and tracks and the conveyance of all lazy atmosphere crossed with quirkiness of the television stalking Laurent. due to the editing the story comes across short and sweet allowing the audience to appreciate the comic scenario that is lazy days. i feel the main reason lazy days has succeeded is the fact that the idea is allot more solid compared to tramps which would have relied heavily on scripting whereas lazy days relies on sight and sound and is incredibly edit orientated.
Fitting Codes and Conventions
Lazy days fits the codes and conventions of short film very well, its short and sweet lasting approximately 3 minutes with a very defined storyline to it,
a man spends his time watching television all the time. after a day of indulging his television addiction to the fullest extent he wakes up to have the television stare and stalk him much like he did with his favourite program, after a day of being stalked he finds himself trying to cure boredom with the laptop which then follows him around creating a vicious circle involving technology following him around.
much like the short films we've studied in class lazy days fits in well as its a short story told in less than 10 minutes- like the mime love story we've watched in class lazy days has the quirky comedy to it that few short films adhere to ; like a Monty python sketch and a Mitchel and Webb sketch that could be classified as a short film.
Editing the short film
The editing process was short and sweet, much like our short film, i was present for everyday of the editing and contributed to it by adding and taking away parts that had been laid down, i also contributed by putting in a soundtrack that Louis and Bethan had chosen called "lazy days" and adding my own track called "comic cowboy" The piece had a very strange gimmick of having the television follow the protagonist and by using the comic cowboy track for each of the televisions appearances it gave the piece the added emphasis it needed to make the audience laugh (as tested by using members of the form seeing the piece with and without sound) much like the filming process a lot of my time was spent messing around with sound especially on one day where the levels were messing up and there were various things wrong with the television sound and the ring tone sound; saying this i did have a part editing the piece as a whole adding cross fades, fades to black and general transitions between shots like with the outdoor scene having a cigarette.
as I've already mentioned the process was short and I'd only come across complications when it came to sound, everything else was generally very straight forward and easy to mend.
Filming our Short Film
there were many complications to do with sorting out the filming, one being that our "tramps" idea had failed and the Saturday we were supposed to film completely collapsed due to an actor dropping out at the last minute; but with the new idea for "lazy days" in hand we picked up the filming pace and began to film on Monday the 1st of march which was the first date of our 3 day filming.
During the filming of our short film i was present for 2 out of the 3 days meaning that i wasn't there for the bus scenario and the throwing out of the television; by being present i mean that i was using the boom to pick up sound that would be needed for the final edit to make our piece better than what it would have been without the sound.
Filming was incredibly simple as the whole short film was based around peckham rye e.g Louis' house mainly the living room so there wasn't any problem for me to be present for the filming to contribute to the stylising and the sound proportions of the set dates we had given ourselves to film
I feel that Lazy days is a nice overall complete piece, i feel that the music fits well and conveys a lazy atmosphere, the exact atmosphere we wanted to create. the comic cowboy track gives the television scenarios the quirkiness they needed to add the humours effect. The track is still annoying but there weren't any other tracks that could have been used.
I feel that Lazy days was lacking, it needed another Television scenario to keep the mood, and the last laptop scenario needed more to it; there was too much of a build up to nothing, it would have been better if the television was next to the protagonist in bed.
The reaction to the television in the fridge was ; i feel, lacking, it needed to have more of a reaction perhaps exaggerated like the bus stop scenario...
overall i see the outcome of lazy days is allot better than i initially expected this is due to the fluid motion of the cuts and tracks and the conveyance of all lazy atmosphere crossed with quirkiness of the television stalking Laurent. due to the editing the story comes across short and sweet allowing the audience to appreciate the comic scenario that is lazy days. i feel the main reason lazy days has succeeded is the fact that the idea is allot more solid compared to tramps which would have relied heavily on scripting whereas lazy days relies on sight and sound and is incredibly edit orientated.
Lazy days fits the codes and conventions of short film very well, its short and sweet lasting approximately 3 minutes with a very defined storyline to it,
a man spends his time watching television all the time. after a day of indulging his television addiction to the fullest extent he wakes up to have the television stare and stalk him much like he did with his favourite program, after a day of being stalked he finds himself trying to cure boredom with the laptop which then follows him around creating a vicious circle involving technology following him around.
much like the short films we've studied in class lazy days fits in well as its a short story told in less than 10 minutes- like the mime love story we've watched in class lazy days has the quirky comedy to it that few short films adhere to ; like a Monty python sketch and a Mitchel and Webb sketch that could be classified as a short film.
The editing process was short and sweet, much like our short film, i was present for everyday of the editing and contributed to it by adding and taking away parts that had been laid down, i also contributed by putting in a soundtrack that Louis and Bethan had chosen called "lazy days" and adding my own track called "comic cowboy" The piece had a very strange gimmick of having the television follow the protagonist and by using the comic cowboy track for each of the televisions appearances it gave the piece the added emphasis it needed to make the audience laugh (as tested by using members of the form seeing the piece with and without sound) much like the filming process a lot of my time was spent messing around with sound especially on one day where the levels were messing up and there were various things wrong with the television sound and the ring tone sound; saying this i did have a part editing the piece as a whole adding cross fades, fades to black and general transitions between shots like with the outdoor scene having a cigarette.
as I've already mentioned the process was short and I'd only come across complications when it came to sound, everything else was generally very straight forward and easy to mend.
there were many complications to do with sorting out the filming, one being that our "tramps" idea had failed and the Saturday we were supposed to film completely collapsed due to an actor dropping out at the last minute; but with the new idea for "lazy days" in hand we picked up the filming pace and began to film on Monday the 1st of march which was the first date of our 3 day filming.
During the filming of our short film i was present for 2 out of the 3 days meaning that i wasn't there for the bus scenario and the throwing out of the television; by being present i mean that i was using the boom to pick up sound that would be needed for the final edit to make our piece better than what it would have been without the sound.
Filming was incredibly simple as the whole short film was based around peckham rye e.g Louis' house mainly the living room so there wasn't any problem for me to be present for the filming to contribute to the stylising and the sound proportions of the set dates we had given ourselves to film
Derek is hated by cats...really hated, no matter where he goes a cat terrorizes him every day, it makes life hard for him togo about his daily life. Derek realizes its the final straw when his girlfriend takes him to her house and He's instantly mauled by the ginger tabby cat from hell...this leads derek to question why he's constantly being bullied by the feline monsters...it turns out that derek has upset the king of cats because of a minor misunderstanding and derek sets off to make amends to remove the curse.
Binary Opposites:
Derek vs Cats
Locations:
Alleyways in Camden,
king of cats lair, a flat above a pub in brick lane
Dereks house in Harrington Lane
Equilibrium- Cats Stalking Derek
Dis-Equilibrium- Derek has had enough and sets out to sort the problem
Restoration- Derek and the king of cats have a ferocious fight but it ends when he trips over a bucket of water and it falls on the king of cats, he ends up getting the girl and they live happily ever after
Costume:
King of cats:
Hairy/camden pirate with oddly pointy teeth and guy liner
Derek:
Average guy, early 20's.
The Lord Of Pancakes:
Its pancake day and a couple are laying in bed wanting breakfast so the woman- lindsay tells her boyfriend to set out on a quest of extreme proportion to find the perfect pancake ingredients. So Henri Sets off on his journey braving blistering colds, exhausting mountains and disgusting marshland to return home with the perfect breakfast of pancakes for his princess little does he know his brother is on the same quest for the last pancakes....
Binary Opposites:
Good- Henri
Evil- His Brother
Costume:
Cliche over the top adventure outfits like lord of the rings for henri and his brother.
Lindsay- Cliche princess night dress
Everyone else- normal everyday clothes
Locations:
Tescos
Corner Shop
A park, sand Box, hills, slides
Equilibrium:
The couple are having a perfect morning together and he sets off on his journey
Dis-Equilibrium:
Henri is confronted by his brother and a fight occurs as they are on the same quest for ingredients then they battle it out and race to Tescos
Restoration:
Henri returns home to find his brother has already returned home and is in bed with the princess having breakfast
During Inspiration week we have looked at various texts and pictures from across the creative spectrum, everything from pop art, poetry to lyrics to inspire us to create ideas.
one exercise in lesson was to write 1 line of a story then pass it around the class until the story is done.
Each line had a specific thing it had to include, the first line was:
1) A man and his job
2) A woman and her job
3) How they meet
4) One line of dialogue
5) Major event
6) End story
my example of this is:
"Bob is a builder
and florence is a machine
they met at a camping trip in france
"take me to your leader"
a bat took the man away and left the woman in tears
the woman didn't really care about her pregnancy so carried on being a stripper."
From this exercise in lesson i learned that its so simple to create a story with just one line of from multiple people.
Organisations such as Greenpeace and Peta 2 have taken it upon themselves to create documentaries to inform audiences about products being tested on and animal cruelty in general, this is a huge base for the organisations to do things for "the better good" by publishing the videos across the internet and their personal web pages to show the world about "what happens behind closed doors"
Fishing Hurts:
this organisation documents their campagn to show the world what the world of fishing is actually like behind the mask of the oceans and seas. they inform and have under cover footage to show the public what they are consuming. videos like these are like warnings to the public of what may happen when fish products are consumed. Greenpeace and Peta 2 also have documentaries like these swabbed across the internet.
Convergence technology is simply where the media overlaps with eachother to be combined into a hybrid piece of equipment.
Products such as the:
Iphone puts the technology of a phone, music, internet, camera, video and games all together and is one piece of hardware the same with Gaming Consoles they put the internet, sky television gaming , films, music and virtual reality all togeher; technology like this is vastly used in the world of short film as they seem to be more cutting-edge and experimental when it comes to distributing their media.
"We've been around the block. We've spent the past 10 years (formerly as AtomFilms) discovering hilarious, talented filmmakers and unleashing them on an unsuspecting internet. Our formula is simple: Find talented people, make them famous across the Web and beyond, and pay them well. In return we've found that they bring us more funny content, the cycle continues, and everyone lives happily ever after."
Atom films is a production company that focus' on distributing short films (especially comedy) across the internet to reach the youth and perhaps entice them to join and start creating shorts of their own. Atom has the most innovative system of getting the youth to see and perhaps find some kind of inspiration from their films by using the internet television and Ipods; (three of the most used things for the youth).
"We're more than a website. The Web is what we call home, but you can find Atom videos on just about any screen that plays video. Your computer. Your mobile phone. Your iPod. Your TV. According to our fancy sales team, that makes us a 'convergent entertainment network'."
Atom films has also teamed up with comedy central to add to the mainstream, as previously stated they look for talent and want to get laughs for it, and comedy central is the biggest comedy network in the world so more of the youth get to hear about Atom and the cycle continues http://www.atom.com/about/
There are a few companies that help to bring aspireing directors of short film into the industry one of these companies isFirst light.
First Light inspires young film makers from the age of 5 to 19 by funding them on film projects that show the diversity in their lives. Since launching in 2001, 12,000 fresh filmmakers have been able to, write, shoot and produce over 800 films; The films they create cover a huge spectrum of topics and genres that allow them to work and have acess to the latest digital film technology. http://www.firstlightonline.co.uk/about-us/
Looking at short films at the BFI i managed to find films sorter than the "micro-short" (90 seconds) these films were called : the X-RAYS by George Albert Smith, he was a counter-part to George Melies who was one of the first people ever to ever experiment with fictional/ science fictional work when it came to film making.
The X-ray (1897) is a Minute long, with no sound (due to the date it was made) and a static camera shot of a couple appearing to have an argument, or the male trying to flirt with the female, a third character then enters the shot- appearing to hold a x-ray machine (boxes with x-ray written on them), the couple then appear to be skeletal in a jump and then revert back to normal, and that's the end of it, its simply got a story of a couple and a man coming and watching them, then the man leaves and then that's it the story ends, this completely changed my look on short films as not only can you evolve them past needing a huge length to tell a story you can keep them as simple as possible to show the audience whatever is necessary.
The Postal Delivery 1971 -John Beech 10 mins
This has to be the most surreal but realistic piece of short film i've seen, its simply about a man who is going to post a letter but his hand gets stuck, and through some-kind of miss-hap he becomes famous for drawing on the pavement, he then builds his house around him (this is shown solely through props around him) he then gets freed from the post box during a passionate kiss with a stranger, this then leads to the protagonist realising he didn't post the letter he was meaning to in the first place, consequently he runs back and gets stuck again, the camera angles of this are mainly on the street corner within 90 degree view of everything around, with the camera being specifically stuck in place; this is particularly shown through the shots looking past the protagonist with his hand stuck in the post box.
Borderline:
Borderline by Alex Chandon is a surrealist view of london being turned upsede down and inside out on itself in a very experssionistic artistic way; this is a very good short film due to the fact that most of the mise-en-scene of this piece consists of camera and editing work to boost the surreality of what the audeince sees. There is no voice in the piece too, only a melodic tune to add to the fantasy that the piece shows, it was supposed to be in the style of artist Maurits Cornelis Escher; with his abstract renditions of the world around him.
(Note: All information on this blog comes from the BFI Database.)
Sundance: this is the largest independent film festival in the USA, its held from the 21st-31st of january each year in Park City Utah, Sundance started in 1978, The festival specialises in both feature and short films in particular Dramatic and Documentary films Awards Include: Us Dramatic Competition Us Documentary competition World Cinema Dramatic competition World Cinema Documentary Competition
to actually get your work nominated to take part in sundance your work has to be incredibly well known and you have to at least be a well known director in some way to have the recognition and marketing ability too have your work noticed.
http://festival.sundance.org/2010/
Encounters:
Encounters film festival formally known as Brief Encounters is a film festival that was introduced in 1995 to celebrate the 100 years of film, it was supposed to be a one off event but due to its success its become one of the biggest festivals devoted to short film it happen every november form the 17th to the 21st. you apply online on the 1st of august until the actual festival itself.
http://www.encounters-festival.org.uk/
Tropfest:
Founded by award-winning actor/ director John Polson, Tropfest began as a short film festival in Sydney, Australia in 1993. Tropfest is known as the largest short film festival in the world It renowned for its support of new film making talent. Tropfest offers filmmakers a world-class platform for launching their careers through its reach, prizes to help contestants and winners connections within the industry. Celebrity supporters of tropfest include Russell Crowe, Nicole Kidman, Ewan McGregor, Will Smith and many others to help endorse the festival and endorse short film as a whole.
http://www.tropfest.com/
Short film festivals not only promote work but they are a form of exhibition for it, they draw in crowds of hundreds upon thousands of people to watch work created by people world wide to receive some-kind of recognition in the industry, the exhibition is also seen through releases on the internet i.e
www.youtube.com for the more film orientated pieces of work
www.newgrounds.com for the more flash animation orient work
these are far from the only websites, there are hundreds of them out there to publicly exibit work worldwide.
The big shave is one of my favourite pieces of short film, its directed by Scorsese, this is a simple but incredible short film which shows Scorseses personal style of being brutal and violent. the big shave is a story about a man simply having a shave in the bathroom in a very clinical environment; but taking the shaving too far, to the point that hes cutting his flesh and bleeding everywhere.
this is an underline hint at vietnam, at the pointless-ness and stupidity of the war and the ridiculous massacres they have inflicted on countless people in vietnam.
the shots are as clinical as the environment and show how precise the man knew he was shaving, precisely wanting to bleed and inflict pain on himself. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83i8G6o0quc
the sucess of this short film is world renowned as many ameture film makers have found themselves imitating the big shave and posting their different renditions of it on youtube for world wide exibit.
Short film could in no way compete with holly wood or the mainstream, so it found its clear home within art. Both Avant Gard and experimental Art take a strong interest in short films, this is because they can change all of the dynamics that an normal film would have and take it to an artistic level.
Maya Denens " meshes of the afternoon" not only set the tone for Avant Gard but also added expressionism into the equation; the expresionist movements are filmed clinically and precisely to look void of reality as if the surreal nature of things happening are something of a dream, Maya uses no sound during the film and has the actress move flowingly almost like a dance. the music on meshes of the afternoon ins incredibly significant as it shows that the music can change the entire piece, the dance doesn't flow with the music, therefore i see this being more like an obscure movement to some awkwardly placed music. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPi9i3gfSAM
Maya stands up as an anti-mainstream director and this is show in her artistic license in and creativity through her work, opposing normal codes and conventions and making her work look more like a moving painting rather than making a high budget film.
Mayas work differs from anything i've ever seen before as each shot looks like an individual painting especially at 2:30 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9Gve37nWBo) in part 1 of "at land" there is a bunch of men sitting smoking at a large table; this one frame has artistic significance just showing the high class doing what they do- like doccumenting what happens from the artistic point of view
The Berlin Horse 1970- Directed by:Malcolm Le Grice Sound by: Brian Eno The berlin horse is basically just a horse walking around, then reversed with colours flashing with a very irritating piano piece being played in the background; this is seen as art. this piece for me shows that the experiments that artists took perhaps seem to be completely insignificant to some people; but have underlined meanings, Berlin horse was supposed to be an experiment of how peoples eyes react to colour and the sense of rhythm they build from the soundtrack.
1895- Sortie De'lusine; the first films were short due to technology restrictions.
Short Film and Hollywood: Short film was completely over shadowed by the high production of Hollywood; the dominant mode of film production 'the classic narrative' and feature length 90 Min's. The Hollywood studio system required films to be no longer than 100 Min's so the cinemas were able to have 2 hour blocks in which the trailers and viewers were able to get food.
1930s onwards short film was a marginal activity; it would only be created to break codes and conventions of high budget blockbuster films and allow directors the leisure of experimenting without a huge financial loss.
Short Film and Tv:
1960-1970S TV provided some insers where people could watch short films, these were either 'Fillers' between programs or at late night slots. 1990s BBC2 launched series 10 X 10 which was in association with the BFI to showcase some short films. 1993: bbc launched 'video nation' to populate mass vieweing of short films, and now the internet.
- video cameras became cheeper and smaller and the video diary started to grow in number, this was set to influence the generation of reality tv such as big brother and reality tv online in 2001. www.bbc.co.uk/videonation
currently:
Hollywood doesn't follow the studio system and sees short film as room for experiments and innovation, short film as previously stated allows the director to be able to take risks without huge financial loss over their heads. Studios also now scout talent at short film festivals for young aspiring directors. George Lucas, and Stephen Spielberg were both found at film festivals and they've gotten where they are now due to it.
Rubber Johnny- first opinion on this; something relavant towards condom use and sexual activity.
Rubber Johnny scared me to be honest, this short was supposed to be an advert to showcase the trippy drum and bass music of aphex twin; but the director saw potential and continued working with rubber johnny;
the story is that of a disfigured child locked in a basement with his pet dog; Johnny is questioned by psychiatrists; and is seemingly calling for his mother at one point; then left alone in darkeness with just the dog, the music then kicks in and the short film then turns into a music video; fast paced shots cutting every second, blurs, sped shots to the point of distortion; this is fuel for the music to emphasise the power of the rubber-like movements of johnny and his dancing.
My initial message ideas for this were:
Johnny remains motionless throughout the entire piece but is only dreaming the dancing scenario-longing- to be normal.
"Rubber Johnny" - should have worn a condom & not had johnny
Johnnys movements have some kind of rubbery feel to them.
A story of a family trying to continue with normal life; a daughter and mother buy the deceased father a melon to put on his grave (it was his favourite fruit), this is shot closely making you feel like the third wheel of the family in retrospective you feel like you are following them; the melon is significant for this piece as the deceased fathers spirit walks past and says "mmm smells good"
from just watching this i thought about the melons significance of being able to bring the father back somewhat for a brief second and then kept thinking about the afterlife and how things connect; so i personally think this piece is incredibly thought provocative and kept me on my toes.
the storyline also follows the mother being harsh to her child to begin with and then when the father appears, she apologises. this made me think of the message that: parents sometimes losing their way with there children and forgetting they have responsibillities to them but something major always happens then they realise the error of their ways and begin to spend more time with their kin.
another message i got from this was that of a question "perhaps the dead do watch over us?"
to say the least spilt water is a very captivating short.
All of the films in tales of terror take place in enclosed environments and contain very little speach;they engulfe the senses with awkward atmospheres created through the enclosed camera angles which make everything in the frame seem too personal for comfort as if you were next to the protagonists; in particular "the elevator" directed by Takashi Shimizu- the story of this is ludacrisly simple but stunning, from watching it once you learn next to nothing about the characters and notice nothing complex but from second watch you can figure out whats going on.
There are various wedding invitations which seem to upset the protgonist; you then see ghosts haunting an elevator; its difficult to explain but from watching it multiple times i've realised the significance of it all. The boyfriends condesending attitude and the ghosts going down, and the protgonist going up in particular, the significance of this is:
The protagonist going up- signifys leaving sadness behind and going up ascending life; her sadness is the fact that everyone but her is getting married and her boyfriend shows no sign of proposing.
the ghosts going down- they are dead and theres nothing else they can do but go down and face their fate because they let their lives slip away and have lost happyness, so they stalk the happy.
i could be wrong but this is the interpretation i've gotten from it.
the film 28 weeks later inspired short film directors to produce their own renditions of post apocalyptica situations.
77 days later is a rendition of 1 surviver on a roof and how he survived and jealous rage is a man coming home to save his wife to find out shes having an affair. these are exactly like the film; they are have the same darkness and malevolence to the mise-en-scene with the destroyed buildings trashed streets ragged clothes and destroyed homes.
from these short films you can see that they are directly derived from the film 28 weeks later; they all have the same codes and conventions of survival horror stories where the dead come to life, and they both exert the fear that the films do, these pieces are roughtly 6 minutes each.
This short film was showcased at Tropfest (the bigest short film festival) and was an australian finalist. from watching this piece its also opened my eyes to the amount of freedom there is with subject matter and how its portrayed. beyond words is literally beyond words, it came as such a shock to me that the man was Blind and the woman was deaf, i literally thought the piece was silent for a reason and that the little sound was only there to keep interest.
The cameras deffinately create a tense atmosphere along side the blank sounds. with the jittery camera shots and the blank screens with sound it creates questions in your head about how many people cope with disabillites such as those.
the story is simple, a Woman goes to a yoga class and a man in sunglasses appears to be staring at her throughout the session; the yoga session ends then you find out the man was blind and that changes the perspective the audience was initally given, from on edge because of a stalker to sympathetic due to the fact the man is blind. the woman then procedes to leave class and goes to her car with the blind man shortly behind her, the screen then goes blank and you can hear the man saying "hello is anyone there hello" then the camera jumps to the woman who is going to her car and another man grabs her from behind and is seen shouting but you cannot hear until she looks at him then the blind man comes up and the mugger runs away (most of this is incredibly hard to explain due to the nature of its filming) and the woman explains shes deaf and has to see his lips to understand him.
the shots throughout this short film are styalizes for 1 sense at a time, when the camera is persuing the woman the only sense you use is sight as there is no sound (as it would be for a deaf person) and when the camera follows the man, there is complete darkness and only sound so the audience focuses on hearing. everything shot and heard is all personal, as you feel like you are a bystander watching what is happening to the two people.
From watching this short film, i've realised that there is practically no restrictions atall for short films. animation is used and no voices are used in this piece, the storyline is simple, it is that of iscolation and killing time, the only thing to do when you are alone is to kill time. "killing time at home" lasts 3 minutes and portrays the very dark fact that friends are disposable, you make them and you break them, this is portrayed through the awkward looking animations and lugubrious colouring of everything;
from just watching the protagonist buy a friend it directly strikes the social dilema of friendships being disposable (disposablefriends.com), no matter what way you look at it, being simply able to buy and throw away people.
with there being no voice in the entire short film it shows that you needn't communicate with people to be their friend, and that they'll know that you are throwing them away even when you don't directly say it, you can have your fun then throw them away.
the piece is directed animated and written by neil coslett. it was created for blackwatch channel 4.
