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.
