Richard Raskin believes that
“When short fiction films are at their best, they tell their stories with such remarkable economy that they take our breath away.” (The Art of the Short Fiction Film 2002, P.1)
In my opinion, this quote is spot on. A short film is a piece of visual storytelling that is stripped back to its core theme, letting this shine through over any sub-plots or back stories. When I began this module in October, I had watched a few short films previously, but I wasn’t aware of the complexity behind making my own, or the emphasis pushed onto strong visual storytelling as opposed to telling the narrative through dialogue.
During the first few module sessions, we discussed what makes a short film successful, and the types of short films we wanted to make ourselves. As I explained in my first blog post, Choices in October:
“I prefer the types of short films that have little or no dialogue, with the narrative unfolding through the visuals and not through the speech.”
I referenced the FutureShorts film The Black Hole as being a short film that I found entertaining through its use of strong visual storytelling and simple theme of greed.
I referenced the FutureShorts film The Black Hole as being a short film that I found entertaining through its use of strong visual storytelling and simple theme of greed.
The Black Hole has no dialogue, and so relies on its visuals to narrate the story. After watching more short films, I believe that this works as a very affective device. This way, the story has to unfold visual, through specific shots and the way they are cut together. This key element of telling the story visually with no dialogue was something I wanted to incorporate in the short films I would be making in this module.
After exploring further into the short film industry, we were then split up into groups and given our first script to work on. Choices can be described as a fantasy script, focusing on the protagonist Dan who discovers he can travel through time by opening doors, but will he use his power to help others or for his own selfish needs? After I first read the script, there were a number of points that stuck out for me, that could and couldn’t work. The concept of time travel really interested me, especially as it was used in an understated way; all Dan had to do was open a door, leaving the filming of this travel extremely feasible. As a group, we decided we wanted to change the character of Greg, Dan’s friend, and give him a more sinister edge to his character. The groups director, Matt Watt came up with idea that our Greg could be an element of Dan’s imagination, much like in the film Fight Club .
With this theme of schizophrenia that we wanted to base our film around, we then got to work re-writing the script to incorporate this change. Much like in Fight Club we didn’t want this twist to be apparent till the very end, so we planted subtle hints within the script without giving the entire plot away.
During this first short film, I took on the role of producer as I wanted to rise to the challenge of taking on a lot of the responsibility behind planning the film. One of my producing roles was to verify the locations we wanted to shoot in and then write up risk assessments for each location, making sure each place was safe. In my blog post Risky Business I explained how trivial and pedantic I found these risk assessments. However, without them our location and filming permission wouldn’t have been granted.
Our first filming weekend went well, despite our lead actor dropping out a week before shooting. In my blog post Lights! Camera! Action! I explore this filming weekend and the success we all felt in the work we had done. I felt I learnt a lot from this experience, and took away skills I could use within my next film. For example, I believe within this first film, I overlooked the amount of planning that was actually needed to make a successful film. With this in mind, I planned to familiarise myself a lot more with the equipment we use and the locations we decide to film in. With this lesson learnt, hopefully the filming of our next project will run smoother.
After viewing our films in the seminar groups and discussing what worked well and what didn't, getting some constructive feedback to use on our next films, we then had to move on to writing our own short film scripts. From the beginning sessions on what makes a good short film, I was already aware of the typical structure of a short film script and the kind of elements I wanted to include in my own script, but the choice of a suitable narrative was something that I had to give more thought to.
To help me create the right narrative, I used CDOG. This stands for Character, Desire, Obstacle, and Goal. By using this structure, I was able to focus my script on a specific character and from that, follow their narrative in an entertaining way. The scripts we were writing could eventually become the final films we would be making. With this in mind, the scripts all had to be between five and eight pages long with the content filmable on a weekends shoot.
When deciding what narrative I wanted to follow in my script, I decided I wanted to include a narrative that would be probably untouched by student film makers, but something that would be really simple to film. I wanted to write an alien invasion script. This may sound pretty ridiculous, but I set out in my writing to make this as simple as possible, but that could look believable. I had watched a lot of high budget alien disaster movies like Independence Day and Armageddon but neither of these could be made by students. So I focused my script on the strange events that could lead up to the invasion, as opposed to the alien attack, keeping my script simple but entertaining for an audience. I believe I could have stuck to a more simple narrative, such as a boy meets girl story, but I felt this type of narrative has been seen loads, especially in your typical student film. I wanted to push myself in my script writing, but this could have lead to a less successful script. However, I am pleased that I took some initiative instead of keeping my writing simple.
Once all the scripts were finished and handed in, we were then given a group of thirteen scripts, one of which we would be making. In my blog Post Happy 2011 I discussed all the scripts I found the most entertaining, and the most feasible to film:
The Other Woman, By Colin Harvey-
A woman sees her husband with another woman, and jumps to the conclusion that he is having an affair, however the twist reveals that he is only having dance lessons to surprise his wife for her birthday.
This type of imagination sequence reminds me a lot of the television show Scrubs. This feature has really drawn me into this script as it adds humour and a change of reality to a typical mistaken identity script.
Break Down, By Danielle Johns-
This script uses the simple narrative device of a couple's car breaking down and finding themselves trapped in an unfamiliar town with strange locals.
This script reminded me a lot of an introduction to a horror movie, with the characters being completely out of there depths and inadvertently annoying the locals.
This trailer for the 2007 horror film Vacancy has the same horror style that i found recognisable in Danielle's Script. The suspense and underlying sinister tone of this script really draws me in. In terms of production, the problems that could face me whilst filming again is the use of older actors, and filming in rural areas may cause issues with transport.”
From my blog post The Awesome Four-Some I described the process of choosing who to work with in our second film group, and the script we all wanted to work on.
“Connect Four is a light-hearted comedy script that explores the issues of being unfaithful in a relationship, but with a comedic twist. Luckily, the script was so well written and contained that we didn't feel the need to change hardly anything within our re-write. The entire plot was really well thought-out, and we felt that changing too much would take away from the original themes of being unfaithful and getting caught.”
From this original script, we only made a few adjustments in the way the beginning played out. We also wanted to emphasise one theme apparent in the original script:
One recurring theme within Laurence's script was the inclusion of rabbits to symbolise that characters 'frisky' attitude, and that they we all 'at it like rabbits.' As a group, we decided that this theme was brilliant in adding more unexpected comedy and to highlight the characters personas.
After a few tweakings to the script, we then set out on our pre-production by getting locations and actors sorted. As I had spent a lot of my time during the first filming with Risk assessments and contacting the Bath Film Council I put myself forward to take care of this area of the pre-production. Luckily I still had contact information from the previous filming, making everything a lot easier for me this time around.
I took on the role of editor for this film, something I had slight experience in. As I wasn’t fully confident in my editing skills, I went to an advanced editing workshop, having attended the basic course for the first film. Attending this workshop was really useful, giving my skills to get my editing a lot sharper and quicker. It also gave me confidence in my ability on Final Cut Pro.
I couldn’t attend the filming weekend for personal reasons, but I made sure I was completely committed to the post production of this project, and to not let the rest of the team down. I spent reading week logging and capturing the footage from the weekend, luckily this only took me a few hours. I then set out to assemble a rough edit of the film. I used the shooting script to assemble this cut, putting everything in the position our director envisioned it to be. However, once this rough cut was together, I wanted to put my own mark on the film and not just follow what was expected from the script. Having not been at the filming weekend, I felt it was easier for me to detach myself from the narrative that was filmed, but create something from the footage I was given. I changed some of the flash back sequences, making them appear at different times then what the script called for.
A couple of weeks before the final hand in of this project, we had the opportunity to show the films to our class and gain their feedback. This exercise was really useful. When you work so close to a project, some parts may go un-noticed, and so a fresh look on the film really helped to show us what was working and what wasn’t.
After watching the final edit, I am really proud in the work I have done on this project. I believe we created a successful short films as it tells a complete narrative in an entertaining and visual way. This module has given me the opportunity to explore the complexity behind short films and make my own. I have also enhanced my skills using Final Cut Pro and the camera equipment, akills that I hope to use in my future career.
