Bullet Proof Vest
- Non diegetic narration.
- Talking quite brutally about the truth, doesn't matter about being "PC"
- Tackling the issues, mainly gun violence and its effect on children.
- Contrasts images of children playing with serious and fairly horrific narration.
- One main character that is introduced straight away, no ambiguity.
- Man is seeking reassurance from a doctor, implied mental illness.
- Believes the furniture is trying to kill him, then the twist at the end implies that the furniture did in fact kill him
- Fantastical narrative, based around 3 kidnappng cannibals.
- Animation, able to achieve more visually without limits of live action
- Situation turned around at the end
- Shades of "The boy who cried wolf"
- Tackling the issue of knife crime
- Split screen to show two possible narratives and the contrast between the two
- Background music, non diegetic but doesn't detract from the narrative
- Depicts the consequences of drug abuse in teenagers and the strength of peer pressure
- Mainly silent, relies on the visual aspect to tell the story
- Realistic and shocking storyline with a message
- Moral of the story read out at the end to reiterate the message
Turning My Life Around
- Tackles the issue of alcoholism and it's effects on the children
- Strong message that's shown again at the end
- Shows how one persons problem effects other - partic ularly children
- Animation
10 Seconds
- Tackles the issue of knife crime
- Relates it to reality, uses time to highlight the events
- Uses realistic situation to show how common knife crime is
- Contrasts the positive things that can happen in 10 seconds with the negative things (achievement with knife crime)
Reality Knocks
- Introduces the main character straight away
- Tackles the issues of trust in relationships and racism
- Twist midway through and then resolution at the end
- Long black title card
- Diegetic voiceover, whispering girl over shots of house
- Creepy feel to everything, dark atmosphere
- Girl with big hands
- Humorous narrative, twist on reality
- Maths obviously confused with the general norm
- Says something incorrectly (twist of reality) and confuses the audience
- Animation allows a talking rabbit, "Jim"
Stand And Stare
- Raises environmental issues, a problem that is very important to many people
- No characters to speak of, based around the life of a tree
- Emotive music used to influence the audiences reading of the text
- Surreal visual to go with a realistic narrative
- Central character introduced right away and is obviously the one whom the narrative is based around
- Sinister music to imply surrealism
- Music video featuring Lonely island Comedian
- Starts with normal chat, no music
- Man rips out his heart, heart starts singing, people react to it oddly.
- Goes against convention, well known actor.
The Jester
- Immediate introduction of central character
- Set in a dream to allow a more surreal narrative
- Twist at the end, the "dream character" actually being there
Skate : Tacky TV
- One long panning shot, tracking the movement of central character
- Slow motion to represent surrealism
- No narrative, relies on the surreal visual aspects to tell the story (or lack thereof)
- Wrong idea of the word Virgin
- Non-Diegetic family/fun music is played, relates to happenigns
- Builds up to climax of Sex talk
- Humorous storyline
- Breaks convention, Kate Isitt is a famous actress.
Validation
- Realistic but unusual narrative
- Character meets problem and then finds a resolution
- Shows the awkwardness of new relationships
- Twist midway through, boy gets killed
- Resolution when girl is reminded of her faith
- No dialogue, relies on imagery to tell the story
- Religious symbols (egg and cross)
- Many possible readings, ambiguous narrative
- Two characters are shown but are both the same person / split personality
- Short credits at the end, very brief
Codes and Conventions
-> Generally, short films tend to last anywhere between 3 and 15 minutes in length. However, I also found that a film lasting up to 40 minutes can still be defined as a short film rather than a feature length production.
-> Most short films have very low budgets, if any at all. This means that they are unlikely to contain big-name actors, extensive graphic work or expensive locations, costumes or props. This isn’t universal, however, as some short films have cost around £40,000 to produce.
-> The music in short films tends to be primarily to build the tension or enhance the mood of the moment.
-> The soundtrack can often last throughout the entire film, although can also last for only a part of it, or be cut up into several sections. Some class music videos as short films in more recent years as they have storylines that fit with the lyrics and more action based videos.
-> Their storylines are often quirky and unusual as the narrative doesn’t need to be drawn out like a feature length production is. They often have a twist to the ending to introduce a narrative enigma that never gets solved. This is in contrast to blockbuster films that (unless a sequel is planned) have to close the ending of the narrative.
-> The titles can be at any point during the film, often plain white on black writing. Titles can often be cut up and placed throughout the film in order to break up the different scenes. In horror shorts I found that after a particularly tense part of the action the titles faded in to produce most fear in the audience as they have to imagine what’s coming next.
-> Due to a lack of budget, many short films are animated. This may mean that they don’t have to include any actors at all, and allows the creator to develop locations and props that would have been expensive to involve when producing a live-action film.
-> Several short films include voice-overs or monologues, either to voice the central protagonists thoughts and feelings, or to provide a narrative enigma about who is talking.
-> Mise-en-scene is particularly important in short films as there’s not enough time to develop the character exposition. Therefore setting up the background with objects and pictures that would develop the character quickly is often what short film directors choose to do.
needs a sep post summarising your findings, listing main codes and conventions
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