Storyboard

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Here is my storyboard which was generated from an online source as I couldn't put my original version online, I realise that the writing on the pictures is quite small and is hard to read so I will go through them to say about each individual shot and what I would like to happen.

In the first box I will have my actress sitting on the bed staring into the camera lens blinking very slowly as the camera zooms into her face. 
Secondly there will be a shot of her looking around the room seeming as though she is lost or has nothing to do. The shots inside will all be in her bedroom as she is not leaving her house therefore there will be many different shots which I will edit together to make them seem less similar. 
In the third one she will be looking outside to see if her cousin is there, although she might think that she is not there will be a quick reverse shot of her cousin looking up at her window. 
After that she will fall asleep and soon be able to leave the house where her cousin is waiting for her but she still doesn't realise. 
There will be a close up of her locking the door and looking around as though she has never been outside before.
After she will walk down her road whilst her cousin is behind her and there will be an over the shoulder shot and I will make it slow motion to show how they are together again but she is yet to know.
I will have a black out to show the change in scene.
There will then be a shot of her on the bed again like the beginning of the film looking into the camera as though nothing has changed.
At the end there will be a shot of her cousin outside her house showing that she is still there looking over her.

Right at the start of the film there will be some pictures of her with her cousin at a younger age however I do not know what they look like and how many there will be but it will show the relationship between them when they were younger, to how she is alone now because something could have happened to her cousin, I will leave it open so the audience can have their own idea about what has happened to the cousin. This could change but I will try to stick to it so it will be easier to film.

Change of short film idea

From the last current blog post about my short film idea I asked my audience on what they think would be the best idea for my short film however after asking them I found out that maybe I shouldn't do that idea. It would be hard for me to film my gran as she is living away also when I asked her if I could film on a certain day she was busy therefore I thought that it would be easier for me to change my idea and use someone who was closer to home.

After watching a Korean film a couple of years ago the storyline stuck in my head. This is the synopsis of the film Castaway on the moon; A man named Kim jumps into the dark, quiet waters of the Han River. He wakes up and finds himself lying on strange ground, covered with sand. For one second he thinks he is in heaven, but soon recognises that he simply drifted to a nameless island. In one of the riverside apartment buildings there's a girl who hasn't ventured out of her room for years. With her dishevelled hair and in the ska clothes she's worn for years, she looks just like a castaway. Then one day she catches sight of a man living alone on an island through her binoculars. Day after day, his lonely but seemingly contented life triggers her curiosity and compels her to step out of her room after so many years. Kim's extraordinary life becomes the inspiration for change in this girl's lonely, detached life. 
When thinking about a short film I instantly thought about using this idea as it would be simple yet effective, also when talking to my friends about it they seemed to like it. I obviously don't want to copy the film as I want to have a twist on the storyline therefore I need to come up with an idea behind why she is stuck in her room and why she suddenly changes her mind and steps on to the streets. 

The storyline is that a girl had a bad experience whilst walking to school one day, after that she decided to have no interaction with her family and friends again. When living in her room there are certain things that she does day to day so she keeps a pattern as she has only got her self. To make her feel secure there is one person that walks past her house at exactly the same time everyday and makes a gesture so she knows that they know she is there. However there is one day that the person doesn't walk past her house and her one and only interaction with a person becomes lost and so does she. After a big decision she decides to leave and investigate and find out about what and why the person has not walked past her house for the past couple of days. At the end there could be a twist but I have yet to decide as I might leave it on a cliff-hanger that she finds something else whilst out instead of the person, but on the other hand the person who sees her decides to not walk one day to try and get her attention. Although I wanted it to be a comedy I decided that this would possibly be more engaging for my audience and it could work for different ages and genders. 

I need to make sure that my locations are similar to the character as she has never been out of her room, she will not have the luxuries of different furniture that you would find in a bedroom. In addition I think that the room will have to be quite gloomy as she is living in the dark. When thinking about the props in the room I need to think what the character will want, I don't think that she would want a mirror for example as she might be lacking in self confidence as she hasn't left the room. I will have to also make her appearance look quite disheveled. When thinking about where the person walks I need to find a good location that looks out of the bedroom window onto a road. I would have preferred to look onto a bus stop as that would be the reason for the person to walk however I do not have a location that I could fin for this so I will have to stick to my original location on a street. After looking a REECE of the different locations I will be able to easily look at what would be best suited for my short film. 

My short film idea

Before I can start planning my short film I must make sure that the story is up to scratch. In this blog post I sill be writing about the concept that I have and the idea behind it. Once I have thought about my idea I can start planning my filming from creating a storyboard to making a script and finding my talents. I did have a struggle thinking of a short film idea as I wasn't really drawn in by a particular genre, therefore I decided to think of something that is unique and maybe doesn't follow the conventions. I have to think of the plot and the storyline however with thinking about what specific genre I want to stick to and use their conventions. I didn't want to do something that has been done way too many times like bullying as I think that would be boring for me as I like to be unique and I don't think that it would really work as when it would come to editing I would get bored. 
I did think firstly about a documentary about how everyone in the world is connected by some mean of social media and then I could get different camera angles and shots of different media forms, also because my brother lives abroad I could easily get footage from him. Then when I thought about it in detail I think it would probably end up being shorter than 5 minutes and also when it came to thinking about a storyline there wouldn't be one. Therefore I decided to leave that idea and brainstorm some others, it did take me a long time as it was set in my head that that was what I was going to do however things change. After asking peoples different opinions and looking online I still didn't really know what would be the best solution and what I could do that would get me a good grade. After talking to my brother who has really good suggestions for a short film (as he is my biggest critique) he thought about an idea using my gran. My gran does have a very funny personality so I think that using her would be great as I would have an opportunity to work with her. Also as she is an OAP she doesn't really get up to much in her day to day life so I know that if I call her she would be happy to be filmed. She is not camera shy and I think that as I have already filmed her it would be easy for me to film her.

I decided that I wanted to make a comedy piece and nobody in my group wanted to do that and also I get bored of watching serious short films all the time and I think when it came to the time that I am daunting of editing it will make me laugh. I have picked two ideas which I will write down here and then I can show people and they can vote on which is their favourite. 

So my first idea is that my gran is living her day to day life and goes to the shops as a typical gran does to get her daily fix of the paper and decides to either get a lottery ticket or to go into the bookies. After she has found out that she has won she looses her winning ticket. I will then follow her around on a little adventure to try and find the ticket but in the end it is somewhere typical like her follow along bag. This would be easy to film and put together however the adventure part would maybe get a bit boring as there is only a certain amount of filming you can do with a gran at the age of 81.

The next idea is that my gran again has a super ego like a superhero and goes about her day to day life but then gets a call though her walking stick from a secret agent about a certain call that she has to do. Then the short film will be about her going to save this particular person but ends up to be a ridiculous reason in the end, but as she is 81 she finds that she has made such a big achievement. 

As my gran lives near a big park it would be easy to film the second one and I think that would be more comedic but I am going to have a look into the storyboard and script and other peoples opinions. 

If these both don't get approvals then I am going to see if I could take a child's book about a gran and see if I could adapt it to a short film, this would be easier to do however you will not be able to make your own script as you will have to keep to what happens in a book. Also I think that doing this would allow me to write about the book in detail and therefore will have more of an understanding of what I am filming about. 

Textual Analysis of For Colored Girls

Here is my textual analysis for a feature length film poster, my textual analysis will include what conventional and non-conventional factors that they have used and follow, the different elements to the poster and how well they have adapted the conventions to make a well produced feature length film poster. What I will get out of this is the things that I will want to include and how I could possibly take some small ideas form them to make a poster that will be easy on the eye and show the film on an a4 page. The poster that I have decided to analyse is For Colored Girls which is a feature length film that I have not yet to watch. This feature length film poster caught my eye and stuck in my head as I had never seen a feature length film poster like this before and therefore when it came to analysing a feature length film poster I straightaway decided to look at this in detail. I also wanted to look at conventional posters so I could get a range of ideas for my own poster. Although I am not going to create a feature length film I still wanted to look at a poster that has been created by a well established production company. When I scrolled though google images this instantly caught my eye even though I didn't realise that it wasn't a short film, the simplistic look that it has really interested me as it is an idea that I had, also as there is no image of the actual characters from the film intrigues me more which I would like to do however in my case I don't think I would be able to do that as it will be hard to understand what the film is about. In addition because this is a well established company who have very specific and professional equipment to make it I think that my poster will look amateur compared to this. 

Firstly I will look at the main picture that takes up the most of the page it is non conventional as it is not of an image of a character from the film, therefore it makes it more engaging for the audience and makes it more intriguing. It catches your eye as it is the first thing that you look at however it does not obviously show what the film is about. It does denote the title of the film as the different colours of the picture are basically colours for the title of the film. The watercolours make it look very artistic and allows the audience to want to pick the film to watch. In addition the paint that is running down the page connotes that the woman is upset and crying so maybe the film is emotional, I would like to try and show the type of feelings in the poster as I think that that is a good idea. Also only having half of the face on show makes it look effective as well as not giving a lot away, as it is about colored girls the dark eyes and eyebrows goes with the type of characters in the film also the watercolours run out like an afro. The splashes make it look unique and the darker paint around the eye also connotes how they could be treated, to add to this the month is not smiling so again it could be sad.

The next thing that I am going to look at is the block of actresses and actors that are in the film at the top of the poster. Conventionally you have them all at the bottom of the page in a block of text however here they have decided to put them at the top of the poster as you can instantly see who is going to be in it. As this movie has stars such as whoopee Goldberg and Janet Jackson they wanted to make them a bit bolder. I don't think I will be using this idea as I will not be having as many actresses so I will just out their names in the block at the bottom of the page.

I am next going to look at the title of the film. I don't think that this is very special and it doesn't really catch your eye, they may have wanted to keep the title very neutral as the picture had so much detail. It is quite conventional as it is at the bottom of the page in the middle however it doesn't give a lot away for the film. They are also all in capitals so it seems that it is very important and that there is a message behind it, it seems to be more of a statement rather than a title which I like but I don't think I will be using that idea. In my opinion I think that they should of made it different colours as the title states that however it could go with the type of culture that the film is about. 

There is a tag line as well which most conventional feature length films have however it again is a statement. The two short and snappy sentences adds effect and makes it personal, it adds to what the story is about and makes it seem as though it is a true story. In addition the way that they have said about it being a poem allows the audience to know what it is about and how it has been adapted. As my short film is going to be a comedy I don't think that having this sort of tag line would be appropriate. 

Lastly I am going to talk about the bill block at the bottom of the page. It is very small s it is not very significant but in this case you can't see anything and I think when I make mine I will make it a bit bigger as it will be easier to see, also because I am not having the actresses names at the top I think it will be better for me to keep it bigger to make sure that the people find who is going to be in it. In this bill block they have put the production logos which I think is a good idea and to make mine look ore professional I might consider making a logo for my short film. They have also written the date that it is in theatres which in my case I will not have to add but I could put a film festival that it is going to be shown at to make it look more professional. 

I have also found the trailer for the film just incase anybody is interested about what the film is about and how the poster has adapted the film into just a picture.

The goal of Dogme

Dogme was a filmmaking movement which started in 1995 by Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg. Their goal was to purify filmmaking by not using special effects, post-production modifications and other technical changes. Instead of focusing on all of the things that they could do to make the film better they concentrate on the story and the actors' performances. Using this allowed the power to go back to the artist rather than to the studio. They thought that using this will engage the audience, as they will not be distracted by overproduction. It is a very controversial yet influential movement that happened to stop in 2005 because it had grown into a genre formula which was never the intention.
They produced ten rules to which any Dogme film must conform. These rules were referred to as the "Vow of Chastity" are as follows:

1) Filming must be done on location. Props and sets must not be brought in. If a particular prop is necessary for the story, a location must be chosen where this prop is to be found.
2) The sound must never be produced apart from the images or vice versa. Music must not be used unless it occurs within the scene being filmed (diagetic)
3) The camera must be a hand-held camera. Any movement or immobility attainable in the hand is permitted. The film must not take place where the camera is standing; filming must take place where the action takes place. 
4) the film must be in colour. Special lighting is not acceptable.
5) Optical work and filters are forbidden.
6) The film must not contain superficial action.
7) Temporal and geographical alienation are forbidden.
8) Genre movies are not acceptable.
9) The film format must be Academy 35mm
10) The director must not be credited.

When filming my short film I will not be using the Dogme rule as there are too many things that you have to consider, which will limit the filming. I will defiantly be using music as I think that that is a key thing to have in a short film especially because I am thinking of making my film a comedy. In addition I  want to make some of mine in black and white as it will be effective and adds just a bit more of a variety. When editing I want to try and make my film as good as it can be and not using any filters or optical work. I will probably not set any guidelines for my short film as it is the first time that I have created something so if I am restricted then I am limited to a particular type of short film. I will probably not model my work on anyone else's approach because I don't want to limit myself on something in particular. I want my short film to have stereotypical elements however I don't want any unconventional shots or editing techniques as I still need it to look like a short film. In short films I particularly like the music and how the picture can change using different fades etc, but if I follow this particular rule I will be challenging the concept. I will defiantly be looking back on my old posts about the stereotypical things that you can find in a short film and will be using this, although I would like my short film to be unique I will not challenge the conventions as I need it to be understood. The only thing that I will add it that I have a limited film budget and limited equipment so if things do turn out to be less professional than expected then it will make it look like I have followed part of the " Vow of chastity". 

Textual analysis of a unconventional short film poster

Here is my textual analysis for a short film poster, my textual analysis will include what conventional and non-conventional factors that they have used and follow, the different elements to the poster and how well they have adapted the conventions to make a well produced short film poster. What I will get out of this is the things that I will want to include and how I could possibly take some small ideas form them to make a poster that will be easy on the eye and show the film on an a4 page. The poster that I have decided to analyse is The Blue Umbrella which is a Disney Pixar short film that I first watched before Monsters Inc. This short film stuck in my head as I had never seen a short film before and therefore when it came to analysing a short film poster I straightaway decided to look at this in detail. I also wanted to look at non-conventional posters so I could get a range of ideas for my own poster. Although I am not going to create an animated short film I still wanted to look at a poster that has been created by a well established production company. When I scrolled though google images this instantly caught my eye even though I didn't realise that it was the short film that I had already watched, the simplistic look that it has really interested me as it is an idea that I had, also as there is no image of the actual characters from the film intrigues me more which I would like to do however in my case I don't think I would be able to do that as it will be hard to understand what the film is about. In addition because this is an animated company who have very specific and professional equipment to make it I don't think that my poster will look amateur compared to this. 

Firstly I am going to look at is the title of the short film. A conventional feature length film will normally have the title in big, bold letters with a font that goes well with the film and has been used in most of their other merchandise and advertisements. However as this is a non-conventional poster they have not followed the stereotypical features of the title. 'The blue umbrella' has used two different fonts in their title to make it more detailed and engage the audience, The first is of a sans serif font which makes it more personal and relaxed, the only thing with this is that it is very small and therefore does not make much sense as a convention is that the tile is normally of a same size. The second font is very straight and conveys the handles of an umbrella. One of the things that annoys me about this title is that they have not used any capital letters which makes it less professional but goes with the young nature of pixar. The title being in the top right corner makes it less important but I think that they wanted it this way so you can look at the picture and this makes more sense. The fact that the words are under each other makes it seem that the umbrella is covering someone. I do like this title however I will not use this as I believe that it has to be bigger and in capitals. To make it better I think that the word blue could have been in a blue colour. 

Secondly the main picture that takes up the most of the page is non conventional. It catches your eye as it is the first thing that you look at and it obviously shows what the film is about with the two umbrellas in the two different colours. As it is not of a picture of a person it makes it more engaging for the audience and makes it more intriguing, the array of umbrellas on the poster makes it diverse as it shows how different they are. The 14 umbrellas on the front page are all unique and portrays the different characters who own the umbrellas, from some being modern to some being old, they are all black apart from the main two characters. The two coloured umbrellas pop out because they are both different shapes and because they are leaning in instantly draws you in to that part of the poster. I like the idea of just two umbrellas being a colour because it adds some dimension and also gives the audience an idea of what the film is about. Even though the film is an animated one the umbrellas are drawn but not in cartoon form to give it a feel for a more adult audience. The background is a coffee colour so it adds a bit more detail to the poster, this is one thing that I think I will add to my poster as it makes it look professional. In addition it makes it look old which overall I like because the animated movie is obviously very modern as it is animated.

The next thing that I am going to talk about is the bill block at the bottom of the page, you can't really call it a bill BLOCK as it is only one line maybe because it is a short film so not a lot of people are in it. Also the film is silent with nobody talking therefore you can't really put the names of the voices at the bottom or the famous actresses. They work as a team to create it so it would not be fair to put only the main people who have worked on the film as many people have created it. It goes along with the font of the title as it is sans serif and very small, they have also not put in it capitals which is just like the title. The reason that it is on the bottom of the page and in the middle is because it is important and the audience who watch it would want to know who created it. In a normal poster for a feature length film there are many different names of actresses/actors, the production team and the main people who have worked on it, this allows the audience members to see what sort of film it will be and already create an idea weather it will be good or not. I will be adding a bill block at the bottom of my page as it is a conventional feature on a poster and I believe that it will make it look more like a film poster than an advert.

They have not put any other information on the poster like a tagline or a release date probably because the film is silent so a tagline would not really work. Also because the short film was released at the same time of the pixar film Monsters Inc they didn't really need to publicise it as they will not go and especially buys ticket to watch a short film. 

Finally I have added the short film so you can see what it includes and how the poster has worked with the film.  The short film is easy to watch and is enjoyable, hopefully the music that I use will be just as entertaining and people will enjoy my short film just as much as this one, although it is a pixar production.