Introduction

My name is Gabriel Lewis and I go to Collingham College. I really enjoyed AS media last year, so I decided to to take media for A2. This year i will be making a short film with one of my classmates, Andrew. The film will be 5-7 minutes long. I am really looking forward for this year in Media Studies because we will be gaining a deeper knowledge into how the film industry works and how to make a short film.

Questionaire Results

From this we can see that most of our viewers for our short film will be in between the age of 16-20 years old. However, understandably this is a small age range as the test subjects were similar to my own age. Therefore, I expect the demographic to extend beyond 20 and upto middle age.

 

From this we can see that our audience is slightly more female orientated.

From this we can see that our audience go to the cinema mainly 1-4 times a year, which is a lot lower than the UK average and could be a direct result of digital technology and online streaming.

From this we can see that our viewers favorite way of watching movies in through online streaming. Primarily, this will be because the age demographic will consist of Millenials (Generation Y), who have grown up in a digital age.

 

From this we can see that the audiences favorite genre of movies are Thrillers, Drama, Comedy and Action. This is insightful as it is good to know what other genres Thriller-watchers enjoy. Potentially, this can lead to merging genre types of a film in order to increase audience numbers.

From this we can see that our main audience come from Europe.

From this we can see that most of our viewers are familiar with short films.

From this we can see that people think that having short films playing on TV would attract a larger audience. However, 'Maybe' is still at around 38% as the short film genre is still quite a new medium not in mainstream culture.

From this we can see that the audiences would agree on it mainly if they are mixed genres becuase people naturally have mixed interests. They are probably inquisitive about how this new medium can he used in traditional genres and how this would be different.

From this we can see that the viewers would prefer to watch films rather than TV series. This is potentially due to that we live in an age of instant gratification and TV series force the view to wait a period of time to watch the next episode, whereas in a film all the action is in one time frame.

Target Audience Profile

 Target Audience Profile

For our short film (The Wrong Night), our target audience would be between the ages of 16-20 and mainly being females. It seems as if most of our viewers are familiar with short films, but would prefer to watch length films. Our viewers preferred way of watching films is through online streaming. Thrillers seem to be a popular genre for our target audience.

Demographics 

Short films can be considered as high cultured. So our audience would be in the category ABC1.

Psychographics 

As our film is a short film, the target psychographics could be the explorer because short films are generally not what the viewers would want to watch.

The explorer would want to try new ideas and experiences. Our other target psychographic could be the aspirer and the succeeder.

The Aspirer: Materialist, acquisitive people, who are driven by others perceptions of them rather than by their own values. As a result, they respond to what others perceive as being superficial: image, appearance, persona, charisma and fashion. An attractive pack is as important to them as its contents. Their core in life is for status.

The Succeeder: Succeeders possess self confidence, have a strong goal orientation and tend to be very organised. As a result, they tend to occupy positions of responsibility in society. Their investment in the status means they tend to support it. When it comes to brands, they seek reward and prestige, and will often seek out the best, because that is what they feel and deserve. On the other hand, they also seek out caring and protective brands. Their aggressive attitude to life means they need to relax occasionally. Their core in life is for control.

Short film analysis 2

 Room 8

All we know about his short film is that it is set in a Polish prison. Throughout the whole narrative the audience tries to figure out the purpose of what is going on; The characters, the crimes they committed, the purpose of trapping the prisoners inside the box. Like a lot of short films, Room 8 is very surrealist and requires the audience to suspend disbelief while watching. Room 8 explores a world within a world, this incredibly unique structure provides fantastic entertainment as well as the viewers engaging with their own questions. We are obliged to question out of the two prisoners, who is the victim and who is the villain. The story is complex, however the structure is quite simple; Once a prisoner is captured in the matchbox another one is brought in. It is a narrative cycle that continuously repeats itself.

Conventions Of A Short Film

Conventions of a short film include:

Characters: In short films there is much deeper focus on fewer characters, rather than a wider focus on many character as within a feature film. Practically this is due to the time constraints of the genre, but primarily this is because short films are more focused on emotion and sensation rather than action. Although there is a greater focus on fewer characters, there is always a sense of mysetery and not knowing the full deimension of these character, which keeps the viewer engaged with the action on screen.

Twist: Short films are usually defined by having a dramatic twist, keeping the suspense of the narrative and audience anticipating what will happen. Through this, the genre of a short film becomes more of an active art form rather than passive. The imact of the dramatic twist in intensified by the short length of the film. Furthermore, because of this twist the short film can often be cyclical in structure and begin to repeat itself once more, making the view question where the story actually begins and ends.

Budget: Short films generally have a low budget. This is due to the fact that the directors are independent, and so their primary means of funding is private. The budget usually can be kept small because the general construct of short films only using few actors and locations. However today, the use of a short film for commercial purposes is becoming more popular. Companies invest great amounts of money into their high budget adveritising to communicate their products in the form of a short film, for example "Scarecrow" by Chipotle. Whether the short film is artistic or coorporate, they will have an engageing emotional narrative.

Length: Short movies are generally around five to ten minutes, which makes the narrative more potent. The ratio of drama-time is much more intensified in short films in comparison to feature films. Moreover, on s cultural level, modern society is looking its attention span in this age of instant gratification. The digital revolution spurred this on. Arguably, the short film genre is entertainment responding to the changes in our society.

Situation: Short films usually take a situation that the viewers can relate to and then turn this situation on its head. The twist in the film will usually transform the viewers perception on what they believe to be familar and expose new understandings or meanings that have been lying right beneath their nose (e.g the source of the burger in 'The Ellington Kid'). Distorting the familiar, makes the viewers feel like they can relate to the narrative, and with the twist of this makes the impact greater and more intriguing. The narrative of a short film is a lot less predictable than a feature film.
 

Wrong Night Draft Screenplay 1

Short Film Analysis 1

The Ellington Kid

This short film tells the story of a South London Kebab shop that has a dark and sinister past. Nathan describes the stabbing of the Ellington kid to Beefy, which is conveyed to the audience through a series of flashbacks. The past and present narratives are delivered simultaneously. Nathan's voice over span's across both time frames, making the Ellington kid's story happen in real time. It puts the viewer in the moment. This effect creates a story within a story, making Nathan'a character very unique as he is a character in one plot, but a narrator in another. The cuts between shots are very frequent which builds tension and keeps the viewers intrigued. Because of the narrative of the short film, cut-away shots are crucially important, unlike in feature length films. Story telling is shown through suggestions and gossip rather than evidence or fact. The sharpening of knives and the chopping of meat in the beginning forces the audience to actively participate in the narrative and decide upon what they think is true or real. In this short film, the viewers are not given all the answers, it is for them to decide what is the truth. This short film has an open ending because it ends with one of the workers sharpening the knife he uses to cut the meat, and smirking listening to Nathan's story. Suggesting that the Ellington kid story was not a myth after all.

Story Treatement

Our short story talks about Mike who is going through a couple of ongoing issues that are making him depressed.

It is a Friday night, the start of a long weekend since there was a bank holiday on Monday. Mike starts heading down to the pub in a depressive mood. He was going to drink to try and get his mind off  his problems. As he arrives at the pub, he starts drinking one pint after the other, which isn't his usual thing.

After a fair few pints he moved onto tequila. Within the thrid shot he felt very drunk. He went outside to get some air and decided to have a cigarette, he had just started smoking so he struggled to inhale the cigarette.

While he is smoking his cigarette, a lady comes and starts talking to him. She realised that he wasn't a frequent smoker, so she started to make fun of him in a nice way. Her name was Becky. They started to get into a deep conversation about personal issues, and this showed them that they had someting in common, their depression. After a long conversation about their problems, Becky invites Mike back to her house for a few more drinks. Mike was up for it of course, but his friends that worked at the bar were a bit sceptical as they had never seen her before.

Mike and Becky started making their way to her place. Mike struggled to walk but Becky helped him get there safely.

When they finally arrived at Becky's house, Becky started pouring shots of tequila into their glasses. While Mike wasn't paying attention, Becky put some kind of pill in his glass.

When Mike took the shot, seconds later he blanks out. When he wakes up the next morning from the blackout. He finds himslef in his bed, with blood all over his hands and a gun next to him. Whilst he is still very confused and slightly hangover from all the alcohol he had, in his pocket he finds a note, saying: "Thank you for helping me out, with something that i haven't been able to do, you have finally free'd me x."

Mike gets an instant flashback of what happened after he blanked out, which was him at gunpoint to Becky.

The film ends after the flashback, so the viewers are left on a cliffhanger due to the suspence of the situation.

Preliminary Audience Questionaire

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/hmxfqlj

Short Film Step Outlines

Andrew/Gabriel Step Outlines 

Why we choose these questions for the questionaire

Andrew and me choose these questions to be able to get a general feeling of what the audiences want. Firstly, from our questions that we asked to do with age and gender, we will be able to see our target audience and what will be appropraite to show. Secondly, the questions to do with how often people go to the cinema, their prefered way of watching films and what genre they enjoy the most, this will give us insight into how we might make our film enjoyable and with ease for the viewers. Thirdly, finding out the origin of where most of our viewers will help us to know what their prefered type of film is, for example a thriller movie. In asking the audiences if they prefer short films or long films, this will make it easier to fufil the demands of the viewers and make the film as good as possible for their enjoyement.