Stop Motion

Stop Motion is the art of inaminate objects appearing to move by themselves on film. This effect is created when photographs, of said object are taken and then moved slightly then taking another photograph, creating the illusion of movement.
   - A LEGO car moving using stop motion.

The first instance of the stop motion technique can be credited to Albert E. Smith for The Humpty Dumpty Circus (1897), in which a toy circus of acrobats and animals comes to life. Perhaps the most recognisable is Willis O'Brien's 'KingKong (1933). More modernly Wallace and Gromit Curse of the Were-Rabbit uses clay models as they are easily moveable, in a whole days worth of photographs around 3 seconds of film is compiled. This process is very lengthy and would take even longer if I were to attempt stop motion myself in my own film, for said reasons I will not be using stop motion, although I am interested in using some sort of animation.

Telling a story in a few minutes

Telling a complete story in a few minutes is a very challenging concept. Done well and a gem is on your hands, done badly and it becomes a disaster.
"Pick up a camera. Shoot something. No matter how small, no matter how cheesy, no matter whether your friends and your sister star in it. Put your name on it as director. Now you're a director. Everything after that you're just negotiating your budget and your fee."
~ James Cameron (filmmaker)
Short films such as 'Spider' and 'Love Does Grow On Trees' tell a complete story in very little time.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/filmnetwork/films/p00km0vd

These films captivate their audience no matter what their content. I can learn a lot from said films.

What is a Short Film?

A short film, by definition is any film considered not long enough to be a feature film. However no boundaries officially exist. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes or less, including all credits".

By this sense of creativity, a short film can be anything, leaving myself in a world of oppurtunity. I realise that a lot of actors start their careers in short films, in a sort of feature film feeder class, in which actors are developed then ready to be chosen.

Companies such as Pixar still choose to create short films and screen them alongside their feature films.
Shorts are occasionally broadcast as filler when a feature film or other work doesn't fit the standard broadcast schedule. ShortsTV was the first television channel dedicated to short films.
However, short films generally rely on festival exhibition to reach an audience. Such films can also be distributed via the Internet. Certain websites which encourage the submission of user-created short films, such as YouTube and Vimeo have attracted large communities of artists and viewers. Sites like FILMSshort and the BBC Film Network focus on showcasing curated shorts.

Short films are a typical first stage for new filmmakers. However, professional actors and crews still choose to create short films as alternative form of expression. Short film making is growing in popularity as equipment becomes cheaper and more amateurs are making films.

Treatment for initial idea

Untitled Short Film

A man, (Anthony) in his late twenties, early thirties is seen buttering his toast. He looks tired and is dressed in his pyjamas. Above him hangs a cross.  The calendar indicates, he is to be married in one week time.

The title appears on black. A doorbell is heard.

Cut back to the man, he turns to face the door and walks towards it, yawning. He fumbles for his keys, unlocks the door. The postman with a medium size box, we do not see the face of the postman. He thanks the man and locks the door.

He carries the box back into the kitchen. Staring as he finishes his breakfast. A ‘chink’ noise can be heard from the box.

The man goes to open the box; he takes a Stanley knife and proceeds to undo the box. He fishes around in the packaging and pulls a small mahogany box. He opens the box, a letter and a pouch. The letter is read aloud, he is alerted to find his grandfather has died, a left for him, the contents of the pouch.

A flashback, Anthony is holding hands walking to a house, knocking on the door. Cut to Anthony’s face, side on, another cross in the frame on the wall behind him.  He is midway in conversation, he looks nervous.

“This is the 21^st century. It’s not a big deal.”

Cut to symmetrical shot of an elderly man, obviously furious with this news, snaps back.

“You have disgusted our Lord, with this protestant scum.”

“You can’t talk about her like that.”

Cut to the girlfriend (Marianne) outside the living room, standing nervously, trying not to eavesdrop but giving in occasionally.

“You’re just like your father, a stubborn brute! Leave!”

Anthony opens his mouth, goes to speak then lets his mouth close again. He smiles.

“It was good to see you again.”

He stands and leaves; he opens the door to see Marianne smiling.

“So?” she smiles.

He takes her by the hand and walks out.

Flashback is over.

Back in the kitchen, Anthony stares deeply into the marble, he holds it at a high angle. He starts to squeeze in frustration. It falls to the floor, as Anthony goes to pick it up, the doorbell is heard again. He answers, it is Marianne. He smiles and welcomes her in, explaining what has happened in the hall way.

He reaches the kitchen, unbeknownst the marble rolls towards the kitchen door. As Anthony walks in, he falls and hits his head hard. He stares motionless, the sound cuts to an orchestral religious song as screams are heard from Marianne all around him. The cameras, above his face slowly rises up, an ascension. He is saved from sin.

Prop Exercise

Today we were given a random prop from which we would feature, or base our prop in a short film.
My prop was a poem 'Oyster Boy' by Tim Burton. We were to come up with a story and have it finished over the course of a two hour period. With no editing allowed, we couldn't afford to record more than one take a scene.
Plot: Max, reading the poem, the narration and the various characters in various voices and angles, twist at the end that he was in fact the 'robot boy' in the poem.
(Video coming soon)

Character Development

Aim: 

To be able to create/develop more fully rounded characters for G234 production piece; to show a sense of progression from AS to A2 (G325) in terms of character development.

Task 1: We were each given a picture of an individual and were set a task to create a character profile for them.

My photo feature a man of african origin sipping a coffee whilst on a laptop.

Name: Emmet Tobongo

Occupation: Athlete

Ethinicity: Trinidadian

Family: Divorced wife, deceased parents.

Emmet is an Trinidadian athlete who has been shunned by his country after his world record, gold medal achieving lap time was discovered to be fueled by illegal, performance enhancement drugs.

Task 2: We were then instructed to think of what our characters most precious possession would be and how they would react if they misplaced it.

Item: a plastic medal given to Emmet when he came first place in sports day in his old school in Trinidad.

Task 3: Finally we had to create a script pretending our character had a secret that only they knew about, but they have to reveal the secret to one other character and this other character acts as a block to their desire.

In my script, Emmet was on the verge to of been found out by his girlfriend Marianne, upon which he quickly changed the subject to marriage, after realising it would not be best to reveal his secret. 

Magazine/Poster research

Colours:

In particular I found that colours used in posters/magazines indicate what gender they are aimed at. For instance pink is typically known as a very femanine colour and this will aim the piece of media towards a more female market - this would be true for males if the main colour were blue. Colour also indicated the theme of the media form. If the poster was about a horror film for example the colours were more often than not kept very dark and in contrast they were lighter if the film were a comedy for instance. The colours used also had particular meaning, if the magazine article were about love or marriage red was often a main colour theme throughout, which is a shade particularly associated with romance.

Text:

The font varied according to which gender the magazine/poster was aimed at. For males it tended to be very plain and standard (Example) where as for females it was often slightly more flowy and letters were more pronounced (Example.) The size of text was also important as it indicated certain words/phrases which were important. For example the title of a film, its date of release and the names  of world famous actors were often in bigger text on a poster in order to attract people's attention.

Language:

For magazines/posters aimed at a younger audience vocabularly, sentence structure and punctuation were kept minimal and very simple. For those who are middle class citizens the tone was more structured with complex sentences yet still without any hugely long complicated words, in order to cater to the everyday average person. For those of a higher status language was more formal with substantially longer characters.

Content:
The content for the posters was kept minimal, only the key information was included, this being because people only tend to glance at a poster and prefer not to have lots of text. For magazines however they contained more text content, although mainstream ones less so than higher status ones.

Images:
Posters were mostly filled up with images in order to attract the eye. If it was a poster advertising a film sometimes popular actors/actresses were used which would hopefully intregue the audience into coming and watching. Magazines contained images too, depending on what the topic was related to. Magazines considered to be for a higher educated audience tended to have less or smaller images than those for a mainstream audience which were bigger and often overlapped a double spread.

Positioning:

For posters the images tended to be in the middle of the paper as the focus. For magazines the images were small and put to one side for high status ones, whereas for a mainstream audience the pictures were situated in the middle and there was usually more than one and of a poorer quality.