Evaluation of Short Film, Film Review page and Film Poster
The use of forms and conventions was a key part of the process when making our film. We researched by analysing shots from other films of the same genre and some from films of a different genre. We bought ‘Sixth Sense’, the reason for choosing ‘Sixth Sense’ was because we feel ‘Sixth Sense’ is a film similar to ours in that there is a sense of the unnatural in our case in the mothers imagination but just like ‘Sixth Sense’ you do not realise this until the end and feel everything is normal. We wrote down shots we enjoyed, shots that were conventional shots that showed clearly the intentions of the shot and shots that we thought would be use full to our film. By doing this we discovered that there were not many shots from any of the movies that directly influenced our film apart from shots that were standard conventional shots to symbolise every day things.
Our main target was to open the film with a series of misleading shots in which the audience believes everything is fine and not until the end does the audience realise that it is not and by adding subtle hints throughout the film that things are not what they seem. These hints will hopefully make more sense when the audience thinks back. For example one of our opening shots of an alarm clock being turned of is a very conventional shot, the mise-en-scene of the bed side table with the alarm clock along with the lighting of natural sunlight shining on the wall is a very conventional scene of the morning and the photo of the mothers child on the bedside table is just another indication to the audience that all is well a picture of a child on the bedside table indicates to connotations of a happy family. When in fact it is not and for it not conventional because it is deliberately misleading.
The shot before this however is conventional in that it is an establishing shot of the house in which the film is set and also the season of winter which has connotations of coldness and loneliness but the scene although being a standard establishing shot still gives the audience a feeling of uncertainty and mystery. Then the simple action of the husband leaving for work before the wife is even up shows distance in the relationship and again leaves the audience with the feeling of uncertainty because we as an audience do not see the conventional kiss good bye before he goes to work or the husband and wife sitting and having breakfast together. The noise of the traffic adds to the disorientation of the scene, which doesn’t allow the audience to settle adding to the uncertainty. This cutting into the contrasting silence of the bedroom where the wife is still asleep and also because the bedroom has connotations of an intimate place that requires a certain level of trust to be allowed to see inside, allows the audience to settle but the echoes of the last scene will still be in their minds.
The way we composed the scene in which the mother is waking her child was very significant in the unfolding tale, we were very lucky with the light we laid the room out with child’s toys, teddy bears ect in a very tidy way as if the room had not been touched for months like a sort of memorial to their son. The light helped create this illusion timing it just right meant that the light would come through the window and past the camera at an angle and showed the dust in the air, the light and dust in the shot also gave a connotation of magic and mystery almost like a fairytale and also making it hard to make out the face of the child adding to the uncertainty. All of this however would hopefully not give away the twist in the end and be oblivious to a first time viewer and just look as if the child had a very tidy room.
The scene in which the mother is out side smoking was also important in hinting to the twist, the dominant feature in this shot is the mother smoking anxiously the nervous puffing this itself is concerning the mother looks almost scared and the audience will not be able to make sense of why this is because from the evidence we have proved her life seems fine. Then when the child appears and tells her to put it out we get a sense of him having said this before, it almost sounds over rehearsed which it is because the child would have said this before and the mother has remembered it ever time she smokes. Also the fact he has got changed really quickly is unnatural and makes the audience wonder how this is possible.
The montage of the mother and child bonding and having fun enhances the audiences feeling of security and safety enjoying this scene is important in the contrasting scene to come in which this illusion is blown apart. The lack of dialogue and natural sound is important because the use of the up beat music is more powerful seeing the laughter instead of hearing it makes it more potent and memorable in the audiences mind. I believe these visual images are very effective and almost seem like a memory, which of course it would be because the child is gone.
The ending scene is where our genre of drama shows the most similar to ‘Six Sense’ the audience at this point is piecing together the uncertainty of the film. When the mother informs her child that his father is home the son says “I haven’t seen father in ages” this is the final clue in the film this line seems very unnatural and the awkward look in the mother’s eye adds to this. When the father returns he straight away breaks down and starts to cry similar to ‘Sixth Sense’ the audience begins to realise why but the way the scene is shot and the camera angle being directed at the dad so you cannot see the child but you still believe he is there. Only when the camera angle changes to the shot of the mother with the child not being beside her like he was before do you realise what has happened and only then do the hints make sense. The break down of both characters adds to the audiences shaken realisation and will help create the emotionally response we are looking for in our drama. The shot being hand held and over the fathers shoulder allows you to relate to his feelings and thoughts and share his shock, being a hand held shot adds to the shakiness of the emotion because the camera is no longer secure in it’s place this symbolises the audiences and fathers emotional response. Also the lighting in the scene is purely from the birthday cake, this low lighting adds to the intensity of the mood. This scene is also the only point in the film you realise the significance of it being set on the child’s birthday because if you lost a child in this case their only child the two most important days you would remember would be the day he died and the day he was born, the mothers final line “It’s his birthday love” along with the table and room being laid out with a cake and birthday decorations, adds to the power of the emotion that a mother would feel for the loss of their child and hopefully the audience can empathise with her feelings.
When making the film poster we tried to keep with the films genre and image. We wanted the poster to reflect the mood of the film so we kept the colour scheme of the poster dark. The main focus of the poster was the birthday cake; this was taken from a larger photo. The birthday cake is significant because it signifies the innocence of the child and the concept of a birthday party and does not indicate to the twist in the plot. We blurred the edges of the photos this adds to the connotation of mystery in the poster because the picture is not clear and this is a reflection of the plot, we got this idea from the ‘Sixth Sense’ movie poster.
The magazine article however does not reflect the film. It instead represents a generic film magazine. The style of the article was achieved by researching film magazines and looking at their ‘House style’ the capital letter for example is similar to how ‘Film’ Magazine starts their paragraphs. The form of the article was a short film section of the magazine and the first page had a short explanation of the plot and other information about the film that readers who were interested in the film may read before deciding to view it. The second page was in the style of an interview with the director. I did this because I am the director of the film therefore by interviewing myself I could communicate points I wanted to get across and honest opinions and views of my film. The colour scheme of the magazine was blue with a black and white title and black font. This colour scheme was effective because it highlights the pictures from the film that were used in the film. One of the pictures used in the article was an original poster idea and the other is a picture we took on the day of filming of us using the camera and directing a scene. This was effective because it allows the audience to have an inside view of the film, like a behind the scenes view making the audience feel like the film is important and the magazine was lucky enough to have inside access to behind the scenes of the film.
For audience feed back we as a group created a questionnaire, this was designed to find out if our film was appealing to our target audience. We did this by including precise question to find out what worked and what didn’t work in the film. One of our concerns for example was whether or not the audience saw the plot twist coming or not. We showed our film to the other media group and included a question about the plot; we were pleased to find out that the group did not see the twist coming. However another question we included was to find out if it appealed to the age of our target audience, we asked if the film appealed to the target age of 18+ this was not reflection on the certificate or suitability but just that we thought an adult audience would be more interested in viewing the film. The group however did not understand this and disagreed with comments saying they couldn’t understand why we wanted it to be rated an 18. Altogether though our audience questionnaire was successful and helped us to conclude our film was a success and did not need changing and worked how it was.
We tried to use a vast range of media technologies throughout our production. We used ‘Blogger’ to display our work because it is simple to use but effective, through ‘Blogger’ we could up load not only word files and pictures but also ‘Edexcel’ and ‘Publisher’ though the use of ‘Scribd’. Also by copy and pasting ‘Youtube’ URL codes we could share videos this was particularly helpful when researching short films and credits. This is something we would not been able to use and did not exist a few years ago and we are lucky this new media technology was available to us for both years of our course. We chose to use ‘Photoshop’ to make our poster this is because not only does it have many techniques and tools to help create an effective poster but also we are used to using it because we used it last year to create our music magazine front page and contents page. I used Microsoft ‘Publisher’ to create my double page article as I find it easy to use and I can use it to create a simple yet very effective layout including pictures as well as text, I also did this for my double page article last year. I also used ‘Edexcel’ to create charts and graphs of my audience research result and thorough ‘Scribd’ uploaded it to ‘Blogger’. For our actual film we use Cannon XL2 camera this is because we considered this camera to be far more superior in quality and picture when compared to the school video camera which in comparison seemed basic. We also used ‘Final cut pro’ to edit our film this is because I am more used to this as an editing process and I also consider it more effective it has a wider range of tools and effects and the final result I think looks far smoother and professional compared with the schools ‘Macfilm’ editor.
