The Tale of the Lady & the Cake.
Lauren Wheeler & Jade Gray
(Please circle your answers)
Q1: Our original main objective when set this project was to make people smile. How did our film affect you?
Cheer you up
Offend you
Make you hungry
No real effect
Q2: In your opinion, what works the least in our short film?
The style of acting
The contrast of both modern and old-fashioned
The music
The style of camera
The style of editing
Q3: The narrative of our film was quite simple, did you find that you fully understood what was going on throughout the film? (If no please state what you didn’t understand)
Yes
No
Q4: We chose the style of a silent film for the tale of the lady and cake, do you think it could have been more effective if we would have chose to use dialogue? (If yes then state why.)
Yes
No
Q5: Do you think our choice of music was appropriate and did it work?
( ).
Q6: If we had the chance to re do our film what would you tell us to make better/change?
Q7: Do you feel that our visual style of the 1950’s fuzzy tele effect worked well and why?
Q8: How did the actors and acting style add to our film?
Added energy and enthusiasm
Made it seem more 1950’s
It was to over exaggerated and didnt work with the film
Additional comments? i.e. what you liked most/least?
Wednesday, 21 April 2010
Tuesday, 30 March 2010
Evaluation.
During these two terms of investigating artists, companies and organisations that produce, promote and screen short film I was able to plan and produce my own productions in a group, using a blog as a way of communicating all my work completed for this unit to date.
Completed short film:
After putting hard work in to our planning, shooting and editing when reflecting back on our finished Short film all efforts we put in seem to have paid off. I feel that because we originally had a good idea that our final piece turned out to be just as good as we’d hoped. Like anything our piece has its strengths and weaknesses but I feel that unlike any other project I’ve done or been involved in this piece defiantly have more strengths than weaknesses. After watching it back there weren’t many weaknesses but one or two of them being some cutting and cross fading of the music and some more different camera shots in one scene. The scene shown above is the scene I’d have like more different shots of. Other then these minor trip ups I feel our short film is one of the best products we’ve produced since starting at the BRIT school. I feel that it is one of our best projects because we worked well together in a group and there wasn’t much that we disagreed on.
Audiences:
As discovered in previous posts, short films aren’t for mainstream audiences and therefore only target small audiences. The tale of the lady and the cake would interest a target audience for people who are interested in silent film and possibly dogs and food. Our film abides by the code and conventions of the duration. More obvious codes and conventions would be the fact that it’s a silent old film which has music instead of dialogue. Another code and convention would be the pace, as it’s all sped up to make the acting seem more exaggerated. Many silent films are in black and white due to the lack of technology in the past but we were able to still keep colour but give it a 1950s TV grainy effect which I feel worked very well because it made it more original and different to other silent films. We hoped our film would be very upbeat, quirky and colourful which would give off a positive and happy mood and I feel we achieved this and the use of music helped us to achieve this because its upbeat and old fashioned and adds to the happy atmosphere.
Influences:
The lady and the cake is an original idea that we thought of during inspiration week. It originally came from a poem called ‘infidelities’ written by Moyra Donaldson. We thought of a idea about a lady and a cake and then after thinking about how to make it more comical we changed the ending to the one that we have. Inspiration week was a great idea and our idea spiralled off from here. When we read back the poem we realised that our film doesn’t really relate to our story at all but the whole idea of being able to make a film about anything you wanted allowed us to change almost everything about our original idea from the poem which was about a woman who woke up and run to the shop with lots of loose change to buy cakes and her husband catches her. Our story is still very similar but we scrapped the loose change idea because we felt this idea would be more comical and would convey the whole lifestyle of husband and wife in the 1950’s more. We wanted to portray the wife as being a typical 1950s housewife, doing housework, cleaning whilst her husbands goes to work and earns the money. As we weren’t at an advantage of having a 1950s environment we thought we could use everything as 1950s except for where it was set which is more modern, this idea worked extremely well.
Charlie Chaplin was defiantly our biggest influence through the whole idea of a silent, fast paced, comical short film. Another short film that influenced us was ‘tour Eiffel’ by Sylvain Chomet from the Paris je t’aime collection. This short film influenced us because it made us happy and smile and whilst it seemed very pointless and didn’t make a lot of sense it still made us feel happy and this was the effect we wanted to have on our audience. Opposed to lots of hidden meanings we just wanted a happy light hearted narrative.
Another influence was Nigella Lawson, her idea of a ‘domestic goddess’ played an important part in our narrative because the idea of being a good cook and cleaner and the perfect women contributed to being a perfect housewife.
Distribution
We would like to distribute our film through video sharing websites which gives anyone the chance to search their interests and watch our film. Tags for our film on Vimeo.com includes cake, food, silent film, happy, this means that if someone types any of them tags into the search box then our film will come up on one of the pages. We would also like to enter it into competitions such as the London short film festival which is a local short film festival which holds their nominees for the best short film at various different venues across London. This would be a great way to show other young film makers our film and maybe inspire them.
Feedback
To receive feedback about our short film we were given the opportunity to present our short films to a class of year 12s and to hand out our own made questionnaires to hear any thoughts and comments. As the Year 12s have not yet studied short film it wasn’t likely that they knew much about them. In our questionnaire we tried to ask questions that could give us as much feedback as possible and as we had to do this for the year 13s when we was in year 12 we didn’t want to bore them and make them do lots of writing. We tried to make our questionnaire a mixture of multiple choice and yes or no answers and sentenced answers. When asked what worked the least in our short film the majority of the class said the music and the contrast between modern and 1950s as some of the music was badly edited and our film was meant to be 1950s style but had a big flat screen television in one shot. Although we wanted the whole clash between past and present environments to work we probably could have put an older looking TV in this one shot, other than that i feel the contrast between these works well.
Our main objective when producing this short film was to make people happy and laugh and we received positive feedback about this with the majority saying that the film cheered them up and made them happy.
I agree with all the feedback as we were well aware about the music which was the most negative feedback that we received.
We also uploaded our short film onto face book which gave the public a chance to view our work and give us feedback on it, I feel this was a great way to receive feedback because most of the people that would have watched it wouldn’t have known much about short films etc. Most the feedback received was positive and that the dog was a very popular and well liked character.
Individual Contributions
We never got much chance for to have individual contributions as we were a pair and we worked extremely well together therefore meaning that we both contributed equally. Our final idea was decided as a pair during inspiration week and any changes to this idea was decided as a pair. Whilst Jade did the majority of the presentation and the storyboards I did all other pre planning work such as, production schedules, synopsis, mood board, questionnaire etc. Filming was done together and we agreed on everything during filming. Editing was also done together and I did the title sequence for our piece.
Improvements
After producing, editing and distributing our final piece when we watched it back I think we realised how good our final project actually was. Although we do feel it was a very successful project obviously there’s room for improvement. If we could do it again I would have liked to have paid more attention to the editing of music, the transition between music was at a couple of times very sudden and didn’t work to week, if given more time and more variety I would also have liked to had more choice in music so that we didn’t have to repeat the first song played. As well as this I feel that one part of the film that could have done with more shots is the part of Bethan where she’s waiting for her husband to come home and then eats the cake. I also feel that to have had more comical effect on the audience we should have made Nialls last face expression more effective to show how much he was actually disappointed in Bethan.
Other than this I feel the strength and simplicity of our narrative worked very well therefore producing a very strong piece. This meant that our audience didn’t really have to think about what was going on during the film. I feel the style of acting and camera also worked well and made our piece to be as good as it is.
Final thoughts
Overall I feel that everything from our contributions to the filming and editing all worked well therefore producing a very strong video piece. This was by far the most successful video project I have produced since being at the BRIT and I feel that this was because my thoughts and say counted and I was working with someone who is very similar to me and we get along. Working together could have gone very wrong in the way that we are friends therefore we could have been lazy but because we both wanted to achieve a good project it worked out well.
Completed short film:
After putting hard work in to our planning, shooting and editing when reflecting back on our finished Short film all efforts we put in seem to have paid off. I feel that because we originally had a good idea that our final piece turned out to be just as good as we’d hoped. Like anything our piece has its strengths and weaknesses but I feel that unlike any other project I’ve done or been involved in this piece defiantly have more strengths than weaknesses. After watching it back there weren’t many weaknesses but one or two of them being some cutting and cross fading of the music and some more different camera shots in one scene. The scene shown above is the scene I’d have like more different shots of. Other then these minor trip ups I feel our short film is one of the best products we’ve produced since starting at the BRIT school. I feel that it is one of our best projects because we worked well together in a group and there wasn’t much that we disagreed on.
Audiences:
As discovered in previous posts, short films aren’t for mainstream audiences and therefore only target small audiences. The tale of the lady and the cake would interest a target audience for people who are interested in silent film and possibly dogs and food. Our film abides by the code and conventions of the duration. More obvious codes and conventions would be the fact that it’s a silent old film which has music instead of dialogue. Another code and convention would be the pace, as it’s all sped up to make the acting seem more exaggerated. Many silent films are in black and white due to the lack of technology in the past but we were able to still keep colour but give it a 1950s TV grainy effect which I feel worked very well because it made it more original and different to other silent films. We hoped our film would be very upbeat, quirky and colourful which would give off a positive and happy mood and I feel we achieved this and the use of music helped us to achieve this because its upbeat and old fashioned and adds to the happy atmosphere.
Influences:
The lady and the cake is an original idea that we thought of during inspiration week. It originally came from a poem called ‘infidelities’ written by Moyra Donaldson. We thought of a idea about a lady and a cake and then after thinking about how to make it more comical we changed the ending to the one that we have. Inspiration week was a great idea and our idea spiralled off from here. When we read back the poem we realised that our film doesn’t really relate to our story at all but the whole idea of being able to make a film about anything you wanted allowed us to change almost everything about our original idea from the poem which was about a woman who woke up and run to the shop with lots of loose change to buy cakes and her husband catches her. Our story is still very similar but we scrapped the loose change idea because we felt this idea would be more comical and would convey the whole lifestyle of husband and wife in the 1950’s more. We wanted to portray the wife as being a typical 1950s housewife, doing housework, cleaning whilst her husbands goes to work and earns the money. As we weren’t at an advantage of having a 1950s environment we thought we could use everything as 1950s except for where it was set which is more modern, this idea worked extremely well.
Charlie Chaplin was defiantly our biggest influence through the whole idea of a silent, fast paced, comical short film. Another short film that influenced us was ‘tour Eiffel’ by Sylvain Chomet from the Paris je t’aime collection. This short film influenced us because it made us happy and smile and whilst it seemed very pointless and didn’t make a lot of sense it still made us feel happy and this was the effect we wanted to have on our audience. Opposed to lots of hidden meanings we just wanted a happy light hearted narrative.
Another influence was Nigella Lawson, her idea of a ‘domestic goddess’ played an important part in our narrative because the idea of being a good cook and cleaner and the perfect women contributed to being a perfect housewife.
Distribution
We would like to distribute our film through video sharing websites which gives anyone the chance to search their interests and watch our film. Tags for our film on Vimeo.com includes cake, food, silent film, happy, this means that if someone types any of them tags into the search box then our film will come up on one of the pages. We would also like to enter it into competitions such as the London short film festival which is a local short film festival which holds their nominees for the best short film at various different venues across London. This would be a great way to show other young film makers our film and maybe inspire them.
Feedback
To receive feedback about our short film we were given the opportunity to present our short films to a class of year 12s and to hand out our own made questionnaires to hear any thoughts and comments. As the Year 12s have not yet studied short film it wasn’t likely that they knew much about them. In our questionnaire we tried to ask questions that could give us as much feedback as possible and as we had to do this for the year 13s when we was in year 12 we didn’t want to bore them and make them do lots of writing. We tried to make our questionnaire a mixture of multiple choice and yes or no answers and sentenced answers. When asked what worked the least in our short film the majority of the class said the music and the contrast between modern and 1950s as some of the music was badly edited and our film was meant to be 1950s style but had a big flat screen television in one shot. Although we wanted the whole clash between past and present environments to work we probably could have put an older looking TV in this one shot, other than that i feel the contrast between these works well.
Our main objective when producing this short film was to make people happy and laugh and we received positive feedback about this with the majority saying that the film cheered them up and made them happy.
I agree with all the feedback as we were well aware about the music which was the most negative feedback that we received.
We also uploaded our short film onto face book which gave the public a chance to view our work and give us feedback on it, I feel this was a great way to receive feedback because most of the people that would have watched it wouldn’t have known much about short films etc. Most the feedback received was positive and that the dog was a very popular and well liked character.
Individual Contributions
We never got much chance for to have individual contributions as we were a pair and we worked extremely well together therefore meaning that we both contributed equally. Our final idea was decided as a pair during inspiration week and any changes to this idea was decided as a pair. Whilst Jade did the majority of the presentation and the storyboards I did all other pre planning work such as, production schedules, synopsis, mood board, questionnaire etc. Filming was done together and we agreed on everything during filming. Editing was also done together and I did the title sequence for our piece.
Improvements
After producing, editing and distributing our final piece when we watched it back I think we realised how good our final project actually was. Although we do feel it was a very successful project obviously there’s room for improvement. If we could do it again I would have liked to have paid more attention to the editing of music, the transition between music was at a couple of times very sudden and didn’t work to week, if given more time and more variety I would also have liked to had more choice in music so that we didn’t have to repeat the first song played. As well as this I feel that one part of the film that could have done with more shots is the part of Bethan where she’s waiting for her husband to come home and then eats the cake. I also feel that to have had more comical effect on the audience we should have made Nialls last face expression more effective to show how much he was actually disappointed in Bethan.
Other than this I feel the strength and simplicity of our narrative worked very well therefore producing a very strong piece. This meant that our audience didn’t really have to think about what was going on during the film. I feel the style of acting and camera also worked well and made our piece to be as good as it is.
Final thoughts
Overall I feel that everything from our contributions to the filming and editing all worked well therefore producing a very strong video piece. This was by far the most successful video project I have produced since being at the BRIT and I feel that this was because my thoughts and say counted and I was working with someone who is very similar to me and we get along. Working together could have gone very wrong in the way that we are friends therefore we could have been lazy but because we both wanted to achieve a good project it worked out well.
The Tale of the Lady & the Cake.
Final piece: Whilst getting to the our end stages of editing we could already see that our piece was going to be better then we would have ever expected it to. When editing we had to watch our piece back time and time again and this got very boring and reputive and made me not like it so much. But after going on easter holidays then coming back and showing our final piece to our class it seemed like all our efforts had paid off and that our piece was actually really good. Of course we found a couple of things that could have been improved on;
1) The music, maybe if we would have put more effort into the music then we could have cross faded it better so that there werent such sudden sharp changes, but you dont notice these things until you watch it back and its to late.
2) Shots, we could have got more interesting shots of Bethan and Ellie eating the cake to maybe make it more funny and to have more effect on our audience.
Like weaknesses, you also have strengths and i think our strongest elements are the style of acting, if the acting wouldnt have been so over exaggerated and enthusiastic then it wouldnt have the comical feel to it.
Although iv said some of the music could have been cross faded better i also feel that our choice of music worked very well, the tone of the music makes the tone and mood of the film better.
As opposed to using black and white effect for our film i think the use of grainy discolouring effect works just as well if not better. It gives off a 1950's look and makes the contrast between old fashioned acting and a modern environment work well.
1) The music, maybe if we would have put more effort into the music then we could have cross faded it better so that there werent such sudden sharp changes, but you dont notice these things until you watch it back and its to late.
2) Shots, we could have got more interesting shots of Bethan and Ellie eating the cake to maybe make it more funny and to have more effect on our audience.
Like weaknesses, you also have strengths and i think our strongest elements are the style of acting, if the acting wouldnt have been so over exaggerated and enthusiastic then it wouldnt have the comical feel to it.
Although iv said some of the music could have been cross faded better i also feel that our choice of music worked very well, the tone of the music makes the tone and mood of the film better.
As opposed to using black and white effect for our film i think the use of grainy discolouring effect works just as well if not better. It gives off a 1950's look and makes the contrast between old fashioned acting and a modern environment work well.
The Tale of the Lady & the Cake.
Pre Planning: After a lot of thought in to our idea for our final piece we ended up changing the ending of our idea quite a lot until we were happy. We both sat down and assigned different jobs to each other, whilst Jade did some of the presentation and storyboards i got on with doing our production schedule, synopsis, questionaires, moodboard and a brief description of what we were hoping to achieve. Because we worked together and agreed on things and just let each other get on with what we wanted to do we got our pre planning done pretty quick and it was all quite good work. If i could do the pre planning again i dont think i would change anything because its because of the pre planning that our piece worked so well.
The Tale of the Lady & the Cake.
Editing: Myself and Jades strengths have never been within editing and because of this we didnt want to complicate things to much and we just wanted to put it all together and then play with buttons and see what we could do etc.
We both worked really well together on editing and both of our ideas of how our final piece would look were the same which make it easier to work together. We log and captured our footage together and began putting out shots in order. As our shot all come together we began to get more of an idea on how we could make it better and how we wanted it to look (which was different to how we first thought). Because we did get more than enough footage when filming we were at an advantage where we were able to try out how good or bad different shots would be. After creating our sequence we cut the footage to our best and we played around with effects and titles until it looked how we wanted it to.
Our main weakness through editing was defiently finding and then cutting music to perfection. As we never really knew what our music would sound like we didnt really know what we were looking for. We spent a whole lesson on soundtrack pro and we never found anything that would work so then we resulted in looking through CDS. From 2 CDS we found all the tracks that we have on our piece and all our hard work of looking for music seem to have paid off. After finding the music we had to cut it to fit our film and the different shots, this was the hardest and even know there are still a couple of little bits we could have made sound better.
Music was probably the hardest part of editing our short film as we had to find music that cut well with it and that went along with the different moods of the film.
We both worked really well together on editing and both of our ideas of how our final piece would look were the same which make it easier to work together. We log and captured our footage together and began putting out shots in order. As our shot all come together we began to get more of an idea on how we could make it better and how we wanted it to look (which was different to how we first thought). Because we did get more than enough footage when filming we were at an advantage where we were able to try out how good or bad different shots would be. After creating our sequence we cut the footage to our best and we played around with effects and titles until it looked how we wanted it to.
Our main weakness through editing was defiently finding and then cutting music to perfection. As we never really knew what our music would sound like we didnt really know what we were looking for. We spent a whole lesson on soundtrack pro and we never found anything that would work so then we resulted in looking through CDS. From 2 CDS we found all the tracks that we have on our piece and all our hard work of looking for music seem to have paid off. After finding the music we had to cut it to fit our film and the different shots, this was the hardest and even know there are still a couple of little bits we could have made sound better.
Music was probably the hardest part of editing our short film as we had to find music that cut well with it and that went along with the different moods of the film.
The Tale of the Lady & the Cake.
We filmed on the 11th of March at my house, we chose to film here because we was able to take advantage of the modern environment. Bethan Harrison and Niall laffey were our actors, we chose Bethan because she fits the whole 1950's style i.e. hair, dress sense etc and we chose Niall because he's the serious character that we was looking for.
We encountered a few problems in the beginning because the camcorded chewed up our tape so then we had to go to Nialls to borrow an old one of his. After this we began filming and we started by filming Bethan doing her house chores of cleaning, this all went well and Bethans acting skills were not what we expected and if they would have been any different then the film probaly wouldnt have worked. After this we filmed the cake scene i.e. making the cake, eating the cake etc. Even though filming this bit correctly was vitual it was also important to us to enjoy ourselves whilst filming. Maybe we enjoyed ourselves a bit to much and we never got as many shots as we would have liked of Bethan eating the cake. After filming this bit we filmed what was going to be the beginning of our film i.e. Bethan getting out of bed and getting dressed etc. Again this all went to plan and worked better then we expected.
To ensure that we had enough footage to edit with we made sure we had several different shots of every scene so that we were able to adjust and make our piece of short film better. When it came to the editing process we didnt have any problems with any footage because we had enough of it.
We encountered a few problems in the beginning because the camcorded chewed up our tape so then we had to go to Nialls to borrow an old one of his. After this we began filming and we started by filming Bethan doing her house chores of cleaning, this all went well and Bethans acting skills were not what we expected and if they would have been any different then the film probaly wouldnt have worked. After this we filmed the cake scene i.e. making the cake, eating the cake etc. Even though filming this bit correctly was vitual it was also important to us to enjoy ourselves whilst filming. Maybe we enjoyed ourselves a bit to much and we never got as many shots as we would have liked of Bethan eating the cake. After filming this bit we filmed what was going to be the beginning of our film i.e. Bethan getting out of bed and getting dressed etc. Again this all went to plan and worked better then we expected.
To ensure that we had enough footage to edit with we made sure we had several different shots of every scene so that we were able to adjust and make our piece of short film better. When it came to the editing process we didnt have any problems with any footage because we had enough of it.
Wednesday, 17 February 2010
Production Schedule.
Date: During the term holidays – 24th Feb – 11th March
Location: Laurens house.
Order of day:
10am; Meeting point at Laurens house. Here we will dress our actors approiately, run through the scenes with them etc and begin filming. We will start by filming shots of the husband (Taylor) leaving the front door and then continue with a fe shots of him walking down the road and getting into he’s car. We will also film the beginning part of the film which will be Betty (Bethan) getting out of bed and getting dressed
1pm; We will have a break and have some lunch and then get on with filming again.
2pm; We will film some more, getting the same shot lots of times and trying different shots out on the same scene etc.
4pm; We will sit down and look back over the footage and if we feel anything can be made better or we think or something else to film to add more effect we will either film it then or arrange another day to do this.
Roles:
Lauren & Jade will both be filming and directing.
Props:
Some sort of suit ,which will be supplied by Taylor as he’s already got one. Some 1950’s housewife clothing supplied by Bethan. Ingredients for Cake mix. Birthday banners etc. Some cleaning products, a hover etc.
Characters/Actors:
Taylor; He will be playing the part of the husband. We will dress him in a suit and restyle his hair to a side parting etc. This will create a 50’s look even though were in a modern environment.
Bethan; She will play the wife, Betty. Dressed in a 50’s long skirt and a 50’s looking jumper with an apron on over top and wearing slippers, this will represent the housewife look that was shown during our research of the 50’s erior.
Shot list:
1st Shot – medium shot of Betty lying in bed with her back to her husband whilst he’s doing up his tie, the camera pans from being on betty to being on her husband.
2nd Shot – Close up shot of him kissing betty on the cheek and it zooms out to him walking out of the door.
3rd Shot – Extreme close up of the clock on the wall (9am)
4thShot – Medium shot of betty sitting up in bed stroking the dog then she gets up to get dressed.
5th Shot – quick panning shot of Betty walking from the bedroom into the bathroom.
6th Shot – Close up shot of the bathroom handle then the camera zooms out to reveal betty in different clothing.
7th shot - Medium shot of betty cleaning the cooker
8th Shot – close up of the hover then the camera moves up to shot betty hovering.
9th Shot – More various shots of normal cleaning things; dusting etc.
10th Shot – More close up shots of the clock showing time passing.
11th Shot – Betty making the cake, this will include different angled shots etc
Contact list:
Lauren Wheeler;
Mobile; 07885271357
Address; 53 Thorpe Close, New Addington – where the shooting will be held.
Jade Gray;
Mobile; 07812995527
Actors contact details
Bethan Harrison; 07940748453
Taylor Kennard; 07776201910
Location: Laurens house.
Order of day:
10am; Meeting point at Laurens house. Here we will dress our actors approiately, run through the scenes with them etc and begin filming. We will start by filming shots of the husband (Taylor) leaving the front door and then continue with a fe shots of him walking down the road and getting into he’s car. We will also film the beginning part of the film which will be Betty (Bethan) getting out of bed and getting dressed
1pm; We will have a break and have some lunch and then get on with filming again.
2pm; We will film some more, getting the same shot lots of times and trying different shots out on the same scene etc.
4pm; We will sit down and look back over the footage and if we feel anything can be made better or we think or something else to film to add more effect we will either film it then or arrange another day to do this.
Roles:
Lauren & Jade will both be filming and directing.
Props:
Some sort of suit ,which will be supplied by Taylor as he’s already got one. Some 1950’s housewife clothing supplied by Bethan. Ingredients for Cake mix. Birthday banners etc. Some cleaning products, a hover etc.
Characters/Actors:
Taylor; He will be playing the part of the husband. We will dress him in a suit and restyle his hair to a side parting etc. This will create a 50’s look even though were in a modern environment.
Bethan; She will play the wife, Betty. Dressed in a 50’s long skirt and a 50’s looking jumper with an apron on over top and wearing slippers, this will represent the housewife look that was shown during our research of the 50’s erior.
Shot list:
1st Shot – medium shot of Betty lying in bed with her back to her husband whilst he’s doing up his tie, the camera pans from being on betty to being on her husband.
2nd Shot – Close up shot of him kissing betty on the cheek and it zooms out to him walking out of the door.
3rd Shot – Extreme close up of the clock on the wall (9am)
4thShot – Medium shot of betty sitting up in bed stroking the dog then she gets up to get dressed.
5th Shot – quick panning shot of Betty walking from the bedroom into the bathroom.
6th Shot – Close up shot of the bathroom handle then the camera zooms out to reveal betty in different clothing.
7th shot - Medium shot of betty cleaning the cooker
8th Shot – close up of the hover then the camera moves up to shot betty hovering.
9th Shot – More various shots of normal cleaning things; dusting etc.
10th Shot – More close up shots of the clock showing time passing.
11th Shot – Betty making the cake, this will include different angled shots etc
Contact list:
Lauren Wheeler;
Mobile; 07885271357
Address; 53 Thorpe Close, New Addington – where the shooting will be held.
Jade Gray;
Mobile; 07812995527
Actors contact details
Bethan Harrison; 07940748453
Taylor Kennard; 07776201910
Synopsis.
The tale of the Lady & the cake; by Lauren Wheeler and Jade Gray.
The tale of the lady and the cake is a short silent film set around the 1950’s. Based around an old married couple who share a positive but typical relationship. The husband is your typical 50’s man who works and brings the money in, and the wife who is none the less a typical stereotype for women who stays at home and does housework and cooks etc.
After years of the same well known routine, the wife begins to let herself go and therefore a strict diet is put into order by her husband who is concerned for her welfare..
It’s the day of he’s 45th birthday and after many birthdays together, nothing changes and just like any other day he gets up and goes to work whilst betty stays in bed to awaken and do housework. Its 9am and after Bettys husband has gone to work she gets out of bed and plans her day to get dressed, to do housework and then to bake a cake and have a mini celebration for her husbands birthday when he returns home.
This all goes to plan but meanwhile whilst waiting for her husband to return from work Betty gets very impatient and after making the cake feels very hungry but doesn’t want her healthy lunch that her husband prepared for her. As the clock ticks away Betty gives in and eats one slice of cake, feeling disappointed in herself she comforts herself by eating more until theres none left and her husband returns home to find her sitting next to the table with all cake around her mouth and on the table.
What will happen to their marriage? Will this be the end because Betty betrayed her husband? This fast pace black and white short film is bound to have you in fits of laughter.
Friday, 12 February 2010
Inspiration Week; Follow your heart.
Through looking at a few different pictures on an A4 sheet we come up with a short story/film called Follow your heart;
A young girl called Vanessa is a ballerina and has a highly religious father who is strict due to her not having a Mum. Vanessa loves butterflies and one day her gold fish starts talking and tells her to follow the butterflies that she can see. She does this and the butterflies lead her to a book that is in her house, she starts to read the book and after a few pages she finds a key that was hidden in it. The butterflies fly off again and lead the young girl into the middle of a field where a chest of drawers are there. She uses the key to unlock it and finds a letter addressed to her from her mum. Vanessa begins to get a bit chocked and a voiceover begins to read the letter out loud so that the audience understand what the letter is.
Inspiration Week; what is a story?
We brainstormed what we thought a story was and included, this is what we come up with;
- It can be fictional/ non fictional
- Biblical stories i.e. bible
- They have a beginning, middle and end
- Structure (equilibrium, disequilibrium)
- Fairytales
- Settings/locations
- Themes
- Series of events
- Plots/dilemmas
- Characters
- Educational
- Plays/scripts etc
- Stories through history
- Greek mythology
Inspiration Week.
During inspiration week one of our tasks was to write down a name and job of a male and then to continue it on by passing around your sheet of paper and writing other scenarios etc. this is the story that was given back to me;
'William Patel is a dog groomer,
Gretchin is a boot polisher,
They both met by chance at the annual meeting for the Jack the Ripper appreciation society.
'I cant play with you any longer, it hurts'
She falls over and gets up only to release an unpleasant smell.
She instantly falls in love with him and they live happily ever after...'
I feel that this exercise was useful and helpful because it was a way of getting our imaginations working and getting us in the mood for writing a short story for our short film.
Friday, 5 February 2010
We are the Lambeth Boys.
We are the Lambeth Boys is a free cinema/protest documentary and it presents working class people, back in the 1950’s, living their everyday life’s. Being an experimental documentary following a group of lads, who supposedly weren’t meant to act like they were being filmed, it has inspired today’s documentaries such as ‘The Family’ because its just about a working class family going there day to day life.
Berlin Horse;
The Berlin Horse was one of the first experimental films to be presented to a niche audience. I feel that unless you are in to art and Avant Garde ect that it is very hard to stay focused as its just replayed shots of a horse running round in circles, the only change are a couple of camera shots and the colour which represents the art and the message behind it. However it could be argued that it may have gripped its viewer due to the extent of music and visual footage that didn’t really have any relevance.
Production, Exhibition & Distribution of Shorts.
Like mainstream films, short films follow a structure; Production, Exhibition and Distribution. However because of low budgets and niche audiences the stages aren’t as complex as they may be to mainstream.
Production
Young aspiring directors will browse for a production company that is willing to produce their short film due to the low budget that have to abide by. This is why some production companies specialise in shorts to. An example of this is the production company ‘Silver films’. The short film About A Girl was produced by silver films.
Exhibition
As mainstream feature films are exhibited in cinemas because of large chain deals and huge marketing budgets short films are generally only exhibited at film festivals. There is an advantage to this as any awards the short might gain from short film festivals will be what employees might look for. Directors will also begin targeting smaller festivals with their work in order to use awards from such festivals as a factor to be recognised else where.
Distribution
For mainstream films, distribution is how films will make profits; after box office sale, DVD’s and merchandise sales. The lack of any kind of profitable distribution in short film does not pose any threat to the industry although there is some proof of short film collection DVDs. Short film distribution is through online websites such as Youtube or Vimeo, some sites specialise in distribution of short film such as Depict; a website that showcases only micro shorts (less than 90 seconds in duration).
Production
Young aspiring directors will browse for a production company that is willing to produce their short film due to the low budget that have to abide by. This is why some production companies specialise in shorts to. An example of this is the production company ‘Silver films’. The short film About A Girl was produced by silver films.
Exhibition
As mainstream feature films are exhibited in cinemas because of large chain deals and huge marketing budgets short films are generally only exhibited at film festivals. There is an advantage to this as any awards the short might gain from short film festivals will be what employees might look for. Directors will also begin targeting smaller festivals with their work in order to use awards from such festivals as a factor to be recognised else where.
Distribution
For mainstream films, distribution is how films will make profits; after box office sale, DVD’s and merchandise sales. The lack of any kind of profitable distribution in short film does not pose any threat to the industry although there is some proof of short film collection DVDs. Short film distribution is through online websites such as Youtube or Vimeo, some sites specialise in distribution of short film such as Depict; a website that showcases only micro shorts (less than 90 seconds in duration).
Video Activism.
Video activism is an opinion of a group of protesters that try to grasp views, interest and shock of the public by creating videos of things such as animal cruelty etc. Video activism came around during the fame of Shorts and was created by a group of protesters that were made to shed light on something they specifically protest against. The idea is to portray things such as animal cruelty in a bad way so that we think it’s a bad thing to and then protest against it. But sometimes things aren’t as bad as they portray them to be.
Film Festivals.
Film Festivals are one of many opportunities for young aspiring directors to show off their work and a place where employees might go to look for such new fresh directors.
Sun dance film festival;
Sun Dance is a film festival dedicated to showcasing new and exciting short films in innovative platforms.
Sundance started in 1978 in an effort to attract more film makers to Utah. The festival takes place annually in the state of Utah in the United States and is the largest independent cinema festival in the USA. It was founded by Sterling Van Wagenen
The festival is held in January (21st-31st) and is a very global event and showcases for new work form American and international independent film makers. The festival comprises competitive sections for international drama and documentary films, both feature length and short films.
You can submit your work to the sun dance festival by filling out an application form on line on their website http://www.sundance.org/applications.html. As this years event is only just over it doesn’t say much else about submitting your entry etc.
Encounters film festival;
Encounters Short Film Festival celebrates new talent in filmmaking and provides a platform for emerging filmmakers to screen their work. Encounters is the title for two of the UKs leading film festivals, now combined. This running festival began in 1995 as Brief Encounters which was originally envisioned as a ‘one off’ event to mark the centenary of cinema. As it proved so popular it is now an annual event.
Encounters takes place in Bristol UK around November time. To submit any entry’s for this film festival you have to sign up to receive their newsletter and then you receive information about when deadlines are etc.
Sun dance film festival;
Sun Dance is a film festival dedicated to showcasing new and exciting short films in innovative platforms.
Sundance started in 1978 in an effort to attract more film makers to Utah. The festival takes place annually in the state of Utah in the United States and is the largest independent cinema festival in the USA. It was founded by Sterling Van Wagenen
The festival is held in January (21st-31st) and is a very global event and showcases for new work form American and international independent film makers. The festival comprises competitive sections for international drama and documentary films, both feature length and short films.
You can submit your work to the sun dance festival by filling out an application form on line on their website http://www.sundance.org/applications.html. As this years event is only just over it doesn’t say much else about submitting your entry etc.
Encounters film festival;
Encounters Short Film Festival celebrates new talent in filmmaking and provides a platform for emerging filmmakers to screen their work. Encounters is the title for two of the UKs leading film festivals, now combined. This running festival began in 1995 as Brief Encounters which was originally envisioned as a ‘one off’ event to mark the centenary of cinema. As it proved so popular it is now an annual event.
Encounters takes place in Bristol UK around November time. To submit any entry’s for this film festival you have to sign up to receive their newsletter and then you receive information about when deadlines are etc.
Avant Garde; Maya Deren.
The concept of Avant Garde refers exclusively to marginalised artists, writers, photographers etc. These composers work is not only opposed to mainstream commercial values but often has a social or political edge. Avant Garde is also referred to as experimental film and is a type of film created by film makes who wish to experiment. In some ways they could have been compared to short films equivalent of Fnew wave ’La Nouvelle Vague.’ This is because the innovative ideas and experimental process of making a film are very similar.
The short film industry always struggled to compete with Hollywood mainstream but however unlike mainstream films Avant Garde found a niche audience who regarded the films as art. A well known director the experimental scene was Maya Deren. She was a film theorist as well as an Avant Garde film maker. Deren directed many experimental films in the 1940’s to 60’s and displayed a highly individualistic sensibility towards short films.
Talk about ‘Meshes in the Afternoon’
The short film industry always struggled to compete with Hollywood mainstream but however unlike mainstream films Avant Garde found a niche audience who regarded the films as art. A well known director the experimental scene was Maya Deren. She was a film theorist as well as an Avant Garde film maker. Deren directed many experimental films in the 1940’s to 60’s and displayed a highly individualistic sensibility towards short films.
Talk about ‘Meshes in the Afternoon’
Saturday, 23 January 2010
Codes & Conventions.
The film industry uses short films as an experiment for a beginner director to showcase his style and talent and gain experience. In order to create uniqueness short films have no codes and conventions leaving them to be the opposite to feature films in the way that they can experiement with anything and have no rules to abide by. For many directors this would be that of an advantage but to some it would mean there are no rules and guidelines for them to follow. The only code that stands within the short film industry is the duration of the film, in order for it to be classed as a short film it must be 50 minutes or under in duration. This means that short films can be any genre and can tackle any subject they wanted.
The whole reason a short film is a good guide for a new young aspiring director to work his way into the film industry is because of its small budget. Short films attack issues that a feature length film would avoid. Young directors use short films as a calling card and feel that the use of shorts can convey there style and can make themselves seen and heard of.
The whole reason a short film is a good guide for a new young aspiring director to work his way into the film industry is because of its small budget. Short films attack issues that a feature length film would avoid. Young directors use short films as a calling card and feel that the use of shorts can convey there style and can make themselves seen and heard of.
Short Film Production Companies.
Surrealist short films; http://www.surrealiststudios.com/
Surrealist films are an British independent short film company. There website was launched in 2004 complete with there short films which were ready to watch online and download. They have 5 home made films on there website and have on going improvements to there online film player. Outside of there website they can be established on Youtube and 16 other video sharing websites.
I feel that surrealist short films website is extremely informative with a blog and forum.
Silver films;
founded in 1996 and have produced five films including About a Girl.
There website allows users to browse through all their films and watch them. I feel that all the films have a distinctive style that works well with the title of the company. A very simple website.
Coffee Shorts; http://www.coffeeshorts.co.uk/drama.html
an example of a production company like Silver Films that specializes in short film production. The website holds different section for different types of short. They have dramatic narrative short films, independent music videos, documentary films, short film animations, experimental short films, comedy shorts and trailers.
Surrealist films are an British independent short film company. There website was launched in 2004 complete with there short films which were ready to watch online and download. They have 5 home made films on there website and have on going improvements to there online film player. Outside of there website they can be established on Youtube and 16 other video sharing websites.
I feel that surrealist short films website is extremely informative with a blog and forum.
Silver films;
founded in 1996 and have produced five films including About a Girl.
There website allows users to browse through all their films and watch them. I feel that all the films have a distinctive style that works well with the title of the company. A very simple website.
Coffee Shorts; http://www.coffeeshorts.co.uk/drama.html
an example of a production company like Silver Films that specializes in short film production. The website holds different section for different types of short. They have dramatic narrative short films, independent music videos, documentary films, short film animations, experimental short films, comedy shorts and trailers.
Short Film Vs Feature Film.
Short Film;
- Small budgets i.e. About a girl had a budget of £33,000
- Shorter in length (Longer than 50 minutes would be classed as feature)
- No Codes & Conventions except for the length of the film
- Smaller casts
- Experimental
- Smaller target audience
- Smaller marketing and marketing costs
- Nichely distributed
- Broadcast to national/regional area.
Feature Length Film;
- Large budgets i.e. About a boy had a budget of $20,000,000
- Longer films, no less than 50 minutes. Some films such as Lords of the Rings are 160 minutes long.
- Feature films have codes and conventions such as;
- Feature films are very commercial rather than experiemental
- Large and famous cast
- Huge target audience
- Big marketing and larger costs
- Widely distributed
- Distributed globally rather than nationally
- Small budgets i.e. About a girl had a budget of £33,000
- Shorter in length (Longer than 50 minutes would be classed as feature)
- No Codes & Conventions except for the length of the film
- Smaller casts
- Experimental
- Smaller target audience
- Smaller marketing and marketing costs
- Nichely distributed
- Broadcast to national/regional area.
Feature Length Film;
- Large budgets i.e. About a boy had a budget of $20,000,000
- Longer films, no less than 50 minutes. Some films such as Lords of the Rings are 160 minutes long.
- Feature films have codes and conventions such as;
- Feature films are very commercial rather than experiemental
- Large and famous cast
- Huge target audience
- Big marketing and larger costs
- Widely distributed
- Distributed globally rather than nationally
Friday, 15 January 2010
History of Short Films.
When cinema started in 1895 the films created and shown were short films. At this point, and even today, short films were not apart of mainstream cinema. In order to make a short film it was to include a feature followed by a short subject, these short subjects could be animated cartoons or live action. Despite them being of a short length they were not yet known as 'short films'.
The genre of these short films was usually comedy although some also were of topics that interested other individuals. Some of the first short films made were short due to technological restrictions i.e. 'experimental sequences'. However, it wasn't a long period of time til short films started to die off and werent as popular as they once was. Fewer were being made and the ones that were made were made in house. It was heard of that big film companies were helping in financing short films, because of this companies had power and they began taking ideas from short films and turning them into big blockbuster feature films to reap any profits possible. This was known as block booking and was later declared illegal by the Supreme Court of the United States.
From the 1930's onwards short film production was a marginal activity, it was official, Hollywood hhad come along and put death to the short film at the time it was most popular in the industry. Hollywood followed the Studio System and had produced and introduced genres, cinema exhibiters required the film to be no longer than 90 minutes to allow cinemas 2 hour blocks in order for a quick turnover.
Opposed to the restricted genres in earlier history they are now very diverse, they attack themes that feature films would avoid. Short films are only advertised through art exhibitions and festivals. Currently Hollywood no longer follows the studio system and just see's short films as a cut price laboratory for experimental and innovation. Studios have developed a system of scouting for new talent by using film festivals to find aspiring young directors i.e. Spielberg.
The genre of these short films was usually comedy although some also were of topics that interested other individuals. Some of the first short films made were short due to technological restrictions i.e. 'experimental sequences'. However, it wasn't a long period of time til short films started to die off and werent as popular as they once was. Fewer were being made and the ones that were made were made in house. It was heard of that big film companies were helping in financing short films, because of this companies had power and they began taking ideas from short films and turning them into big blockbuster feature films to reap any profits possible. This was known as block booking and was later declared illegal by the Supreme Court of the United States.
From the 1930's onwards short film production was a marginal activity, it was official, Hollywood hhad come along and put death to the short film at the time it was most popular in the industry. Hollywood followed the Studio System and had produced and introduced genres, cinema exhibiters required the film to be no longer than 90 minutes to allow cinemas 2 hour blocks in order for a quick turnover.
Opposed to the restricted genres in earlier history they are now very diverse, they attack themes that feature films would avoid. Short films are only advertised through art exhibitions and festivals. Currently Hollywood no longer follows the studio system and just see's short films as a cut price laboratory for experimental and innovation. Studios have developed a system of scouting for new talent by using film festivals to find aspiring young directors i.e. Spielberg.
Short film analysis.
About a girl; a short film created in 2001 by Geoff Boyle and written by Julie Rutterford. The genre of this film is known to be drama, comedy and social realism because of the serious day issues it deals with.
This short 9 minute 50 second film is a play on the title of the feature film About a Boy because this film was realised around about the same time and its trying to play up on a big blockbuster film and a not so popular short film. There is a massive contrast between both films being that About a Boy has an innocent culture about it whereas About a girl is gritty and not so innocent.
A clear view on who the target audience is going to be is set into motion within the first 20 seconds of this short film as its text language which is popular with the youth culture. We can again see this from the first shot we get of the main character, the audience begin to ask who is this person? This particular shot fonders on youth culture and the whole idea of having a dream and an ambition in life as a young child. The shot immediately represents escapism and happiness which makes the audience question what is she escaping from? What is her reality life like? The clouds in this first shot perhaps represent that something bad is going to happen due to the dull grey colours. The choice of song used shows that she thinks she growing up to fast and that maybe shes trying to make a confession?
It is at this point that we realise that our brains are going to be doing overtime at trying to understand this film, during a mainstream film the audience are 'spoon feed' with information and dont have to work that hard at understanding the dilemma of the film.
The audience identify with this character we are presented with because during some stage in a young girls life they would have practised singing and dance moves to themselves. Maybe she does this to help boost her confidence so she feels she is good at something. If the audience begin to feel that this girl could be something big whens shes older etc they are soon brought back to reality when they are presented with a close up shot of the young girl where we realise shes a typical 'chav' growing up on a council estate. We get a shot of her walking along with a brick wall behind her, this wall could represent her feeling trapped within her situation.
This girl has a strong accent, is certainly from a working class. We get messages that she feels pushed out from her family as she dont say much to them when shes with them therefore giving us the message that shes not very close with them. When we are presented with the first shot of her with her dad we realise that she doesnt have a lot of respect for her Dad which maybe says that she has a broken family and possibly resents her Dad for this.
The narrative structure of this film is defiently being played with as its very sharp, quick cutting and theres only 102 shots within the whole 9/10 minutes. The fact that the camera is mostly handheld throughout the film places the audience in this girls shoes. This is what makes the film more gritty and realistic, the fast cuts shows that her lifes fast and a bit of a mess.
Another shot with her Dad shows that maybe she spends more time with her Dad then her mum which again emphasises on her feeling left out, maybe her mum meet another man after her Dad and had children with him therefore leaving her feeling left out because its not her Dad shes living with its her brother and sisters dad. However, although we would expect her relationship with her Dad to be strong it isnt, its as if he doesnt even recognise that shes there and shes just a burden to him. We get the idea that her Dad doesnt work therefore dont provide for her. Despite all this we dont really feel sorry for this young girl because its almost like she accepts it as she does not show that she cares. The panning shot zooming out on her sitting on a bench watching her Dad play football emphasises on her isolation and we are reminded by this that she is only a child.
The colour scheme in most scenes are grey, dark and drainging. This girl has a lot to say, shes confident, she knows what she wants and we get a lot of references to pop culture. The last scene is when all the audiences hard thinking comes to a conclusion, as we see her throw the carrier bag in the canal the scene goes quiet and theres no talking which is the first throughout the film, everything goes dark and we realise why this girl is so messed up and we begin to sympathisis with her because we feel sorry that theres no way out for her.
This short 9 minute 50 second film is a play on the title of the feature film About a Boy because this film was realised around about the same time and its trying to play up on a big blockbuster film and a not so popular short film. There is a massive contrast between both films being that About a Boy has an innocent culture about it whereas About a girl is gritty and not so innocent.
A clear view on who the target audience is going to be is set into motion within the first 20 seconds of this short film as its text language which is popular with the youth culture. We can again see this from the first shot we get of the main character, the audience begin to ask who is this person? This particular shot fonders on youth culture and the whole idea of having a dream and an ambition in life as a young child. The shot immediately represents escapism and happiness which makes the audience question what is she escaping from? What is her reality life like? The clouds in this first shot perhaps represent that something bad is going to happen due to the dull grey colours. The choice of song used shows that she thinks she growing up to fast and that maybe shes trying to make a confession?
It is at this point that we realise that our brains are going to be doing overtime at trying to understand this film, during a mainstream film the audience are 'spoon feed' with information and dont have to work that hard at understanding the dilemma of the film.
The audience identify with this character we are presented with because during some stage in a young girls life they would have practised singing and dance moves to themselves. Maybe she does this to help boost her confidence so she feels she is good at something. If the audience begin to feel that this girl could be something big whens shes older etc they are soon brought back to reality when they are presented with a close up shot of the young girl where we realise shes a typical 'chav' growing up on a council estate. We get a shot of her walking along with a brick wall behind her, this wall could represent her feeling trapped within her situation.
This girl has a strong accent, is certainly from a working class. We get messages that she feels pushed out from her family as she dont say much to them when shes with them therefore giving us the message that shes not very close with them. When we are presented with the first shot of her with her dad we realise that she doesnt have a lot of respect for her Dad which maybe says that she has a broken family and possibly resents her Dad for this.
The narrative structure of this film is defiently being played with as its very sharp, quick cutting and theres only 102 shots within the whole 9/10 minutes. The fact that the camera is mostly handheld throughout the film places the audience in this girls shoes. This is what makes the film more gritty and realistic, the fast cuts shows that her lifes fast and a bit of a mess.
Another shot with her Dad shows that maybe she spends more time with her Dad then her mum which again emphasises on her feeling left out, maybe her mum meet another man after her Dad and had children with him therefore leaving her feeling left out because its not her Dad shes living with its her brother and sisters dad. However, although we would expect her relationship with her Dad to be strong it isnt, its as if he doesnt even recognise that shes there and shes just a burden to him. We get the idea that her Dad doesnt work therefore dont provide for her. Despite all this we dont really feel sorry for this young girl because its almost like she accepts it as she does not show that she cares. The panning shot zooming out on her sitting on a bench watching her Dad play football emphasises on her isolation and we are reminded by this that she is only a child.
The colour scheme in most scenes are grey, dark and drainging. This girl has a lot to say, shes confident, she knows what she wants and we get a lot of references to pop culture. The last scene is when all the audiences hard thinking comes to a conclusion, as we see her throw the carrier bag in the canal the scene goes quiet and theres no talking which is the first throughout the film, everything goes dark and we realise why this girl is so messed up and we begin to sympathisis with her because we feel sorry that theres no way out for her.
Bibliography.
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/199025/a_brief_history_of_short_films.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/about_a_boy_(film)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avant-garde#Avant-garde_and_mainstream_society
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/about_a_boy_(film)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avant-garde#Avant-garde_and_mainstream_society
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