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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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