Short Film Theory

Total Film and Empire Magazine Review Pages

Here is a Prezi that looks in detail at two pages from Total Film and Empire magazine. the Prezi attempts to explain the codes and conventions in which we have looked at as well as informing to what is possible and would work well with our own film and its subsequent review.

Empire and Total Film Review Pages

Chosen Film Title From Second Title Ideas

After having consulted our focus group they decided that they preferred this title as opposed to the other as they felt it was darker and easier to read than the other, they also felt it carried an eerie feel.

Film Title Ideas 2

Here are the other film title ideas we had, we will consult our ficus group to see which one of these titles they prefer, in order to go alongside the other film title our focus group have chosen.

Chosen Title From First Title Ideas

After consulting our focus group, this was the title that was chosen. This title had the most positive reaction and recieved the majorioty vote from our focus group. However we have also created another selection of titles that we will present to our focus group to find another favourite to be used for our film. This will then narrow our title choices down to two titles favoured by our focus group, allowing them to then decide upon a favourite to be used primarily for our film.

Film Title Ideas

Here are a few ideas for the title of our film, we decided to call our film "DOCUMENTED" and these are the ideas that we had for the title on our film poster.

Empire & Total Film Review Pages

Poster Template

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Screenplay Changes

Our screen play has gone through a few changes in the 2 drafts we have presented. The first being the method of communication between Veronica and her friend, in the first draft you will notice that we use a phone as a form of communication. However, we found that this could become difficult whilst filming due to limitations with space and time, we also wanted to reduce dialogue throughout the film. This is because a code and convention that we have noticed in horror films is little dialogue, this creates more of an eerie tension for the audience which is something we want to portray in our production.

Another change we made was the murder weapon, originally we had thought of using a knife. However, we began brainstorming and realized that a knife may seem to much of a cliche weapon, so we opted for a shovel. Not only did this prop link in well with the film it also enables us to add a new element to the production. A majority of the murders 'screentime' is outside therefore it makes sense for him to have a shovel due to his surroundings. Not only is a shovel a unique option for a weapon it is also easier to use for filming and aids us in having a good ending to our film.

Total Film Review Pages

 

Here are 9 Total Film review pages that we have looked at, individually within our group we have looked at 3 of these pages each, alongside the Empire review pages we have looked at a total of 24 film review pages.

VHS Film Poster Codes and Conventions

Here is a look into codes and conventions for a VHS film poster, I have looked at what the poster does and what it attempts to convey through these devices. For our film poster it may be a good idea to use a larger amount of black to represent a horror film and perhaps the main image of our poster could be similar to VHS' in the sense that it could be a blood stained video camera as the main image of the poster.

VHS Codes and Conventions

The codes and conventions for VHS are taken from one particular section of the film, I was unable to find a suitable YouTube video showing this section of the film. The section is towards the end of the film and follows the men at the begging of the film who break into a house looking for a video tape, the house is dark and a majority of the men have vanished by this part of the film and it focus' on a few of the men as they watch one of the video tapes and walk around the previously mentioned house. The reason we have chosen to look at VHS in detail is due to the fact that it uses handheld camera footage for the majority of the film, this is something that we ourselves would like to implement into our own film with the use of the killer using a handheld camera to see his perspective of the events that unfold. It was imperative to look a a film such as VHS to see how handheld cameras are implemented in feature horror films, and to see how we could emulate these conventions.

Narrative Theory

Here is a Prezi that summaries the ideas of Narrative theory, it also discusses narrative theorists and their ideas on narrative and how we would be able to apply these ideas to our own narrative in the form of our film.

Blackbox TV Shortfilm - INSIDE

Whilst this isnt a short horror film, I felt this would be a good film to mention within our research into short horror films. INSIDE does not follow all of the general codes and conventions of short films, for a start, there is a lot of dialogue used which helps to create an intense atmosphere as we here many voices trying to talk over one another, this almost creates a bond between the main character and the audience as we experience what he is experiencing.