Semiotics

Conventions of a short film

Questionaire Responses

For my responses i asked people who fitted into my target audience which is males aged around 16-20.

Most of my target market have seen short films before so my production and structure isn't going to be a shock to them as they know the general layout of a short production.

Again my responses show that the majority would like to see a film about a vision of the future so my narrative is likely appeal to my target market.

Considering my target market had different opinions on the length i have deiced to go roughly in the middle like 5 mins is a suitable length.

Further Film Poster Research

These are some minimalistic film posters which I feel work better than realistic photos and a collage of images. Also their simplicity means that the audience has to be active to understand which scene or prop the poster represents.

Film Poster draft

This is a draft of my film poster(Created using Adobe Illustrator). I wanted to create a minimalistic film poster to make the audience more active when reading it as they have to think about what scene it represents. Also I felt that too many film posters in the present day just include the actors faces to promote their film but i feel that a decent illustration of the overall film is more effective I think overall it worked well however in my final design id like to include more detail and possibly add a real life picture which is what most film posters include, for example a face of the actor. Also i think it would be important to have some sort of boarder to add more detail to the finished product.

Breif Outline of my Plot

The beginning of my narrative will start of as a montage of events of a normal day and a car crash at the end. The main protagonist instantly wakes up and assumes he just had a nightmare. As the character gets up a heads downstairs the beginning credits will appear. The main character then gets himself some breakfast and as he runs the tap to get a drink, he has a small flashback of his 'dream'. As he thinks nothing of it he continues to get himself a drink and puts the glass on the table. He then accidentally knocks the glass over causing the drink to spill on the floor and as the drink is in free fall time slows down and he has another flashback of the 'dream'. Again he doesn't really realise what is going on so he continues his normal day of life and heads back to his room. On his way to his room he trips over a book and once again he has another flashback of him tripping and falling down the stairs but as he goes back to reality he prevents himself from falling down the stairs as he knew what was going to happen. The protagonist picks up the book and the front cover has the woulds deja vu on it, he then starts to realise that his dream is coming to true. He then grabs his laptop and starts researching about his condition. As he researches he finds out that he can try and simulate his dream to remember the rest of his dream before it happens and save whoever gets hit by a car. As he starts to remember parts of his dream he finds out that the event is close to his house as he recognises street sign in his vision. He the runs out of his house and looks at his watch to see how much time he has left to save the person from being hit by a car. He gets to the same street sign in his vision and has a small flashback to prove it was the same street sign. As he has nothing else to go on so he looks around frantically to see if he can see the car but as he looks around someone bumps into him with headphones on and walks past him. As the main character then realises that this person was the guy that gets hit. He then runs to try and catch him up but before he catches up, he sees the car that hits him turn into the road he is on. As the main protagonist attempts to call for the character with the headphones he obviously doesn't hear him or the car. The character with headphones starts to cross the road without looking and the car continues to build up speed. This is then the moment where the character decides to be the hero and save him risking his own life or the villain by letting it happen, but before he makes a decision it cuts to black and all you hear is a car breaking and someone being hit leaving the audience to decide what happened and who died.

The Genre of my production

From reading my narrative I would suggest that my short film will fall into the thriller genre due to the following conventions

• The aim of a thriller is to create suspense and excitement for the audience
• The narrative revolves around an investigation or enigma
• The hero is the only one that is able to solve the enigma
• The hero is often an outsider, isolated and secretive but moral
• A lot of the cinematography includes extreme close ups to show emotion of the protagonist

Although my narrative follows some of the conventions I think it would likely be an unconventional thriller as it is not centred around violence, except from the end and it doesn't have many characters only a protagonist.

Location Pictures

For the ending of my film I needed to find a small quite road near my house and I found that this road would work well. As its a small close there isn't usually many people walking down and doesn't have a lot of traffic so I wouldn't disturb many people.

Also in the top left image there is a street sign that I might end up using for a flashback to his dream so he knows he's close to the next event from his dream

Other than this location the only other location I will need is my house.

Script?

As my short film is only going to have one character for most of the scenes there isn't going to be much dialogue because I didn't want the character to break the fourth wall and I felt narration wouldn't fit in with my plot. It is possible that I could have a phone call with the main character so there is at least some dialogue at the start of the film but towards the end there will be some dialogue when the main character tries to prevent the car hitting someone. As there will be minimal dialogue I was thinking of using quite powerful soundtracks and close ups of the main protagonists to show emotion.

Codes and Conventions of short films

Target Audience Primary Research

Narrative Ending

For the ending of my narrative I have came up with a two slightly different ideas however as of now I'm unsure with what one to go with.

1. It ends as the protagonist with a decision whether to risk his life to save someone from a car crash, then it cuts to black before he makes a decision and you hear the noise of a car breaking and someone being hit, leaving the audience to decide who got hit by the car.
2. the protagonist remembers the location where the crash happened and waits to try and save who he saw in his dream. After a while no one turns up so he thinks that his premonition was fake and wakes home and as he crosses the road he gets hit and it turns out the person he saw get hit was himself.

To decide I could create an questionnaire to ask people which they think is best

Update
Ive decided to with 1 as i feel this will be easier to film as I wouldn't actually have to film someone getting hit by a car also it would create more enigmas as the audience wouldn't know who gets hit. 

location for filming

Most of my narrative is set in a house so I will be using my own house for filming however I do have one at the end where I need to find a small road and street for filming the last scene. I have some ideas for locations but I will need take pictures and upload them to my blog. As Im  filming in my house will need to be careful for continuity issues and make sure there is nothing in the background of shots so the audience won't get distraction from the main action. Sound isn't going to be an issue for the house scenes however the last scene is outside so I will need to be careful with wind and the quality of sound.

Story Board(First Draft)

Character Profile

Similar Short Film Productions and Scenes

While I was researching similar short films I found it difficult to find films with a similar narrative however there were films with scenes similar to what I was going to create which inspired me.




I was very much inspired by the way in which the computer screen was recorded and the editing used to overlay the screen over the protagonists face which created a lot of tension as it gave the sense of someone always looking at you.




This short film has a similar concept to mine although the narrative is nothing alike but I felt it was go research to see how others went about Deja vu and re-living similar events. As this concept can get very confusing it is important to keep the audience informed of whats going on which i felt this film didn't do so in my production i will try too make sure that the narrative is clear.




I wanted to research how big production films also went about this concept and how to make the audience realize while the protagonist is still unsure(Dramatic Irony). Making events repeat was the convention of this production however I feel I will want to create more of a flashback effect.

Narrative Theories

Todorov- equilibrium/disequilibrium
He suggested that the conventional narratives have 5 stages

1. A state of equilibrium(stability) at the start
2. A disruption of the equilibrium by some action
3. A recognition that there has been a disruption
4. An attempt to repair the disruption
5. A reinstatement of the equilibrium

Propp- character types
He suggested that every narrative has 8 different character types

Barthes - enigma codes
He suggest that narratives should have enigma codes to keep the audience guessing and creating a puzzle for the audience

Strauss-binary oppositions
His theory was that binary oppositions were needed in a narrative, like heros and villans(Star wars for example)

Cameron -modular narratives
Mentioned media product having multiple narratives like Anachronic, Forking-Path, Episodic and Split Screen.

Freytag -narrative pyramid.
His pyrimad shows the pace of a narrative and the amount of tension.

For my narrative the narrative theories that will relate to my short film are Freytag's pyrimad and Todorov, as my production will start of as the protagonist not really realizing what is going on and then beginning to realize he saw visions of his future. Then he will try to prevent things and events from happening and finally the protagonist will try to change his own fate possibly leading to his demise. Fretag's pyrimad would work well with my narrative as the tension gradually builds up until the ending where the protagonist will resolve the problem or not.

Analysing Anchillary Products

My target audience

My Pitch

My Idea

Presentation

Presentation