My group and I decided to create a short social realist film using a theme of romance and named it 'Nearly Reunited'.. (Below is the final copy)
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We followed typical conventions of a social realist film by using real settings
with minimal additional lighting/make up/costume. All of this was important to make the plot seem convincing to the viewer.
Useful Link on forms of Social Realism
http://http//www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wj9yvVDwhX0
This clip from 'British Film Forever' A BBC 2 documentary showing celebrities talking about social realism films and directors. They discuss their favourites and how the films are realistic.
This clip defines British social realism as a 'chance to escape'. It gives people who might not be fully aware of the term 'social realist' an insight into typical themes and conventions that these films possess that make them so popular.
As a director of a short social realist film, it helped me gain ideas for our short film as to what conventions needed to be followed.
Our Film
Rating: 12
Sub Genre: Romance
Social Realism
-By studying several social realism films (full and short length) I was able to gather an understanding of what the typical conventions were. For example, 'Happy Go Lucky' 'Mixed Tape' and 'Conversation Piece', all modern social realist films that used a different style to one another.
'Happy Go Lucky' is a full length social realist film, copared with the other two which are short and contain a more unsusual theme. For example 'Conversation Piece' contains no dialogue, only a soundtrack and 'Mixed Tape' does not reveal much about the characters, only their situation at a given point.
-The typical conventions of a social realist film are genuinlly naturalistic settings/lighting/sounds, difficult issues, iprovised dialogue, long takes and less known actors. We kept to these factors in order to make a successful social realism film.
< Here are a couple of the locations we used while filming. The left hand image is a park where we filmed a conversation between friends, the setting was quiet and often a place where friends meet.
^ The right hand image shows the character sitting at home on his sofa, often social realism films use houses as settings as it is realistic which is useful for our genre of film.
-For our social realism film, we decided to use the theme of romance as we felt that it would be interesting to incorperate with social realism and also easy to research. The short film from Virgin Media Shorts 'Mixed Tape' was an inspiration for us which gave us the idea of a romantic social realism film because we felt that it worked really well at entertaining the audience in a way that they could relate to in their own experiences.
-The advantage of using the short film narrative is that the viewer is engaged throughout and focus’s on a main point rather than several others as many films do. A convention that is often used in films is a soundtrack, which adds to the atmosphere, also what we aimed to achieve and it seemed to work well. Having a soundtrack that is parallel to the theme often contributes to the mood, for example a romantic (like ours) suited having a slow, low toned soundtrack. Whereas a thriller film may be more suited to having an upbeat, fast paced soundtrack.
-Short films often mix genres such as 'Conversation Piece' which used a documentary style, combing realism with humour, this is done to gather a wider audience and make the piece alone more interesting.
-We used two different soundtracks at different points in the film where relevant but didn’t want it to run it over the whole film or play for too long as this would most likely ruin the effect. The first soundtrack was used in diegetic/non diegetic form as the characters were meant to be listening to the music as well. For the second one, it is completley non diegetic and is flows with the shots that lift the mode of the scene.
Our use of soundtrack
Our first song was recorded ourselves by a group member on guitar, as due to copyright issues we were not allowed to use other peoples music material, like other social realist films that use rarley use soundtracks.
-The first song was the backing track to 'Wherever you will go'- The calling and this was played both diegetically and non diegetically, unlike the second song which we created using 'garage band' and was played non diegetically. This was allowed as it did not breech any copyright rules as it was our own recording.
-The reason for using the soundtracks this way was to maintain a sense of realism while also creating an atmosphere of romance and excitement. Upon watching romantic films, we discovered that using an upbeat soundtrack was more suitable and parrallel to the theme.
-Successful social realist directors such as Ken Loach, Andrea Arnold and Mike Leigh all have specific aims when directing such films, purely focused around important themes/issues shown through certain characters that contribute to specific stereotypes that the audience may already have.
-Below shows an interview with social realist director 'Mike Leigh' talking about the style of his fim 'Happy Go Lucky', he mentions the 'documentary' style as well as the sense of realism in which he creates.
-He states in this interview that none of his films start off with a script, which is a concept that we also used as it creates a better result. He also says how he aspires to the quality of reality, which, in theory is the sole aim for most social realist directors.
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Asked why she shoots in a realistic style, social realist director Andrea Arnold said: “I want to make it feel like we’ve dropped in on some people’s lives. With a lot of films, people are sitting on the outside looking in, but I want the audience to get a bit more intimately involved with what’s going on, so that they maybe can experience it a little bit more intensely.”
-By this quote, it is clear that Ms Arnold wants to make a clear impact to the audience with her films by using the 'realistic' approach.
-Arnold's hugely popular 'Fish Tank' certainly creates a tense atmosphere and the hand held camerawork definitely contributes to the realism. Her films have inspired social realist directors all over the Uk and her films were an inspiration to us.
Andrea Arnold
'Fish Tank'.
Our film followed the narrative of Todorovs theory, which gives the general structure of most films in five different stages, these are:
1. A state of Equilibruim (all is as it should be)
2. A disruption of that order (by an event)
3. A recognition that disorer has occured
4. An attempt to repair the damage of the disruption
5. A return or restoration of a new equilibrium
-His theory is based on that narrative involves a transformation and the characters situations are transformed through the disruption. Our film follows this theory and the narrative is clear and easy to understand, although like many social realisms, the ending of the film is not positive, which again reinforces real life issues.
-By ending more clearly, for the spectators, they are likely to have a better understanding and little confusion of the plot/themes. The characters aims/goals is likely to be represented in an easy form, so that the audience can follow the story and remain engaged throughout.
Typical Conventions
-For our film which is a romantic, the characterisation had to be particular, for example, we went with a typical male and female who fall 'in love' at a young age and are reunited five years later, still with the same feelings for each other.
-The characters had to look a similar age and use body language to show their feelings/emotions for eachother, like smiling after recieving a text from one of them. We used typical settings for both their bedrooms that a teenage girl/boy would have and made it quiet evident by our use of props such as an 'xbox' in the boys room.
-Our use of editing was fairly natural, we didn't want it to make it look to unrealistic and used many close ups and a variety of different camera angles to put emphasis on certain things.
-We followed the editing conventions of social realist films, which often contain long takes, the 180degree rule (as all films use) and a good use of continuity so that the shots flow easily.
-However for some shots it was essential that we used editing techniques to create a certain effect, for example the transformation to show the characters five years later was done through fading one shot into another. We had seen this done before in films and felt that i would be the best use of continuity to show that time had moved forward.
-As previously mentioned on the blog, the film 'Just Friends'- also a romantic film with a similar theme to our film gave us inspiration for many shots. The one that I have print screened below was a particular shot that we found useful, which was the character looking in the mirror and aging.
'Just Friends'
Our Film
Have we followed the conventions of real life media products?
-We have mostly followed the conventions of real life media products as we wanted to make it as life like as possible. The continuity is the most important thing in allowing the film to flow, using only relevent shots in our short film.
-Although obviusly we didn't have a budget as real life media films would, so we were restricted in our use of settings/props/lighting, however it was unnessary for our film genre, so not affected too much.
-Although we wanted to make our film original, we used many ideas that we gathered from studying social realist films and romantic films, such as the split screen technique.
-One clear difference from most real life media products was that we had no dialogue, which is almost unheard from within films, with the exception of some short ones such as 'Conversation Piece'. We thought that by including no dialogue, the audience would be more engaged by having to interperet the story through the characters actions and body language.
-We used the use of mobile phones and chat rooms as a way of showing the characters communicating which seemed to be succesfull, unless of course the viewer may struggle with their sight.
-Because we used this convention by having the dialogue, you could argue that it effects our target audience and would be more suitable for a younger audience with better vision and are more attentive, rather than perhaps the older generation of 65+.
How effective is the combination of your main product and your ancillary tasks?
The anciallary tasks work as a whole marketing package represented by the portfolio. In real life, film posters and reviews are seen as a 'decider' for people on what they want to watch, so they are both very important. If a bad review is written about a film, then this will encourage people to not see it and will pass on the message through 'word of mouth'.
The Film Poster
-Interestingly, after having completed the film poster, i came across the one above ('Remember Me') which possess's many of the same qualities as our poster, which is useful as they fit into the same genre.
-The colour scheme is the same, apart from the black and white image, which is red, white and black, often used within romantic film posters.
-Another thing to note is the simplicity of the poster, a simple image can effectivley make the reader aware of the films genre and therefore encourage them to see it.
-For the poster, i felt that i should not overload it with information as this would not encourage people to pay attention, or read any of it, so i decided to go with a fairly simplistic design which i thought would be eye catching.
-After looking at several film posters which fit the same genre, i decided to use the minimal amounts of colour (sticking to three) and a simple image which would immedietly show the reader of the genre. I also included an award and a five star rating which is likely to be something that will encourage to viewer to see it.
Here are some logos that i used for the poster that are often found on real film posters in order to make it appear realistic.
-The image on the poster represents the characters link (as they are back to back) although demonstrates that they may or may not end up together as there is little affection in the image. This detail is likely to raise questions from the viewer and encourage them to watch the film to find out what happens.
-The style of the poster is likely to attract our target audience which is mostly female and within the 'blockbuster' age of 16-24 as it is modern and clearly represents a love story, also through the tag line. It was essential that the poster represented the theme clearly so that it could gain the attention from the right target audience.
My overall aim for the poster was to
-Stand out, so to catch peoples eye.
-Contain only relevent information.
-Create the right appearance for the genre.
-Encourage people to see the film.
-Look effective and realisitc
The Review
What have you learned from your audience feedback?
General Target Audience:
Female
Age: 16-24 (Blockbuster age)
-We used Facebook, the social networking site as a way of collecting feedback for our film which was really useful and specifically asked people within our target audience for their opinions.
-On creating the facebook page, over 70 people have joined the group and most have commented on the film, leaving positive and negative feedback. Most of the feedback was highly positive and seemed to like the story and the way in which it was created. However there were a couple of things that a few people had picked up on that we could have improved, these were
1. They needed longer to read the letter and msn conversations
For this shot, we should have left the take running for a few seconds longer, to prevent this from happening. Although we tested it ourselves, some people may be slower at reading than others.
2. They thought that a few shots were a bit dark in comparison to the rest
Although we attempted to brighten up certain shots on ‘final cut pro’, this was not always effective and made the shots appear unclear. As we used mostly all natural lighting in the film, we should have added in extra lighting for the darker locations.
3. Someone recognized that when the letter was posted it was folded and when she picked it up, it wasn't.
Continuity is key for a film; however we did not pick up on this error until it was noticed by viewers and therefore should have looked at the film while editing in more detail, or even more importantly should have made sure that the letter was kept the same in both shots.
-Receiving this feedback was useful for us so that we could see how we could have improved and what lessons we have learnt. The main thing we learnt was that however small the mistake is, it can be noticed by the audience and needs to be avoided if possible. So if I were to make another film, I would definitely make sure that each shot was linked by good continuity and clear shots.
This was my favorite quote and from a student who fits our target audience, as this was what we aimed to achieve, so we felt that we were successful…
'I felt it conveyed a real conflict of emotion taking viewpoints from both genders and all available viewpoint not leaving the viewer in any sort of suggestive or assuming mood. The film exceeds expectation vastly on media work and this illustrates great quality in the ability you guys have'
-We have put the film on Youtube and received over 200 views, which will hopefully inspire other film makers or simply create entertainment!
How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
Improvement since last year?
-I feel that my group and I have developed the use of digital technology greatly since the Foundation Portfolio which has improved the quality of our overall film.
-Although last year we made a short film using the same video cameras, this year our filming skills seemed to have improved which was evident in our shots, for example; the steadiness of the camera, more understanding of setting white balance and overall framing.
-My main role within the editing the film was sound which I gathered from several places such as garage band, our own recorded sound clips and the sound effects provided on the computer which we found useful.
-‘Garage band’ is a programme on the Apple Mac’s that allows you to create your own soundtrack or choose from many sound effects that can be added into the film. It was fairly easy to use as I had used it in the Foundation portfolio so used my skills to create a short soundtrack that was parallel to the theme of our film.
We also used microphones provided in the editing suite to record some ambient sounds that would sound more emphasised in the film, such as typing, a door closing and footsteps.
Final Cut Pro allowed us to use advanced editing techniques.
Garageband provides a number of different sounds/
functions to create an effective soundtrack.
Blogging
By blogging all our groups’ progress, we were able to keep track of what had been completed and what needs to be done, so my organisation skills have improved as I had to constantly update posts.
As previously mentioned, we used facebook as a form of getting audience feedback on out film. I think that this was a good idea as most people who fit into our target audience use the networking site, so we were sure that many people would participate.
We have learnt that this is a much easier and quicker way of gaining feedback which allowed us to see if there was room for improvement or any noticeable errors in the film.
Types of media technology used for our film
Garageband
imovie
Final Cut Pro
Facebook (Social Networking Site)
The blog itself
Digital Camera
Editing software
We used the apple Mac computers in the editing suite which are far more technological than ‘average’ computers, which enabled us to use the right programmes for editing our film.
Although we started off editing our film in the programme ‘imovie’, we were advised that it might be more beneficial for us to move onto ‘Final Cut Pro’ due to the more advanced options that it provided such as brightening up shots, which we used.
It is a more advanced form of editing which we handled well and helped each other with certain aspects of it. Its many options allowed us to overlap shots and sound imported from other programmes which was helpful.
My role in the ancillary tasks
-For the ancillary tasks, my role was to create the film poster. I did this using a programme called ‘Indesign’ which was available on other computers as well as the Apple Mac’s so I could work on it outside of the editing suite.
-As we had practiced using the programme last year, I was familiar with it and therefore able to work effectively on creating the film poster.
-Although the other members all created designs and ideas for the poster, we decided that having one person creating it was the easiest way, so from gathering group ideas, we came to a conclusion and I made the poster based on a certain design.
-‘In Design’ offers many functions that other programmes don’t have, which allowed me to create a more realistic film poster and an overall better effect.
Hi Dani,
ReplyDeletewas this posted on the date appearing above? I checked this blog several times and didn't see this post...anyway,really sorry if it was.. I am doing some feedback now, and will email it back to you - it's easier to do it that way as I can make changes to it.
Hi Marion, i've only just noticed that only have of the notes printed, is there any chance you could try and send them to my home email adress which is dani_ruse92@hotmail.co.uk, thanks.
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