After looking at the four short films I have analysed, I have noticed many similarities between them:
1. They use a variety of camera angles with the main used being: close-ups, profile shots and tracking.
2. Shallow Depth of Field and / or Focus Shift is a technique well-used in all of the short films. This is to show what the character is looking at and also shows the audience what to focus on.
3. They all use music, this helps set the scene and create a mood. It also helps to tell the narrative or describe the atmosphere in a few seconds, which helps to keep the length of the film down.
4. Fade is also a popular transition used between frames. It suggests passing of time or a flashback/forward to another event.
5. Females in the short films are often dressed in skirts / dresses to make their gender more prominent.
6. Voice-overs are used to allow the audience to know the central protagonists thoughts. It also means issues with other unintentional sounds are minimised (which improves the quality) unless the sound needs to be recorded with the action.
7. The films have very small casts with the most having five members at the most. (This includes extras that only appear for a brief few seconds).
8. They all introduce the film by having the title displayed at the beginning using an editing suite.
Because these similarities appear in most and follow the conventions associated with romance films, I will try to use as many as I can in my film trailer so that I too can follow the codes necessary for the film to be recognised as a romance.
Some techniques which I found were interesting and will try to incorporate also include:
1. The pictures coming to life. I believe that this would be a good technique to use for memories and also adds interest to the film as it isn’t a straight forward narrative and uses different effects.
2. Images on the screen in the short film, Paper or Plastic, at the beginning are used to establish the female protagonist by suggesting she is a student and has typical interests associated with young people, such as a messy bedroom floor with clothes and notebooks strewn everywhere.
However, despite watching these short films (and a few others), I struggled to think of an idea that I could use. So far my ideas included:
- Boy is attracted to girl. She doesn’t notice him. He does numerous things to attract her (for example, leaving love notes in her locker at college or leaving flowers at her front door) but all of his attempts are stolen by her boyfriend or another male who likes her too. When all appears to have failed, the boy returns home upset. All appears lost but when he answers the door, the girl is there and tells him that she knew it was him all along and they end up ‘happily ever after’.
- Girl is wanting to be with a boy but her mother has already got a suitor lined up for her. She doesn’t want to date him but does so anyway to please her mother. However, what she doesn’t realise is that the boy she likes is actually the suitor’s brother! All ends well once more and the original suitor is also paired off with her friend.
Though these couple of ideas would be acceptable, I thought they seemed too dull. So I decided to do a little more research. (See next blog!)
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