PREY- Visual Style

We want to raise awareness about this issue, and have taken some ideas from 'About a girl' as the audience think everything is happy but then at the end we realise that something horific has happened to her.

We were also inspired by the billboard advert seen outside,



We have looked at different cab short films and adverts to influence our shots and style of filming,

PREY- Exhibition

For exhibition of our short film I have looked at different charitys, competitions and campaigns.

Cabwise-





Has been created by TFL (Travel for London) as a safe way for people to travel home, with the rise of unlicensed cabs. The government has set up cabwise, all you have to do is text 'CAB' to '60835' and you will be sent back 1 taxi and 2 local licensed minicab services. You can do this before you go out which will save you waiting for the numbers when you want to go home.

We thought that if we approached the company we could send them our short film and see what they think and they could even use it for their campaign.

For distribution, exhibition, sales and consultancy we will email the company 'Dazzle Films' who may be able to give us some help with our Short Film.

Withoutabox
Also is an easy way of entering a number of film festivals at once so when our film is completed we will sign up to this website and apply.

Film network
We will also submit our film to the BBC Film Network website by joining creating a membership. This will be good exposure as we can send the link around to peers and proffesionals which will look good to add to our portfolio.

PREY- Target Audience

PREY

Me, Ali and Lavinia have come up with our idea for a short film about the dangers of unlicensed cabs. We came up with a main character who is a typical 18-19 year old female teenager who is always out clubbing, In our film she is sitting telling the audience about her night out, She is happy and we as the audience just think we are hearing about a good night shes had.

We see some flashbacks from her at the club and stumbling out of the club into a cab. We then see her talking again but the camera pans to the side of her face and shockingly we see bruises and scratches on her face, we then realise that she has been abused by the cab man.

Bibliography

http://www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/media/newscentre/archive/7576.aspx

http://www.bbc.co.uk/filmnetwork/submit/

http://www.kingston.gov.uk/browse/community_people_and_living/police

https://www.withoutabox.com/login/3895

http://www.dazzlefilms.co.uk/

http://golondon.about.com/od/londontransport/qt/cabwise.htm

The 4 Narrative Theories

Tzvetan Todorov- Equilibrium/disequilibrium

An equilibrium is where any opposing forces are 'in balance' in Todorvs theory an equilibrium is defined at the beginning of a story.


Claude Levi-Strauss- Binary opposites



Vladimir Propp- Morphology of the Fairytale 1928



Roland Barthes- The five codes



BIBLIOGRAPHY
http://www.primary-film-focus.co.uk/narrative.html

INSPIRATION WEEK- Lesson 3

In todays lesson there were 4 tables set up with pieces of paper on them, we had to get into groups of 3's or 4's and go round to each table coming up with a short film that is inspired by the different things on each table.

The Goldfish.

Me and Ali came up with this idea from looking at a number of images on a piece of paper miss had given to us in the lesson. Out of the pictures we chose the goldfish, old man and little girl. We came up with,

Synopsis:
A loving grandfather goes to the pet shop on the way to visit his granddaughter. He picks up a goldfish as a surprise but then a phone call changes his life and the only thing he has left to look after is Lucy’s goldfish.

Characters:
Jim (Grandfather)
Lucy (Grandaughter)
Loose (Goldfish)
Ideas:
The sound will be non diagetic thoughts going on in Jims head and we will hear a conversation that happened earlier on between Jim and Lucy. We also don’t hear that Lucy died the audience can just tell by the way he reacts to the call after that she is dead.

Binary Opposites:
Old vs Young
Death vs Alive
Animal vs Human


The next table was art work, we chose a picture of a dinning table empty with 4 chairs and a shining light bulb on top. We imagined a disfunctional family who do not get along and all live individual lives and dont work together as a family, but we used the lightbulb as symbolism for a new arrival which then ends up bringing the family together.

The other tables had song lyrics, newspaper stories and poems. Me and Lavinia looked a poem by Wendy Cope called 'Advice to young women' it was about her being in her 40's and not married.

We came up with an idea that was culturally contrasting the poem,

Synopsis:
40 year old Sunita is an outsider from her traditional Indian family, the arranged marriage her sister is having means she has to be around them but has the pain of watching something at her age she is meant to have.

Ideas:
The short film will be based around an Indian arranged marriage, the camera is seen through Sunita's eyes as the family ignores her at the wedding and preporation stages. The poem is then said as a monolouge when Sunita is sitting watching her sister walk down the aisle and everyone looking so proud and happy for her.

Characters:
Main character- Sunita
Younger sister- Zainab
Mother- Sabrina
Abrar- Zainabs husband

Binary Opposites:
Single vs Married
Togetherness vs Neglection
Old vs Young
Love vs Dislike

INSPIRATION WEEK- Lesson 2

Postcards.

In todays lesson miss had another way of thinking of short film ideas, this was a book she had where people wrote postcards to theauthor telling their secrets. Everyone was given a sheet of 3 and had to pick one secret and make a short film out of that secret, I chose " I am afraid of capri pants"

I chose ................


Then after this activity we had to then write on a postcard our secret and then draw a picture to match it on the back of the postcard. Everyone then swapped them around and we then had to write a synopsis for whatever secret we ended up with and wrote on the postcard who we thought it was for. On my postcard my secret was "I like to write down my dreams" and the one I recieved was "I kissed a girl and I liked it".

This activity was fun but also inspirational as it is a very simple way of creating a short film story from just one simple secret.

INSPIRATION WEEK- Lesson 1

Our first lesson this week was based on games and different techniques and ways of creating a small narative. One of the techniques was a game using a piece of paper, Miss told us first to write down a mans name and what his occupation is, I wrote down,
" His name is Stan and he is a cleaner" everyone then had to fold there piece of paper over to hide this but still have more room for other people to write on it.

Next you have to swap your papers around and then write the name of a woman and her occupation, this routine continues writting,

-How the man and woman meet
-A piece of dialouge
-A situation/piece of action that happens
-An ending to the story

When my original sheet was given back my story looked like this,

His name is Stan he is a cleaner

Her name is Jacky and she is in the pub industry

The both of them met at the zoo one summer, They get chatting when they were wearing the same outfit.

"How could you do that, Say sorry now" She declared.

He tries to help her but pulls to hard and breaks her ankel.

She gives birth to a baby girl, calls her Daisy and they live happily ever after.

We then had to write a synopsis for the short film we ended up with mine was,

"The story of two simple lives coliding together to create the perfect love story. Stan the cleaner and Jacky the pub waitress both need a break from their hectic lives so escape to the zoo where they both find true love,but what does it cost them to get there?"

SHORT FILM- INSPIRATION WEEK- Lesson 1

What is a story?

Stories are a number of different things but are always made up of a narrative/tale that either entertains or gives a message. They can be fiction or non-fiction (based on real life). There is a beginning middle and end to a story and there are a number of narrative theorys,

Tvetan Todorov- Equilibrium/disequilibrium WRTE

Claude Levi-Strauss-Binary opposites WRITE

Vladimir Propp- Morphology of the Fairytale 1928 WRITE

Roland Barthes- the five codes WRITE

Stories have been told throughout historyand come from a number of different times and cultures
Different types of stories,
-Fables
-Myths & Legends
- Cave paintings
- Illustrations
- Greek Mythology
- Religious stories
- Biblical stories

What stories usually include,
-Setting
-Characters
-Structure
-Theme
-Series of events
-Plot
-Situations
-Cliffhangers

Stories are used in education, games, cartoons, music, film, art,newspapers and fashion. They often tell ourselves about ourselves and give us comfort for example, the tooth fairy or father christmas.


Kuleshav Effect RESEARCH

Structuralist Theorists RESEARCH

Short Film analysis- Tea Leaves

My own example of Avant Garde, Tea Leaves by Matthew Grinter
2006

http://www.bbc.co.uk/filmnetwork/films/p0059021

Camera movement in this short film is simple panning movement which appears to be panning around a whole shop but in slow motion in a 360 degree turn. You can hear non diagetic indie/jazz/calming music with echoes of the people in the scene talking and there movements eg) footsteps. This calm atmosphere and slow camera movement helps the audience focus more on the action of the characters in the short film.

The setting is in a cafe and the lighting is dim once again adding to the relaxing atmosphere, the shots are also quite gritty giving that fly on the wall real life look. The art of this short film is its use of sound and slow motion, we hear no narrative and there is no set story to the piece, it is more of an experiment or a way of showing what happens in the life's of different people that you might see in a cafe.

The camera pans around the cafe but stays in the same position, giving each shot the same framing, you see different people in the cafe. At the start you see a man knock over a cup of tea which then spills to the floor, a man playing with dominoes and then they knock over with the camera following there movement, a woman then picks them up, a couple having an argument, a waitress bringing a drink out to someone, a woman going over to a man with a cigarette in her hand, a man walks into the cafe and bumps into another man making money drop to the floor and then we end up back to the man with the cup of tea that we saw at the beginning. There is some sort of Aristotle narrative and the camera stops to show the significance of being back at where the shot started.

The camera then zooms out of the man and fades to black. After watching I believe the short film is to show how much can happen during the time someone is served tea or the fact that the first man spilt his tea set off everything else we see in the film for example everything moves to the right, the spilt tea, the camera, the domino's, the woman and the waitress and the man walking out of the shop. It is a sort of video pattern which makes it an Avant Garde film.

Short Film Analyses- Darling, Do you love me?

'Darling, Do you love me' is a 3 minute short film made in 1968 by Martin Sharp and Bob Whitaker. I found this film whilst at the BFI trip.

The mise-en-scene in this short film has a set theme throughout, the film is in black and white, these are 2 colours that are used as contrasts as at the start there is a black background when the woman is singing and the shots have a slow pace, then when the woman's singing gets higher pitched and her movement speeds up, a white background is used.

With the costumes and make-up used we can get an idea of the type of person the main woman is, she has on a clown painted white face with dark circles around her eyes and dark lipstick and drawn on eyebrows, her hair is also dark and very frizzy and big flowing everywhere.

The lighting is dim for most of the short film but in the shots of the man and woman a light is shining directly on the woman and some of the mans face, this empathises that are attention should be focused onto her actions and also keeps the contrast of dark and light throughout. A shadow is always seen on one side of the characters faces when they are seen in a shot together with the black or white background, this adds to the mystery of the piece.

We get a sense that she is a crazy character straight away, the first shots are close ups of her face with pieces of paper with the films credits on, then the male character is introduced, we see a straw hat first and then a close up of his face, he is a complete contrast of her as he is dressed presentable with a suit, hat and glasses and is also sat down neatly whereas she is stood up moving around him.

The short film is set in a studio, with no back drop or props to set a scene, it is almost like a small room a criminal would be questioned in, with the man sitting down on a stool or seat and the woman walking and moving around him. The second setting is a pathway that is through a park, in the background a big building is seen which looks like either a church or a neglected house, there is a haunted look to this scene as you can tell its autumn with the leaves on the floor and the dark trees, along with the man walking from far away in a long black cape/jacket with the woman looking like a witch dancing and running around him.

Sound
Sound in the short film is non diagetic and starts off with a woman singing "Darling do you love me" in an opera style repetitively, the tone of the song is high pitched and is sung in a different way each time, then a non diagetic laugh and banging is heard when the pace of shots fastens and tension builds, the banging noises are like fireworks. Next a shot of the man walking down a path is shown and for every step he takes a crunch noise is made, the woman is still singing frantically but sounds echoey and far away, also you can hear crickets in the background.

The woman then grabs the man and he falls making the crunching noises end with a scream breaking out. The singing then continues with what sounds like two of her singing but in different pitches, then a shot of her touching and messing around with the mans face has ruffling noises then the shot changes along with the sound of a screeching siren and her singing fastens up. Then the music stops when the man says "I love you" in a croaky voice, at the end there is silent and then a small clown-like laugh.

Camera Movement

The film starts of with close ups and extreme close ups of the woman's face with pieces of paper on her with the films credits written on. The woman starts to sing and the camera then zooms out from the extreme close up of her lips to a close up of her face then the camera pans to the right slowly and we see the top of a hat and then the camera tilts down to reveal who is wearing the hat.

The movement of the camera is very steady, slow and simple. The camera then zooms out to show the woman in the same shot and then cuts to a different scene where the background is white and both of the characters are standing, this shot is a medium shot. The camera shots then speed up with group of close ups, extreme close ups and canted framing, these are all of the woman dancing around and the man standing still.

A two shot is then used

on the left hand side of the shot we see a close up of the side of the mans face with a close up of the woman in the background.

The next scene is a long shot of a pathway the man is walking down, with a big building in the background and trees either side of the pathway, this shot is steady until the man and woman walk towards the camera, the woman falls on the ground to try and get the mans attention so the camera zooms in to empathise the action and the zooms back out to a medium shot as the man just walks straight over her.

Zooms of close ups and medium shots are used continuously towards the end of the film, this plays with your eyes and builds up tension. We see the mans back to the camera and the woman holding her hands around him and singing in his face, the camera then zooms in and out according to the woman's singing which gets louder and faster. To end the tension the scenes climax ends up with the camera canted making the shot look as if the woman is holding the man upside down.

He then says "I love you" and the shot switches to the right way up and zooms into the woman's face as she has a piece of paper in her mouth that says "The end".