Short Film Primary Research #4 - 'Cognition'

'Cognition' is another example of a students short film from this year in May. Although there is little dialogue, I still think it's fairly effective in being a thriller short film.

To start, the definite highlight of this student short film is the sound design. The use of non-diegetic sound is very effective throughout this short film. Whilst watching it, I felt compelled by it mainly due to the ambient sound playing in the background; it was very well selected and it fits the subject on screen well.  It makes the At 4 minutes and 22 seconds in, the non-diegetic sound suddenly escalates to an even more sinister tone, and along with the very dark colours on screen, it really fits in with the subject and makes the mood of the short film compelling and thrilling, to a certain extent. Along with the sound design, the cinematography was quite respectable and I think whoever established the lighting and camerawork did a great job.

One thing I didn't like too much was the voice over at the beginning. Not necessarily because I didn't feel like it fit in with the film, but I found some of the lines to be quite out of sync with the rest of what he is saying. I felt like this let the voice-over/monologue down, it could of been better and would of added to the short film's quality.

Overall I think this was a fairly good and respectable A2 thriller short film, it is very well filmed, lighted, and the plot is intriguing to an extent. It serves a thrilling atmosphere to the audience which is what it should do as a thriller short film.

Short Film Primary Research #3 - 'The Prowling'

This is a student example of a thriller short film that I have recently wanted, 'The Prowling', this short film was the end result of some students A2 media coursework.

I feel like this short film has some positives but then also some negatives. One positive being it was filmed quite well, a tripod was used effectively and there was also some interesting and appropriate uses of POV shots, such as when the stalker is coming up the stairs in the house.

One negative I found with this short film is that there were some questionable editing decisions. For example, the scene would straight-cut to another shot of basically the same action, or just a split second apart. Such as when the girl is at the cupboard taking out a glass, there are about 5 different shots in this even though the full action would only take about 6 seconds, and most of the shots are basically the same. This was just something I picked out on and was wondering if it was really necessary.

One more positive thing I found was that the sound design was fairly good throughout, I liked the subtle background music to add to the suspense of the short film, however the sudden sound effect every time the stalker came on screen may have been overused, although when it was used for the first time it was effective.

I do like the plot for this short film, although you could argue it is very cliche and it's very common within student short films.

Short Film Primary Research #2 - 'Echoes'

'Echoes' is a 2015 thriller short film made in Canada. The film's main theme revolves around mental illness and perhaps how overdosing on pills can affect your life psychologically. The film was written and directed by Christian Doran.

The great thing about this short film is how fresh and intriguing its concept is; the way the girl has a different self in the mirror is fascinating and the way the story unravels with the twist at the end is fantastic. A short film that has a story-line and beginning this exciting will definitely entice the audience into watching and enjoying the whole short film.

What I love about this short film is the excellent cinematography, the composition of the shots are all well thought out, along with the fact that the lighting changes appropriately throughout the short film. From 24 seconds in to about 36 seconds, there is a montage of the main girl walking through the streets, I found this to be beautifully shot and edited, resulting in an absorbing viewing experience that will draw you in as the viewer, even though you are less than 40 seconds into the short film. The direction is also on a high level. The director Christian Doran clearly knew what he wanted with this short film and it is reflected in the quality of the scenes, ideas and execution.

Despite 'Echoes' is a superb thriller short film, I won't be using this one as inspiration for my one. Mainly due to that I'm not using similar themes or ideas for my short film like the ones in this one.

Short Film Primary Research #1 - 'Closed Doors'

My first piece of primary research of thriller short films lead me to 'Closed Doors', which is an award winning short film from 2011, written and directed by James Button, a student in Wales.

I thought this short thriller film was excellent. There are various reasons for this, the main one being that I found the cinematography and editing were of a very high quality. Each shot in this short film looks very clean visually, and the way they handled close ups and extreme close-ups was also very good, in addition to the camera movement also being very clean. Such as, there was a shot at 1:07 where the camera tracks to the right which reveals a glass on a table, and the way the glass comes into focus looks very good on screen.The editing was also very smooth; watching this film really draws you in as the viewer due to the subject on screen and how well the footage flows together.

Furthermore, the lighting throughout this short film was consistently effective. The use of low key lighting establishes the darker tone that the director was trying to get. As the plot for this thriller short film is serious and dark, the lighting and shadows exhibit this very well.

As for the story line and narrative for this short film, I also really like it. The plot explores how past experiences and forms of paranoia can affect your life now and affect you psychologically. This is seen by how the protagonist keeps looking at the photograph and seems to look uncomfortable; then towards the end of the film we see his dad in the photo, perhaps the dad scarred the family for life in an event in the character's past. I think this is a good premise for a short film, because whilst you are watching the story unravel it is all ambiguous and the audience are in the dark on exactly what is happening. This short film has an effective social message about paranoia and I think it was executed considerably well in this short film.

Even though this is the first thriller short film I have researched, I will use this short film as a reference to mine. I would be very happy if I was able to produce a short film like this one, and I may be thinking about this one when it comes to planning and production.

What Genre am I looking to work with?

A main, essential aspect of my Short Film is the Genre it belongs to. Without the genre of my Short Film decided, it will be hard for me to continue development and plan a story-line and what type of characters there will be. However once I have my genre sorted and finalised, I will then know what kind of things to include in my Short Film and the conventions I'll either have to follow or try to advert away from.

Here are the possible genres I could work in and my thoughts about them:

Action: Action is a genre that is widely loved all round the world, and definitely one of the most popular genres in Hollywood and audiences around the globe. However for my Short Film, to take on the action genre would be difficult and unrealistic, as to pull off successful action, you need to have the necessary budget and production value, also action would take a lot of planning and the execution would need to be correct in order for it to succeed. This is why I believe it's best to avoid the action genre for a short film of this scale; I don't have the necessary skills and resources to make a professional action Short Film.

Thriller: Thriller is my most favorable choice of genre to work in. The main reason behind this is because of after working in the thriller genre for all of my AS level coursework, I now feel I have a greater understanding of the way it works and what exactly audiences expect to see when they are watching a thriller film/short film. So, if I decided to produce a thriller Short Film, I would feel confident in knowing what I need to do, such as the ways in which I film it and go around the sound design. This genre is also realistic and achievable, even a small concept of thriller can turn out promising if the execution and planning behind it was sufficient. I am confident in this genre for my short film and will most likely carry it forward to the planning and production, and will also take into account when researching past short films.

Romance: Another genre that would be possible for me to do in my short film. However, the time frame I have of 5 minutes, may make a romance short film harder to achieve. There isn't enough time to build up and present the romance for it to seem respectable, in the space of 5 minutes it would seem rushed and unnecessary.

Horror: The last genre that I was considering to do was a horror. I'm very interested in the horror genre and it is one of my favourite genres, due to the fact that horror that is very well executed and has intelligence behind it can make for extremely good entertainment. For my 5 minute short film, horror would seem like a challenging, but good genre to work with. I think that the main challenge is how I would carry out the horror element of it. In the space of 5 minutes what would be the best way to scare you audience? It may be the case of building up a dark, brooding mood for the 5 minutes or you could go right ahead and add in a jump scare to engage and scare the audience. However you go about it, your short film would need to make the audience feel fear to make the horror short film do its job.

To conclude, I am choosing to make my short film in the genre of Thriller. At the moment it's the genre I feel most comfortable with and feel confident to carry out research and planning for the genre of thriller. My sub-genre is most likely to be a Crime-thriller, or if not a Psychological-thriller or horror-thriller.

Secondary Research into Short Films

'Short films come in all shapes and sizes, forms and formalities. Animation, documentary, narrative.'- Sundance.org 

This is Sundance's main definition of short film and it they keep it simple. As I have previously known, short films mainly come under narrative, documentary and animation. Narrative, meaning a fictional story is being told in the short film, is the form of short film I will be pursuing. Documentary, fairly straight forward means a short film being presented in the form of a documentary styled film. Lastly, animation style is also fairly obvious as to what style of short film it is. 

So what's the purpose of short films? 

'Fueled by artistic expression and limited only by their runtime, short films transcend traditional storytelling. They are a significant and popular way artists can connect with audiences. From documentary to animation, narrative to experimental, the abbreviated form is no longer just for the novice. Shorts have and will continue to be an important part of cinema, storytelling, and culture'. -Sundance.org

This is Sundance's official description and summary of short films. I think 'Fueled by artistic expression and limited only by their runtime' is a fantastic phrase to represent short films, because indeed, short films can be extremely expressive in ideas and emotion, despite the fact they are limited by minutes in runtime. In addition to this, 'They are a significant and popular way artists can connect with audiences.' I like this phrase too as many short films do have a respectably deep connection with certain audience types as the short film would explore ideas and feelings that many people in the audiences can relate to on a sentimental level. This is often why short films reach out to people the most and why certain short films really have an impact upon certain audiences. 'Shorts have and will continue to be an important part of cinema, storytelling, and culture.' Furthermore I think that this is a true statement as short films do definitely have an impact upon storytelling, due to their diversity and range of methods of storytelling. They also impact cinema in a way as such certain short films can set the standards in terms of storytelling and filmmaking, due to the large amount of creativity and thought behind them. 

Why I have chosen to do a Short Film

For my coursework I have chosen to create a 5 minute Short Film, instead of doing the music video, advert or digi-pack.

The main reason behind this is because I have experience when it comes to film production, this is primarily due to our AS coursework thriller film opening 'Oblivious' and working on recreational short films in the past. I feel fairly confident when it comes to shooting a film by myself, having minimal help from others, and also the editing process shouldn't be too much of a challenge as I have some experience using Adobe After Effects.

I also feel that by doing a Short Film you are more free; it could be about anything and you have many different genres to work with. The idea of having creative freedom when it comes to the planning and production process interested me more over the other briefs.

Furthermore, I am very interested in films and they are one of my main hobbies, which is why I would love to be the director/writer and producer of this project, and it enables me full control over what is happening with the Short Film. I am excited to start planning and creating the film once the research section is complete.