Codes and Conventions of the Short Film Genres

Short films are identifiable by certain aspects that allow them to work. It is very important for the film to be understood, so considering the little time available to explore the storyline and characters, techniques are used to quickly clarify the film to the audience, and ensure it can be enjoyed just as fully as a full length feature film. Here are some of the techniques used:

• Establish characters quickly - sometimes through camerawork and sound, as there is minimal time for dialogue
• Little dialogue
• Not many locations - not enough time to establish them all
• Little costume change, or costume change indicates change of time/place
• Varied camerawork - as diverse as possible, show as much about the film as possible, depth
• Sound bridge - links the storyline
• Incidental music, major/minor key - emphasises emotion without much detail
• Silence - powerful tool, effective part
• Mainly cuts, some jump cuts
• Slow/fast motion
• Hazy glow, motion - flashbacks/forwards

Short Film: Pudding Bowl/Ginger Cake

We watched 2 short films in class; one by Vanessa Caswill and one by Charley Deakin (A2 student). Here they are:

"Pudding Bowl" (Caswill):

"Ginger Cake" (Deakin):

Charley used Caswill's "Pudding Bowl" as a style for her A2 short film. She has studied it carefully and taken certain conventions from "Pudding Bowl" to use in her "Ginger Cake":

• Both use a sound bridge of incidental music during the introduction
• Both use a pan shot of magazine cuttings
• Both use a variety of shots showing the main character working at her project: close ups, mid shots, long shots
• Both use transistions to show the passing of time/change of place
• Both have emphasis on the silence and the diegetic sounds that their work makes
• Both use jump cuts to show the passing of time (hair cut/getting up)
• They both use a mirror that the main character looks in
• Both use minimal dialogue, instead using camerawork and incidental music (major or minor key) to give their characters depth

Film Genres throughout the Years

Western:
1910's - 1920's - The Knickerbocker Buckaroo (1919)
1930's - 1940's - Billy The Kid (1930)
1950's - 1960's - Oklahoma! (1955)
1870's - 1980's - Blazing Saddles (1974)
1990's - Present - Brokeback Mountain (2005)

Horror:
1910's - 1920's - Frankenstein (1910)
1930's - 1940's - Dracula (1931)
1950's - 1960's - Black Sabbath (1963), Diary Of A Madman (1963) - [Ozzy references!]
1970's - 1980's - Beware! The Blob (1972)
1990's - Present - The Ring (2002)

Crime/Thriller:
1910's - 1920's - Alibi (1929)
1930's - 1940's - The Crime Of The Century (1933)
1950's - 1960's - Escape By Night (1953)
1970's - 1980's - The Godfather (1972)
1990's - Present - The Beach (2000)

Action:
1910's - 1920's - The General (1926)
1930's - 1940's - The Public Enemy (1931)
1950's - 1960's - Seven Samurai (1954)
1970's - 1980's - The Terminator (1984)
1990's - Present - Rambo (2008)

Romance:
1910's - 1920's - The Echo (1915)
1930's - 1940's - Casablanca (1942)
1950's - 1960's - Scaramouche (1952)
1970's - 1980's - Grease (1978)
1990's - Present - Twilight (2008)

Sci-Fi:
1910's - 1920's - The End Of The World (1916)
1930's - 1940's - The Invisible Man (1933)
1950's - 1960's - 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
1970's - 1980's - Back To The Future (1985)
1990's - Present - Doctor Who (1996)

Documentry:
1910's - 1920's - The Life Of A Salmon
1930's - 1940's - The City (1939)
1950's - 1960's - Seven Up! (1964)
1970's - 1980's - The Thin Blue Line (1988)
1990's - Present - Supersize Me (2004)

History of Music Videos

Today we looked at what may possibly be the very first promotional video to a song. From 1962, here is possibly the first promotional video made for a song (rather than abstracted from a music film); The Exciters - Tell Him:

It uses a surprisingly decent amount of current conventions compared with what I was expecting. I thought it would be a simple film with minimal resemblense to current music videos.

These are the conventoinal aspects of Tell Him:

• Lip sync
• Band visible
• Singing to camera
• Beat sync (clapping bear)
• Pan Away (at end)
• Dance/movement
• Tracking shot (Brenda walking)
• External location (no studio)

And these are the unconventional/dated aspects:

• Random animal shots
• No MTV cutting (really fast cutting)
• Pans a lot (mainly to animals)
• No airbrushing (Brenda's possible TB jab scar)
• Choreography very limited, timing etc
• Lip sync needs work
• Costumes dated
• Random

The History Of Music Videos (my video) :

Music Video: Trials

I have decided I'd like to make a music video to the song "Cancer" by My Chemical Romance. I have planned out each part of the video and I've begun a storyboard:

For the second verse of the song, the location is going to change to a room with a mirror. As a sort of feasability study, I tried recording that scene from a single camera angle using my phone camera, which I later added on the music from that verse.

It'll look better once its been shot with several angles, alongside the correct costume (an old-ish wedding dress) and lighting (dim, musty style) with the area around the mirror covered in drapes etc to make it look as though its in an old, forgotten, dusty bedroom. But I decided that it will work, and now I'm looking on ebay for a cheap wedding dress!

Video for Theatre

We did some filming for Theatre Studies, so I took the clips, edited them and created a montage to a piece of music I sourced online (there are loads of cinematic sounding, full length sounds available to download!). It's for a play called 4:48 Pyschosis, so it's a bit mental and doesn't make a lot of sense. So I've tried to use editing like slow and fast motion, backwards, zooms and cuts to recreate the madness and loss of control needed for the play. Here is the video:

Lip Sync: 1st Attempt

I've been testing out a few things for the music video task. Here, I got Henry Hall to sing to the song "A Little Piece Of Heaven" by Avenged Sevenfold. It's a bit of a sick (bad version) song, but once you see the humourous side, it's pure genius. It takes a while for the actual lip sync to begin, as I wanted to keep the last line is to set the tone, then it waits for Henry to start singing. Here's the video:

Website Ideas

With both the music video and the film trailer, one of the subsiduary (sp?) tasks is to make a website homepage. I have made several websites for various things in the past that I will upload and consider aspects of them to use for my real one.

I'm yet to purchase web-design software for my new laptop (I have one for my old laptop but its fairly out-of-date) so I've been trialling a few ideas on a free online flash website generator. Unfortunately I can't link it to here, as I'd have to upload it as it is (I want to work on it some more first) so I'm going to post some screenshots of it. Annoyingly, the whole page wouldn't fit in the screen, as the generator isn't affected by the percentage you view the browser in, so it's mostly in sections:

This is the idea I first had when I thought of this; to have a main image slideshow with the links below which using flash, would replace the images into a seamless website. However, I'm not sure basic web packages will include such features, so unfortunately I may have to create a static website until I can afford better software.

Conventions of Music Videos

There are certain conventions typical of music videos. Not all follow conventions, but most do. Here's a list:

• MTV Cutting
• Editing matches beat
• Tropes and Memes - challenging
• Multiple locations
• Multiple situations
• Multiple costumes
• Choreography
• Purpose: promote song/band
• Purpose: Sell product (shifting units)
• Purpose: iTunes (£2 videos)
• Symbolism
• Montage, anchored by music
• Lip sync
• In concert - live footage (more naturalistic)
• Intertextuality
• Narrative/mini-movie approach - compressed narrative
• Interpretive abstract approach - surrealist
• Artificial performance (non-naturalistic) like musicals - pre-planned, spontaneous bursts of song
• Direct address by performer - breaking the fourth wall
• Act out story of the song
• Genre affects style

Pastiche - copy but not exact - style thieves

Parody - mocking copy

Homage - tribute

Film Update & Link

I am still making my film, its all on a new blog I've made http://www.beckytye-iona.blogspot.com.
Please have a look if you like :)

Music Videos: Tropes & Memes

The style of music videos differ greatly across music genres. A particularly clear example of this dichotomy is between rock and RnB. Here are 2 videos that show this perfectly:
My Chemical Romance - I Don't Love You:

Rock videos are very focused on the music. The music is at the heart of the band, wheras for some other genres, it is more about image and popularity. Although Gerard etc (MCR) all are dressed to impress and looking gooooood, you can tell through their emotion what really matters. Rock has progressed from being all about the music and not caring so much about the appearance and promotion; to still being 100% about the music, however now with added emphasis on appearance. Most rock bands still prefer their music to be favoured over themselves, which is not the case with all genres.

Nicki Manaj - Super Bass:

RnB videos are predominantly sexually orientated and of a more show-off nature. Rock videos tend to have more of a structure, and can be a full story. Call me a cynic but in my opinion the music - rather than being the heart of the performance - is more of an excuse to act sexually as the performers, for example in clubs etc. It seems to be more of a tool to attract, with the actual music being forgotten; and therefore much simpler and similar sounding. Following on from my theory, most contempory RnB videos don't really have a story, and focus a lot on dancing and movement. However Chase & Status' videos are quite deep and have real meaning behind them. This is a rare commodity in modern chart music. Here is their video "Time":

Chosen A2 Brief

There are 3 briefs for the A2 coursework:

• Promo Package: Music Video - Website Homepage, Cover of Digipack, Magazine Advert for Digipack
• Promo Package: Short Film - Film Magazine review page, Radio Trailer, Poster
• Promo Package: Film Trailer - Website Homepage, Film Magazine OFC, Film Poster

I had a lot of trouble choosing from the 3 main briefs, but I've eventually decided to make a music video. I've got a few ideas in mind for some actual videos, the main one being the song "Cancer" by My Chemical Romance. I'm going to try out a variety of video styles, which will probably all be to rock/indie songs. Before I do that I'm going to do some research into certain aspects of music videos, especially conventions.

I'm going to research into the other briefs as I may decide I like another more. I think I'll stick with the music videos, but I'm still going to look at the others (which will also help me with my actual film).