Other ways of distributing short films.

Short amateur films in past have been a thing of family sharing. Traditionally, apart from a few films such as 'The Blair Witch Project' have seldom seen a huge group of audience, or have achieved any fame or recognition in terms of cinematography; but is all this about to change?

With the introduction of Youtube around 2005, it is clear many aspiring film directors and critics have made an attempt in reaching audiences through the outlet. I will be analysing three types of short film I have found which I believe are amongst some of the most successful in their category.

First up, it's Sintel.

With the introduction of 3d Animation being accessible to everyone who owns a computer and a little know-how, in my opinion we will be seeing alot more of these. Blender is a completely free-ware program, and the creators have decided to showcase what can be achieved through the program itself. If this isn't inspiring enough, this short film captures emotion and represents life and reality in a way I have never seen before. You follow the story of a young girl who meets a wounded baby dragon, after nurturing for the little creature, it gets stolen away from her. Without giving too much away, she practically forgets about everything else apart from a way to get the dragon back, but she eventually finds out that her greed and jealousy ends up killing her. I believe this movie is one of the most incredible pieces of media placed on youtube. It doesn't boast an exceptional amount of views, but with minimal to none advertisement, due to the target audience is predominantly people who are familiar with Blender, which in all fairness isn't exactly mainstream culture, even for 3d modellers. But it shows what a well thought out story, a little imagination and a team of good modellers with a vision can do to the industry.

--Elias

Filming

Today, as a group, we started to film our project. This consisted of meeting up with our chosen actors, discussing what they will be doing and how they will be doing it. Briefing actors beforehand is essential to creating the right mood on camera, as they can be fully informed on what they're going to be doing.

Location-wise, we filmed at different parts of our school, one advantage of this is that we knew our way round the site, making it easier to navigate our team.

We didn't aim to shoot the whole teaser trailer in one session as this would be slightly too optimistic. We managed to get a range of shots and upload them to a mac at the school.

By Group

Zombie Prezzi

First Prezi on Prezi

*Last slide has a typo* elistic - Realistic

- Made by Ben, discussed by Group -

Breaking the budget barrier.

Zombie films often require a vast budget compared with many other genres due to many of the expenses needed to create a convincing effect - 28 days later had an $8,000,000 budget. The environment in which the story is told must often been altered in conjunction with an infection, or merely a horde of zombies that physically change the setting. This is a major expense to the institution because to make the storyline convincing, every aspect of the mise-en-scene must be thought out and payed for - this could be anything from damaged buildings to mutated animals.
The costume and make-up has to be incredibly complex to intensify the fear factor on the audience, this must be strongly considered for our project because unfortunately we don't have a Hollywood budget.
This means that in our teaser trailer we can only include aspects which won't require any astronomical budget. However zombie films have been existent for a number of decades, so influence towards our project can be found from pioneers of the genre, where the technology was incredibly basic and there were limited effects at their disposal. In films such as White Zombie (1932) and Revenge of the Zombies (1943) subtle make-up was used, typically had white faces and blackened eyes - held wide and expressionless. This can easily be achieved using average make-up and some skillful editing. An alternative would be to not actually show the zombie's themselves in the trailer, but merely imply their presence, however this is fairly unconventional in modern zombie films. Signs (2002) while not being a zombie movie is another great source of influence because it didn't explicitly display the aliens for a long period in the film, instead the audience was shown flashes such as its foot just escaping through the crops. There are in my opinion actually many advantages to this; it leaves the audience in strong suspence because they don't know exactly what the danger is; in terms of mass distribution it allows the film to have a lower BBFC rating, in fact Signs was only a 12. Many zombie films have taken an extreme approach in the appearence of the zombie's, but director George A Romero instead used normal clothing in  Night of the Living Dead (1968), but crucially this is still used in more modern productions such as  Shaun of the Dead (2004), and this method is fully at our disposal. In conclusion I would state that while we are being ambitious in our choice of genre, considering the equipment we have to use, but in looking at aspects of previous productions we can still create the fear factor that is so essential.
                                                              -Stephen- 

Camera Angles which create Tension during a Horror Film.

An Extreme Close Up - This is used to emphasise something, for example if the close up was of the actions somebody was going through using their hands then it would be emphasising that, that individual was about to do something of important relevence. If it was highlighting the inidviduals hands holding a knife then it would be higlighting then maybe something bad was going to happen involving the knife. The connotation of the image would be violence involving the knife.

Close up - This is where the subject being filmed fills the frame, it is often used to show the emotion felt by the subject being filmed. If for example the subject had just done something of significane and was showing the necessary emotion this shot could be used to connotate that and empahisise the emotion that the individual is feeling at that moment in time.

Dutch Tilt - This is a shot used by which the subject or object being filmed is tilted to an angle. This shot is often used in horror films to represent disorientation and confusion. A tilted shot type such as a dutch tilt often connotates confusion or panic.

Extreme long shot - This is a shot by which the hole setting fills the frame. This shot is often used so that the audience can establish what the setting is, mise en scene ect. This shot is often used in horror films to create atmosphere and tension and to also inform the audience of the creepy setting by which the scene is going to take place.

Medium shot - This shot consists of half of the subjects body , with their costume and face still visible. This can be used to show the surroundings of the individual but also the emotions there are feeling at the same time. It is effectively used in horror films especially when creating tension of somebody coming up behind the subject.

                                                         - Jack -

Ancillary task research - A Range of Zombie Movie Posters

- Ben -

Comerical and Thriller Zombie films.



Scene from 28 later.

Zombie films started with the aim to produce completeley serious pieces of text which the audience was meant to watch and feel that it was believeable, to feel that if zombies did actually exist then this is how it would be. Technological and generally text improvement has made this easier to suceed this objective over those years. However in contemporary zombie films producers have began to see the advantages of bringing  a comerical theme to the screen when producing zombie films, that the zombies are used as a metaphor for the victims of comericialism, Dawn of the dead is an example of this as it is set in a typical American shopping mall .Films such as 28 days later directed by Danny Boyle is an example of how these zombie films have been related closely to society giving it realism and in effect giving the film more of an edge. This is due to having these films so closely related to civilisation and what might actually happen if the world was to break out in an infection. The close relation to civilation brings an element of realism to such films and what makes such zombie films so effective to the audience. It is an example of another strain of zombie films, and is one based on disease and outbreak rather then the super natural, this being one of the main aspects i believe that brings realism to the screen.

Comerical zombie films such as "Shaun of the Dead" bring a completley diffrent theme and narrative to the screen. The fact that zombies are non existent makes it easier to bring humour into such a film, as the audience is comfortable that zombies arent real its easy to represent them in this way, that fact that their non existent makes it harder for the audience to take zombies films seriously. This can work to the advantage of zombie films as it helps bring a comerical element to it.  Using zombies to create a comerical theme is easier done then bringing a serious element to it. The fact that zombies are abnormal also makes it easier especially when they are potrayed as quite ugly looking human beings. However overall Thriller zombie films give out a much more intense atmosphere and  takes alot more skill, time and effort to produce a realistic piece of text which portrays sombies realisticly. Saying this the audience has nothing to relate to with the representation of what zombies should look like, but making sure that what the film represents  what zombies should look like is a difficult representation to put across effectively.




Zombieland

 Zombie- Land set in America  follows a group of four people trying to find their family members in a time of desperation, is a zombie film which i belive manages to bring an element of tension but also an extreme comerical element to the screen. The fact that they manage to do this makes it a very enjoyable piece of text as it puts out on the edge of your seat but also manages to give you and your friends a laugh while doing so, which tends to tone down all the blood and guts which are shown, which can sometimes also make this sort of film more appealing towards somebody who doesnt enjoy so much blood and guts and just likes to watch a funny film. . At the top written is one of the many comerical rules that the main character follows to try and stay alive, these rules seem to be constucted stupidly on purpose to add to the comerical part that the main character plays. These rules constructed by the production company offers an element of structure and seriousness to the text, but can also be realted to Video Games and is comerical in this way. On the left is a screen shot taken from the motion picture and gives an example of how these rules pop up on the screen throughout the film, reminding him when he break`s them ect, which again brings this element of the video game idea to the screen.
                                                - Jack -