As the short film is now completed the first step that I’ll be taking in distributing it will besharing it on internet portals, the main reason behind this is that it also gives me the chance to gain feedback from an audience as well as share the product with them. An example of these are Vimeo, YouTube and Facebook were the video is uploaded and an upside of this is that I have the control on individually targeting industry individuals.
Online distribution outlets that i've used are vimeo and facebook, using facebook I've been able to send out an email to my friends with a link to the short and ask them for feedback that i've used to complete my blog post on audience. A post of the video on facebook can be seen on the groups main blog.
A film competition that i found suitable to enter was 4docs, this short will have an individual twist to it as it aslo merges drama into it. The negative aspect of the website and information provided shows that the competition takes place later on in the year around september.
http://www.4docs.org.uk/competition
Personally I’ve become more reluctant to want to enter the piece into competitions, as I feel that as a film maker am not ready to distribute a piece that within a small audience wasn’t interpreted the way I initially sought for it to be. The message that I aimed to come across wasn’t picked up on. I see it as being a negative image for a piece to always being defended as once its made its ment to stand for itself and speak for itself. In may ways I understand why Stanley Kubrick creator of 'A Clockwork Orange' was quick to withdraw his film when copy cat behaviour was pinned on the film, its simply as his work wasn’t interpritated the way he intended for it to be.
The advantage that i have as a young film maker is the easy accesable oppotunity to share my work using new media. These give me the chance to share, gain feedback and ultimety be able to use what I learn along the process to create strong piece of film that I can present to industry specialist without hesitation.
A Personal Incident that inspired the idea was a conversation that I had with a university graduate told me that he has two children that he cares for and has also chosen to carry on with his studies the main for this is the fact that his father wasn’t around for him and he didn’t want to have to neglect his studies and nor become and absent father, the main point is if we are to change things happening in society we have to start by making the right choices in our lives that will influence the next generation.
Inspiration in the use of camera came through John Singleton DVD commentary of the film ‘Boyz ‘n’ The Hood’, he spoke of his use of long tracking shots and establishing the camera as a character rather using static angles. 10 minutes a short film that also used plain tracking shots helped in understanding this technique and found that it gave a piece of film a raw edge and realism when it was carried out without using a track. As a group we had to consider what we wanted to achieve in the camera work and we found that having the camera handheld but stabilising it as much as possible would be better for the short film as it would also be more realistic as the characters would be walking, so harsh unsteady movements would easily take away from the message and we knew that we didn’t want to achieve a perfect clean cut images that are seen in large budget films.
‘About a Girl’ and ‘The Idiots’ inspired the breaking of the fourth wall both films do so in such an effortless way that addresses the audience but in intimidating way. About a Girl moves to giving the audience the feel of a documentary as the scripting and delivery is put across sharply and raw to the audience it doesn’t give the impression that it’s scripted. ‘The Idiots’ Las Von Trier on the other hand breaks the fourth wall as a way of breaking the Dogme rules and most importantly to create a connection with the audience and the character as they directly address us straight on with their thoughts. This is why I saw it as an important factor to point out that the actors should be speaking into the camera just as they would to a friend.
Music that we choose to use, reflected on the music used in the film, ‘America Beauty’ as its composed to emphasise an atmospheric atmosphere to the audience, it also keeps a steady phase failing to have a dramatic climax of which is often used in films. This is important as I pointed out the music used can’t be to influence the audiences emotions towards the character. We also sought refugee and gained help from Callum Payne who was able to help us compose the final piece of music, so I was able to pich the idea and direct him in what we needed.
Reflecting on the finished short film I believe what worked best was the merger between scripted drama and documentary interviews. This short film taught me that inspiration on creating a piece of film can be generated from different angles, and that most importantly that the foundations are the crucial parts of building a project that will work and generate interest in its intended audience. This evaluation will be looking at the final piece using audience feedback and looking back at its influences and the final distribution outlets that are now available to me.
Including the definition of 'father' worked better as the finishing unlike the initial plan which made the piece lose its unplanned documented style. This ideas come about when we completed the editing one of the tutor mentioned that the ending gave the piece a pre-planned effect that made it lose its documentary style and tiered more to a soap opera, with the three split screen of the character walking away.
The ideas of using the dictionary definition came about when I was contemplating what would fit better and as we also wanted to educate this fitted perfectly. The layout of the definition was based upon the layout of a dictionary definition that’s used in Beyonce Knowles ‘Diva’ that’s seen at the start.
Including quotes at the opening gave the feel of formality and respect to the topic also a chance to educate an audience of which is important in a documentary. I knew that the fact that we choose to use couldn’t be based on one group of society as this automatically will take from the film in general, so the quotes couldn’t just concentrate on teenager parents as the film wasn’t about teenage fathers.
Matt’s character played by, Elijah’s Baker delivery was on point this shows the importance of a trained actor as he had knowledge of reading a scrip. After encounting the problems that we did during the day of filming I placed a great amount of pressure on myself, and my ability but found that as Elijah is experienced in his field he was able to pick up the scrip and deliver the story the way I envisioned while writing the script. This is just another area that I would take better care in my future projects.
Scripting of the actors was clear, told a story and linked well with the interviews, even though difficulty arose the strength of the scrip is visible to the audience.
The casting of the characters is an aspect that didn't work so well. The film shows the importance of a father rather than the effects of not having a father, in my opinion I don’t believe the short film stereotypes black fathers, as it not meant to address them. In a casting prespective it would have been important to look at representing a wider part of society but that’s something that can also play into stereotypes as all ethnicities hold their own stereotypes and many times than most it’s hard not to play into them.
As this piece was looking at a pointer in society it’s clear to see the importance of representing society truthfully and this is something that the film failed to do. However, because of this is a student production the idea and production organisation overshadows other factors like realistic and commercial casting of roles.
Framing while filming was important as the characters are ment to be comftably fitted in the screen, during filming this is what I had to look out for as the director. I had to make sure that I collaborated well with Rory and that enough space is left so that the character isn’t cut out, and that the boom isn’t in frame. In the final scene that we filmed of Alana it wasn't possible to watch out for the boom while filming so we found during editing that the boom enters in the frame as she delivers her lines. The positive that can be found in such a mistake in this short is that its hold some code and conventions of documentaries and that we can also play on such effects used by the director and creator Nick Park of Creature Comforts who in an interview speaks of adding the boom in scene to show that the animation is real.
The sound levels had to be adjusted so that they stayed at a constant level. The main problem with the sound was during the opening scene while Alana is delivering her lines the wind effects the quality of the sound. The only way that this could have been avoided is if we were able to film on another day when strong winds wouldn’t effect us, but we were already behind schedule in the filming plan that we had constructed. In editing adjusting the sound to remove the wind wasn’t possible as it interfied with the dialogue too much so it was better to have the sound the way it is rather than tamper with it and ultimately spoil the full recording.
The effects that we used were colour correction this is because we filmed using different format we found that where we filmed in high definition the colours were bright and we needed to match them up to make it look atheistically appealing. Codes and conventions, breaking the fourth wall, as short films don’t carry any distinctive codes and convections we optimised the opportunity to do something that otherwise wouldn’t have fitted with any conventions of a text. During the idea generation I felt as though we as a group were being pressured to create a documentary piece, I disagreed with this as a documentary takes away creativity in the scripting I suggested that we merge the two and play on the idea that short film don’t carry codes and conventions to complete the piece in this way.
Am pleased with the completed film as its brough fourth my creativity and ability to structure, in many ways I doubted my ability to take an idea I imagined and fully make it and this piece has helped me shed some of the douht.
