My Film:
When starting to create my film the first thing that I looked into were the conventions that are typically followed my short films and then genre of my choice. Due to short films not being massively popular there was not masses amounts of detail online about the conventions which meant that we went through as a class what conventions we were going to follow, we were also given handouts by teachers.
Typical conventions of short films:
- Limited amounts of characters
- Limited amounts of dialogue
- Limited amount of locations
- Having a twist to keep the story line interesting
- Small budget
- Length 5-10 minutes
- Everyday situations to make them relatable
- Protagonist is identified
Typical conventions of teen drama films:
- Clique of 'Mean Girls'
- Set in a high school
- Teen issues ( Someone being an outcast)
Typical conventions of a mystery:
- Murder that is commit by the protagonist who is unknown till the end.
- Someone is trying to solve the crime.
- Music to go along with the theme of the scene.
Out of the conventions that have been listed above I used many of them to ensure thet my film was going to be conventional however I also challenged and developed them in order to ensure my film would still be successful.
Limited characters:
I followed this convention as my film only has 5 characters in. Some may look at this and feel like the is still too many as the film that they created only had 2/3 charters however I needed that many characters in order for my film to make sense. Using Pretty Little Lairs as inspiration for my film I wanted to have 5 mean girls however this would have meant that my film would have then had 7 different characters which would have been too much.
Limited dialogue:
This is one of the conventions that I challenged as I needed to have a lot of dialogue in my film in order for it to make sense and the story line to not become confusing. However towards to end of the film I used text on the screen to show Hannah's thoughts rather than using more dialogue in order to describe her thoughts and feelings.
Limited locations:
I followed this convention as I only had three different locations in my film. I used school which I filmed in many different rooms and areas, my bedroom and the woods. It was easier to only use a limited amount of locations also as getting my actors to travel around to many different locations would have been time consuming and could also be very costly.
Plot twist:
I used the convention in order to make my film even better as the plot most was that Lilly was the killer rather than 'black hoodie'. This followed the conventions of short films as well as keeping my audience interested.
Small budget:
Due to producing this film for my coursework I did not have any budget, all he actors that I used were students meaning that they featured in my film as a favour to me and all of the equipment that I used in order to produce the film had been borrowed. In order to thank my actors for taking part in my film I brought them all hot drinks after filming in the woods had taken place.
Length:
My film was 4:23 minutes which is just under 5 minutes however this is due to being created for coursework purposes. Other short films that are created have more recourses and time to create a long film compared to the time limit that I had in order to ensure I was meeting all of the deadlines being set my teachers.
Everyday situations:
I developed this convention as many parts of my short film were reliable to everyday however there were also other parts that weren't relatable. The fact that the girls were in school was relatable to teenage life, although its not a good things people being picked out and picked on in schools due to girls being nasty. However the fact of reviving animus texts massages and being killed by one of your closest friends isn't something that occurs in an everyday situation.
Protagonist is identified:
Throughout my film the protagonist is not made clear until the very end. At first its thought to be Megan even though she is contently tellings the girls that its not her and she's on their side. The assumption then shifts to 'black hoodie' as megan and them are sen to be having a disagreement about something. Its the revealed at the end that its Lilly by the text that Megan receives and her following Hannah towards the woods.
I followed all three of the typical conventions of teen drama films. As well as being set in a high school it was also set in a bedroom which looked like a stereotypical girls bedroom with pink walls as and massive mirror making the scene relatable to the audience watching. There is also the stereotypical teen drama dynamics of the girls with three of them all ganging up on picking on her. A development of this convention was the fact that Lilly was trying to stick up for Megan as much as possible, normally the two other girls just go along with what the ring leader says as much as possible.
I also followed all of the conventions of mystery films. I looked into the conventions of both genres due to my film being a teen mystery film, I developed the convention of having someone solving the crime and had someone keeping another person safe instead. Rather than a scene where the crime was looked into and solved I had Megan trying her best to keep Hannah safe and telling her to not follow the text messages that she was receiving. This made it more interesting and less confusing then having a scene where the murder to investigated into and solved, By doing this I was also following a typical short film convention as trying to solve the crime would have made the film even longer and had more dialogue included to ensure that the storyline didn't get confused.
Film Poster:
My Inspiration-
My Poster:
The typical conventions of a film poster include:
- The title being the biggest thing on the poster
- One main image (Main Character)
- Main Quote
- Film ratings
- Date of film release
- Billing block
Where I have used these conventions on my own film poster:
Conventions used:
I wanted to make my poster as simple as the picture that I have used for my inspiration. I chose against adding the date in which the film comes out due to being an intending film the poster would be out at the same time in which the film had been released as people may forget to look into watching the film if it was long time after seeing the poster. I also don't think adding 'Coming Soon' is pointless as when the film finally gets realised people may think that its been out for longer than it has due to seeing the poster a long time before it was actually released.
Due to my film being a mystery I didn't want to give anything major about the film out from the poster or the plot in which takes place. I chose that particular poster as my inspiration as it has the same theme that I wanted my poster to have also with the woods becoming the dominate feature making the main character in the picture look unsafe by the surroundings that they are in.
When is came to the main cover image there are two different conventions that I could have followed. The first was the typical convention of having just the main character on the cover image. The next one the convention that teen drama films follow where they have the three main mean girls on the cover. The research that chose just to have Hannah the main character on the cover was due to while doing my research I felt like the covers with just the main character on the front looked more professional and didn't give much of the story line away meaning that the audience would be more intrigued to want to watch it. Whereas having all three of the girls on the image makes the cover look less simple, it also makes the film look like a typical film where the girls are just nasty to each other with nothing else happening whereas my short film isn't a typical teen drama film as it has the mystery twist to it.
I feel like the overall look of my short film poster is very simple however had included everything that I wanted to include in it, I've kept it as simple as possible to prevent any of the storyline being given away from the poster. Rather than challenging or developing any of the conventions I kept to all of them apart from having the release date on the front. I also didn't add a rating on the front also as many other posters I used during my research and planning didn't include this feature either.
Film Review Page:
My Film Review Page:
My inspiration:
Typical conventions of a Film Review Page:
- Film name
- Quotes
- Short synopsis of the film
- Critiques about the film
- Images from the film
When doing the research and planning towards my film review page I looked particularly at the review pages that had a smaller amount of writing. Not because I didn't want to have to write loads and wanted to fill my whole page up with pictures but due to the fact I had my target audience in mind. Do to my film being aimed at teenagers they aren't going to want to read a review page that is full up of massive paragraphs of writing. Also due to my film only being around 4 minutes the more and more writing that I have on my review page is the more I am going to be giving away about my film.
The conventions that I have used and where:
The title of my film is the largest piece of text that I have used on my film causing it to stand out the most. I copied and pasted the title from my short film poster to ensure that the font and colour was identical. This means that once an individual sees each of the media texts simultaneously they will be able to see the links and see that the two things are simialt and link into each other, rather than having everything completely different. I also did the same with the quote ' Trust No One' that I've added to both of the media texts. Again I didn't add the release date to my review page as when they audience are reading the review the film would already be out meaning that when they look into the film to watch it they will be able to watch it straight away.
The article itself includes a brief overview of what the film is about and mentions the fact that Hannah plays the lead role to attract a large audience of her fans to watch it as she is very successful, I have used her to promote my film as much as possible due to not having a large budget in order to market my film. I wanted to keep what I said about the film as simple as possible and let the collage of picture used to sell the film as they don't give the storyline away like having a large amount of text would have given a lot more away. I selected those particular screen shots from the film as they are from all different locations and include all of the characters which shows that they storyline isn't just based in one place with a few characters included. I particularly liked the close up of Hannah as it shows that she is being targeted and its through they use of social media which is widely used my teenagers making the film even more relatable, the facial expression clearly shows that she is not happy with what she can see on the screen.
I developed the conventions used my by double page spread I used as inspiration as I made everything look clearer, the page that I used as inspiration had many things over lapping each other. Which I did also however I used more square boxes making it look more formal as they inspiration pages looks slightly childish however I wanted mine to look a lot more cleaner in a way and simple but still using the same ideas. I feel like due to all of the solid boxes being used its a lot more clear to follow and read, everything neatly fits into place on the page.
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