Narration- A lot of short films have narration;
this means there is a speaker which is not necessary visible to the audience.
This voice is usually very clear and sophisticated, this is the general
convention of voice overs. We chose to use two narrators; these were not
professional speakers with an excellent voice but instead we used our own
actors. We felt this made the film more personal, we were trying to reach our
audience on a personal level. The reason for using narration is that it allows
us to cut out certain parts of the film to make sure it fits the allocated time
limit and still have a clear story because details can be explained by the
speaker. It also helped the editing process as we just removed all sound from
the clips and re did the voice overs. Using a voice over we are able to
approach the audience in a settle way, they become more familiarized with the
actors which allows them to feel their emotions more, this makes the piece more
powerful in showcasing our message which is diabetes isn’t a joke and it needs
to be treated.
Interviews – A very conventional aspect
from our genre which is educational films is to use interviews. We originally
planned to use multiple interviews of both doctors and patients. This idea we
quickly got rid of, we were very limited in time and the interviews were taking
up a lot of film time. We completely scratched the idea and used text facts
instead to help promote our message throughout the piece.
Characters – this is one of the more
obvious conventions, short films tend to only use one or 2 main characters. This
is down due short films, literally being short therefore there is not a lot of
time to establish a deeper story behind multiple characters. We followed this
convention in our piece, we only used 2 main characters and the whole story was
based around them too. This worked out really well as people were able to
understand their backgrounds through a combination of clips and narration.
Twist- Short films usually have a twist in
the short time period, this is similar to normal films where you get a twist and
a resolution. The reason for using a twist is that it makes the production more
interesting for the audience, films use them because no audience wants to watch
someone in their regular lifestyle, they want to see the lifestyles be
challenged. We establish equilibrium by introducing the two characters, the
twist then comes in when one character’s health is endangered. The resolution
then comes after, for our film we followed this convention and media theory a
lot.
Situation – Similarly to the twist short films
usually take an everyday situation that the audience is able to relate to and
then flip it on its head is some way. We do this by establishing our actors in
their everyday lives, their lives then coincidently conflict each other which
helps the film move to its resolution. It allows the viewer to relate to the
issue which is promoted in films and at the same time intrigue the audience.
Postcard:
Color Scheme: Postcards conventionally
follow a color scheme of 2-3 colors to generate a cohesive and pleasing text
for the audience. Our color scheme is a calm purple essence, we continued this
color scheme throughout our products to create a sense of branding. The colors
on our postcard are not complicated to look at, most of the attention is lead
towards the actor who is the main subject.
Star: By featuring a well-known person on
the postcard, audience members who are familiar with the ‘star’ I’ll be
inclined to see the film, acts as a persuasive device. We are using one of our
main actors as the so called star on our postcard to help the audience be
familiar with it and relate it to the film.
Image: Instead of using a ‘star’ you can
use an image and have the subject displayed as a silhouette or participating in
an indirect mode of address, a mysterious atmosphere is generated which may
intrigue the audience and persuade them to see the film. We did not follow this
convention as we felt we could not use an image to represent or film well
enough. Our production is not focused around something materialistic, it focuses
on the lives of two individuals and therefore we felt it was important that the
emotional connection was made with a person.
Awards: A very simple and common convention
that the short film postcards are to have the short films nominations displayed
on the actual card. This is usually done through a small clipart of two
feathers bending outwards, then the name of the nomination or the film festival
it is being shown at is pasted in the middle. We followed this convention as it
is very generic and basically necessary to fit the nominations onto there. It
helps make the postcard appear more professional.
Social Media: To create a sense of branding
through our products, we are sharing our social media links on all of our
products. This is a convention that we follow from professional products as it
allows for audiences to have a quick link to news about the film. Almost any
level of production company is able to use social media to promote themselves,
pasting the URL to promote the links.
Website:
Theme: We created the website using WIX
which is an online tool that enables you too easily create websites; you start
out with a template which you can chose. Here obviously, I searched for film
themes and found one which was relative to films. This theme then outlined the
website, from there we input all of the information relevant to our production.
Social Media: Likewise, of the postcard,
the social media links were posted onto the website. These links lead to pages
which were created for our film, this includes Twitte, Facebook and YouTube. These links are the same which were pasted
on the postcard, this creates a sense of branding for our products.
Interaction: A successful website usual
allows for the user to interact with the website, using certain features such
as click videos and browsing galleries the user is not just reading information
of the page but instead they are able to interact with it. This convention we
deemed very essential, with the creation of web 2.0 it came really easy to hand
as well.
Text: A more obvious convention was to
limit the text; users are generally not interested in reading large amounts of
texts on pages. We limited the usage by incorporating more images and videos
instead as it appeals more to the user.
