Quantitative Audience Research: Analysis

Although the questionnaire has only been live for 4 days, the results are already revealing enough for me to begin considering them and applying them to our products. 

Poster
In order to know what size and shape of poster we should create, we first need to know where the poster will be displayed, so we asked people where they thought film posters were most effective. As the graph below shows, there were three options that stood out:

1. Outside/within a cineama.
2. In a magazine.
3. On the internet.

This indicates that, if Tom and I want to advertise our film in what is deemed to be the most effective area, we should produce a poster for display in and around cinemas and multiplexes. What the reasonable spread of data across all choices suggests, though, is that film posters are always somewhat effective, no matter where they are displayed. It may well be worth producing three different versions of the same poster for the three most-selected options. 

The next question was concerning the features of a film poster. The summary graph shows that there were two main features people wanted to see: an eye-catching image, and images of the characters or actors. Although our current plan for the poster is certainly 'eye-catching', with lots of faces staring out at viewers, the entire point of it is that the protagonist is not seen, so that a sense of mystery is created. According to the results, however, a sense of mystery is not so important. Tom and I will certainly have to consider either changing our poster design, or producing a number of posters which will appeal to different tastes. 

Review
The first question of this section asked people what they look for in a good film review, and the answers were pretty much as expected, with images from the actual film, the film release date and a clearly defined rating of the film all ranking in the top answers. Interestingly, two other popular selections were comparisons to other films and an unbiased perspective. The former three factors I mentioned were already going to be included in our review, but the latter two are both aspects we will have to consider including. The unbiased perspective will be the most challenging, because it necessitates an impartial writing style, which may be difficult to acheive considering we are the ones making the film.

The other two questions in this section were asked so that we could determine the placement of our review page; in what magazine, and in what section. The pie-charts below are very useful in summarising the results.

What they tell us is that large, in-depth reviews are favoured slightly over small, concise reviews, and that, overall, people would like to see short-film reviews as a new feature in an existing magazine such as Empire or Total Film. We are currently aiming to have two reviews of short films on our review page, with one being a review for our own film, and i think our plans will stay this way. There is not enough of a difference in the first pie-chart to push us into writing one large review of our own film, because this would not be read by those looking for shorter reviews. At the same time, however, a review filling half a magazine page is not as short as reviews go, so we are striking a compromise to try and satisfy both types of reader. Moreover, these reviews are going to have to look as if they belong in a real, new section in an existing film magazine, and, realistically, such magazines would only be likely to dedicate half a page at most to the review of a short film.

General
The general questions we asked relating to film were included simply so that Tom and I could confirm we were on the right tracks. 

Out of thriller, mystery and drama - the three genres that our Short Film aims to combine - thriller is clearly the most popular; perhaps more popular than mystery and drama than we expected. Although we're not going to turn around and re-write our film to cater more for thriller-lovers, we can alter our poster (or one of our posters, if we produce more than one) to make the film appeal to these people on first impressions. 

The question about how people discuss film was included solely to confirm the legitimacy of the two-step flow audience model, and this is exactly what it has done. What it also shows, quite interestingly, is that, despite the popularity of social networking, people are still more likely to talk to one-another about film in face-to-face conversation rather than via the internet. All the more reason, then, for Tom and I to produce a poster and review that are interesting and engaging enough to provoke discussion.

Quantitative Audience Research

In an earlier post, I mentioned that Tom and I would be creating and sending an online questionnaire for quantitative audience research. Now, that questionnaire has been constructed, and it contains all the questions we thought would provide us with answers and statistics which will prove useful in the final stages of production of our media texts. 

To create the questionnaire, Tom and I used Google Forms, which was recommended by a friend. Google Docs is a free application that allows users to create, organise and store office documents online. The 'form' is just one type of document that Google Docs allows users to create and publish. For a free-to-use application, Google Forms looks extremely professional and is very easy to use. What's more, it automatically collects responses in a spreadsheet, and also organises them into individual graphs and charts for quick and easy interpretation, as shown in the example below. 

The quantitative results won't change our texts enormously, because they are our creative ideas, and, naturally, we wish to see them through. What the results will do, however, is allow us to gear our texts towards the most receptive groups of people, ensuring that they reach as larger audience as possible. 

Above is a screenshot of the post I added to the A2 Media Studies group on Facebook, asking people politely to take some time to fill out the questionnaire, and below is a screenshot showing the look and format of the questionnaire. 

Click here to go to the questionnaire. 

When Tom and I think we have enough results, I will close the questionnaire to responses and analyse the results. 

Representation: Laura Mulvey Vs. Us

'Representation' is a popular term used to mean a wide variety of things, but in the world of film, it used to refer to the way in which people or characters and their qualities are conveyed to an audience. For example, a disabled person or character may be portrayed in a negative light, and the film portraying them would be said to have represented the issue of disability in a particular way; a way which was received negatively. 

Last year, for my AS production (an Opening Title Sequence), representation was an incredibly important consideration. We were emulating the style and genre of 'film noir,' a genre carried across films partly by stock characters such as the 'male anti-hero' and the 'femme fatale.' After learning the basics of semiotics, it became clear that such characters only remain consistent because they are represented consistently. In order to emulate the genre effectively, we had to ensure that our representation of the characters in our OTS matched up with that of characters in actual film noir movies.

In our current short film, we aren't attempting to emulate a particular genre, so the representation of our characters is in many ways more difficult to control. We have no stock characters, so we have no explicit guidelines to follow in terms of representation. To get a better idea of the ways in which we can represent our characters, and the effect this may have, I have looked at some contemporary theory in the field.

Laura Mulvey
Unsurprisingly, one of the most controversial issues in contemporary media theory is that of the representation of gender: arguably the most apparent dividing characteristic of the human race. In 1975, Laura Mulvey wrote 'Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema', wherein she utilised psychoanalytic theory to pull apart the representation of women in films, ultimately to propagate her own political ideology. 

I personally have mixed opinions of the article; in some sections, Mulvey makes simple but powerful statements which are sensible and convincing, but in others, she makes outrageous claims that can be empirically disproved. 

To give an example of a simple but powerful statement, Mulvey spends a paragraph explaining why the cinema is a part of the voyeuristic world of 'surreptitious observation.' She says: '...the mass of mainstream film, and the conventions within which it has consciously evolved, portray a hermetically sealed world which unwinds magically, indifferent to the presence of the audience, producing for them a sense of separation and playing on their voyeuristic phantasy.' Mulvey then strengthens her proposition further by talking empirically about the actual experience of watching a film in an auditorium. 

By contrast, Mulvey later states the following: 'There are three different looks associated with cinema: that of the camera as it records the pro-filmic event, that of the audience as it watches the final product, and that of the characters at each other within the screen illusion. The conventions of narrative film deny the first two and subordinate them to the third, the conscious aim being always to eliminate the intrusive camera presence and prevent a distancing awareness in the audience. Without these two absences (the material existence of the recording process, the critical reading of the spectator) fictional drama cannot achieve reality, obviousness and truth.'

Whilst I believe she is right to say that conventional film-makers aim 'to eliminate the intrusive camera presence and prevent a distancing awareness in the audience,' I think her final statement, about fictional drama achieving reality, is somewhat pointless and nonsensical. Mulvey essentially states that the 'recording process' and the 'critical reading of the spectator' need to be hidden in some way for the film to achieve 'reality, obviousness and truth.' It follows from this that she believes it is entirely possible for fictional drama to achieve the quality of reality, and this is what I refute.

A film can never be real, obvious and truthful, simply because of the fact it is a film. Ontologically, a film, whether factual or fictional, edited or unedited, is simply a representation of something or other. Therefore, the closest it can get to being real is in being a representation of reality. Yes, a film is a 'real' representation, and what is represented can also be 'real', but it is still ultimately a representation, and so it does not constitute a reality in itself as Mulvey suggests it does. 

Actress Lizzy Caplan with Director Matt Reeves on the set of Cloverfield.

Something else that makes me disagree with Mulvey is my own experience of the 'reality' of films. The film Cloverfield, and others like it, for example, don't attempt to hide the 'recording process' at all; in fact, they actively make the audience aware of the recording processes (albeit fictional ones). For me, the overt presence of the recording process makes the film feel much more real. Cloverfield essentially has the opposite effect to what Mulvey would expect.

Representation in Our Short Film
As I read through Mulvey's article, I wasn't taking a purely critical approach; I was also thinking about how the issues of representation involved were related to the Short Film Tom and I are producing.

Mulvey writes disapprovingly of the way in which the female figure is 'displayed for the gaze and enjoyment of men,' and she suggests that the 'male unconscious' gets pleasure from 'asserting control.' Although I would like to think that Tom and I are in no way succumbing to any set of patriarchal film-making conventions, I must admit that our narrative could be seen to do exactly that which Mulvey criticises. She says that there is a sadistic side of film that 'depends on making something happen, forcing a change in another person, a battle of will and strength, victory/defeat, all occurring in a linear timeline with a beginning and an end.' Our film follows an ambiguous male protagonist who essentially rescues a female from suffering, and this could easily be interpreted as having very chauvinistic undertones; we could be criticised for representing all women as helpless weaklings, and all men as misunderstood heros.

This is not, of course, our aim at all, and Tom and I will be taking the necessary precautions to ensure that our film does not carry such representational undertones. We want our film to provoke thought about 'selflessness,' not to enforce gender distinctions. It is true that our core trope is a very traditional one (a male hero rescues a female victim), but we have used this so that the unconventional and non-traditional aspects, such as the hero being selfless and unnoticed, are that much more apparent by contrast.

In short, this brief look into representation theory has highlighted the way in which representation can dramatically affect a person's interpretation of a film, and I am more determined than ever to ensure that Tom and I produce a short film that provokes the kind of thought we intend it to. In many ways, we have already made plans to represent women as more than a simple icon of voyeurism; at one point, we clearly show that the female character is more than an object by briefly entering her thoughts, and we don't advocate the traditional assumption that the female victim will either fall in love with or feel indebted to the male hero; in fact, she is somewhat repulsed by his actions. 

Mulvey concludes that the 'decline of traditional film form' is a positive thing, and unless our production takes an enormous turn for the worst, it's going to be anything but traditional.

Poster for a Short Film: Semiotics

Alongside our main production of a Short Film, Tom and I must produce two related ancillary products, and for these we have chosen to make a Magazine Review and a Poster for our film. Whilst Tom handles the preparatory research for the Review, I will be doing the same for the Poster.

For me, the first logical step is to ask: What is a poster? (i.e., What are its constituents, and what is its purpose?) Well, in answer, a poster is a placard or bill intended for display in a public place for the purposes of advertising. To fulfill this purpose, posters usually contain information about a particular event or product, and they present this information in an appealing or interesting way, so that people who view the poster will be encouraged to attend the event or purchase the product.

In essence, then, a poster is a thin piece of material that represents something other than itself, and it does this by carrying information in the form of images and text. In other words, the poster acts as a sign, and this is where semiotics becomes relevant. I began to explore semiotics last year with an introductory post, and I have summarised the main points of the post below:

• Semiotics is basically an area of study looking at signs as a means of communication.
• Signs are made up of two elements, the Signifier and the Signified;
• The Signifier is the material of which the sign is composed (text, images, sounds, etc)
• The Signified is the concept that the Signifier alludes to.
• The links between Signifiers and the Signified are culturally relative. (i.e., identical Signifiers may may allude to different concepts in different cultures)

In the same post, I concluded that, 'The media industry use signs because they are an efficient way of expressing a large amount of information with very little material.' Although I was writing with regard to mise-en-scene and cinematographic style at the time, it has since occurred to me that the same is true of any kind of advertisement, including posters. 

Whilst it would be unnecesary to delve deep into the rabbit-hole of aggregatory academia that calls itself 'semiotics,' I am sure that an understanding of the importance of semiotics will result in a more structured and rigorous approach to our poster's production. There are three distinct branches of semiotics, and each is relevant to a different aspect of our poster:


Semantics

This is what semiotics is most commonly known for, and what I breifly explained above: the relationship between signs and what they stand for (Signifiers and the signified). It is fairly obvious that we must create a poster that clearly links to our short film; otherwise, all purpose of the poster is lost! The method behind the link between film and poster, though, is less obvious. In order to build a clear relationship between all of our products, we must craft a distinct visual style that is highly recogniseable. One possible way of acheiving this would be to have an image of the film's protagonist on the poster, as illustrated in this poster for Inception, showing an image of Leonardo DiCaprio with his name clearly printed at the top.




Syntactics
This branch deals with the formal or structural relationships between signs. In order to create a film poster that does its intended job, it must be recogniseable as a film poster, which means it will need to contain the common, defining elements present in all good film posters. I will ensure that this is so by analysing a range of film posters to find out what conventions are adhered to, and why.

Pragmatics
Pragmatics is all about the relationship between signs and interpreters. The concept of cultural relativism that I mentioned above, for example, would fall under this label, because culture is something that exists in the mind of the interpreter. In our particular case, the sign is a film poster, and the interpreters are our target audience. In general, the study of pragmatics illustrates the importance of context; it shows that what a sign signifies is largely dependent upon the way it is viewed (i.e., at what time? In what place? By whom?). To a certain extent, we can control the audience our poster appeals to by emulating successful posters that have previously targeted the same audience, but in doing this we risk representing our short film as something that is just as unoriginal as our poster. The only other accurate way of building a targeting strategy is through audience research, where we can directly ask consumers what appeals to them, and subsequently discover what posters they are most receptive to.

In summary, each branch of semiotics highlights an aspect that is fundamental to the success or failure of a film poster in fulfilling its purpose, and it would be frankly foolish to prepare and produce a poster without giving the field of semiotics any serious

consideration.

UPDATE: Here is Tom's post briefly analysing the pragmatic and syntactic conventions of film posters.

Genre Theory & Auter Theory

In my previous post, I wrote about 'genre' as a method of categorisation, and explained the restrictions of this method when applied to short films. After reading this post, our media teacher provided Tom and I with some reading material about Genre Theory and Auteur Theory. In this post, I will explore these theoretical fields, and explain their relevance to our practical production.

Genre Theory

This field encapsulates all study relating to the concept of 'genre,' from arguments surrounding its definition as a word in use, to analysis its utility in the modern world. Previously, I explained what I saw as the defining characteristics of a particular genre: narrative tropes, and the film's effect on the audience. I must stress, however, that this is only my personal perspective, and it is immediately clear from research that this is by no means a standard interpretation of 'genre.'

The concept of genre was first used by the Greeks, who felt that the type of person an author was determined the type of poetry they wrote. Evidence for this can be found in the earliest surviving work of dramatic theory, Poetics (c.335 BCE), where Greek philosopher Aristotle writes of poetry as having 'split into two kinds according to the poet's nature.' Whilst the distinction genre is used to draw here is very simple: that one author's work is different from another's, the implications of this are nonetheless very important; if there is a deterministic relationship between an author and his work, then genre relates to the process that created the work, and not just the work itself.

Jacques Derrida sporting a quintessentially philosophical look.

In The Law of Genre (1980), French philosopher and father of deconstruction Jacques Derrida articulated the idea of genre in relation to process, stating that texts actually participate in genres, rather than belonging to them. In a 1986 paper entitled History and Genre, Ralph Cohen responded to and built upon the ideas of Derrida, writing the following:

'...since each genre is composed of texts that accrue, the grouping is a process, not a determinate category. Genres are open categories. Each member alters the genre by adding, contradicting, or changing constituents, especially those of members most closely related to it. The process by which genres are established always involves the human need for distinction and interrelation. Since the purposes of critics who establish genres vary, it is self-evident that the same texts can belong to different groupings of genres and serve different generic purposes.'

In contemporary Genre Theory, British semiotician Daniel Chandler has stated that genres create order to simplify a mass of available information; to promote organisation instead of chaos. Whilst most modern theorists agree with Chandler as to the utility of genre, many still argue differently over the best method of categorisation. Jane Feuer, the Professor of Film Studies at the University of Pittsburgh, sees genre classification as being divisible into the three following methods:

• Aesthetic - Texts organised according to certain sets of characteristics.
• Ritual - If a text performs a 'ritual' associated with a 'system of ritual', then it is a practising member of that 'system.'
• Ideological - Texts promoting or evoking similar ideologies are part of the same category. (This is the method most commonly used when marketing a text.)

Conversely, in Writing Genres, Amy J. Devitt talks about genre as being a rhetorical device. She essentially states that genres are not free-standing entities, but are interconnected amongst themselves and the works they describe; they are generated from the culmination of every factor present in the construction and consumption of a text. Whilst this particular theory, with its fluid and versatile method of taxonomy, doesn't make the categorisation process any easier, it does allow for more choices, for both the consumer and the producer; genre is there simply to aid a decision, and consumers and producers are free to choose how to use it.

The idea of choice and personal freedom brings us nicely onto Auteur Theory.

Auteur Theory

Unlike Genre Theory, which is a field of study containing many different ideas, Auteur Theory is more comprehensive and distinct, making it a theory in itself. Advocates of Auteur Theory believe that a director's creative vision will always be apparent in their work, regardless of the production processes it endures.

Alfred Hitchcock

The theory takes its name from the French word for 'author,' because the first proponents of auterism were writers for the influential French film magazine of the 1950s, Cahiers du Cinéma. They praised filmmakers such as Alfred Hitchcock, Howard Hawks and Jean Renoir for being the absolute 'auteurs' of their films. Part of the purpose of auterism was in promoting Alexandre Astuc's ideal approach to filmmaking, where directors would use cameras in the same way writers use pens, so that they are not hindered by conventions in film and storytelling.

Since the 1960s, Auteur Theory has been criticised by critics and screenwriters alike, who have argued that it is wrong to ascribe authorial merit to the Director alone, when screenwriters and producers have given an equal amount of creative input, if not more.

Contention or Collaboration?
Some critics and spectators see Genre Theory and Auteur Theory as being at odds with one another; they believe that the former argues that all films abide by a certain set of conventions, of which there is a finite amount, and they believe that the latter argues the opposite: that films are free from constraints, and the resultant product is purely dependent on the filmmaker's vision. I think advocates of this view misunderstand the ideas of Genre and Auteur theorists.

I am of the opinion that Genre Theory as a field of study and Auteur Theory as a hypothesis are interelated; I believe that the collective artistic voice of a production team does transcend genre (in the sense that genre can only categorise to a certain extent, and the influence of the artistic voice surpasses this extent, making a film unique within its genre), but I also believe that genre is important for filmmakers and viewers alike. Genre provides a method of taxonomy by which we can organise and identify our tastes, experiences and sources of inspiration; whether we subscribe to the tastes, experiences and sources of inspiration of others, or of the past, is an individuals own decision.

What Does it All Mean?
Well, for Tom and I, Auteur Theory instills a great amount of confidence; if filmmakers truly have total creative freedom and control, then together we can surely achieve exactly what we intend to. Genre Theory, whilst not so inspiring, is helpful all the same, for it affirms the usefullness of genre in organising our own ideas. My own personal study of genre has also assuaged my fear that genre constrains filmmakers' with conventions; I now see genre as something much more versatile and fluid, which tends to appear more concrete from the perspective of consumers, who are bombarded with genre categories in the process of marketing.

In summary, I now feel confident to continue taking our short film in the direction Tom and I want, and I see the utitlity of genre when it comes to marketing a film. In our subsidiary products, a review and a poster, we will include a combination of conventional factors from the overlap of genre that will no doubt be present in our film between mystery, film noir, and drama. This way, we can market the film to its most responsive audience, but also retain its uniqueness.

Genre & Short Films

Dictionary.com defines the noun 'genre' as follows: 

1. A class or category of artistic endeavor having a particular form, content, technique, or the like: the genre of epic poetry; the genre of symphonic music. 
2. Fine Arts A) paintings in which scenes of everyday life form the subject matter. B) a realistic style of painting using such subject matter.
3. Genus; kind; sort; style.

When we refer to a genre of film, then, we refer to a particular kind of film. When we say that a film is a particular 'kind' of film, we are asserting that it must belong to a certain category, and for such a category to exist, all the films within it must share some amount of common material.

The genres regularly used to categorise feature-length films are as follows, along with some of the associated characteristics:

• Horror - Scary, shocking, unnerving, dark, absurd.
• Thriller - Tense, complex, mysterious.
• Sci-fi - Futuristic, visually stunning, obscure.
• Comedy - Funny, simple, feel-good.
• Drama - Thought provoking, emotional, meaningful.
• Documentary - Factual, relevant, contemporary, witty.

Other genres such as Action, Mystery, Adventure and Crime can all be seen as subsidiary genres to those above.

An image from The Exorcist (1973), an iconic film of the horror genre.

Although people tend to relate genre just to the tone and effect of the film, the aspects that tie a film to a particular genre actually go much deeper. As I see it, genres are defined by narrative tropes and the intended effect on the audience. I use 'tropes' in the way it is defined by Meriam-webster.com: 

b : a common or overused theme or device : cliché 

Taking the 'Thriller' genre for example, a defining trope could be: an ambiguous event occurs and a character attempts to uncover and/or rectify the situation, and a defining effect could be: the audience are made to feel tense, and eager to follow the complex plot.

If you browse the internet looking for short films, you will find that the vast majority fall into the categories of comedy or drama, with only the occasional thriller, and perhaps even a rare horror short. This, I believe, is no coincidence, or even an artistic trend, but an inevitable result of the method of categorisation we apply when we talk of 'genre'. As I explained above, genres are defined by narrative tropes and the intended effect on the audience. Short films are restricted in terms of genre, because they cannot facilitate tropes that are suited to feature-length running times. In other words, there aren't a great amount of 5-minute thrillers, because filmmakers would be hard-pressed to convey a quintessential thriller trope in that short period of time.

It follows that, the longer a film's running time is, and the greaters its budget is, opening more avenues for creativity, the greater the film's capacity for tropes becomes. Because it is unfair, and less sensible, to judge a short film's genre on the tropes it contains, people generally rely on the other side of the coin: the film's effect on the audience. Personally, I beleive that short films mainly fall into the genres of either comedy or drama, because this is the greatest distinction anyone can make based on the effect on the audience alone. A comedy clearly makes people laugh, and a drama obviously draws out emotion, but a thriller could do either or both of these things, and still be called a thriller, as could a horror, documentary, or a sci-fi. In summary, short films have less scope in terms of genre, because they are less capable of facilitating the tropes that define a genre, and are judged solely on their effect on the audience, which will always be to either draw out emotion (like a drama) or make people laugh (like a comedy); otherwise the short film wouldn't be worthwhile.

Basing judgement on our ideas so far, I would categorise our short film as a drama. I think it is incredibly important, however, that we do not let this categorisation influence our piece; Tom and I take our inspiration from a great variety of sources, and it would most certainly be detrimental to restrict our creative input in order to comply with a particular genre. Nevertheless, I think it is worthwhile to clarrify and summarise ideas from time to time, to help ensure the planning and production is specific and achievable; the last thing we want is to begin drawing up a storyboard with no certain narrative, only a vague ordering of events. Therefore, I will state that, 'currently, we are aiming to produce a cerebral drama with a tint of mystery and noir.'

Considering this, my next step will be to research the work of directors whose films combine the elements Tom and I hope to combine in ours. After this, I will clarify our ideas for the films narrative in a synopsis or treatment, which will illustrate the chronology of the key scenes, their relevance, and the intended message of the film.

Directorial Techniques to Consider

Now that we have our initial ideas pinned down, it is important to begin considering the practical techniques we can actually use to convey those ideas. After listening to our pitch, our teacher provided us with some films that may be of interest to us. Among these were the films Apocalypto, for its ability to tell a story in a foreign language, even if watched without subtitles, and Dead Man's Shoes, for its distinctly British style in both a visual and narrative sense. 

Apocalypto
Apocalypto is an action epic made by Mel Gibson in 2006, which focuses on the story of one Mayan villager during the civilisation's demise. Although our aims in making a short film are pretty much polar-opposite to those of Gibson in his high-budget feature, Gibson does utilise techniques that we could also find useful. In our pitch, I explained that an important feature of our film would be an internal monologue of the protagonist. Because this monologue will dominate the film, we won't be including a great amount of diegetic dialogue. However, one of the main messages we want our film to carry is that 'selflessness often goes unrecognised,' and the lucidity of this message obviously depends upon the minor characters' reactions to the protagonist. If we are to keep the amount of dialogue to a minimum, and also illustrate the minor characters' ignorance of the protagonist's actions, then we must be efficient in visual storytelling.

This is where Apocalypto is relevant. All of the speech is in the Yucatec Maya language, and without subtitles, viewers such as Tom and I, who are far from fluent in the language, have to watch the film more closely to understand it. Viewing a film in this way makes the role of visuals in the storytelling much more apparent.

The excerpt below illustrates this well; even if it is muted, and the subtitles are ignored, the scene still makes sense. A story is told through the physical actions of the actors, the type of shot that captures them, and the way these shots are edited together. 



After watching the film with visual storytelling in mind, one thing that stood out to me was the abundance of eyeline matches. These are a staple in visual storytelling, because they exhibit the world of the film from a character's perspective, and provide justification for the way that character may act. Even if they are very short and subtle, they can convey important pieces of information. One example of a very subtle but important eyeline match can be seen at 2:54 in the video above; if it were not shown that the offering had been presented, then a factor of the negotiation between the two tribes would be lost, and the tribe of Jaguar Paw would seem much more easily persuaded. The fact that so much of the meaning of the scene would be changed by the omission of one shot illustrates the potency and importance of visual storytelling, and shows why it will be an important factor for Tom and I to consider during the production of our film.

Dead Man's Shoes
Dead Man's Shoes is a gritty independent thriller about a disaffected soldier who returns to his home town in the British midlands to take revenge on those who caused the death of his brother. As a film directed by Shane Meadows working with Warp Films, it works to most of the conventions of the vigilante/revenge thriller genre, but is set in a small town in the British midlands. Whilst the location initially seems incongruous, the beauty of Meadows' directing is in the way he can ground even the weirdest and wildest of events in reality through his use of characterisation and dialogue, so that they don't seem incongruous at all.

This aspect of Meadow's films can be seen in the below excerpt of Dead Man's Shoes. From 0:50 onwards, we see Meadows' interpretation of a conventional 'character stand-off'. Although we have many of the conventions of such a scene from a an old Western movie; namely two enemies sizing one-another up in quite a lengthy sequence to create a great amount of tension, Meadows manages to depict something that is quintessentially British. The characters are made to fit into both their location and the situation at hand; they look moderately intimidating as a gang, appear realistically unprosperous in the car they use and the way they dress, and seem quite uneducated in the way they ineloquently converse. At the same time, the protagonist, with whom the leader of the gang talks, is very unnerving in his arrogance, but without breaking the bounds of what is credible for such a person in his position. (This is all very much related to the concept of semiotics, which I introduced here on my AS blog)



Essentially, Meadows keeps his films sharp and interesting by providing the audience with a certain amount of social realism. Realism helps to captivate people, because they feel more willing to empathise and associate themselves with characters who could believably exist in this world. Realism will be a very important aspect of our short film, because whilst we are including surreal and ambiguous elements, we want the film to comment on the real world, and how real people interact. We will not be able to convey such a message unless the audience can conceivably relate the film to their own lives.

Another aspect that stood out to me on first viewing was that of the humour in the film. Despite its overly dark tone and tense atmosphere, Dead Man's Shoes contains some very funny moments, which help to break up the intensity of the plot in order to keep the audience just comfortable enough to continue watching. Many such moments contribute to the social realism of the piece, as real life is very rarely serious for extended periods of time. I feel that this kind of humour has almost become a trademark of British cinema, and a good example of it can be seen at 2:10 in the above clip, where we cut to a shot of the gang, squashed into the back of the car, debating what their leader is and should be doing.

Another illustration of this kind of humour can be found in the following clip from Guy Ritchie's Lock, Stock and Two Smocking Barrels from 1:00 onwards, where Vinnie Jones' character tells his son off for swearing, despite bringing him along in his day-to-day work as a loan shark. In this context, comedy is created because, whilst the sentiment of the father in not wanting his son to swear is realistic, the situation they are in at the time is not. 



Whilst I personally like this kind of 'socially realistic' humour very much, I do not think it would work particularly well in our short film. The humour works well in Dead Man's Shoes because, as I mentioned earlier, it eases the intensity of the plot and balances with the dark tone. Our film, however, must be short. Therefore, if we were to include a similar comedy moment, it would form a much bigger portion of the overall piece, and would definitely interfere with our surreal, cerebral tone. If we are to include any such humour, it won't be anything significant enough to be described as a 'moment' as such, and could be something as simple as one character insulting another.  

In summary, the directorial techniques which we will now consider are:

• Visual storytelling - use of eyeline matches and other such shots to convey information with minimum dialogue.
• Social realism - use of mise-en-scene, costume, location and characterisation to add a sense of realism and captivate the audience.

Pitch: Ideas and Inspiration for a Short Film

Since my last post, where I explained my decision to make a short film for my A2 Media practical unit, I have also decided to work on the film with Tom Palmer, and together we have combined ideas and shared our inspiration to develop a succinct plan for our film and its subsidiary projects. Below is a video of Tom and I pitching our initial ideas to the class, and also sharing some useful information we have found about the creation, distribution and exhibition of short films.


Project Pitch from Blaine Kenneally on Vimeo.

For further information on the visual inspiration for our short film, please follow this link to Tom's blog.

Choosing a Brief

Before the summer holidays, we were provided with a sheet of paper listing the various briefs we could undertake as our A2 production projects. Two immediately stood out, one involving the production of a music video and various other promotional materials for a band, and the other focusing on the production of a short film, along with some promotional materials linked to the film. Obviously, I cannot undertake both briefs, and I cannot mix or combine them in any way, so a decision must be made.

Music videos differ from other television and film products, because they can exist without a conventionally structured narrative. In the same way that music and lyrics doesn't have to tell a story to be classed as a song, music videos don't have to contain a conventionally structured narrative to be classed as music videos. By my definition, a basic narrative is a number of events, connected in some way, which function together to develop an idea. For me, it is the process of 'functioning together to develop an idea' that is most important to the definition, as it prevents connected events that make no alteration to an idea from being classed as a narrative. Almost all music videos contain this kind of narrative, but many still can't be said to contain a conventionally structured narrative, which I define as follows: a number of events, connected by character, location, or action, which function together in a lucid, logical way, usually with some kind of chronological ordering, to develop an idea. 

This video for Spiralling by Keane, for example, can be seen to contain a very basic narrative: there is a man sat in a chair watching some screens, there are marching robots, there is what seems to be a robotic woman also watching some screens, and at the end we are shown that the man bears resemblance to one of the marching robots. This is certainly a narrative, because from the contingency of the described events and the lyrics of the song, we can derive the message that modern life is confusing in its endless representations of representations. It seems to suggest that we turn ourselves into robot-like beings by consuming artifices as opposed to the experiences of 'real life'. The video does not, however, contain a conventionally structured narrative; it doesn't establish a sense of time and location, and whilst the events are connected in some ways (the presence of the screens), they don't function together in the same lucid, logical way that a television drama or blockbuster film does. Music videos generally connote basic messages and emotions through distinctive cinematography that works in conjunction with the music.The video below for Ulysses by Franz Ferdinand can be seen as another clear example of this trend.



So it is clear that there is a void between the material found in music videos, and that found in other media for film and television. It is within this void that the short film establishes itself. Generally, short films have a somewhat conventionally structured narrative, but because of their limited running time, they rely heavily on distinctive cinematography, and sometimes distinctive music and sound, to connote messages and emotions that enhance the basic story. 


Spider from Qoob TV on Vimeo.

The short film above, Spider by Nash Edgerton, is similar to television and film media as it has a conventional narrative that is structured chronologically. At the same time, there are many differences. Most strikingly, the events of the film, up until the last few moments, occur in real time, and yet they convey a story and a message that is a lot deeper. Also, the vast majority of the shots used are very intimate; being close in proximity to one character or another, and usually focusing on their facial expressions or the small actions they perform. There is no obvious non-diegetic sound in the film either; in moments without dialogue, viewers are left to listen to the sounds of passing traffic. Overall, these techniques give the viewer the feeling that they are also sat in the car with the characters, unseen and unnoticed, but able to watch and speculate in tension.

The film below, Strangers by Erez Tadmor & Guy Nattiv, whilst taking itself slightly more seriously than Spider, exhibits a very similar style of intimate cinematography, but is more overt with its use of sound. Whilst short films do contain a conventionally structured narrative, it is worth noting that it is still a very basic narrative; as a rule, short films revolve around a simple but distinct idea, and explore it with a small number of characters and without a great deal of dialogue. Both of the short films shown here can be seen to abide by this rule. 



Considering the respective factors of each medium, I think that I would prefer to work on a short film rather than a music video, because it seems less restricting in terms of content, with more freedom to create. The official specification for this brief is as follows:

10. A short film in its entirety, lasting approximately five minutes, which may be live action or animated or a combination of both, together with two of the following three options:

• a poster for the film;
• a radio trailer for the film;
• a film magazine review page featuring the film.

Next, I will begin constructing basic ideas for the film and its subsidiary products, ready for pitching to the class.

Music Video Research Presentation

As our first task for A2 Media Studies, we have been asked to choose a favourite music video, research it, and present our findings to the class. My immediate choice was the video for Fallen Angel by the British alternative rock band Elbow. The video is excellent, and despite watching it over and over, I still enjoy it, because new subtleties reveal themselves each time. 



Although I was familiar with the video even before the research task, I didn't know much at all about the actual production of the video, or how this linked to the meaning of the song and the promotion of the band and their album. 

The research itself actually proved to be rather difficult, because the video isn't particularly popular or well-known, and the band were only enjoying quiet success at this time. At a point when I was almost ready to give up, a trawl through some 10-or-so pages of meaningless Google search results presented me with this: http://www.mvdbase.com/, a resource which proved very useful, at least for crediting on the production of the video. For more detailed information, such as the production budget and location of first exhibition, I tried contacting Flynn Productions, but to no avail. As a result, I had to rely on what little information I had.

Below is a slidecast of the presentation I gave to the class, including both the slides I used and an audio file of my speech.Music Video Research Presentation Slides