Final Short Film
These are all the changes I made from my previous version:
- Added a wave effect over my text, makes it more interesting, subverts traditional text in a short film. I also moved the titles to the beginning of my film to fit the typical conventions of a short film.
- Added a fade transition before final clip, add the sense that reality has returned.
- Made clip in alley darker, to match following clip.
- Edited the time travel section to make more tense and in time with sound effects.
- shortened and removed clips when walking up to house.
- fixed continuity issues with boys leg and facial expression.
- Fixing some small continuity and editing errors
Final Website
I decided to keep my website pretty simple. I received feedback saying the colours look a bit childish but I think that now, with the video on the website, the colours work better.
Here is my final website.
Final Poster
After all the research and feedback that I got I altered my poster and I believe, now, I am finally happy with it.
From my previous draft I decided to edit the picture again as i got comments about it being too over exposed. 
I also got feedback that the rectangle around the poster looks odd and doesn’t work but when I took it off I think it didn’t work at all. I personally like this on the poster so I made the decision to keep it.
I also added quote marks around the tag line as some people thought this looked weird and cut off but I think I was able to sort this issue. I then insured that all text was centred so that the poster looks professional.
Birdman
I recently watched a film called ‘Birdman’ which was very interesting. The entirety of the film is filmed in one shot, there is no cutting or transitions.
The film is about a washed up actor trying to claw at his last bit of fame with his very own broadway show which he wrote and is starring in, but everything doesn’t quite work out as he receives bad reviews and has a troublesome actor. However throughout the film the protagonist has his character of ‘Birman’ (The superhero he played is his hit film) in his head talking to him and criticising him.
SPOILERS
The film ends with him shooting himself on stage on the final night of his show, he then proceeds to wake up in hospital with just an injury to the nose. He discovers that his play is famous, his wife wants him back and his daughter now has respect for him. Although he then jumps out the window, becoming bird man and flies away, his daughter watches him and smiles. There are many interpretations and different encoded messages but I personally believe that he did intact die on stage and this is his fantasy dream land of what he wants. It is everything he is striving for, would it really all happen to him in an instant?
I wanted to share this film with you in this blog post as I really enjoyed it and recommend for you to watch it if you haven’t already!
Self Reflection
I spent a few days away from my short film so that I could come back to it with a fresh, clear mind to re-watch what I have made and think about how I could improve my work.
After watching my short film these are a few things which I picked up on which I wish to change:
- In the beginning the clips of Hazel getting onto the train are quite long, I want to try and change this so that she gets onto the train more swiftly.
- this flash forward effect needs to be a lot quicker. Maybe I can hold the shot for half a second on screen and repeat several times to get a better effect. Also the high pitch noise randomly comes in, I will try to make it cut exactly in time with the black clip. I feel this needs to be tighter and more dramatic.
- I want to look at changing the titles to have more advanced and interesting.
- Walking down the street and into the house is very long and sadly as a viewer I loose interest.
- I need to reduce background audio volume before boy speaks.
- Ive come to realise that the cutaways of the fish and clock don’t really match the convocation.
- Cut to the mirror looks slightly odd, maybe i’ll look at adding an effect to make the audience jump and music to highlight the shock.
- High pitch noise and black is held for too long. Both should fade out.
Narrative Theory
I made a little video talking about narrative theorists and how I applied them to my short film, enjoy.
Draft 3 – Short film
This is the 3rd version of my short film:
Target Audience Research – Short Film
I held a focus group with members of my target audience to discover what they enjoyed about my short film and what they think I can do to improve it.
These are a few of the responses which I got:
From doing this I have learnt what works and what doesn’t in my short film. I am happy that they like my use of the camera and the casting. However to improve I am now going to add ‘5 Years Forward’ as a title after the train flashes as some audience members were unsure wether this was a crash or not. I am going to add some POV shots to make the viewer more connected to the character. I need to tighten the edit. I am also considering adding credits to the end of the film, a way to round it up.
Website – Draft 2
From the responses which I got I added to my website. I still need to add the final video onto the website, once I am happy with it.
Added reviews:
Underlined the title to match poster & film:
Also, added film festivals:
Isobel Evans A2 Media 