Film studies course work

character in lesson today we looked at some character introductions from 3 screen plays; Taxi Driver, Clerks and The Usual Suspects. I thought that these three screen plays took quite varied examples of character introduction, Clerks was quite concise in its actual description of the characters visuals but said a lot about the setting while Taxi Driver had heavy description of character including a substantial amount about character intention Dialogue we also looked at writing dialogue for screen plays the main thing that I got from it is that dialogue has to provide multiple purposes, often showing character and moving the story forward without being direct exposition. Bad dialogue is often not concise and will directly state what has happened in the past or what the character is thinking, subtlety is nearly always more interesting for an audience. Good tips given for how to write good dialogue. Dialogue is probably going to be my biggest challenge when writing my script s...

Screen play or short film. I would like to make a short film because I would like to get my hands on the equipment including editing and audio, I want to write the screen play as well but would feel dissatisfied if I came up with an idea but did not follow through. I aim to make my film somewhat thought provoking while also entertaining to watch.

Slap ( Nick Rowland, 2014) Slap is a coming of age film about a teen who likes to wear makeup, it explores his relationship to others as they find out. out of all the short films we have watched as part of the course Slap had the most character development and did not rely on stereotypes to quickly give the audience an idea of who the characters are, this was reliant on the film being slightly longer than most of the other shorts. The film as a whole felt very polished, compared to some of the shorts, due to its conventional and more complex narrative, but also thanks to the micro elements which were cohesive and made the film seem more professional. For example the pace of editing felt natural and often matched the tension of scenes. Sound was used both technically well (the audio levels all felt natural) but also reinforced the mood in given scenes. For example the opening scene which uses non- diegetic slow paced music to indicate that Connor is in his own world and relaxed putt...

narrative structure.  The conventional narrative structure can be summed up be the theory Todorov's narrative stages which is, essentially, a complex version of the three act structure. Todorov states that stories start at an equilibrium point, then a disruption to this equilibrium occurs and the main character realises this and attempts to repair it, eventually returning the scenario to a state of equilibrium. Quite a few of the short films I have looked at follow this structure, though there are slight variations; the most evident example of Todorov's structure to me was in Slap. The state of equilibrium being when nobody knows about the makeup and the disruption occurs when  people start to find out, the attempt to repair comes when he wears makeup to the party however opposite to convention the attempt fails. Many films have the main three act structure set up with many Todorov narrative arcs in the story to keep the film interesting (for example t...

Over  (Jorn Threlfall, 2015) Upon reflection of this short film was interesting however while I was watching it I was quite bored due to the very slow pace. although I thought this it does seem intentional that the film was slow in pace - to suggest that people are desensitised to horrible events and to show how things just go back to normal - which is part of the reason the film is more appealing to think back on than it thought on my first viewing. the use of extreme long shots through the film really detaches the audience from the events of the film (which while it also gives a social commentary about how we have become distant from horrific events, such as this, and we are quick to forget them). this adds to the mystery in the film, we are shown the 'crime scene' from a distance but lead to try and figure out for ourselves rather than - like a typical crime drama - being 'guided' through by a detective character. in some ways as an audience we are positioned as ...

Tight Jeans. Tight Jeans is a light comedy short film directed by Destiny Ekaragha and released in 2008. The main characters are three teens who are impatiently waiting for there friend sitting on a wall, a white man walks past wearing skinny jeans and they start to talk about how he can wear such tight jeans, the conversation seems light and friendly and they make lots of jokes about it. the film very much puts us in an observing position as most shots are mid three shots of all three men on the wall with only a few closer shots and some eyeline matches to highlight the tight jeans before they are discussed  The scenario of a light conversation between friends lends itself to the genre of light comedy and shows that the narrative for a short film does not need to be complex. personally I did not enjoy the film that much, I didn't find most of it funny and the simple narrative needed the comedy to hold my interest, however it did show me that, with oth...