South Paw:

South Paw has some Visual effects that you cant see that makes the movies stand out. I should have the same idea when creating my imagination sequences. FXguide made a blog all about Zero VFX work and how they created there VFX.

In the opening scene where you can see the outside of the stadium. The sign outside is blown up and made the building look more modern. This gave me the idea of changing the background, of some of my scenes. Such as making the houses in the background look smaller or taking them out completely and putting in some trees to make it look like the country side. Also changing the sky to a brighter blue if the day we fined at is dull and gray.

They also added blood spraying out of the boxers mouth as he gets punched. This is a great idea for when i get one of my characters to shoot the other one, i can add blood around the wound or have it come out of the whole in his head. This has just given me the idea from Shaun Of The Dead where the zombie has whole in its stomach. I could use the same effect with a bullet hole.

Shaun of the Dead:

This is such a good scene that has some amazing visual effects. The zombie gets its  stomach ripped out and you can see Shauns face through the whole. I this i can do this when my character gets shot in the head, i can have the other character face through the whole like in Shaun Of the Dead. I wont be hard to recreate it will just be time consuming. I will have to look at some tutorials and re jog my memory on how to key out a good green screen.

Also i was thinking about using fake blood and clay to create the effect on the acters face and then simple masking the SFX out in after effects they show you how to do this in the Film riot tutorial

Also I was thinking about using fake blood and clay to create the effect on the actors face and then simple masking the SFX out in after effects they show you how to do this in the Film riot tutorial.

Combining these effects with the Losses effects that i researched a while back i will definitely be able to pull of a decent effect. The tutorial i have linked above is the one i will be following however i need to create a bigger whole. I will do this but creating a larger ring on the actors head and putting some green tape or paper underneath and have the ring around it. Then i can simply take the blank shot and put that behind the actor clip. Key out the green and then add my blood insides. I am going to have to independently figure out how i can make the inside of him look real.

With this in mind before I start my first storyboard of this bullet whole effort. I must look at camera techniques because i want my shots to stand out and make the feeling that i want in the scene. I can also take a look at camera angle, not just for my imagination sequences, but for my interview aswell.

What is semiology:

”Semiotics, also called semiology, the study of signs and sign-using behaviour. It was defined by one of its founders, the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure, as the study of “the life of signs within society.” Although the word was used in this sense in the 17th century by the English philosopher John Locke, the idea of semiotics as an interdisciplinary mode for examining phenomena in different fields emerged only in the late 19th and early 20th centuries with the independent work of Saussure and of the American philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce.”

Here’s how they said it works:

Peirce’s seminal work in the field was anchored in pragmatism and logic. He defined a sign as “something which stands to somebody for something,” and one of his major contributions to semiotics was the categorization of signs into three main types: an icon, which resembles its referent (such as a road sign for falling rocks); an index, which is associated with its referent (as smoke is a sign of fire); and a symbol, which is related to its referent only by convention (as with words or traffic signals). Peirce also demonstrated that a sign can never have a definite meaning, for the meaning must be continuously qualified.

Connotation and Denotation

Connotation and Denotation are two principal methods of describing the meanings of words. Connotation refers to the wide array of positive and negative associations that most words naturally carry with them, whereas denotation is the precise, literal definition of a word that might be found in a dictionary.

Here’s what I learned:

Semiotics is about what symbols you or the audience sees in the film that have an impact to the story. For example if a man is having a normal day and something bad needs to happen to change the whole story completely, the producers could have him come home from a day at work and he can see smoke or black cars out side his house. The smoke symbioses that there is a fire in the house and the cars around the house means that there are bad people in the house and they could have done something to the family. Semiotics tells/shows the audience an emotion or make you wonder if anything bad or good is going to happen, without telling them a word or having a character showing an emoting. This will work really well with the shocked expression on the interviewers face when the interviewee tells him that he has killed someone.

Applying to my short film:

I am going to take this into my short film by having the colours grey and dark, also having the walls and furniture modern or have an opening shot of a clock ticking in the corner of the room. This tells us the audience that this is an office and that the interview is going to go poorly or not turn out the way we had hoped.

The costumes will also be a great way to show the audience that the character is a student and want a job at the company.

I am also going to have a clock in the background symbolizing that when the time travel happens it tell the audience that the story has go back in time and we are back to the passed. This makes the audience wonder if the imagination sequences have actually happened or if he was just making them up.

Audio is going to be a key part in my short film as this can symbolizes time travel also. Having a warping bass sound with the following transition shows the audience that the character has gone back in time.

Also a young man holding a pizza boy will tell the audience that he is a pizza deliver boy. Which is also going to be tolled by the interviewer.

Further more, i am also going to be having a small document in the interviewees had showing that he doesn’t want to be there and wants to get things over and done with quickly.

I now need to take a look at Contextual analysis to get some better ideas on how i can make my final effect look better. Also to help me look into the visual effects, as a whole, that are used in films to gather ideas and ways to shoot so that i can do the visual effects.

Ref:

• aesthetics
  • In aesthetics: Symbolism in art
• communication of information
  • In information processing: Basic concepts
• linguistic analysis
  • In positivism: Developments in linguistic analysis and their offshoots
• metalogic
  • In metalogic: Semiotic
• Peirce’s contribution
  • In Charles Sanders Peirce: Work in logic.
• propaganda techniques
  • In propaganda: Signs, symbols, and media used in contemporary propaganda
• semantics
  • In semantics
• thought processes
  • In thought: Elements of thought
• writing systems
  • In writing: Writing as a system of signs

Mise-en-scene is:

”The arrangement of everything that appears in the framing – actors, lighting, décor, props, costume – is called mise-en-scène, a French term that means “placing on stage.” The frame and camerawork are also considered part of the mise-en-scène of a movie. In cinema, placing on the stage really means placing on the screen, and the director is in charge of deciding what goes where, when, and how. David  A. Cook, in his book A History of Narrative Film, points out how a mise-en-scène is formed by all the elements that appear “within the shot itself, as opposed to the effects created by cutting.” In other words, if it’s on the screen and if it’s a physical object recorded by the camera, then it’s part of the mise-en-scène.”

I found an eBook on Mise-en-scene, and i found it interesting as it says that the items in the scene can be used to let the audience no what kind of character they are looking at. Meaning if there are items that are aggressive and plain around a character it will tell the audience that the character is not someone you want to mess with.

So it says here that the ‘decor’ around a character or characters can make the audience feel certain things. For example, if there are two characters that are in love the decor around them will be bright colours related to love. There can also be specific items to portray this like a log burning fire, candles, pillows on the floor and fairy light.

What am i going to do?

With this in mind, I am going to have an object that is completely different from the example I made up before. This is because my two characters are going to be completely different, one being enthusiastic and enjoying being in the interview room, and one being lazy, bord and doesn’t want to be in the interview. So the object i will be having will be out of place and shouldn’t really be there. For example, the two characters will be opposite a desk and i will put items on the desk that look out of place. eg pens and pen cup knocked over, paper scattered over the desk, the office chair leaning back, phone light up the desk and an overflowing bin.

I now need to take a look at semiotics and get an idea on how I can make my short film better by using it.

https://www.raindance.org/7-rules-for-writing-short-films/

1. The Shorter the Better

I thought that short films must be 5 mins or over in production for it to be stated as a short film. However this is not the case because Joalland says that they can be from ”fifteen seconds to forty five minutes in length”. The benefits of this is that the shorter it is the less costly it is gonna be however you must not make it look cheap if you intention is to spend as little money as you can. on the other had if you want your short film to be shown at festivals it must not be longer than 10 mins as people will get bored quickly and other things in the festival will catch there eyes. Plus the festival is wanting to play as many short films as possible so it must be short as sweet. Joaquin Baldwin’s short film was 4 mins long and it was a hit (Sebastian’s VooDoo).

From my planning i am certain that my short film will be in the 4-8 minute range which is good.

2. Keep the Practicalities of Writing in Mind

Here he explains how meany people loose sight into why they are making the short film and what there original intentions where going into it. ”I have read scripts with pages of chase-action scenes and car crashes, and many writers seem not to realize how time consuming it would be to actually shoot.” This is telling me to be aware of each line i put down impacts the amount of cost/complexity it will take. here is one of his examples. ”Visions of white horses galloping in the moonlight certainly look amazing in your mind but are you sure you’re good friends with a wrangler and/or a CGI specialist? If you only have access to modest resources, think small.” A really good version of this problem was done in the short film Apricot. This is because the consept of two people sat down in a cafe talking seems simple but you can tell that this wasn’t done on the cheap.

It could have been created on a much lower budget like the Asian short film Just a love story. This short film takes place entirely in an elevator the concept is interesting but very practical.

3. Make It Visual

This rule is all about showing not telling. Short films down work very well this loads of dialog as this confuses the viewer. the little dialog you use the better as long as youre still telling the story you want to tell. ”Film is about telling stories in pictures, which is the most economical way of telling a story”.

It is also imported to make the viewer understand the characters and there back story’s as quickly as possible as this intrigues the viewer at the start to the film. ”Create visual backstories for your characters. Externalize through visual images their temperament, their profession, their status, etc.”

”In the Lunch Date  the woman polishes her fork before using it. What does it tell you about her? Note the economy of dialogue in the short film, a short film that went on to win an Academy Award for best live action short film.”

This is a perfect example of showing not telling. The majority of the short film is showing and there is very little dialog however the story is still being tole. In my short film I want to use this in between each question, making sure to have lots of pauses in between each question and answer.

4. Find Single Moments

”The best short films are often a single moment that is played out, but one that has a story at its heart. What do I mean by story? I mean a conflict that has to be resolved, where there’s a dilemma at stake and a choice that the protagonist has to make.” I want to implement this idea into my short film. At the end of the short film i am going to have a big twist at the end where the main character goes back in time and repeats the same interview so that he can say the best possible answers he can.

5. Tell a Story

The short film ”I love Sarah Jane” shows a bunch of teenagers in a ghost town where adults have turned into zombies, yet at the core it is a love story about a young boy who can’t reach through to the older girl he loves. This concept links to my time traveling ending to my short film. The short film shows an classic interview scenario but at its core the short film is mainly about the main character trying to give the best answers to the interviewee. So he travels back in time to try again.

6. Engage the Reader

Here it is telling me that you must hook the reading quickly or else they will bet bored. This links with my ”The 4 Rules of Comedy Writing For Screenwriters” blog. ”Since you have so little time to make an impression the impact of page one is crucial, just as it is crucial to hook the reader in the first 10 pages of a feature length script.” Once those first ten pages are up and you have intrigued the viewer the rest of your story will flow and you wont have to worry about anyone leaving.

I now need to take a look at Academic Theory. Then see how i can develop my idea to the meaning behind the story of my short film (maybe tie it into my imagination sequences). Then i think it would be a good transition to look into reception theory, looking at the audience and how i want them to look/feel while watching my short film. Also semiotics is a key part to my research. looking at Denotation and Connotations. This would be a good area to include with academic theory as you can discuss the deeper meaning behind your creative decisions. Then some more on Contextual Analysis when discussing the influences in my effects.

Ref:

Joalland, S. and Joalland, S. (2019). Writing Short Films: 7 Rules Successful Filmmakers Follow. [online] Raindance. Available at: https://www.raindance.org/7-rules-for-writing-short-films/