Post 17 - Evauluation

  

 

Introduction 

I have created a 5-minute short film based up on the idea of an unmotivated, marginalised student who is more interested in being alone with her phone than amongst others. The main representation is that of a female youth, dealing with misconceptions of hegemony and the media who label them as lazy and troublesome. In reality, I know that there are many young people like this, but nowhere near the number that the mass media portrays. Several of the existing short films I studied represent youth in a similar way, SLAP takes a motivated teen as its protagonist but reveals a secret they keep hidden, Tight Jeans and The Ellington Kid adopt the stereotypical approach of youth as wasting their days and conforming to stereotypes with their conversations through dialogue and character expression and movement, and the setting as contemporary and everyday locations. Echo represents a negative portrayal of female youth and in a way that does not glamorise her actions. As the narrative progresses a number of binary opposites are shown and this drives the narrative forward as well as the various representations of our protagonist. We see her arrive at school and as she walks through the playground the sociable/loner binary opposite is clear.

I shot this scene in the cold, wet weather as a contrast to the classic representation of cricket being a summer game and also to reflect her mood at the time. I used short shots in terms of my cinematography to show the game of catch between the friends and longer takes on Beth’s face to show her emotion when unsure as to return the ball and then pleased/satisfied by her throw back to the group. I used a series of montages with no continuity edits to represent Beth as lazy, alone, unmotivated both at home and at school. These range from medium, close up and POV shots to construct this representation and also drive the narrative. What this also does is make clear to the audience that the short film is within the teen/coming of age genre due to creative decisions in the micro elements such as casting, costume, location etc. I purposefully planned for my representations to be conventional for this genre as I knew this would be most effective when constructing my mise-en-scene and also when appealing to my target audience. Like many short films I have studied, my film is a realist piece. I believe that a narrative resolution and sense of realism is more effective than spectacle in short films as with clear use of the micro elements of film form audiences are able to become engaged with characters and follow the narrative. Through the representations and genre, my target audience is also the youth demographic. This bracket of the population is able to consume film on handheld devices, at ease and fitting in with their lifestyles. The fact that my film has little spectacle plays into the benefits of this in that a spectator will not lose anything by watching it on a portable device smaller screen rather than at a multiplex. This is similar to the short films Arrival, Operator and The Fly in that

the focus on one character in an everyday location and much more on the emotion to drive the narrative.  

 

Narrative 

As the narrative develops it is clear that I have conformed to the three act structure. In the beginning Beth is an unmotivated student, this is presented through the character expression and movement, much like Echo, she is also on the edges of society, like in SLAP when the cross dressing is revealed and clearly the protagonist through the cinematography, as in The Fly, Operator and Arrival. The narrative is linear, with the kuleshov effect in use when she is looking at the laptop, plus the other students talking about her after she has thrown the ball. The montage sequences in the beginning section show the mundane, day to day existence she leads. This is until the disruption to the equilibrium, a chance throw of a tennis ball which makes her think she might actually be quite good at something. The use of close-up and slight smile at this point reiterates this to the spectator. Subsequent research into cricket sparks the interest and the middle section of the film sees Beth training to become a cricketer through a series of montage shots inspired by the Rocky films. It is clear that time is progressing through the stages of training, getiing into a team and ultiamtely success in reaching an elite level. This is achieved through a linear narrative, adding to the realism of the narrative and also constructed by the changes of costume, train travel, location shooting and the still images that mark the return to a new equilibrium, where Beth has an interest, hobby, past time, friends and is much better about herself. This is the opposite to Over, where the narrative is in reverse, non-linear. Despite this being interesting, several members of the class struggled to ‘get’ this and as a result I made a conscious decision to stay linear and conventional. 

Audience 

Further to as discussed in the introduction, my preferred reading of the film is as an inspirational teen/coming of age film with elements of biography. Anyone struggling with self esteem, mental health, friendships issues etc could watch the film and see that from the most unlikely source something positive can grow and that we can all find that spark. A negotiated reading could be that it is a biographical depiction of my own story in how I got into cricket myself. Either way, based on test audiences all spectators have responded in one of these two ways. As my target audience is other young people, I did not want to confuse them with too many transitions, a non-linear narrative and lots of dialogue. Instead I have used character expression and movement to engage the audience, much like The Fly, and unlike dialogue heavy Tight Jeans and The Ellington Kid. As a result my actress had to re-perform several bits and I reshoot from various angles to ensure maximum effect and understanding. The music was therefore a very important element of sound as it can supplement the other micro elements in telling the story and this soundtrack I believe does this well. 

Genre 

As discussed above, the film is clearly a teen film and also biographical to some extent. I did initially discuss the idea of a self-reflective documentary, but believed that might alienate a part of my target audience and lose the entertainment in favour of education which was never my intention. By conforming to the youth genre through the construction of mise-en-scene my films representation, audience and genre theories all fell into line. The film is clearly also a short film with a complete narrative and resolution to it. Some of the student made films I watched appeared more like extended scenes or even in some cases trailers. Others had overcomplicated plots that neither delivered entertainment, education or art. Over was the only short film from the set we have studied in detail that i struggled with and this made me more determined that the genre and conventions of short film would be met. 

 

Representation 

I felt it was important to have a female lead protagonist, just like Arrival and Operator who do this in a positive way. Their representations of strong female role models is key, particularly in Arrival where it maybe doesn’t start positive but grows into it, and Operator in how she stays cool in such a challenging situation. I felt that my audience would be able to share the film as an upbeat message about a positive representation of young people for a change as well as that of a girl getting into sport, particularly a male dominated one like cricket. 

Whilst the negative representation of youth in Echo is prominent there is a suggestion as to why that is, through the loss of her father, but the film does not challenge the hegemony who may have ‘failed’ her and left her so isolated. My film shows young people that there is a way out, not necessarily just through sport but also by mixing, talking and being around other people. 

 

Conclusion 

In conclusion, I believe the technical decisions in constructing my micro-elements have allowed me to create a film that I am proud of and others have enjoyed and felt inspired by. The ideas process, through to production and post production editing I have used the existing short films as inspiration and made my decisions accordingly, taking on advice, reshooting and travelling great distances to get the desired outcome.