Eight - Alex Lloyd

The short film 'Eight' was made in 1998 and directed by Steven Daldry. This film is a great short film that is interesting with good acting, it is a social realist film and we know this due to micro evidence such as sound, lighting, characterisation and setting. The narrative is about a Liverpool fan at 8 years old who find himself having to come to terms with the loss of his father and living in a new area. This type of story is upsetting and something that occurs in day to day life for many people, hence why it is social realism.

There is not a strong music track used throughout this film as opposed to the previous short films I have seen, there is a dominant violin introduced at the beginning of the film along with a beach setting, this is peaceful but yet being played in a minor key can make it seem depressing. This stringed instrument fades out quite early on leaving most of the film with no non-diegetic sound. A voice over is used a lot telling us the beliefs and thoughts of our main character. Without the strings being played throughout it becomes more serious and upsetting as we slowly figure out how Jonathan's Father may have passed away, without non diegetic sound it also makes it seem more realistic and that we are there with him. The voice over engages the audience making it seem as if he is talking to us, 'breaking the fourth wall'.

The characters are all working class living in what looks to be an unwealthy area. This is evidence of it being social realism adding to the problems that this small family may have. The short film format is a little different to the previous in a way that there is no obvious resolution, throughout there is always a lot of restricted narration holding the characters back from telling us how his father really died. As the film goes on more and more clues lead to us believing football had an impact on how his dad died but the true way is never told. There are many issues with the naive 8 year old as he struggles to understand the relationship between this vicious and 'loutish' sport and the death of his father, as the film introduces the mother, we are also under the influence that the mother is struggling to keep her son away from this dangerous past time.

The advantages of this short narrative is that it does raise many questions and keeps its restricted narration all the way to the end, there is no obvious resolution in the way that everything ends out happily becoming quite a powerful piece of work, i am inspired by the way it does this and think using restricted narration a lot in my piece of work could lead to the same effect.

The small boy is represented as lonely and upset, a lot of low key lighting is used in many scenes including the one in which he is in the shed hiding his clothing, this connotes him being isolated from everybody else as he tries to follow his dads footsteps in being a big 'Liverpool' fan. We see things from a subjective way with the voice overs telling us his thoughts, using POV shots and restricting the non diegetic music can put us there with him on screen, this helps us to sympathise with the character. Due to it being social realism, the problems that this boy has and the struggle with coming to terms that he will never have his dad is something that many people experience in life hence why it is so powerful to some. I would like my short film to be social realism hoping to catch many peoples attentions by the problems that occur with my protaganist.

Wasp - Alex Lloyd

'Wasp' was a 2003 short film written and directed by Andrea Arnold, the narrative is about a single mother living with her four children in Dartford. Being poor and not having enough to buy food for her family, we follow her as she comes to a point in her life in getting a chance to be with the man she has wanted.

1. In this film everything from props to make up tells us that it is also a film on social realism. The setting is in a small, gritty looking village of Dartford. With many council flats and appartments as well as dirty clothing and make up we can tell that all our characters are all working class. Other films that have used this iconography for a social realism film are Kidulthood and Red Road for example.

2. One way the film has become unique in my view is by its characterisation, we are used to seeing teens and adults in gritty, gutsy films like this but in 'Wasp' we see four young children with the oldest looking no older than 7, being put in an almost homeless position starving. With a baby being seen in this position it is a very powerful film becoming quite disturbing in places to think that this is a real life situation that is occurring in most places today. Not only do these kids find themselves in a starving position but with bad parenthood as well which is being heard of more and more.

3. This short film starts with no introduction, you are just swept along. It is a cliche of a film. You are given no identity at the beginning by the mothers face not being shown, it is not until the fight at the beginning that you first see her face. Later on she is put in a problem where she finds herself being asked out on a date, she has to figure how she is to say yes and still get around having to look after her kids. It leads to her putting her kids in a position to look after themselves so that she can go on this date alone, the resolution shows the male character taking them away with him. Whether or not live a better life is unanswered leaving us with many questions. There is never a happy part within the film due to the spectator always feeling sorry for the kids who are never put in a good position. It is all in an order of which we can follow being able to catch whats going on within the the first 5 minutes despite its fast introduction. What I am starting to see in all these short films are their similarities, there tends to be a lot of restricted narration with unanswered questions that may be raised throughout, amongst these enigmas tends to be a young cast with children being seen in unfair positions. I will look into these and perhaps use them in my own work in order to produce a powerful social realism film.

4. The use of sound in this film is all diegetic, there is no sound track or non diegetic music being played at any time making it seem more realistic and tense in places that could be interpreted as something else if music was to be played. Another advantage of having no music in a film like this is that it doesn't take our attention away from whats being seen on screen and with such powerful acting and narrative such as that in 'Wasp' it helps. We can tell how rough an area it is due to dialect and diegetic sound, the characters use a lot of slang in their language and curse quite a lot, with the children using this language we can tell they haven't had the best childhood and parenting. There is a lot of diegetic sound used including the baby crying for example making things seem very tense for the mother, with a lot of people around and natural sounds from traffic etc we get the image that so many people are around congesting the area but yet this young mum is alone.

5. The themes and issues raised are conflict, poverty, starvation, bad parenthood, young parents and sex. Our main character is represented as a young, single parent who has no money and can barely look after her children, I believe she is portrayed in a way that we are supposed to feel sorry for her being a single parent but at the same time to dislike her for the way she treats her children. Our sympathy goes mostly to the kids by the way that they are left to bring up themselves and look after themselves, the oldest child is left to look after her siblings whilst her mum goes to the pub on a date. Our male character is Danny Dyer, he is seen as a sterotypical uneducated, working class citizen who is not looking for a long term relationship but more for sex. In the end we find he has a strong interest in our female character by helping her out with the children.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0388534/

Conversation Piece- Alex Lloyd

'Conversation Piece' is a short comedy film directed by Joe Tunmer. This film is very unique in the way in which it uses its sound using a classic jazz track.

1. We can tell it is from the comedy genre due to the characterisation, there are two characters, one of which is a stereotypical lazy, retired male who sits around all day and the other is a sterotypical hard working house wife who can sometimes nag a little bit with her husband. These two characters have been sterotyped and are known for being seen in comedy films. The males facial expressions throughout this piece is very funny just by how ignorant and lazy he always looks but the way in which this film really catches its audiences attention is with the sound being used for comedy value.

2. The style convention used uniquely in this piece is with the sound and the track used, it starts with quiet diegetic sounds, the characters are in different rooms. The male puts on a record playing a classic jazz tune improvised by Rex Stewart. As it starts the characters interact. There are lots of orchestal instruments used within this piece but its how they are played that makes it unique, we hear a high pitched instrument everytime we see the female character is talking, along with her facial expressions this music exaggerates how 'nagging' she may be towards the male character. When the male is on screen we hear a low pitch, 'bunged up' sounded instrument making him seem dull and lazy. "This unique musical-of-sorts matches every single syllable of diaglogue to every single not".

3. The Three Act Structure is also used in this film, 'The Set Up' showing our two quiet characters in different rooms, we are able to analyse their character type and by looking at mise en scene around the house we can tell they are a traditional, old age couple with many antiques and ornaments. 'The Confrontation' is the part in the middle where our couple start to interact, although we can't hear them, it is obvious to the audience that they are arguing due to facial expressions and body language. For what is a difficult time for our couple is seen as humourous to the audience due to the music that may be contrapuntal for the characters mood but yet fits along with their expressions and personality types well. 'The Resolution' is when the two characters have made up and become friendly with one another again going back to how they were at the beginning of the film.

4. The way in which the sound is used throughout tells us about the character types and is used to connote their feelings and mood in a comedy way. I will take this into account and make sure the sound used within my film fits with the characters' moods. One difference is i will make sure the sound used throughout will be more parallel than 'Conversation Piece'.

5. The film represents our characters in stereotypical ways of being an old, bickering couple who still love each other, just spend too much time together. The sound adds to comedy value and tells us a lot about the situation they are put in being a bickering argument which never really needed to occur.

Research Tasks - First Film - Alex Lloyd

First Film: Joy Ride

1. The genre of this short film is thriller, it uses many typical elements and conventions within this genre. Icons such as blood, weapons and the fact that it is all set at night with low key lighting all provide evidence for this with tense music and a gory twist at the end helping also.

2. Joy Ride uses its genre conventions uniquely throughout with its soundtrack and use of subjective camerawork. There is a lot of POV shots throughout the scene in which he finds himself in a car boot making it seem as if we (as a spectator) are there with him, this means we can sympathise with our character and feel his pain. The soundtrack used changes quite a bit using strong, leading instruments such as the Piano and the Drums to change the scene from being quite creepy and tense into one that has a lot of action involved. There is a lot of off screen sound used throughout the scene in which the police are attacked next to the car, this sound is diegetic and the fact that we can not see it puts us in the same position as our protaganist.

3. This film uses its short format in a way of keeping things restricted, not everything is told to us so immediately the audience finds themselves with a mystery and an enigma. The narrative is structured following the three act structure that is used in most films today, there is 'The Set Up', where we are introduced to our protaganist learning what he does for a living and that he is just about to finish work. 'The Confrontation' is where he comes across our two antaganists, this is where the disruption occurs. The middle part always holds the most story with a Resolution at the end showing our protaganist escape. What was also good to see at the end of this film though was a clever twist bringing our character back to the setting he started in at the beginning of the film, this is inspiring and i'm thinking about whether to include a ingenious twist at the end of my short film.

4. There is a lot of sound used in this film being both diegetic and non diegetic. The non diegetic tracks use strong, dominant instruments such as the Piano and the drums to create different moods. The piano is played in a minor tone creating a creepy mood with suspense, it is used similarly to the well known track named 'Tubular Bells' from 'The Exorcist' by Mike Oldfield. The drums are introduced in the scene in which our male protaganist tries to escape the car boot, these help to build tension and pace along with all the action that is occuring on screen. I find that the diegetic off screen sound is of most interest as it puts us in a subjective view alongside our character allowing us to sympathise for him.

5. The themes and issues shown within this short film are crime, kidnapping, murder and police. There are two thugs seen in the film wearing dark clothing connoting a dark and evil mood, we therefore immediately believe these are our antagonists. Our main character wears a light, white vest, being all on his own we can sympathise with him and feel sorry for him not having any support from others. We do not know a lot about him or where he is going to creating an enigma, this restricted narration is good though adding to the suspense. There are no real stereotypes used within this piece, all characters are Scottish due to the setting and are working class.

Lesson's Learnt From Foundation Portfolio - Alex Lloyd

In last years practical work I found that overall it went successfully, although we still had problems that will be looked at for improving this year.

One of our big problems that we had was our organisation skills in making plans on when to meet up for filming. Bea was our main character and it was found difficult in making arrangements where we could all meet up together. If we could do the project again, I would make sure that all of our filming being taken within the house was done in the same evening. One error we found when watching it back was that Bea had changed her hairstyle therefore we had half of our shots with her hair long and then the other half with her hair short. In our practical this year we will prevent this from happening by getting all rushes done early, this will help us to create realism in the way that the weather will be the same throughout the shots as well as costume and hair. With the weather being the same, it will look as if it all happened within one day.

Coursework! - Alex Lloyd

Today on the 4th January, we have been given our first brief on the coursework that will need to be done this year. This advanced portfolio has three parts, all of which relate to eachother.

The main task: Creating a short film lasting 5 minutes.

We have chosen our groups, this year i shall be working alongside the great Jack Storer, Abigail Black and Caroline Robertson. We hope to be working within the genre; social realism.

Brief Encounter - Alex Lloyd

Our first case study of this years A2 media was on Brief Encounter, the previous post refers to a powerpoint presentation that we did on censorship. You will find information on censoship at the time this classic film was made in comparison to how strict it is these days.