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Now that we have selected a brief, we decided to look more closely at short films and their conventions. Here are a number of the short films that we looked at and analysed.
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Title at the start
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Close ups
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Quote at the start
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Diagetic sound of clock
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Flashbacks shown in editing by feathering the edges into white
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Straight cuts
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Jump cut used when walking
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Editing has been used to speed up filming to show a significant amount of time passing
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Title is shown at the end
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Credits are shown at the end - white text on a black background - rise rom the bottom to the top
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Left on a cliffhanger
Tick Tock
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Handheld, shaky camera throughout
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Long takes
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Tracking shots
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Distorted diagetic sound
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Non diagetic sound throughout
Alone
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Close up of office supplies
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Diagetic sound in office
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High key lighting at start contasts with low key at end
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Wakes from a dream
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Non-diagetic music
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Voiceover
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Over the shoulder shot of him in a mirror
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Close ups of mundane tasks
2AM Smiling Man
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Credits at the start over establishing shots.
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High Contrast lighting to create shadow and darkness
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Jump cuts
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Close up shots show facial expressions
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Tense score over shots
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Only one piece of dialogue
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Footsteps can be heard to build suspense
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Left on a cliffhanger
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White text credits at the end on black background
One way that this short film influenced our film is through the distorted sound and images. We liked this effect as it distorted the audience and therefore created more tension that something bad is happening in the scene. Additionally, we took the idea of the close ups of the clocks to show a passage of time.
This short film film inspired a lot of the first part of our short film set in the office. We took the ideas of some of the sound effects used and close ups of office supplies to set the scene and allow the audience to see where the characters are. We also werre inspired by the cliff hanger left at the end of the film as we believe it helped to leave the audience wanting more.
This short film inspired the look of our monster character as we thought the idea of the monster constantly 'smiling' despite being dangerous was incredibly creepy and chilling and we wanted to create a similar vibe from our monster. The ending to this film is also left on a cliffhanger which like many other short films, we took inspiration from to create further suspense and leave the audience wanting more.
Short Film Research
We took a lot of ideas from the antagonist in this particular short film. We really appreciated the idea of a very creepy smiling look on the 'monster' character and so we applied this in our own work in our own style. Another aspect of this film which we appreciated was the lack of dialogue and the use of non diegetic and diegetic sound which carried the film.