Form

Explanation

Professional Comparison

Use, develop or challenge?

5%
Shape of
my film
(Wide
shotscramped
shots)

10%
Wide shots
cramped shots
used to build
tension and
surprise the
audience and
also to build a
sense of
antithesis
spacious green
leafy
environment >
a feeling of
confinement
and isolation
Long takes
create a sense
of real time,
and convey a
sense of time
passing. - used
to create
awkwardness
and build
tension

15-20%
Stripes wide shots of
apartments and man to close
coverage of two men, which
dominates most of the narrative to
capture the sense of being pinned
and penned in imprisonment

35%
I have a frame within a frame
(him imprisoned in his own world
encapsulated in the world, with
the bigger world around him
Two antithetical types of
framing/distant/space
The tightness of the frame of the
LCD screen looking on to the
openness of the Grange.

Long
takes

Effectiveness
successful or
unsuccessful >
bigger picture
25%
Effective immersion in
protagonists world and
psychological wellbeing > his social
difference and
dislocation.
Protagonists isolation
as a voyeur against the
womans isolation in
the wider space.

Develop

Soft opening long take

conveys a sense of real time/a
slice of life a view of life as it
really is there is now urgency
and immediacy of news footage
Used to create a sense of stasis
sensuality, and is used to create
awkwardness and build tension.

In my film, the awkwardness of

the confrontation cannot
continue until the man obtains
the courage to act upon the
womans orders. I use long takes
to draw attention to the tension
felt between both characters, as
the man is now under the control
of the woman, and must obey
her commands now he has been
discovered.
Use

In the bigger picture,

the long takes are
effective in creating
tension which
ultimately leads to a
drastic turn of events,
culminating in a
passionate moment
between both
characters. Without the
long takes, either
character may not
have been able to
derive the definitive
passion felt from the

Camera
angle
(example)

Shooting from
the young
characters eye
level, whilst
they are
standing or
seated

Two Cars One Night we are

taken into the childrens world in a
more absorbing way by everything
being filmed at their eye level and
from their point of view, and even
when the adults appear, we only
see their bodies, still from
childrens eye level; this makes
the audience feel that this is film
is only focused on the lives of the
children.

Low angles to communicate

vulnerability, fragility (+ more)
Develop it from mans eye level,
but it is instead through his
camera (frame within frame)
Develop

Short time
length

Short films are,

by their nature,
short.

The Most Beautiful Man in the

World is short for the reason that
most short filmmakers have only a
low budget to work with.
Therefore, they have a shorter
time than features to develop
characters and situations.

Use
As a student film, I had low to no
budget to work with. Therefore, I
kept within the form of a short 5
minute length.

Three Part
Structure

Marilyn Milgrom
clearly signifies
the order in
which to tell the
story through
three phases;
the Setup,
Development,
and
Resolution

Soft has a clear set-up (the

bullies bullying the son), a clear
development (the bullies
intimidating the father), and a
clear resolution (the son standing
up to the bullies, who eventually
flee). Following this structure
shows a commitment to the
valued guidelines written out by
the valued BFI member.

I break this three part structure

by not having a clear resolution.
My young man exchanges an
intimate moment with the young
woman, before she abruptly
leaves him standing in the
stream.

Plain

Most short film

This Two Cars, One Night poster

Ive challenged this by making

situation.
The low angles help to
communicate
vulnerability and
fragility of the
character, which is a
true exemplification of
the mans emotions.
The angles are
therefore used as a
metaphor to explain
how our protagonist is
feeling towards this
situation.
Using this form was
efficient, because It
tested me to try and
tell my characters
stories within a very
short amount of time,
just as typical short
filmmakers must
execute.
Therefore, this allows
the audience to
interpret the ending
any way they want.
This can be seen as an
effective challenge to
Milgroms guidelines,
as the audience is thus
given more power in
imagining their own
alternate ending.
This is effective,

appearanc
e of font

posters use
plain font for
any credits
besides the
title, so that the
title stands out

is smothered in plain black and

white text as is the film itself
using informal grammar, with
some of the text scrawled/small.

my film title relatively plain, but

my other credits, such as actor
names, more unique. I did this
primarily through adding
different colours and altering the
font size and type, as I thought I
could encode better
representations this way.

because it provides an
alternate route for
finalizing short film
posters; it provides a
breakaway from the
norm; for that reason,
it automatically
becomes more eyecatching, especially
due to the increase in
colour depth.

Conventi
on

Explanation

Professional Comparison

Use, develop or challenge?

Effectiveness
successful or
unsuccessful >
bigger picture

Marilyn Milgrom
observes that,
as short films,
there is not
enough time to
develop each
element
needed (the
world,
character and
problem), which
any dramatic
story requires.

Stripes used only two characters

to convey the story between them
both. The film solely focuses on
one pivotal moment in one
characters life the black British
character relives when his
Caucasian counterpart previously
bullied him, and what the
consequences are.

Challenge
I challenged this particular
convention, as whilst my cast
also consisted of two characters,
whose storylines were solely
focused on, the focus
continuously shifted from
character to character
sporadically.

Therefore, this
challenged all
characters to enhance
the audiences
understanding of the
story. It also
challenged my actors
to feel their way into
their role, and properly
sympathise with and
express with their
character they were
playing.

Naturalisti
c setting
Limited
developm
ent of
elements

Using
different
settings

Using different
settings allows
different
storylines to be
introduced, and
show different
sides to a
situation.

About a Girl used a number of

different locations, such as the
streamline, the street, and the
caf. The protagonist recalls past
events, which help the audience
understand and sympathise with
her situation.

Location
shooting

In the social
realist genre,
real locations
have been
traditionally
used in
preference to
studio sets.

The Most Beautiful Man in the

World, Gasman and Cubs are
all location shoots. Interiors and
exteriors have been carefully
selected for their capacity to
represent specific class, status
and regional identity.

I challenged this convention of

using different settings, due to
the limited availability of
locations. I had little to no budget
to work with, meaning I could not
rent/buy places to use, and I had
a very short time to shoot my
product, meaning I had to keep
the location simple.
Challenge
I have used this convention by
shooting every scene of my short
film in an exterior setting,
situated by a stream in a local
park. This conveys naturalism to
my film, and expresses a sense
of realism added to the product.
It also allows my characters to
express their desires in an open
space; the young man is able to
shoot his film peacefully, whilst
the young woman is able to sit
quietly by herself; ironically, both
characters motives intertwine in
a location they both assumed
was uninhabited.
Use

Untrained/
natural
actors

Whilst feature
films heavily
use trained
actors, as short
filmmakers

Love Me or Leave Me Alone used

untrained actors; this has the
effect of adding to the realism as
untrained actors tend to give the
most natural performances.

Use
I stuck to this convention as I was
making a student film. I chose to
use people relatively close to me
to act, people who hadnt

The real location I

chose for have widespaced dimensions
with little to no
inhabitants, which very
effectively
communicates the
reasons behind both
characters choosing to
use this location as
means of fulfilling their
respective goals. This
powerfully conveys a
sense of neglect by the
rest of the society, as
despite being an
exterior project, this
location seems cut off
from the rest of
society.

Lack of
speech

Child
actors
Diegetic
sound

have no
alternative but
to use
untrained
actors, due to a
low budget, or
not knowing
hierarchal
powers in the
film industry.
Milgrom
advises short
filmmakers that
establishing the
world and the
character can
be
accomplished
through
maximum
speed and
minimal
dialogue.
This convention
fits in with the
social realism
genre, and is an
integral part of
filmmaking. It is
the sounds that
can be heard by
both the actors
as well as the

necessarily acted before, giving a

natural feel to it.

The Most Beautiful Man in the

World rarely uses dialogue; this
has the effect of letting the actors
performance communicate their
emotions, as if they dont rely on
dialogue then they can use action
to drive the narrative forward.

Develop
I developed the convention of
lack of speech, so as to create
the specific mood I wanted. The
mood I was aiming to create was
one of stillness and tension as a
quiet afternoon is being
disrupted. Towards the end, there
was a higher amount of speech
used, as I wanted to let the
characters finally express their
true emotions once they came
face to face.

It allows me, as the

director, to show
character changes, via
relationships and
props, rather than
dialogue. Often in film,
actions speak louder
than words, which is
why it is effective to
minimise dialogue
within short films.

About a Girl
The use of diegetic sound adds to
the realism of the film, as the
characters and audience alike can
decode the dialogue, mood and
feelings expressed by other
characters.

Develop
I developed this by having
diegetic sound edited in rather
than recorded. However, I did
record location sound. These
sounds were such things as the
waterfall. The quality of these
sounds was fairly high, as I used
a separate microphone to record
sound.

My rationale for these

sounds was mainly due
to my thought they
drove the story.
However, some
sounds, like dialogue,
were placed where the
performance wasnt
enough to know what
was happening in the

audience
(whereas nondiegetic sound
is where only
the audience
can hear the
sound)
Natural
lighting

scene. Other sounds,

such as the twig
snapping, had
ambiguous meanings
that the viewer had to
decode.