DepicT

www.depict.org

 Is a website that is part of the watersheds project which in turn is part of the 'encounters short film festival'

It hosts lots of short films and allows you to submit your own film to compete against others, in hope that your film will be voted the best.

You can watch all of the submitted films on the sight, along with films from previous years. This is helpful as it gives us an insight into the sorts of films that people have already made, and gives us ideas for our own short films, along with techniques and other things to help improve our production.

Short film analysis

We looked at some short films in class, the one that stood out to me and i decided to write about is called 'shelf life'

Shelf life shows a man undergoing a series of safety procedures before beginning to drill into his wall, a certificate that we see shows he is a health and safety officer and has been rewarded for his accomplishments.

Once the man begins to drill into the wall, we see another shot of an elderly man, his face drops and he falls as we notice his head has been penetrated by the safety mans drill. The credits roll and we see the man continuing to drill a series of holes. The film then ends.

The reason i chose to analyse this film is because of the unseen twist that happens towards the end, where the elderly man is killed. The twist really draws your attention into the film more, as it is very unexpected. What makes this so intriguing is the way the main character is set out to be very safety conscious, this leads us to believe he has taken every precaution and that the foreseeable events will run very smoothly, this is then completely changed as wee see the character accidentally kill a man, and not even know he has done it.

This adds a very comical yet cynical feel to the film and makes it very enjoyable to watch.

This short film is about mundane everyday things, and a lot of emphasis is shown on these simple everyday tasks, this links the short film to the one we were planning on making, as in the one we are planning on making would also emphasis everyday tasks that everyday people would undertake. Although in our short film it is going to give the viewer a view of the life of a standard person, with no twist, the short film we watched is still relevant for the fact of it being about everyday things.

Target audience

Our short film is going to include characters

Research into similar texts

Because our text is going to have transitions through time, with the character jumping forward in age, i decided to look at a film with similar sorts of transition.
The transition i looked at was from a film called 'City of god' which is an independent Brazilian film.
This transition shows a teenage boy which then changes to a young school boy, the camera movement and sound is very significant in this transition. The camera is probably a steady cam, this travels round the character in an anti clockwise direction, probably to signify the backwards movement of time, also while this is happening we can here a clock ticking, again to show movement in time during the transition.

Another transition in this film is where 2 children, our main characters are walking up the road, this is being filmed with a tracking shot, as they are walking a car moves through the shot, as it leaves the children are older. There is a grade for the different periods of time during this film, when this transition takes place the grade changes from very gold and warm, to very dull and inky, also during this transition, once the car has left the shot, music comes in typical of that era, again this makes it more obvious of what has just happened, which is the just forward in time.

Stereotypes

–In our short film we have representations of a typical male character but from different ages of there life. So it will include a typical representation of a: Young boy, Teenage boy, Adult male and an elderly male.
–The common stereotypes of these sorts of people are as follows:
–Young boy – late for school, rushing around, careless
–Teenage boy – Finishing exams, excited, going to socialise
–Adult male – Working, driving, going drinking
–Elderly male – Walking stick, not doing much, content
–These are all traditional representations of each of the age groups showing typical actions and emotions these sorts of groups would show.
–The representation of these groups has stayed the same during the years, i think teenagers now are shown as being more violent nowadays than they used to but apart from that the representations are the same.