Codes and Conventions of the Short Films

For making the short film it's important to follow the certain codes and conventions because they are used to represent the characters, places, the message which film wants to deliver etc. Basically the short film codes and conventions are similar to feature-length films although there are some differences.

Budget: Unlike the feature-length movies the shorts budget is quite low because considering the small amount of time the plot will not have to take place in many locations so not too much money is going to be spent. As a result, some actors would work for free so most of them work for getting an experience. Considering the small budget, it can result that the directors are not dependent on the large corporations/studios so there's a high probability that the film would follow the formula of film d'auteur.

Length: The average short film lasts around 15-20 minutes however it doesn't really matter, it can be either 5 minutes or 30 minutes but it shouldn't reach the 40 minutes, otherwise it'll be already considered as feature-length film.

Setting and Characters: Due to the low budget and a limited length the plot should take place in maximum 3 locations, but most of the short films are set in 1 place. Technically, the director is not restricted from the amount of places but they should play an important role in a story so the audience could understand the importance of this certain scene. The same thing works with the characters, in short film the average amount of main characters is 1 or 2 people. This happens because in the short film there's not enough time to create a proper back story for the protagonist so in a short film, the viewers do not know too much about the main hero.

Narrative Theories: They are some of the ways to express a story. They also help the audiences understand how the plot works and make them think about the choices or decisions the filmmaking team has made. The narrative theories are the Todorov theory (when the disequelibrium happens and the peace restores), Barthes (symbolic codes), Levi Strauss (binary opposites) and Propp (with different types of characters that play their unique role in a plot)

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Evaluation of My Preliminary Task 2023

During this weekend I have filmed the short extract which will then be developed into a big short film which I'll release in the end. Though in my opinion, for preliminary task the job was done pretty well, I still think that there are some aspects to improve. The first thing to which I payed attention to is the wind noise which interferes the audiences to immerse into the film. It happened because though I was given a mic, I found it useless because my extract didn't have any dialogues so as I thought, there was no point in regulating the sound, I was mistaken. When I start making my main task, I'll definitely use the mic in order to prevent such situations. Another thing which needs an improvement is the moment in extract when the protagonist sees the group of boys walking and then smiles. The thing is that in my script they had to be just one girl with whom male protagonist falls in love. In addition there had to be the close ups so the audiences would know what's so...

Average Short Film Budget

Considering that the short film is obviously shorter than feature-length, the less locations take place, the less amount of actors involved, the production itself takes not so much time, so as a result the budget of these films will be way, way lower. Because my film is the Year 13 advanced portfolio, I am not going to have a budget and no one is going to be paid for production. However, while doing the filmmaking, we use the expensive equipment which is the digital camera, camera stand, microphone, sound recording. We're not paying for it for my film but that's what the team usually does when they make a professional movie. Of course with the rise of Internet everyone is able to create a unique project which doesn't have to cost money. Basically, everyone is able to film a short movie even on his or her phone. But I was talking about the film in which a large team is involved, something which is the work not only of one person (director/screenwriter) but also of everyone...

Narrative Theories

This presentation is about narrative theorists and what their theories are about https://www.slideshare.net/AndriiAzarchenko/narrativepptx-254440449 https://brianair.wordpress.com/film-theory/narrative-theories/#:~:text=Narrative%20theories%20suggest%20that%20stories,that%20move%20the%20story%20along.

Andrii Azarchenko

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