3. Reviews
I created a fake review of our short film. I used Total Film to
give the impression of an actual review and not a film festival
such as Cannes, which is out of our movies reach, making it
realistic.
Visual Codes
I used this picture of Alice and her father Gary for the front of
the postcard, as it expresses the fear in Alice’s eyes. It shows
the father, Gary, standing over and making himself seem more
dominant and the one in control. This picture also in black and
white, shows the drained face of Alice and how desperate she
looks.
Title
The title of our short film, Silent Voices is presented with the
first word, ‘Silent’ being in italics. With ‘Voices’ being much
larger and in bold. Which represents our movie, as Alice is
being silenced by her father, showing how her voice falls
silent.
Social Media
I added Social media icons, Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.
These social media websites each have our behind the
scenes photos showing how we shot and edited ‘Silent
Voices’.
Tagline
The tagline that I used was ‘I am in control of everything’. I
chose this as it represents the movie the best as at its core Silent
Voices is about the lack of control Alice has of her life. Whereas
also showing how much control the father, Gary, has over the
family.
Design and Layout
Each postcard that we made in our group we made sure that
they all share similarities. We made sure that we had a
universal house theme. Changing all of our postcards to be
black and white. Whilst also highlighting key words in red to
make them stand out. As well as having small red rectangles in
the top right and bottom left corners of each side of the
postcard.
Reviews
I made sure to include a review at the bottom of the backside of
the postcard. It is an impressive review from Total Film. It makes
the actual film look higher quality and better movie in general.
4. My Film Website – Summary of the film
I included a short summary of the film
at the beginning of my film website. I
wanted to do this as it gives the
viewer a clear understanding of the
film before going through the other
parts of the website. I used Wix to
import a template from their website
creator, then I added the short films
title and then wrote text summarising
the short film.
5. My Film Website
My Gallery
My gallery includes behind the scene photographs. These behind the scene
photos show how we set up many of the shots whilst also showing the different
camera angles we used throughout the making of our short film. The behind the
scene photographs also show the set that we used, including Alice’s bedroom,
where we shot our hot seating for Alice and Emily and how the camera was set
up to shoot Gary’s hot seating. I imported these photos from my computer onto
Wix in order for them to have good quality on the website.
6. My Film Website:
Characters
I included a part of the website which has a detailed paragraph about each
character. Each of the four characters involved have their own photo, their name
and the short paragraph next to it. This involves their background and how they fit
into the family dynamic. Whilst doing this I also included a photograph of each of
the characters. The paragraph used to describe each of the characters also
provides more backstory to the story as it develops the family dynamics even
further. I got a template for this from Wix and then added the text, name and
imported the photograph from my computer.
7. My Film Website:
Our Short Film
I included four videos, each about our short film. There is the Ident, Gary’s hot seating, Alice's
and Emily's hot seating whilst also including the final short film. I have included the hot seating in
the website as it gives much more background for each of the characters. Gary’s hot seating
provides more detail into what he feels about his two daughters. From this it is clear to see how
he likes his one daughter, Emily more than Alice. I also included Alice’s and Emily’s hot seating as
well in the film website as it shows their relationship to each other, and how it is pretty much
non-existent. I used Wix to import these videos from my computer and also from YouTube. Then
I added the titles for each of them and then arraigned it so that the finished main short film
would be the main video.
8. My Film Website:
Cast and Crew
I include a cast list in the film website as it showed who the characters are and
what previous films and other productions they have been in. This also helped as
it showed the viewer the individual roles of each actor and actress. I also added a
part where I talked about what they added to the creation of the short film, how
for Rosie she added a ‘realistic take to her role as Emily’s sister’. I made these fake
profiles and talked about their previous work and their different experiences in
other TV, Movies or Theatre. I made this cast list by adding a template from Wix
and then importing photos from my computer. I then wrote a detailed paragraph
about each of their backgrounds.
9. My Film Website:
Contact Us
I included links at the bottom of the film website which take the
audience to our film’s Instagram and our Twitter. I used the Wix
tool called ‘buttons’ which allowed me to add the links for our
twitter and our Instagram pages. If a viewer of the website clicks
on the photo of the social media site they want to visit then it
would take them directly to our No name production social
media page.
11. How does your product represent social
groups or issues?
• Our whole production team are all
interested in the issues of mental
health and how it impacts everyone
in the family. Therefore, we wanted
to make sure that mental health was
explored in our short film. It is
increasingly more vital to focus on
mental health nowadays as there is
an increasing level of young people
with high levels of depression and
anxiety.
• We used Scoop.it to explore family
dynamics and how being neglected
at a young age can lead to a
character like Alice, who is desperate
for constant attention from her
family.
12. How does your Product
Represent Social Groups
Or Issues
• We based our story and our plot around the issues
teens are being faced with. Such as how they are
struggling with mental health in the forms of
depression and anxiety. We decided to base our story
around how somebodies mental health can impact
those around them. In doing this we focused on
Alice’s dad’s mental health, as he was a War
Photographer in his previous job.
• We can see throughout the short film how he has
been negatively affected and how he snaps at his
family. However, the main person who seems to be
affected would be his daughter Alice who has been
raised in this house where she is constantly neglected
and sits in the shadow while her sister, Emily, receives
all the praise. Our product represents social groups in
the form of mental health for both teens and post
traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in adults and how
hard it is to deal with it.
13. ISSUES: PTSD
• Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is an anxiety disorder caused by very
stressful, frightening or distressing events.
• Someone with PTSD often relives the traumatic event through nightmares and
flashbacks, and may experience feelings of isolation, irritability and guilt.
• They may also have problems sleeping, such as insomnia, and find
concentrating difficult. These symptoms are often severe and persistent enough
to have a significant impact on the person's day-to-day life.
• People with PTSD have intense, disturbing thoughts and feelings related to their
experience that last long after the traumatic event has ended. They may relive
the event through flashbacks or nightmares; they may feel sadness, fear or
anger; and they may feel detached or estranged from other people. People with
PTSD may avoid situations or people that remind them of the traumatic event,
and they may have strong negative reactions to something as ordinary as a loud
noise or an accidental touch.
14. Social groups, representation of the
father
• The father in our family fulfils an ambivalent role: one
the one hand the family look up to him, and expect
him to be the authoritarian figure who embodies
security; on the other hand, the reality is very
different.
• His past as a War Photographer has left him nursing
hidden wounds, his trauma emerges in flashes of bad
temper with the implication of the outbreaks of
violence. As such, he is at once something of a hero
but at present he is a danger to his family. On balance,
his is a negative representation especially given the
expectations of a stereotypical father as being the
protector, the guardian and figurehead of the family.
15. The Mother
• Society has huge expectations of mothers, as being nurturers
and shields for their family. They stand between their child
and any upset. However, in our film the mother is a transitory
and fragile figure. Initially at the centre of the family photo,
as the glue holding everyone together. Her mysterious
disappearance sends shockwaves through the two daughters
lives. Her disappearance makes them question the security of
their family home, and particular points the finger at the
father’s actions. Her implied criticism of the father at the
dinner table seems to challenge him and undermine his
authority leading to a nasty and vicious explosion of bad
temper.
Stereotypically women are often depicted as vulnerable
victims in crime dramas and psychological dramas; the
mother fills this role in our film when she is seen weeping in
her room which alarms and worries her daughter, that causes
another explosion from the father. Although the
representation of the mother is handled sympathetically she
is not represented as a strong woman.
16. Representation and Narrative
• A stereotype is when people have a fixed idea about someone or
something that may not be always necessarily right. Which
enables the audience to recognise quickly the character has to
place in the drama. In many ways stereotypes are shortcuts to
understanding.
• In the same way Vladimir Propp when he studied Russian folk
tales he identified a set of narrative roles what people fill, i.e.
heroes and villains in any story. In our film the father is positioned
as the villain the mother is the victim and potentially the
daughter Alice as the hero whose quest is to solve the mystery of
the photograph and avenger her mothers and sister’s death.
• In a short film the audience must be able to recognise character
types and become engaged within the narrative quickly. In media
this can be linked to Levi-Strauss as the use of binary oppositions
such as Alice being the protagonist and Gary, the father, being the
antagonist in this short film. This is easily identifiable in our short
film as it is clear at the beginning how cold and distant the father
is. Whereas, the audience is able to easily see how innocent Alice
17. Stuart Hall – Reading the text,
Reception Theory
• In our short film our audience is challenged minute by
minute about how to “read the characters”. As
filmmaker we tried to encode messages that the father
is the hero in the family, but we also deliberately gave
parts that showed him as being a stressed and troubled
personality, that lashed out despite himself. Our
preferred reading of the text is that the audience initially
sympathises with both the father and the other family
members; however, we are aware that women in the
audience may take an oppositional reading and interpret
the father/husbands outbursts as unforgivable.
Negotiating a reading of our film is the challenge we set
our audience: it is perhaps not until the final scene that
they are given the evidence they need to conclude that
the father is a lost cause.
