research

1. STAGE 2
RESEARCH +
EXPERIMENTS
Leah Ellis

2. I have sent a survey to a group of people within my target audience.
This has come back with results for what that group of people may enjoy in the
context of a villainous short film.
100% of respondents replied that they enjoy a short film that includes a plot twist at
some point.
I then looked at how they would best see a villain
portrayed through a short film. This lead to 60%
saying dark lighting and low angles are highly
suggestive. Along with 40% suggesting masks and
‘other’ which includes back lit face. I agree with this
as with a majority of media I have consumed
throughout my life has confirmed this to be true.
My research has also shown me what colours best
represent a dark, villainous character to my
audience which I completely agree with.

3.  I have been watching a few different short films that have a twist ending to give
me an idea of who is watching by looking through comments and reviews. This
shows me a few ideas of who would be watching and commenting showing me it
is more likely to be around my target audience of 16-24.
 I know through experience of myself and those around me that this audience
loves to have shocks and dark villains that they can relate to.
 https://filmschoolrejects.com/10-fantastic-short-films-that-are-only-a-minute-long-75d42a8e00dd/
 https://sploid.gizmodo.com/i-didnt-expect-the-horrific-end-twist-in-this-short-fil-1684947224

4. My target audience is 16 to 24 year old people. Who are fans of plot twists within
short films that make it more comedic and not as suspenseful.
This will probably be more in the working class, although I cannot limit this exactly
as it will be free to access as it is posted on YouTube, it is suggested to be mostly
working class that will access it.

5.  My film is not going to use any violence or drink/drugs. This is because it is
inappropriate and unrequired.
 I will be containing the hints and suggestions of evil without having anything too
bad shown as it is more of an innocent evil.

6.  Research potential production techniques you might want to use
or feel would be most appropriate – these can be related to
camera, editing, story, sound, etc
 You should look at a minimum of 3 related products in your
research.
 You should collect clips/still images/how to guides/etc that might
help you. When watching scenes from films, etc you could also
ask potential target audience what they think.
 You will need to add extra slides!
 With each technique you should assess whether you can use it or
how you might employ or why you may want to disregard it
completely

7. Short film – Breathe by Toby Meakins and
Simon Allen
I used this short film as inspiration
for the dark scenes in what I am
planning to film. This is because it
gives me a good show of how they
are presenting the very dark nature
of the film in a way that gives me
what I wanted to present. An
example of this is the silhouetted
back of the heads that are
presented along with how the music
is presented.
https://sploid.gizmodo.com/i-didnt-
expect-the-horrific-end-twist-in-
this-short-fil-1684947224

8. This short film presented the
idea of a darkness hidden
within something seemingly
innocent. This is not exactly
something that I wish to do in
my work, and am planning to
do the opposite in fact yet it
gives me an idea and shows
how they hide ideas within
other aspects of the film. This
is then something that I can
take slight inspiration from.
https://filmschoolrejects.com/10-
fantastic-short-films-that-are-
only-a-minute-long-
75d42a8e00dd/
Short film – Late by Chong Yuen
Ping

9. This film is very
experimental and
different to what I am
wishing to create. I was
planning for my work to
be much more
straightforward and
simple instead of out
there and using such
extreme shots of
different landscapes and
activities. Because of
this, I don’t think I can
really take anything from
this film to incorporate
into my own.
Short film – M22 by David Stephens
https://filmschoolrejects.com/10
-fantastic-short-films-that-are-
only-a-minute-long-
75d42a8e00dd/

10. EXPERIMENTS
Camera/Editing/Audio Experiments
Be prepared to add extra slides

11. For filming we used a DSLR video
camera and Adobe Premiere to edit it
on.
We decided to use a mixture of tripod
and hand held for different effects
throughout. We also decided to use
different camera movements to give
each scene our desired effect. For
example, some shots we used
included panning, some used tilt, and
some used a zoom focus.
This helped us to explore more shot
types we may not have had a chance
to before. We realised that some shots
are much more difficult than we first
thought and managed to practice those
more, along with realising some did not
work how we wished they would so we
could not use them.

12. I think I may use some of the shot types in my final as I now have had
some good practice with those, which is often difficult to produce but
with practice can be done a lot better. An example of this is panning, as
it can be very jerky and unstable with little practice.
This is one of the better shots as there was a zoom focus that we
attempted, this proved to be much more difficult than first thought.
Because of this, it took us a long time to finally get it half acceptable for
our project, although I do not think it would have been right for anything
more professional as I am not very good at achieving the professional
look that needs much more practice.

13. I used Adobe Premiere Pro to edit all my video. I used this as I have
more experience with this programme than any others. I find that it has
a lot of different features that are useful and easy to use to make any
project seem much more professional. It makes it very simple in this
programme to add music and video clips, along with edit any of the
clips for cutting, transitions, and colour editing. This makes my work
able to be completed much more effectively I feel.

14. I feel that this was a good programme to use as it was straightforward to
use and made it easy to work with. This means that I will plan to use the
same programme for my final project as well. I will be using the cut tool
definitely as I know that it will be near impossible to film my clips for
exactly the correct length along with no parts that need to be cut out.
There is also a great part of the programme that will be extremely useful
in this project as we are not allowed to use any sound recorded during
filming. This will mean that I can use the tool to separate the image from
the sound for the final edit.

15. For my audio of this project I found royalty free music online to
download that only required me to credit the use of it to the creator
when and if I posted it anywhere, which I haven't.
This was useful as it was a fast project and I didn’t have time to create
my own sounds. Although, if I did have to create my own sounds, as I
will for the final project, I would use a website called BeepBox as it is
free and easy to use and much more my ability than GarageBand
which I have struggled with in the past.

16. For my final project, I think I am required to create my own sounds
much more than just download them so I will be more likely to use the
online website of BeepBox. This is because I have experience and can
use it.
Although I will still keep in mind some of the online sound effects
websites which I could and may use for some sounds which I cannot
make, which is how I got the sounds for this film. This gave me the
ability to use what other people have created and credit them for their
hard work.

17. Some possible constraints to my production would be the technical limitations of the
equipment I am using. This is because I will just be using what is supplied by
college, which will be very limited to only 1 lens type and on 1 camera type.
I will also be constrained to the personnel that I can have access to for filming
purposes, which along with this, will limit my locations. As some possible cast
members would not be able to make it to some locations.
Cost will be a big restraint in this production as I cannot buy many props or hire
locations to use for all this so I will mainly have to work with just exactly what I have
already got in my possession and can only have a chance to borrow or buy small
props that will not be very expensive.
I have had a while to plan and sort so that I know what it is that I wish to film,
although I have not done as much organisation as to when and how exactly I will
end up filming it all.