This document discusses conventions of short films that the documentary "Signed" adheres to, including: - Focusing on 3 main characters to allow viewers to relate to them in the short time span. - Having a low budget by limiting locations and cast to just what was needed to tell the story. - Keeping the length under 35 minutes to qualify as a short film. - Flipping an everyday topic like music to intrigue viewers while still allowing them to relate to the subject.

1. Form Conventions
SIGNED
Jake Bird

2. Characters
* Short films’ tend to stick to 2 or 3 main characters. Being ‘short’, short
films don’t have time to create deep back story or history for the
characters, therefore character numbers are kept low in Short Films to
allow the viewer to relate to the characters in the small amount of time.
* Signed Contains 3 acts which fits in with the form conventions of a
short film. These 3 acts are all introduced and all become familiar with
the audience, in addition to the performance the comments which they
make give the viewer a personal bond with the artists. These personal
aspects are prominent within independent short film.

3. Budget
* Short Films typically have a low budget. This is based on the fact that
most Short Film Directors are independent without the sufficient
backing in terms of funding. They keep their budget down by sticking to
one or two locations and only using one or two actors.
* Signed is an independent documentary which features acts which
contributed to the production for free. This also links to the convention
of characters within short film as you can only afford to use acts willing
to contribute for no fee.

4. Length
* Short Films are typically ‘Short’ and usually have a max length of 35
Minutes. They are typically around 5 – 10 Minutes in Length. If these
‘Short Films’ were any longer they wouldn’t be classed as ‘Short’; and
would be named Feature Length.
* Due to our brief we has to stick to the minimum requirement for a short
film – however this was slightly extended due to the vast amount of
footage and in order to produce a strong narrative with a correct
equilibrium.

5. Story
* Short Films usually take an everyday situation that we can all relate to
and then flip it on its head in some way. This allows the viewer to relate
to the Short Film, but at the same time intriguing the viewer.
* Our production aims to take the topic of music, which is a big part in
some way of a lot of people lives, therefore we hoped to flip the way in
which people think about the music and the industry behind it.

6. Todorov’s Equilibrium Theory
* Equilibrium- Everybody has the opinion that the music
industry is dominated via the big mass market co-operations.
* Disequilibrium- The straights and difficulties of unsigned
bands competing in the market. – focus of the film is
shifted towards those bands due to a culture Identified by
Anderson (long tale).
* New Equilibrium- Understanding that the industry can be
broke independently and not always dominated via the
conglomerates – this is shown by Jersey Budd’s heartfelt
statement at the end of the documentary.

7. Anderson
* Signed tests Andersons theory; can niche products compete
with the mass market.
* Can unsigned bands dominate the industry with the growing
need for new music, is what we aimed the documentary to
question.
* The term long tail which Anderson presents has gained
popularity in recent times as describing the retailing strategy of
selling a large number of unique items with relatively small
quantities sold of each - usually in addition to selling fewer
popular items in large quantities.
* This can be seen proved in the music industry with unsigned
artists developing and with the large number of unsigned artists
increasing their own record and gig sales.

8. Niche Audience
* We have targeted a niche audience as the demographic
selected fell into this category.
* Our primary audience will be B-E.
* It has to be this big to encompass the young audience of
the music but also the sophisticated audience of
documentaries and niche products (e.g. uni graduates),
who also appreciate the independence of the genre you
are mostly focusing on (not mass market pop).
* We used theory surrounding audience such as Maslow's
hierarchy of needs and the mosaic categorization to
confirm this.