The document discusses the planning process for a student short film project. The group chose to do a comedy crime film with 1-3 characters. They discussed conventions of short films like realistic locations and stereotypical characters. They also shared ideas for promoting the film, including creating a website with behind-the-scenes photos and social media links. The production company name "Go Film Yourself" was selected, and ideas were generated for representing the protagonist police officer on promotional materials through symbols like badges. Elements like the title, directors, slogan, and website URL would be included on a postcard to promote the film.

1. Planning:
Initial Ideas

2. Genre & Themes
The genre our group was most interested and drawn to was comedy. We have decided to use
comedy as our main focus in the short film. The reasoning for choosing comedy is mainly
because its most appealing to audiences, many people are pleased with a comedy based film. It
made it much easier to choose as well because our group was captivated in doing a comedy film
from the beginning.
Theme that we have chosen is crime mostly because it is a topic that is most striking to our
group. Crime often adds an element of adventure and mystery, this will engage our audience by
keeping them interested in the short film.
We have excluded romance, horror, fantasy, sci-fi and drama from our short film mainly because
it did not appeal to us as a group. We didn’t want to chose a theme that we had no interest in
because that would have contributed to us not enjoying ourselves in the process of making the
short film.
Can we name our film at this point. No

3. Short Film
It has been discussed that from our secondary research we agreed that the most important
conventions of a short film are that is has to consist between 1-3 characters. This is because, it
benefits and gives the audience one less thing to focus on, as it can be very difficult to
understand who is who in a short amount of time. It has also been considered we a group will be
working on a low budget which is very common when creating a short film. Because of this, it is
important to really think about the use of mise en scene, technology and cinematography and
how effective we will have to make it in order to create a successful and meaningful short film.
Not only have we understood that we have to consider the main conventions of a short film, but
we also need it to flow through a snap short narrative, to engage the audience thoroughly within
the film.
With the use of 1-3 characters it most likely be further planned that they are very stereotypical
within themselves, to give the audience the opportunity to understand straight away, what type
of person they are and to then be able to focus on the actual narrative of the short film. Another
example of when we might use these conventions is to use realistic locations so the audience
again can immediately identify where they are, and possibly try and relate their lives into the
film, and think of what it would be like if they were the characters in that particular location
used.

4. Website
After analysing two short film websites individually, we all have been inspired in different ways
and believe we will be able to construct a professional looking website, which will hold all of our
products together. A few ideas that we have are;
to include images from the
behind the scenes of the short
film, to give the audience an
insight as to how certain shots
they might like in particular
have been created and edited.
to ensure that additional links from other
social networking sites are embedded as
well, just give extra to the audience whether
they are interested to use it or not. Using
different social networking sites will engage
the audience and will inform them on certain
things that they may have not figured out
before - how the costumes and actors have
been put together.
Most of us have been inspired by the text ‘BAG MAN’. Their website looks highly professional even though it is a short
film - which are known to be on a small budget. The simple and clean layout yet still full with information is something to
be inspired about as we had all personally been engaged with the site and didn’t want to stop looking through it. This is
also due the careful thoughts in the colour scheme and use of images over text. This might be something we should
consider as most people are on the website to look only a bit more into the behind the scenes of the film and additional
information is a bonus.

5. Institution
Production Company: Go film yourself (GFYS)
This company mainly focuses on producing films that belong to the comedy genre. The company
name is a play on words and may only be understood by a younger audience. censored bars are
vastly used in order to hide sensitive content. This is used on our logo to present irony.
In terms of placement, promotional material typically show the film title as the main attraction.
Although when considering short films, we would want to brand each promotional material with
the logo of the company in order to raise awareness of the establishment. It may not be as eye
catching as the film title however it should be included so the audience knows who the people
are behind the production of the film.
On the website it would most likely be included in the banner presented at the top of the page as
it will establish the company quicker than if used on the bottom. The same situation may occur
for our postcard however these are only initial ideas and must be discussed upon to further
develop into our final piece.

6. Protagonist/Representation.
Through discussions we have created initial ideas on the protagonist of the film. We discussed
possible binary opposing character traits in order to make the protagonist likeable to the
audience compared to the antagonist:
- Selfless/Selfish
- Clumsy/Sophisticated
- Humble/Cocky
- Kindhearted/Heartless
- Introvert/Popular
From Levi Strauss’ binary oppositions theory, humans
tend to favour characteristics from the left. They are
presented as more ethical for the audience, these possible
traits can be used in the hopes to make the protagonist
likeable and the audience can sympathise for him.
According to Aaron Sorkin’s method of character construction and general narrative writing, he states that the characters
should have a goal, an intention that drives them. Although an obstacle should also be presented, adding tension to that
intention and how the character goes to overcome that obstacle shows his true nature to the audience.
Although as a group we have established our protagonist to be dedicated to his job as a police officer. The commitment to
the law is his main quality. The obstacle has yet to be decided and needs developing upon. In terms of presenting the
character in the post card or website, analgous police icons can be used as a symbolic representation. Possible associated
images for a police officer include: police badge, sirens, pistol and even handcuffs.

7. Postcard
For our postcard our ideas for creating it involves..
The conventions we using in our postcard are:
● Title of the short film
● Directors
● Capturing slogan
● Production company logo
● Image of the film or image of a representation of the film
● URL of website
● Colour scheme
● Date