This document provides an overview of short films, including their defining characteristics, history, and differences from feature films. Short films are typically under 40 minutes, have low budgets, and are made independently. They are often screened at film festivals and can help filmmakers gain experience and funding for future projects. The document also examines some key aspects of analyzing films, including genre, representation, audience, narrative, institutions, technologies, and evidence.

1. Research and Planning
Short Film

2. Exploring short films
 When defining a short film we look to see whether or not it is
long enough to be considered a short film, and is most
commonly know as “an original motion pictures that has a
running time of 40 minutes or less (including credits)” from the
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
 They are most commonly made my independent filmmakers
with little budget and no profit at all. It is normally screened at
local, national or international film festivals. Short films are
usually funded by film grants, non-profit organisations,
sponsors or personal funds.
 Although they may seem to be less recognisable as feature
films they are one of the best ways for filmmakers to gain
experience and to prove their talent to help gain funding for
future projects.
 Short films became increasingly popular within the 1920s,
with comedy short films produced in large numbers. One of
the most famous subjects being Laurel and Hardy and Charlie
Chaplin all started at short films. In addition to this, animated
cartoons became increasingly popular from short films which
spread the success of silent and very early sound era.

3. A look into short films – Short vs Feature
Short Feature
 Around 10 minutes
 Low budget
 Amateur
 Alternative
 Experimental
 Rarely screened
 Niche Audience
 Small costs
 Grainy
 Around 100 minutes
 Big budget
 Professional
 Mainstream
 Formulaic
 Widely distributed
 Mass audience
 Large costs
 Glossy

4. Understanding film

5. Understanding the film
From our brief it shows that we need to make a short
film, in order to make an effective short film it is
important to be able to understand existing products to
be able to follow codes and conventions. I will be
discussing more about codes and conventions in the
research and planning section of this blog.

6. GRANITE
 GRANITE is a commonly used to analyse a film, this
will then give me an idea of how my group films
should potentially look like.
G: Genre
R: Representation
A: Audience
N: Narrative
I: Institutions
T: Technologies
E: Editing

7. Genre
 Every media text belongs to a genre. In terms of films it could be horror, comedy,
drama, action and a number of others.
 In order for a genre to be determined or for the film to be understood they must
meet a number of codes and conventions that the audience can easily adapt to.
 When the audience engage with a media text they have ready made expectations
about what genre the film will fit in by looking at a number of generic features.
Generic Features
Characterisation:
This feature is established when the audience can relate to the character, for example the audience
often relate to the stereotypes of the character such as personalities of the main character or the
stars or actors that play particular types of roles. For example, if I was to watch a film which had
Jason Statham in it I would have a perceived perception that the film would be an action or thriller
and it would be unlikely to see him in a rom-com.
Settings:
The settings of the film may help the audience establish the genre such as the geographical and
historical aspects of the text.
Narrative:
The narrative can also help the audience identify the genre, such as predictable plot lines and
narrative structure. For example with horrors the most common narrative structure is that a new
family or couple buy a house in an isolated area, which happens to habitat a possessed being or
object and then they have to find a priest to carry an exorcism being the possessed being takes
over a main character.
Mise-en-scene:
Props and costumes can help to establish a genre, for example props and costumes can
sometimes represent symbols and have connotations with certain types of genres.
Expectations:
As mentioned before some characters will have reassumed ideas of how they feel the film should
be and will already have expectations of the film itself. Due to the audience having an
understanding in different genres which means they already have certain expectations.

8. Representation
 Representation in media essentially means the way the
media portrays particular groups, communities, ideas or
topics from a particular view or idea. As an audience we
tend to be quite passive which means despite the media
being false or true we still accept it, sometimes without
challenging it.
 Common representations made by media often surround:
- Age
- Gender
- Ethnicity
- Class
- Regional Identity
- Sexuality
- Ability/Disability

9. Representation
 Understanding about how the film is represented we need to think about a
number of things which help us to understand.
 The first thing to think about is the images used, for example the images that
are used can reflect either positive or negative views on different social
groups by stereotyping different groups. An example of this is particular
when the media text is representing gender they tend to have the woman in
red in order to represent her as a ‘siren’ or ‘tease’ to emphasise the sexual
nature of the text, we e tend to look at these images as signifiers to create
implied meanings.
 The second thing to think about is the sound and music. Sound and music
can be extremely important in representation as it helps the audience to
establish what they have in common with or what they feel ‘fits in’ with that
particular stereotype. For example, when a media text represents youth
especially in areas such as East London the music tends to be fast paced or
grime or rap.
 The third thing to look at is intertextuality, this means that media
representations depend on the audiences knowledge on intertextual links
between different texts using similar sounds, images or languages. To
understand representations we need to determine the intertextual links being
made and how these are being used to represent the world.
 To analyse representation in a film we need to look at several factors. Such
as: who produced it, who/what was represented, why was this particular
representation selected.

10. Audience Demographics
 The audience are the people who consume any media text. Due to the modern times it is very unlikely that people
can go through a day without encountering the media in some way.
 There are two types of audiences, one being mass which essentially means the larger group and more mainstream
audiences. And then there are they niche audiences which is a small amount of people interested in unique things
are not influenced as much as the mass market.
 To classify audiences we tent to look at their age, gender, race and geographical location and class. For example
there are different classes of audience:
A Upper middle class (Top managers, bankers)
B Middle Class (middle management, teachers)
C1 Lower middle class (Junior managers, nurses)
C2 Skilled working class (Tradesperson)
D Working class (semi skilled and unskilled manual workers)
E People at lowest level of income (unemployed, students, pensioners, casual workers)
For example, “all age classification decisions are based on the
BBFC’s published and regularly updated guidelines”
(www.bbcf.co.uk). There are many guidelines which the BBFC follow
for example, they tend to look at issues surrounding discrimination,
drugs, horror, nudity, sexual violence, as well taking in consideration
of the context, tone and impact of a work. When looking at the
audience demographics their age is very important as it can act as a
guideline towards our film to ensure that they are age appropriate.

12. Narrative
 The narrative is essentially the story and how it is
told. For example, the story refers to the events of
the narrative and what actually happens within the
story and plot refers to how the story in presented in
terms of order and narrative logic.
 Narrative Theory:
Propp – character functions – hero, villain, helper
Todorov – equilibrium, disequilibrium, resolution
 Vogler and Campbell – The hero's journey.

13. Institution
 The institution is the company which creates and
distributes media products. When looking at film
there are many ways we can spot what institution it
came from, this is when codes and conventions are
commonly followed. For example, every film will
have a logo which establishes what they are and the
brand symbolising the company.

14. Technologies
 In this modern era technology is always changing and as it changes it also
changes the way we consume media products. Using different types of technology
can really affect how we see things and how we can be manipulated in certain
circumstances.
 One type of technology is sound which can help establish the genre and settings.
Sound is broken down in two categories with one being diegetic (sound within a
shot) non-diegetic (sound played over the shot)
 The second type of technology used is editing, editing is an important part of filming
as the editing brings the whole film together and can change the way the audience
see the film and how they feel towards what is in it.Editing Sound and images are organised into an overall narrative
Continuing editing Create a sense of reality and time moving forward
Jump cut Cut between two similar shots
Credits The information at the beginning and end of the film which gives details of cast and
crew
Cross cutting The editing technique of altering one narrative with another, usually in different
locations or places
Juxtaposition The placement of images on either side of an edit
Cutaways A shot that interrupts a scene and goes back
Eye-line match Shot of what the character has been looking at
Linear narrative A style of storytelling in which events happen chronologically
Visual effects Alter previously filmed elements

15. Evidence
 When analysing a film it is important to ensure that
there is evidence to back up any points that we have
made throughout our analysis. When looking at the
evidence we need to ensure that we look at
denotation and connotations of the media text. For
example, the denotation is what we see on the
screen where as the connotation is the meaning that
is made by the audience.