Peter Cotter analyzed the conventions and techniques used in his short film "Trauma" and compared it to the film "Looper". Some key points: - Both films begin with just a score and prominent opening shot to draw the audience in and create tension. - They subvert audience expectations through cliffhangers and plot twists. - While the target audiences differ, both aim to provide intellectual stimulation for more sophisticated viewers through their postmodern styles. - Exaggerated sound design is used in both to convey meaning beyond just the visuals.

1. QUESTION 1:
Peter Cotter

2. FORM CONVENTIONS
 As is typical in a drama, the title sequence gives absolutely nothing away, by that I mean
that It creates enigma which gives my audience intellectual pleasure from trying to work
out what the storyline has in store. and the same went for mine, I followed this
convention, telling my audience nothing. The whole point of my opening was that it
portrayed that my character was weak (see analysis for more detail) it then gives the
stereotype of a fantasy genre, with the use of heaven, but then subverts that to the horror
/ crime of reality. When my film then finally establishes a drama genre. This constant
subversion confuses the audience. Character was also hard to set up because of actors, I
would likes to have had an un shaven man in his 30s who is almost obese. Or a nerd
styled character. Skinny, glasses, gives up easy. But as I have said. This was not possible
(or I will cover in other evaluations).
 Another convention I followed was the rule of thirds, my subjects generally remained
along the grid lines throughout my piece. The shot of bruno leaning against the wall in
the top half of the screen with my female in the bottom half. This here creates a clear and
natural division between the two, making it clear they had issues.
 I broke the 180 degree rule. I went against this rule as I needed a very significant change
in location, and in this case, dimension. So breaking the rule enabled me to create a clear
difference between both locations. Post modern films often tend to subvert typical film
conventions to create something new and exciting. Giving my audience intellectual
pleasure.

3. MORE FORM
 My credits were not very good. Simple.
 My initial plan was to have them integrated into the scene, like the start of Walter Mitty. However, I
found that when I came to film, because I wanted to deliberately avoid all backgrounds, I didn’t have
anywhere to actually put the text. And therefore I had to make changes in editing. Further more I felt
that the credits, although conventional, detracted from the scenes, and therefore I didn’t pay them
much attention (full of regret) with the main shot I attempted to blend it like I would, but my computer
was trying to render the color grading of all my videos as well as blood splatters ect, so it started
crashing when I introduced the tracking points. However, as I write this now, I have a new computer
that is capable of serious video editing, which means for A2 I will be able to pull of all the visual stunts,
meaning I can spend more time filming than In post production.
 I did not follow the conventional order. This is something I should have researched, but I just added
them without thinking. Which detracted from the production.

4.  The establishing shot of the sun. the sun connotes warmth and
happiness. It also contrasted very nicely with the night and darkness of
reality. This connoted the difference between the two realities and
juxtaposed them more.

5. EDITING
The editing was jumpy and out of sync ON PURPOSE. My protagonist
was having a vision almost, and experiencing huge traumatic issues, he's
lost, uncertain and unsure of himself. The jumpy cuts were supposed to
connote all of this, by the fact that they were not smooth, but jumpy and off
putting. It was a stylistic feature that my post modern film was trying to
incorporate. This means there was not a lot of verisimilitude or continuity.
But that was a stylistic approach.

6. DID NARRATIVE STRUCTURE WORK
 Film opens up in a disequilibrium, his daughter has just been murdered.
This is exciting for the mass audience as they have literally been
thrown directly into the action of the story with no warm up, this appeals
to my secondary audience of fox thinkers. The twist of heaven gives my
sophisticated audience the chance to get Maslows problem solving
from the product and everyone gets social interaction with the product,
discussing each others views. Furthermore they get personal identity,
as my primary audience are older and have kids, and therefore picture
themselves losing their kids, and seeing how they would react.

7. DRAMA - CONVENTIONS
 I did follow the convention of titles, I used text that wasn’t stylised at all, and had it
slowly fade up and then fade down again. Dramas typically don’t have extravagant/
outward graphics like a Hollywood block buster, they tend to be more reserved. Now
although this is form, it is still a convention of drama. The lighting for my reality, (this
is when the drama element showed up more) was very dark. And very blue. This is
typical, as dramas are set to a darker tone usually. So therefore it was very ambient.
It did not have a high level of verisimilitude as I was trying to use the lights to
connote things (see analysis) and therefore exaggerated the blue pool lighting and
the orange glow of typical outdoor lights.
 I followed the music style, my score was very cinematic/ orchestral, it wasn’t a pop
song like one would find in a chick flick (for example)
 I created enigma immediately and raised a hard issue within minuets of my film
starting

8.  I did not use any dialogue with my piece, this is not conventional, but owing
to the fact that my character was alone for the majority of the film, it was
not necessary. It also connotes his isolation from everyone. I did
exaggerate Foley sounds, like the birds tweeting and heavy breathing. This
is typically a convention of drama as it usually highlights emotions.
 Character emotion typically drives a drama not action. I did not achieve this
in my opening sequence, but in the rest of the narrative, it is something that
is met. As the rest of the film is mostly character driven dialogue that
creates clear character development. With only some flashbacks to heaven
making him want to kill himself.

9. MISE EN SCENE
 As I will undoubtedly say a hundred times through this evaluation. Location
is not ideal. Originally I had intended to film on a beach. As they connote
serenity and calmness. But due to the fact that the weather was terrible
(blizzard for weeks straight) I was not able to film over the holidays, leaving
me with no option to but to use school locations. This prompted the use of
special effects to digitally create an atmosphere. I wanted him staning in a
field, but due to again bad weather. My actor did not want to be lying down
on a wet muddy field In his uniform, so I had to film on pavement. Which
meant that background mistakes could not always be avoided. Without the
use of 100% CGI, which at that point, I was not capable of achieving. As I
go on to say later too, I discuss the ineffectiveness of actor and clothing,
but that is discussed in question 7.

10. INSTITUTION CONVENTIONS
 Working title films don’t really have many conventions due to the fact that being half independent and half
conglomerate, they have created so much content that one style video contradicts another style they have
done. So any conventions I have given are traditional stereotypes, such as:
 All women need a man to protect them
 The disabled are weak and just a gene pool error
 However, I am backed by universal, so these mainstream ideologies are represented however, because of my
independence, I do challenge the mass stereotypes of e.g masculinity. So therefore the reason universal
support this film is not content, but the cgi elements are what drive the distribution backing.
 The post modern stamp on my film subverts the typical stereotypes and because the majority of mass
audience stereotypes are subverted, it creates a reality in which the audience find it acceptable. This makes
my film more sophisticated and challanging.
(note: these stereotypes were put in to be negotiated by my sophisticated active audience)

11. DID I MEET THEM?
 I met all the stereotypes that I wanted to meet, some however are not
prominent in my opening title sequence.
 I my product was an independent in spirit so I did not meet the typical
conventions, because I subverted so many things. This is however
acceptable, because of the fact that in representing them, I have used it
to personify his inability to act, and made the audience become a
physical representation of society, passing on their judgment onto him,
like everyone else does in the film.

12. THEORETICAL THEORIES
APPLIED TO MY PIECE:

13. POST MODERNISM
 Post modernism is the single most important aspect of my film, it is why
my film is like it is. I wanted it to be completely different to anything the
audience had ever experienced, creating a unique selling point. I
subverted every stereotype to make my audience become like society
in my film and discriminate my character. Everything I did was a stylistic
feature designed to unsettle my audience. I made sure editing was
jump to confuse them, (as I have already discussed) I broke the
convention of the 180 degree rule to completely put of my audience and
to personify the surprise they have just felt. The narrative jumped
around and was fragmented, so that my target audience of the
sophisticated would get Maslow's intellectual understanding from my
product. I exaggerated the lighting to connote different aspects (see
analysis) even though this was not conventional.

14. My production has been an issue all along, it doesn’t fit into many
conventions of drama or form. Its jumpy and confusing. But this is
intentional. My company is an independent, in spirit. And I was trying to
create something that was so utterly different from anything else in order
to attract my older audience, who will have seen a fair share of films and
tv shows. So the idea behind it was to do something very creative and just
give free reign on a film. In this sensem, it may have been better to go
with WARP X not working title, as I still have to conform to universal and
go for box office success. I think having made my product, it doesn’t
match working titles MO and therefore it is definitely something that needs
changing.

15. AUTEUR THEORY
 I feel that I really left my characteristics upon this video, auteur theory
states that it is the mark a director leaves upon a film. I studied Hitchcock
and his use of camera angles and for my film trauma, there is one shot that
stands out from the rest. When my protagonist wakes up from heaven, you
can see a typical lying down shot, however my take on this is I rotated my
camera, so that he seems to be upright in the frame. This here just
confuses the audience a little bit so that they too, can experience what my
character felt. I feel like this shot really showed my take on the traditional
framing an form of usual cinematic style.
 I made everything gritty in my film, this was to highlight that life, no matter
what, isnt perfect. This is my take on life, and using this stamp, I have
given off my opinion. This just supports the film and personifies the
meanings I am trying to portray.

16. COMPARING MY
PRODUCTION TO
LOOPER:

17. LOOPER AND TRAUMA
Form:
Firstly my video begins just like looper, with just a score. And one prominent
shot, in loopers case it was the watch, and mine it was the sun. the
importance of this is that the sun in my piece connotes heaven, being out of
this world. loopers watch connotes time, as ive discussed in my textual
analysis. It then goes on to show the protagonist doing something odd, with
no narration or explanation. In my case it was my protagonist waking up, in
loopers it was him standing in an empty field with a gun. Finally, a weird
impossible shot appears confusing the audience and instantly creating
tension and drama. Making the audience want to watch more. I followed this
style to start off with as I found that it really pulled the audience in, and then
decided that I wanted to confuse my audience even more by throwing in the
twist of my protagonist waking up.

18. This here shows the similarities, I took a structure that had worked and morphed my story around it. This was
useful to me as the structure meant that u wasn’t overwhelmed by ideas and meant that I could guarantee that my
audience would be transfixed.
Other similarities:
Narrative structure: slow paced, with a sudden cliff hanger/ point of interest that subverts the style given off by the
film. This shows that both films are post modern by using the audiences expectations and subverting them to
create a climax.
Loopers audience differed from mine a lot because of the fact that they are the mass audience who have come to
watch the film for the CGI and the violent blockbuster styled narrative. However I think the secondary audience is
my primary audience. The sophisticated audience, who have come to the film to get some counter cultural
attraction. The clever ones who look at the product and question the morels of the crime syndicate and what the
character has done. So I think that actually, both films give off intellectual pleasures, even thought they have an
entirely different narrative and genre.
In terms of sound there was very little narrative, but like mine, Foley sounds have been exaggerated to give off
meaning. For example when the death happens, all wildlife stops. This here shows that we have clearly used
more than visuals to portray connotations. Like my heavy breathing.