Audience Research, Deconstructions, and

general conventions review

 Deconstructions, Deconstructed!
The first deconstruction I did this year on my blog was of a music Video. This is not to
say, however, that I didn't learn anything in the process. The reason that I did this
was to help me make up my mind about whether to do a short film or a music video.

The music video was for a Black Stone Cherry song called Lonely Train. I learnt a
great deal from the camera angles – the use of mid shots made the video feel more
raw and edgy. This was added too by the fact that the entire video is in black and
white.
My second deconstruction examined a short film made by Pixar, called Geri’s Game.
It is about a old man in a park who is playing chess against himself. Obviously I do not
aspire to make an animated film, as I do not have the know-how or the resources. The
reason I chose to deconstruct this film, is that I think the atmosphere and mood that it
invokes is very good.

It is light, humorous, and good natured. Also, even though it is entirely animated, the
camera shots are subtle, with close ups used to disguise the fact the man is playing himself.

I believe I could adapt some of these techniques and develop them to benefit my production.
Now I had decided that I definitely wanted to do a short film, I did two more
deconstructions. One was of a short called ‘Offside’, which used the World Cup final to
highlight the futility of the Israel and Palestine conflict.

The main thing I took away from this film was that using a short as a vehicle for a view
or a statement, and make it very powerful.

The final deconstruction that I did was of the short film ‘The Black Button’. It’s plot is that
a man is required to make a decision, he can press a button and get 10million pounds,
but one person, somewhere in the world, will die. This effectively used visual effects, to
make one of the characters blend into the background. It also presents the viewer with
a moral choice.
 General Conventions
After doing these deconstructions, I did a bit of background research into the short
film industry. It differs massively from commercial film, as these films are typically
made for very different reasons.

•The typical short film maker likes to express a specific point of view, value, or
morale. This could be purely for practical reason; It is hard to fit a complete
narrative, for the purposes of entertaining audiences, in under 10 minutes.

•Short films are quite often experimental, with perhaps a lot more emphasis on
concept, than content.

•Short films can be plausibly used for advertisement, because of their more
appropriate length.

I have looked into some famous short film production companies, such as Pixar, to
gain an insight into the industry.
 Audience Research

I have conducted some basic audience research, which for the most part, took the form of a
questionnaire. The following points are the key areas of feedback from my survey.

•My audience is a fairly even mix of Male and Female, with only slightly more Men than
Woman. The average age of my audience is between 17-18.

•When asked what concept they thought a short film should be based around, there was an
even result between Fiction, Dealing with Issues, and Experimental.

•They felt the ideal length of a short film was between 7 and 10 minutes.

•They felt a public involvement with the production, for example, face book pages with votes
and polls.
 Ideas

I am currently torn between two main ideas;

The first is a hybrid of the dealing with issues concept, and experimental
technique.

The second is also slightly experimental, and fictional at the same time. It would
possibly involve a passage of text from a myth/ledgend, such as Beowulf, or the
Illiad, accompanied by pictures/film that represent the themes of the literature.

I am aware that I need to do a lot more work as far as exploring and expanding
my ideas is concerned.