AICE Media Studies

    Research Blog: Soft (2007)               Soft (2007) is a tense short film drama directed by Simon Ellis. The film is fifteen minutes long and depicts the terrorizing of a father and son by neighborhood teens. Throughout the film, we see the emotions of the characters. The father remains visibly scared of the young teens but the son remains angry. The director uses close-ups to give the audience a better understanding of the emotions of the characters. The conflict of the film is that while they are being terrorized the father doesn’t want to retaliate because of his fear and tries to keep the son from doing anything. Although both were assaulted only one wanted to do anything about it. The camera switches between a regular phone camera and the directors. The phone footage belongs to the teens who record their heinous acts and assaults. The audience is made to sympathize with the son with this footage ultimately siding with him. He r...

    Research Blog: The Last Three Minutes             The Last Three Minutes is a short film directed by Po Chan in 2010. It is a five-minute short film drama just like how my short film will be. In it the main character, a janitor, has his life replayed for him after suffering what seems to be a cardiac arrest. A common element of dramas is making the audience feel involved in a way with the story. The film is shown to the audience from the janitor’s point of view.   A camera angle is used to give the audience a more intimate view of the character.  Another element of drama is evoking heavy emotions to have the audience feel for the character. The film does this with these flashbacks of the character from his worst moments to his earliest memories. The director does this to properly affect the viewer in sympathizing with the dying character. He uses this clear crystal to view his life. Starting from his wife lea...

     Research Blog: Dilemma (2005)             The dilemma is an unusual short drama film directed by Boris Paval Conen. In less than ten minutes the main character, a jogger, is presented with a problem and is stuck with making a solution. The audience must view the decision-making of the protagonist here and hope he makes the right decision. The problem was having to save the kid he was previously racing with. A wholesome moment turning into a dire life-saving situation. The film is an unusual drama because time stops so he can make this decision. The audience watches as he tries to save the boy but no matter what he decides, someone’s life will be taken. The jogger is stuck with choosing between a grandfather and his grandson or the kid. And after learning that time did not in fact stop but slowed it becomes a kind of “race” to decide. The world’s noises slowed, begin to affect the jogger also, coming as a painful nondiegetic sound. The ex...

  Research Blog: Bus 44 (2001)             Bus 44 is a short drama film directed by Dayyan Eng released in 2001. Receiving multiple honors, among those is an honorable mention at the Sundance Film Festival. In ten minutes, the film grabs its audience and penultimately solves an issue that has reared its head around for years. A bus is on its route and picks up a gentleman stranded, eventually, the bus picks up two thieves who rob the passengers and driver. The driver, however, a female, is dragged out of the bus with no one coming to her aid. The audience is made to see how the passengers react. They barely move from their seats and watch as the driver is abused by one of the thieves, screaming. The director grabs the audience with this and keeps them engaged, with heavy emotions evoked. The passenger’s unwillingness to help references the history that has happened before. For example, the murder of Kitty Genovese in New York in 1964. No one helped her...

 The video all around was very informative. It gave great inside into how to create film but just a film an amazing film. They did this by giving tips on how to wow the audience and keep the suspense. They really helped to instruct new or upcoming filmmakers on how to keep the audience's attention. The video was also very credible to begin with, which is very important. The reason I say this is because of the man who was narrating the video. He is very skilled in filmmaking and also is very important because he also judges films. He also goes into depth with technology. In saying that it doesn't matter if you have the latest camera or your phone. The main thing that all filmmakers should be focusing on is the feeling the audience will be taking away. It is all about the audience when it comes to films. He also talks about using your resources to your advantage. He's basically talking about being mindful of the things you do have and work with them. He also talks about the p...

The video was very interesting, to say the least. I was very gloomy in the lighting section as well as the entirety of it. What I did like bout it thought was their drive in creating a film with a futuristic plot in ww3 happening. This was cool because as you can tell from the film it was very old way before new technology like now. Some good information I got from watching it was the way they make the film. What I mean by that is, the detail in creating a narration in order to feel like time is passing by slowly, basically meditation. They also fulfill this goal of meditation in the slide motion pictures being in black and white and not too loud. The overall film is very peaceful. Overall helping their narrative. I envision this helping me for my short film due to all the little things that were incorporated in Le Jetee. The detail in Le Jetee helped push their narrative which is what I plan to do on mine. The main thing is to pay attention to detail. The article touched on the making...

 Watching the extract I had many different feelings towards it. I felt it was a bit boring at first due to no sound/ audio. Also, the action came around a bit longer than expected. The plot started off with some robots looking for something. That happened to be a light bulb, eventually, something that was lurking in the shadow popped out. But during the mystery of what was lurking definitely struck excitement in what was going to happen next. There were many special effects seeing that it was a more futuristic movie with robots. So very cool camera effects or CGI. The full-length film was meatier in all the different things it explained that I was confused about in the short film. The moral of the story gave the full story to what was going on. The plot development was a bit longer than the short film because they had to show the back story. But eventually diving into the film was eventful in the main character trying to make another robot so he wouldn't be the only one. Then the o...

    For the short film, I would like to research three different genres. Horror, Drama, and Thriller are the three most interesting genres when it comes to my group's short film idea. The plot summed up is for the girl to be going through anxiety, always focused on the next task ahead, and eventually die. A thriller could make the main character's anxiety more interesting but it's never wrong to evaluate our options. Her death and the events leading up to it can go well with the thriller genre also. Although, the same could be said in following a drama genre instead. A horror could pair well also with her death, however, but the elements aren't transparent with the rest of the short story. This is going to be easier after researching the genres and their elements. This could come down to one obvious choice but the point is to be sure and thorough before making a decision. Researching these genres will make the outcome of my film that much more interesting. Drama incorpo...

 I am currently researching the genre drama, in this blog, I will be telling you all the different elements of it. The common sounds in drama are non-diegetic. Where there is background music playing as well as the dramatic sound that occurs. That helps the tone of the drama film. As well as the diegetic sound of the characters speaking. In the particular film, I watched the characters were speaking. But it was more so background noise and the focus was more so on the action of the characters. The costume in the drama that I watch as well as many others were very causal showing that the charters are in real life. The lighting in drama is usually low, shady, almost dark lighting. The actors are normally a variety of different people (shades, sizes, and ages). The props in drama are always the normal everyday thing that is used.(for example a phone) the editing in the drama is very dramatic with the scenes going fast from one to another. The editing is like a flashback to past instan...

 After countless hours of thorough genre research and seeing what each genre brought to the table. With there creativity and action skills of luring the person watching. That certainly lured me and and the rest of the world who have watched. My partner and I choose to go with drama as our genre choice. We feel that since we have never researched it before it would be a great challenge. As well as the drama genre being very entertaining and real. Real, in the sece of putting real life situations on a film everyone can see. This add a relative aspect to our film of everyone feeling included. It was important that everyone got something they needed out of it. This genre is perfect cause it's not only fun. But we're able to use the time we are taking away from the audience and give them something informational. So the time they spend to watch our film won't feel like time wasted but a time where they learned something. Are pitch does not need any tweaking it directly falls unde...

 The element of my drama that I have based it on upon watching "Us" would be a horror. I say this because throughout the entire film I was confused about what was happening. Until it got to the very end and everything was clarified. Of the meaning behind everything and how intricate it was to the story. If there was never that element in the movie it just would not be a good one. An element I also enjoyed from the movie would be raised questions on why they were they and what they wanted. Due to the questions being asked there was a sort of realization of why It was happening throughout the film. When the questions were being answered by the party inflicting the terror. Due to the element of raised questions, the whole process went slower. With having to find out why it took place in the first place. High emotions as well from this movie would be a great element. Due to the level of the charters really playing their roles well enough to make the audience jump.  This brings up...

 The element of my drama that I have based it on upon watching 'Split" would be unexpected events. I choose this one because in the movie there was a sequence of not know what personality you would be coming in contact with next. This would help my movie drastically to be a thriller. Not only that but to give the audience a shock factor. If I am successful this doing so it will give off the same emotions that this movie put me and others through. It's very important to me to execute these levels of feels to give the audience a rush. Also feel that their time was not wasted on stupidity. An element of genre that the movie that I particularly liked would be 100% be the suspense. I feel like this is very important in a thriller because it keeps the people on their toes. If you do it right I will be a success and so will your project. Another element from the movie I enjoyed would be the twisted personality of the main charter. Again with this element, keeps the audience wonde...

 The first pitch me and my partner came up with was, A friend being mean to her friend who just got out of rehab and has been plotting on taking her life due to her killing her sister in a car crash. My next pitch was, school getting to be too much for the character and eventually this leads the character to killing one's self. My last pitch was, life begins to be to much for the actor and they start to over think everything. Eventually when the actor is at gym class running the track the actor dies from a heartattack.  Me and my partner were not interested in doing the first two pitches due to them lacking the energy that it needed. The two pitches were entertaining but we felt they could be better.  Me and my partner eventually agreed on doing the last pitch, "life begins to be to much for the actor and they start to over think everything. Eventually when the actor is at gym class running the track the actor dies from a heartattack. "