As it's a short film some larger companies, such as the BBC and its short films pages, would give the film a dedicated page if submitted to them via http://www.bbc.co.uk/filmnetwork/submit/ however! for production companies we would probably have to use small independent companies such as warped films or gain funding from our college or from people funding the film cause they want to see the product.
http://www.ukfilmcouncil.org.uk/funding - The UK film council give a lottery style of funding to film makers with successful applications and this funding can be used for the production, advertisement or alternatively, can be used with an innovation fund which is for cinemas which give new films a chance by using digital show technology rather than the film reels which are expensive.
http://www.coffeefilms.com/filmog.html - Coffee Films, are a British independent film company who make short films and produce them, they may be willing to produce the film after filming
Due to our film requiring a dark scene without any real lights or surface reflections We've been looking up ways to film in a dark room without loosing quality or contrast of colours and detail of costume etc. Some suggestions We've found is to film in quite a bright room using mainly spotlights and then edit the setting and the lighting in post production, however other suggestions have been to use a low wattage bulb and focus it just on the characters, however this may prove difficult as the lamp/torch would have to be moving, remain out of shot and no visible stream of light should be seen.
We are going to try the lighting techniques to see which will work better without loosing quality in the film.
Dual Stage Lights (Red) this has a nice effect but shows less detail then other lighting and thus would not be a good effect for the film.
Dual Stage Lights (Blue) this has a similar effect to the red lighting but it cooler and shows more detail in the camera.
Singular (mini) Stage Light (Clear) this allows for details in a warm colour, however the lighting does not show up as well as it could on the camera, this could be corrected with a change to the camera settings.
Here are some examples of light sources we are going to make use of in our short film. The stage lights are very useful as they are able to change colour, this can create some very interesting and different visual effects. To fully utilize these lights we are filming in a large pitch black room. The torch will be used by the character to look around and also, the titles and opening credits will be shown in a torch's single beam of light theme. This fits with the setting and plot of the film. The lamp will be used as the main prop on the set. The lamp will be able to increase in brightness. This allows us to create a blinding effect when teaming the brightness of the lamp with the light sensativity of the camera and then the editing effects we are able to utilize after filming.
Whilst practising and experimenting with some lighting techniques and effects in the pitch black room we are going to try and incorporate the use of shadow effects as the light pans accross the set. This we found created a sinister and unsettling environment, maybe adding a bit of horror to our film. We found it very effective so are aiming to include it somehow.
Titles shown by a flashlight shining around the screen. After all the title are shown the light shines on the lamp featured on the film and then zooms in slowly. The shot goes bright white and then cuts to first shot. The lamp in center screen could be pulsing slightly during the titles.
Our viral advert would involve games, for example a maze to the light, to show the difficulty the character has in reaching the light in the room, or perhaps something like a dark website page where the mouse is a light that illuminates the room to find links to pages and trailers etc.
This would be an effective way in raising interest in the film. It succeeds in giving the user an idea of what the short film is about as well as creating a fun task for the user. During searching through the maze with the torch/mouse the user could come across little mini tasks or short trailers or little bits of info about the film. This creates an awarding scenario for the user which gives them a reason to keep searching and using the website. We feel this is a clever way of raising interest in the film.
Viral movie content are a good way to advertise your films as the advertising is essentially free after the cost of the production of the ad as you don't have to pay for distribution thanks to websites such as youtube, twitter and facebook. Some films make good use of these websites such as Batman - The dark knight and Sherlock Holmes, Sherlock Holmes using facebook games and Batman using a website called whysoserious.com which was essentially a normal website
with joker influence, all of the news articles in the weblinks were crossed out in the jokers signature red writing and replaced with other words. eg. the screen leading to the trailer has a few notes over it. The Sherlock Holmes game as seen below was a facebook viral game which had a link to their advertising website made for the film, where in order to log in you had to do a bit of detective work to get in the mood for Sherlock. You had to find the name of Irene Adler, the character whom Sherlock loves to be able to access the site.
An Example of a poor viral campaign is the viral campaign used for the film "Wanted"where the campaign itself WOULD have been very successful, however the viral video they used, which had several videos from different users and re-uploads which easily add to over a million views, on not one video did they reference the film, add a link to the film or show any of the characters etc. Making it a failure as an advertising campaign.
(Above: the "Wanted" advertising viral video)
Interactive Viral content, such as games or the Batman website/Sherlock Holmes websites give more information than the viral videos and give links to the actual trailers etc. which although they give more away, they are associated and therefore advertise the movies.
We researched into our genre by watching pieces with similar conceptual styles to ours eg. Tick tock by Len-Chi which has a similar style to ours focusing on one character and focusing very little on dialogue. Also it keeps the main idea of the story quite a secret until most of the way through the film when it then replays the events the right way around and lets you know exactly whats going on with the story, ours is similar as what has happened to the character and why he is where he is does not become clear until after he wakes up in the hospital room.
For our film poster we want a simplistic design which shows one of the subjects or objects which is the centre of the film, for example a poster similar to the one created for Mirrors which shows an image from the film but doesn't give away too much of the story or really show any specific element of the film and is a generic horror film poster. For our film we would focus on an image which is featured in the film, however we would have to follow a basic theme such as a simple black backdrop with contrasting images and simplistic writing styles. The poster for 2012 is also quite similar in style to the Mirrors poster in simplicity and basic design, however it is not based on the horror genre it is an action/thriller/drama film. Our film poster will most likely feature either an image of the main character crossing over the road or an image of the lamp which will be used to symbolize the characters consciousness and life. Our credits on the bottom of the poster will be similar in style to the Mirrors poster and the image below which was taken from google and is from a random poster.
From our audience feedback we've realised that though our film may not be a majorly popular genre (sci-fi & drama) it does appeal to a larger audience. though people seem to misunderstand the genre and story, however they think its unique and every member of our sample would like to see the film, based from the idea they have read and the script.
Another thing from our feedback is that we've learned is that people find it hard to place what genre our film falls into from just the idea, hopefully this will clear up when we've finished the film. Since this however we have changed our treatment slightly to accommodate opinions and slight changes such as extending the plot to make it easier to understand and to follow.
After meetings and decisions we have decided that our target audience will be male and females between 18 and 40 years of age. We feel this is appropriate as the film has a slightly complicated plot which younger audiences may not understand and has effects and settings that older audiences may not fully appreciate.
18 - 40 years is a valid range for our film as it it large enough to attract a large number of people and yet small enough to appeal to members of the designated age range.
Title: Mind over Matter Target Audience: 15 to 25, this film contains a lot of concepts which may be difficult to understand for a younger audience and so our audience has been focused on to an age range of viewers who would be able to understand the concepts within the film as well as enjoy it. Rating: PG - Generally suitable for all, however parental guidance is advised. Genre: Drama Synopsis:
- A man with dark hair, dark jacket, dark jeans and boots wakes up face down on the floor, the film starts with a extreme close up on the man's eye. As he slowly awakes, his eye twitches and is brought to life. There are voices in the room echoing around talking about an accident and discussing the operation. He looks around and we are then shown a wide angle shot to establish the setting. It is a small dark room with one small table lamp in the centre of the room which is desperately failing at illuminating the room. A new voice asks the amount of medication already administered to the patient. The man is shown to hold his head as he stumbles and stands up. As he walks away from the light his headache begins to clear. He stares at the light, which then begins to burn on his eyes, he looks away and shields his eyes as the voices begin talking about an operation. He turns away completely and is able to compose himself after stumbling on a stool. He sits on the stool only to find he tumbles. He quickly stands and frantically looks around. The stool has gone. As he calms down slightly his attention returns to the light. It has become brighter. Whilst shielding his eyes he examines the light from his position, the voices continue to resonate discussing the operation. As he wants to see it closer he begins to walk towards it only to find the headache returns. Even worse this time. He makes it half way towards the light before he is reduced to the state of being on his knees, clutching his head. He crawls on his knees backwards and kicks the stool over which has appeared behind him. As he looks around and notices the stool a scrap piece of paper falls from above him and drifts in front of him. He picks it up from the floor and unravels it. It has a single line of writing on it. It says "Mnid oevr matetr" He stares at this for a second and then looks away, the camera cuts to a close up of him rubbing his eyes. The camera then cuts back as he looks at the paper again. This time it says "Mind over matter" As we are shown the paper, it brightens as the light behind him turns brighter once more. He drops the paper and stands staring straight at the light. He slowly begins walking towards the light. With determination he grimaces as he falls to his knees about halfway to the light. He makes it another quarter of the way until he is reduced to a crawl. He is shaking as he desperately makes his way towards the light. He reaches out to it as he gets close enough. He touches the light and it turns off all the while voices continue around the room getting more frantic talking about flatlining. The shot is all in darkness. He then wakes up with a bright light in his face and a silhouette over his face talking to him asking him if he's okay and if he's awake. He asks whats happened and they tell him that he was in an accident and he suffered some head trauma and they were operating on his head as well as his legs which were both broken. He turns and sees flowers next to his bed, with a card saying "mind over matter".
As it's a short film some larger companies, such as the BBC and its short films pages, would give the film a dedicated page if submitted to them via http://www.bbc.co.uk/filmnetwork/submit/ however! for production companies we would probably have to use small independent companies such as warped films or gain funding from our college or from people funding the film cause they want to see the product.
