Lazy Days

Here is the final product on Youtube or on Vimeo if you would prefer...

ENJOY!!!

What is a story...?

The beginning of Inspiration week we were asked "what is a story?". We then brainstormed as a class different derivatives, origins and the history of the word "story"...

What they contain:

• Classic Story: Beginning - Middle - End
• Plotpoints
• Characters

How and Where?

• Word of Mouth: gossip, folk tales
• Written: parchment, books, Greek Mythology, Walls (hieroglyphics and cave paintings).
• Books,
• Poems,
• Film,
• Television,
• Radio and
• Music.

Kuleshov Effect - changing one shot between two others can change the whole meaning of the film and character.
Here, Alfred Hitchock describes it perfectly, showing that just by changing the middle shot (of what he was smiling at), it changed the character from an old, endearing man to an old pervy man. If we used this in Lazy days - changing the shot of the television to a blank shot, it would have changed the whole point to our film as he would appear as if he was imagining something that we couldn't see.

Tzvetan Topdorov - He believed that in a storyline there was a balance (equillibrium) that was unbalanaced by the (disequillibrium).

The Equillibrium of Lazy Days would be the character's everyday life - stable and 'normal'. The Disequillibrium of Lazy Days would be the TV following the character around everywhere.

Influences

Well, the idea for Tramps came about after the inspiration week and having looked at the Paris, je t'aime film "Tour Eiffel" we based "Tramp Love" on this. This was basically our rough mock up of a storyline, which then turned into "Tramps" - a dry comedy based on two 'tramps' finding money on the floor, splitting it between them. One gets some food and goes to a hostel, whilst the other buys a scratch card and some booze. The scratch-card then wins, making the second tramp rich - he gets a decent meal, a suit and goes back to the same spot they sit one everday. They say hi to eachother and that is where the story ends.

It did not really have a moral except perhaps to take a chance and to enjoy your life as it gives you opportunities. Although, it would have been hard to steer away from the message that "gambling is good", which in all honesty I think for the audience we were trying to approach, they would have found their own meaning to it.

Having scrapped the idea of Tramps, we were back to base one until, Simon and his brother were chatting and saying how weird it would be if the TV followed them. The concept was simplistic yet quirky.

Gritty, feature length film "Withnail and I" was our basis for inspiration for "Lazy Days". With its bleak appearance and mundain feel, we chose to incorporate this throughout our production: sticking to its key theme of being a bum, drunk and lazy just does not bode well for the modern lifestyle. The country-western music we used showed resemblance to that of the music at 7:07min of Part 2 of "Withnail and I".

The idea that consumerism is taking over this generations' lives is made apparent in the film "Killing Time At Home", another of our influences. We wanted to convey that technology is taking over our lives - albeit in a slightly more comical way, but still hopefully getting the point across to audiences.

Lazy days - Distribution

The best place to find short films is on the internet as it such a vast portal for exhibiting your talent these days - being able to upload videos and work you have done onto not only your own website but big productions such as Youtube and Vimeo too, some stars becoming famous for their videos such as Chris Crocker for his pro-Britney Spears Videos and Esmee Denters for her singing videos.

Individually, all three of us posted our video onto our Facebook asking for some feedback from friends. As i did not recieve a lot of great feedback , I reposted it twice more receiving minimal constructive critisism, again. It was then uploaded onto the Internet, on the BDC playlist and we tried to uplaod via. Louis’ account, trying to get as much publicity as possible.
Other than promoting your piece you can also enter film festivals, but the more prestigious they are, you tend to have to pay a fee to enter, so we researched some free competitions, designed for our age (also that were free) and we found "Future shorts", of which submitted our via a Youtube link.
We sent "Lazy Days to" Future shorts and recieved a comfirmation email via. Louis' email saying:

"Dear Louis Spanswick O'Brien

Thank you for submitting Lazy Days to us, If you chosen to submit DVD copy of your film, please send it clearly marked with your submission number to: FUTURE SHORTS, 71 Leonard Street, London, EC2A 4QU We look forward to receiving your film.

Please note that we cannot return preview copies. Sub,mission ID: 0000005520 All the best, Future Shorts Programming."

...We are yet to hear back from them yet, so fingers crossed...

To distribute a short film you have to get your name and short(s) well known. The easiest and most frequently used is uplodaing onto a free online streaming websites such as youtube vimeo and veoh, as previously stated we've already submitted our work onto youtube, vimeo. As a group we submitted Lazy Days into free competitions as previously stated (Future Shorts), we then submitted to the BBC film network. This is because the BBC is a globally well known and prestigious corporation, with a lot of opportunities for rising talent (The BBC Blast Network - for teenagers of all ages).

Audiences

The fact that we are aiming it at a more niche audience, people who are interested in short film specifically 20 – 35 year olds, as opposed to a mainstream audience means that we haven't had create the film for the majority but for short film enthusiasts, looking for something new and quirkier. The soudntrack used, may attract a slightly older audience too, perhaps interested in the old country and rhythmn & blues genre, which is probably quite misguiging as you would hear that sort of music in a western film: breaking the sterotype boundries.

we thought of our piece as being marketted towards 20 - 35 year olds as it targets this technology 'age': obsessed with their laptops, IPhones and blackberries. We wanted to signify how the power of technology can affect your day-to-day life and that it litrelly can haunt you. We used programmes in the TV sequence that would be recogniseable too for e.g. The Countdown theme tune. It is highly recogniseable for the plain fact that it has been around for around 30 years: ever since this age group were children: making people relate to it from their childhood, as if this man has not grown up since this age.

Audience feedback:

A lot of the year 12's that we asked, seemed to enjoy the film as a whole but the two main points they said were that they grew a bit bored by the end and that the comical music started to grate on them. The short was also posted on Youtube, Facebook and Vimeo - not receiving a lot of feedback or interest. My friends who did comment did not really have much constructive feedback for us, although one did say he would have liked to have see a lot more quirky things and places where the fridge ended up but really liked the editing for the bus stop part.

Evaluation and final thoughts of "Lazy Days"...

Overall, I think it is an extremely tight and slick video. The editing in particular was the key to its success, with its slick continuity of the stalker shots and jokey music playing in unison this really enhanced the comical theme. Its slow paced, 'lazy' feel really enhances the post-student lifestyle of the character. The use of the actor himself worked really well aswell, as it did not just look as though we picked one of our friends; we picked a person who looked the part of the post-student, early twenty something. This really made the piece look authentic and not just getting one of our friends in to do the job.

The lighting worked well overall except for a few shots could have been improved a little with a better light source, but having said this we wanted the effect that the household wass dark and mundain, hinting that he is a poor 'bum' (after student life). We could have used better light sources to iluminate the character slightly better, but still have kept the cool and lonely look by using a blue 'lighting gel' to make it seem colder, having said this, at the time of filming it did not seem as dark as it did when we recorded out onto the Macs, which is a shame as it would have looked a lot more professional.

It was hard getting the continuity just right, cutting from the appearing and disappearing shots of the television, especially with the outside one, as the timing and movement of his body turning back to go outside took so long to line up. We managed to get it near about dead on, which worked out to look like a professionally cut sequence. The fades between these shots worked well too as jump cuts did NOT look professional enough so we therefore had to in order for it to look appealing. Having said this, we did not realise at the time but one of the fades were longer than we thought, loosing interest from our audience a little (what we recieved as feedback from the Questionaires). Having shots of him doing day-to-day things in between the funny shots would have dragged out the film, although the soundtrack became repetititve, and started to grate on some the audience members.

One of the main problems in our film A few other comments we gained from the Questionaires from the year 12 students were mainly to do with the ending and how it could have been a lot more engaging, as it dragged out a lot more than needed. Perhaps shortening it, and adding another low opacity shot could have improved on the look, but having said this i think that if we were to do this, it would have become repetitive and amateur looking too.

We used a lot of medium and long shots as we wanted to capture the lonlieness of him sitting watching television all day, doing nothing else. We had problems with the camera and the boom kept getting in shot, so in one scene the camera jumps awkwardly as we had to stretch out the shot to make it cut out, but I think this raw effect, makes it appear grittier and imperfect like his mundain life. They all worked really effectively, capturing the action and that feeling of solitude that the character felt as his life was sucked in by consumerism and boredom. We took influences from the animation “Killing Time at Home”, which showed how the modern day man cna get sucked into the new technology and how it can almost become an adiction.

It tied in with the basic codes and conventions of a short film, due to the simple fact that it is under 50 minutes long and that it is slightly less conventional like a classic mainstream story (beginning middle and an ending. Problem in the middle which gets resolved at the end).The majority of the short films we wtached had a underlying message, whether it be subtle or obvious, this is what sets aside short films to mainstream blockbusters. I believe our production captured quite a few moral messages:
- Technology is taking over our lives, and its grip on society today is getting slightly ridiculous (playing on the comedy theme - rather like the work of )

- Technology is everywhere, we can not get away from it.

- We live in an adictive and compulsive time

- Lazy people are haunted by their idleness.

As you can see, many key points are arisen from our short film, and can be interpretted in many differnet ways...depending on who watches, and how intently they look into it.

I think I could have had more of a role in the editting side to the project, having said this I did contribute as much as I could have given the lessons i was away for due to illness, which is a shame. I did come in and have a little editting session in my own time to tweak the overall film - without changing too much. It almost shows a piece of us as people too as we are all quite laid back etc, so its a little piece of us in the film which is a great way to end the year...it has broadened my mind to a hwole new world of films, whilst also inspiring me to be more open minded and creative with future university products which i love.

Editting "Lazy Days"

My part in the editing process was tweaking the main bulk of the film that was predominately edited by the boys (as I was ill when they got the bulk done). Choosing the track was also something that I chose to fit with our film inspiration "Withnail and I" (taking a key element from it and incorporating in our own), whilst also helping cutting it in, enhancing the comical effect of some sections of the film. I also imagined the comical music to sound similar to the theme of "Curb Your Enthusiasm".

I also thought of having the TV 'sequence' playing the television shot as a thin opaque layer on top of the bottom one; adding an interesting slant to the shot, as it was looking boring previously. This sequence also added to the dreamy, slow paced movement of his lifestyle, which in turn also showed the movement of time passing too.

I also tried to brighten some of the shots by playing around with the contrast and brightness and also the hue and saturation - adding the tiniest blue twinge to a few of the shots - making it seem colder and lonelier as if his life was empty.

Inspiration Week...

In the first lesson, we were put into groups to create ideas for short films gaining inspiration from poetry, photographs, newspaper articls, song lyrics and art. Whilst some sparked some good ideas, some inspiraed crazy ideas. Albeit, this helped us broaden out horizons, and open out minds up to a more creative and crazier storyline.

One of the stories we came up with was based on a Jack Johnson song Banana Pancakes.

This sparked off a quirky storyline that was going to be the journey of a boyfriend getting ingredients to make pancakes for his girlfriend...it would be a comedy so it would have some really random things go wrong along the way. All seeming quite normal until the next day the man wakes up and instead of his girlfriend there is a giant egg. It was a basic concept but from lyrics we branched out and made up a random quirky idea for a short film.

Another idea we had, was of an image of a round table, of which sparked Louis off - reminding him of his own dining table. He then went on to say how every Friday his family all play cards, get drunk and eat pizza etc. Just have a really good time. The short film was imagined it to be similar to Festen in the way that it was shot - using the "Dogma" rules, enhancing its authenticity, yet being completely different side to a family: a whole one. This idea was especially great to me, as there was something so heart-warming about it, after seeing so much corruption in the News and even in TV dramas and short films today, having the close family unil feel like the film "Together" by Lukas Moodysson; not having a care in the world about anyone else, just having fun in the moment!

The next lesson...we had to do a task where we wrote down a sentence each and folded the papoer down, passed it on and wrote another...This formed some quirky and slightly random stroylines. For example, mine was:

- Steve was an investment broker...

- Heidi is a bird watcher...

- They met when they had an accident in the suprmarket car park. She reversed out without looking and hit him.

- "Ouch, you bastard" she said

- The mnale fell over and cracked his skull

- They had IVF and made a baby that turned out to be siamese twins

This general outline opened my idea to a whackier storyline, with lots of extra details and crazy plot points. Although having said this, our group still wanted a basic storyline, not wanting to overcomplicate things yet still 'dressing' it up a bit to add our slant to the storyline.

Exhibition and Distribution of Short Films...

Exhibition

Where mainstream feature length films are generally exhibited in cinemas, with large cinema chain deals and with a huge marketing budgets short films are generally only exhibited at film festivals with the awards from the film festivals being the only real marketing tool a short film will get. It is very rare that short film will ever be exhibited in a cinema. Due to film festivals being the only real exhibition for short films directors are making sure their work will be noticed by film festival organizers by making it as different and as creative as everything else out there, directors will also generally begin by targeting smaller festival with their work and using awards from those festivals as a factor to be recognized by larger festivals.

Distribution

Distribution is the main cuase for bringing in the money for mainstream films. This can include: box office sales, DVD's and merchandise sales. After advertisement, they are more recognised as films, therefore intriguing auidences in to come and watch the films. The desire for recognition over profit, is the main priority for short film directors: becoming recognised is the key to any success as a renowned director.

Most of the greatest directors from the 60's such as Martin Scorsese with his first short film "The Big Shave" and George Lucas with "01:42:08".

Seeing as it is a lot harder to publish your own work now, due to the wide variety of 'online portals' out there, there are a lot of

This alos means that the lack of any kind of profitable distribution in short film does not pose any threat to the mainstream industry.

Where there is some proof of short film collection DVD sales rising majority of short film distribution is through online websites such as YouTube. There are some sites which specialise in distribution of short films such as Depict! A site that showcases only short films less than 90 seconds, the site can be used by any member of the public and the site is recognized by more professional directors and festival organizers. Another site specialized with short film distribution is the BBC Network, based on specifically British short films the site has hundreds of short films opened to any member of the public divided into the categories animation, artist moving image, music, drama comedy and documentary.

Codes And Conventions

Short Film - Code and Conventions

A short film is quite literally defined by its length in time: being anything less than 50 minutes in length. As commonly misconstrued by people, short film is not in fact a genre of film although albeit not mainstream. Productions such as Raindance and Brief Encounters showcase such works in particular, towards a very niche audience. It was

Anything can be considered as a short film as long as the length of time is correct:

• Documentary: this is the production of documenting everyday people’s lives/ reality. Michael Moore was great for this with his documentries "Roger and Me" and "Bowling for Columbines". They often infromed people of different lifestyles that they may not have known previously and also can tend to be contreversial. Documetries never tend to be nutural there is always the reporters underlying opinion being a 'journalistic slant' to it.
  

• Animation: These shorts can be either drawn or computer generated, fine examples of these are Pixar’s shorts such as their first ever animation “Knick Knack” made in 1989. This was very advanced for its time, and was in fact a pre-liminary test in order to see if the animation worked.
• Arty/ Avante Garde/ Experimental: reefers to Avant-garde films that have also made an influence on the way that many of the music videos being produced today are made.

• Live action short: These tended to have a narrative that was acted out (not animated) by actors.

• Soundie: the early verson of music videos. Here is an example of a quartet singing the "Hut Hut song". This primarily promoted singers and bands of the time.
  

• Sponsored: Relating to a particular social/political issue at the time. Scorsese’s 'The Big Shave' is known to reflect the Vietnam war and Ahmed Ahmed Imamovic’s “10 minutes” is a dipiction of the war in Bosnia in 1994. Green Peace in partiualr hire small groups to film "witness videos". These would be used either to pomote their cause via. an internet portal or TV advert, or either used as News footage.
  

Mainstream Film (50+ minutes)

Short Films (-50 minutes)

· Large cast & Crew · More props, costume · Big budget · Publicity: more well-known and better chance of being seen. · Narrative: beginning, middle and ending. The "Classic Narrative" · Famous actors: sold a certain glamorous 'lifestyle', fans of these actor/esses tended to bring in the audience too.

Small cast and Crew Low budget - sometimes not even anything Complete narratives: normally not Niche audiences Grainier/ realistic than mainstream Tended to break boundries. Often had a lot of complexity and plurality regarding aesthetics. For example, they broke 'forth walls' which is very famous in The Great Train Robbery, 1903 And also manipulate time and space using jump cuts and special effects such as "The X-Rays" in 1897 by G.A Smith.