Friday 24 September 2010
Ancillary Tasks
To accompany our short film we have to do 2 of the following 3 peripheral tasks; we have decided on doing a poster for the film and a film magazine review. We decided this as we believe the other two tasks would be easier as the logistics of a radio trailer would hamper are ability to do it well. We will have to familiarize ourselves with publisher and other programs to perform the poster task effectively. For the poster and magazine review we would need shots from the film, therefore we would have to think about which ones would best fit the poster and review, thus in depth planning is necessary. Also we would have to be creating the poster during filming so we have the shots from the actual film, or we could think about using a shot that is not included in the film, however it could show the character's personality. For example our character could be holding a pack of cards as it is a gambling film.
Tuesday 21 September 2010
Initial Film Idea
After discussion in our group we have come up with an initial short film idea to work on in the coming months. The concept embraces the old-school film noir, gambling film, with our main character involved in a Texas Hold-em poker game in a private. We plan to avoid the gangster stereotype and modernise the film, with his reasons for money being innocent to evoke sympathy.
He is an inexperienced gambler, holding Ace of spades and an eight of clubs, when the hand manifests itself the main character hits a pair of aces on the flop. Then the character states “I wasn’t always this lucky” and we will use an effect to signal a flashback to a time of bad luck in his life, possibly depicting him being beaten. The parallel narrative in flashbacks will combine with the card game when he is shot at the end.
We are then toying with the idea of attempting a stop-time effect using “After-effects” this would show the main character walking around whilst the others are stationary, the character could then look at everyone elses hands and in an abrupt return to reality state, “if only it was that easy”.
As we see the rest of the hand unfold it reaches a dramatic climax with the river (last card) revealing a an eight of spades, creating the infamous “dead man’s hand” aces over eights (two-pair). His opponent most likely is winning until the last card to increase tension.
The character stuffs a briefcase full of money and we see him exit with his winnings, as he moves towards the camera he reveals “you see I make my own luck” revealing two aces in his sleeve. Then an abrupt ending, the main character is shot from behind, cutting straight to black to conclude the short film. We still have to consider the aggressors motives but by the fact of having him reveal he was cheating the audience will believe that is the ending twist and his death will come as a surprise.
To find out how to make a card game riveting opposed to stilted we will research films that successfully use tense, exciting card games such as “Rounders”, “21″, “The Cincinnati Kid”, “Dr.No” and in some cases how not to film a card game with “Casino Royale.”
He is an inexperienced gambler, holding Ace of spades and an eight of clubs, when the hand manifests itself the main character hits a pair of aces on the flop. Then the character states “I wasn’t always this lucky” and we will use an effect to signal a flashback to a time of bad luck in his life, possibly depicting him being beaten. The parallel narrative in flashbacks will combine with the card game when he is shot at the end.
We are then toying with the idea of attempting a stop-time effect using “After-effects” this would show the main character walking around whilst the others are stationary, the character could then look at everyone elses hands and in an abrupt return to reality state, “if only it was that easy”.
As we see the rest of the hand unfold it reaches a dramatic climax with the river (last card) revealing a an eight of spades, creating the infamous “dead man’s hand” aces over eights (two-pair). His opponent most likely is winning until the last card to increase tension.
The character stuffs a briefcase full of money and we see him exit with his winnings, as he moves towards the camera he reveals “you see I make my own luck” revealing two aces in his sleeve. Then an abrupt ending, the main character is shot from behind, cutting straight to black to conclude the short film. We still have to consider the aggressors motives but by the fact of having him reveal he was cheating the audience will believe that is the ending twist and his death will come as a surprise.
To find out how to make a card game riveting opposed to stilted we will research films that successfully use tense, exciting card games such as “Rounders”, “21″, “The Cincinnati Kid”, “Dr.No” and in some cases how not to film a card game with “Casino Royale.”
Wednesday 15 September 2010
Revised idea
Originally, we decided on the idea of basing our media project around a Music video about the world cup and re-creating some of the most famous moments in world cup history, however since then we have concluded that this was not a feasible idea and revised our project completely, instead deciding to focus on creating a short film due to our experiences of creating an admittedly smaller short film project, yet we believe that this experience will allow us to create a much more defined and professional final project rather than attempt an extremely difficult idea when we have no experience of working with a music video. Similarly, we believe that we can encompass a broader range of themes, shot types and detailed analysis of a short film.
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