Codes and Conventions of Chosen Form

Short Films tend to differ from feature length film to a certain extent, due to the restrictions they're bound to. But the codes and conventions of this form are easy to recognise, after looking at some short films, I wrote down the significant parts that would apply to this form.

The Narrative Theory  was published by Todorov who said that every film goes through five stages. I found that it was much easier to spot the five stages in a short film compared to a feature film. I watched the 2015 animated short film Borrowed Time. The effective use of music set the mood, cinematography, and little dialogue created an impact and takes the audience on a journey.

For audiences to watch a film, the storyline has to interest them and keep them engaged throughout the length of the film. A twist is always a useful plot device when it comes to short films. Because they are only short, it is important for the film to be intriguing so that the audience will remain interested for the period of the time that it is being played. An example of a plot twist, is the 2008 short film The Black Hole. The worker ends up photocopying a black circle, which turns out to be a real black hole. The ideology behind this is money and greed, as well as the black hole itself that what happens at the end should be expected. The twist represents revenge on the character that has done something bad, but it’s also a choice between expecting something like that to happen or not at all. However, the main twist is at the end of the film when the man is pulled inside the black hole and then the piece of paper falls to the floor, meaning that he can no longer get out. But this means that revenge has taken place .

The Black Hole (2008)

It is a known fact that feature length films have the larger audience, in comparison to short films that have the niche audience. Short films are mainly distributed online or at festivals and rely heavily on social media as a way of promotion. Some platforms that short films are featured on are Vimeo, Youtube and many others which help attract the audience. This also has a link to the Long Tail Theory, which suggests that the introduction of the internet has had an influence on audience consumption and this is true as a representation of the niche audience as they are more likely to find short films online due to the use of the internet and the many websites.

The budget of the film tends to be very low. This is mainly because of the fact that it is independent filmmakers who want to create and produce their own film, and not having a large budget like feature films means that they have to rely on their own money and this has an impact on how the film is created. By only being able to have a few locations, as well as characters and props, this is due to the limited amount they can spend. This is why most short films tend to have a simplistic look, which is effective but mainly because of the budget. Even the camera's that are used, they may just be like any other ordinary camera that is used and with a basic tripod to film it all on, the budget would not be able to cover the type of recording equipment that is needed for a feature length film. Also, the budget means that special effects can't be used as they would only raise the cost in the increase of the production.

The characters in a short film, tend to be between 1 - 3 charcters, not only is this due to the budget, but is also because of the fact there isn't enough time to introduce a full set of characters for the audience to know and begin to care about. If it was a feature length film then it would be possible. However, because the average length of a short film is between 10-20 minutes, this means that have one main character allows the audience to care and get to know the character within that short amount of time.

The short film Hirsute, is about a man who is trying to invent time travel and he comes face to face with his future self, seeing the drastic change that has already happened to him and this can be seen from the clothing as his future self wears dark clothing whereas the present man wears white. These two characters are the only ones introduced to the audience through out the ten minutes, and these two characters are played by the same person, it's just the use of simple clothing to show the differences between them.

Hirsute 

Silent Films

While short films are my chosen form, I have taken a closer look at silent films, which the short films originate from. In the early twentieth century, films were only just beginning to be created, but they didn't have the up to date technology that we have today and this can be seen with how the films were created at that time.

The use of black and white wasn't because it was a good effect, it was because of the fact that they didn't know how to create colour for the camera so all silent films were filmed in black and white. But the use of lighting allowed the shadows and background to appear much bolder and capture the characters and their expressions which at times had to be exaggerated for their speech, due to the films being silent. It is also important to note that the speed of silent films were increased at a pace to that more could be shown, or to be added for effect.

A scene from the 1928 film The Circus starred and directed by Charlie Chaplin, has the use of black and white, but also the speed which adds the humour to the comedy genre which was his main focus.

The Circus (1928)

Another code of this form is the use of title cards. At the time sound wasn't available for these types of films as they hadn't reached that type of innovation yet, so in order to explain the dialogue or narrative, the use of title cards took the form of speech. They would pop up to explain what was happening in a particular, to help guide the audience while they watch it and when the characters would speak, it would appear moments late with the words they had just said written on it.

From the 1928 film Our Gang within the first few minutes of the opening scene, there is already the use of title cards to explain what type of person the character is, so the audience get to know her and gain a connection and it stays on the screen for a matter of seconds before moving onto the next scene.

Our Gang (1928)

In silent films, the length of the takes appear to be long as there is a main focus on the same scene for some time, when a character is doing something very simple but may not appear very interesting to the audience who may want to see what else is going on in other scenes as part of the story line. Long takes can reveal quite a lot of information, especially with the title cards also providing dialogue at the same time to keep the plot moving along.

From the 1927 film Metropolis, from some of the scenes that I have watched, I noticed that they did appear to remain in the same environment for a certain amount of time before changing to another scene, this is mainly before of all the dialogue that is happening and shot reverse shots that are used in the editing to show the conversation happening.

Metropolis (1927)

One major code that is involved is music. Because there was no spoken out loud speech, orchestra music was used to convey the range of emotions through out the film. Whether it was fast pace or slow, this had an impact on how the audience reacted to what they was viewing and whether they connected with how the characters was feeling, or understanding the mood of the situation in a particular scene as the music was an indicator of when to react. However, it is important to note that even in modern feature length of even short films, they all use this code as a narrative device, whether it is playing quietly in the background or loudly so everyone can hear, this shows that old codes and conventions even apply to modern day films.