Who is my target audience and how have I reached them?

My film hasn’t really got a target audience in terms of age as it is suitable for people of all ages.  I would say that it is really for people who like quirky little films with little meaning. As my film is just quite a silly film that is just happy and make people feel happy.  The music used really enhances this feeling.

What were my other influences?

The short film called ‘Sukumvit Road’ made by a Brit school student influenced me quite a lot as it was after watching this I decided to make my film  a stop frame animation which I think worked very well with my narrative.

How have the short films that I have studied/researched influenced my own production?

I don’t think I was majorly influenced by most of the short films I watch as quite a lot of them were quite serious and had further messages within them. I also already had an idea of which I had had some deep thought about prior to out video production lessons.   I think that is why my short film I totally the opposite to most of the short films I watched as I just wanted to be different which is why my film is quirky and just a bit silly. Although I think the reason I had the courage to produce a film that I have is due to watching the crazy work of Michael Gondry of which I found slightly mad but very funny and after seeing he’s work I think I was a little influenced to work in my original idea further to make a interesting quirky film, keeping a quote by Michael Gondry in mind which was ‘Every great idea is on the verge of being stupid.’

How does my Short film conform to the short film codes and conventions?

·My short film conforms to quite a few codes and conventions of short film. Quite obviously the length of my short film conforms as it is going to be just under three minutes long and usually short films are thirty minutes or less. Short films are often shot on a low budget as more often than not is it amateur directors just starting out there career which is the reason for their short films and my short film is very typical as a short because it was shot on a very low budget I think to actually shoot it cost me £3.00 for the arcade location and that was the only real expense. The whole idea of my short film is very typical of a short film as short films can just be silly little ideas that are made in to short films and that is exactly what I have done as the narrative of my film isn’t to be taken too seriously at all as it is just a silly story of a boy who loves his childhood bear.  I have made my short film in to a stop frame animation which is quite unusual for a short film but not completely un heard of in short film, the stop frame animation and the voice over  I think works very well for my particular short as it fits in with the character and he whole weird story. Short films can sometimes be less genre specific and I think that is what mine is as there really isn’t a genre I think it can be put in, its in a random genre of its own like so many other short films. It is very typical in short film for there to be no strict boundaries at all my short film proves this and shows that absolutely anything can be made in to a short. 

The Edit

I have now completed the right stop frame animation look for my short film as it is all now at the correct speed and there aren’t too many frames. I had to cut quite a few images out completely it was quite disappointing as it had taken so long to get every single picture however  it only improved the whole look of my short film so I didn’t mind too much. I have also added some music of which I found on YouTube it seems to go really well with the animation as it gives the right atmosphere I wanted although I need to find out if I can actually use is as I’m not sure if it is copyrighted if it is I will just have to carrying on my search to find the perfect background music as the voice over will be talking over it anyway. The stage I am at, at the moment is really the audio stage as I have recorded my voice over of which I got Justyn Hollett to as he had the best sounding voice of which I thought would match very well with the character in the pictures all ready. I recorded the voice over on a HD camera with the shutters down and then I just took the audio of the tapes when I log and captured it. Adding the voice over to the animation is quite tricky as at some points it seems a little fast and it is vital I add some pauses in somewhere. Ii is confusing to do as I am slicing and changing places of some of the voice over so to make it sound right like it all matches is hard but with a lot of concentration and time it should be perfect.  I have started to think about the titles I want and have looked at various fonts of which I thought would match the quirkiness of my short film. I want title of the film (Chuckles and Me) to appear on the first images and  I want to animate it and make it move slightly just to be a bit different and to catch the audience attention straight away.

Titles

As my short film is nearly complete I have started to think about titles. I want something quite simple-nothing too fancy. I am thinking about just have the name of the film on the first picture of Chuckles and Tim sleeping I then want to maybe try and animate it to make it 'ring' as the alarm clock is heard in the back ground. Here are a few fonts I have looked at for the titles of the short film.

Re-written Monologue

I had to change my story slightly and do 'Plan B' as i was unable to get permission to shoot at The bear Factory in croydon so i shot at the Bowling alley instead this did mean i had to change my script slightly and my story as there is quite a lot from the bowling and the house scene i have cut the park and Mc Donald's  restaurant out as the film would have been to long to watch and i want to keep it quite short and sweet as i think it then had a better effect on the audience. So this is the new Monologue which has been tweaked slightly. 

"Hi I'm Tim, I'm 14 years old and I go to St Johns high school I like it there even though I don't have many friends, in fact my only real friend is my childhood bear and he's called Chuckles. We've been Bessie mates for ages. He really understands me. We do everything together. Some people think I'm weird but that’s okay because Chuckles doesn't. I hate being apart from him. I'm so excited because today is Saturday and we're spending the whole day together, yeah that’s right the whole day! We're doing Chuckle's favorite thing, we're going bowling. Chuckles a really keen bowler, I remember when I first took him he took to it straight away a proper natural, I’m ashamed to say he’s even a tad better then me! I love going Bowling with Chuckles it's a great bonding experience we have our little talks where I can tell him all my worries and he's a fantastic listener. Chuckles does these certain facial expressions that let me know exactly what he's thinking our connection is great. But I wish one day Chuckles would talk to me properly, it would be so cool. Ahh I don't know what I’d do without Chuck oh yeah that’s what I call him sometimes, only me though I'm the only one allowed to call him Chuck if anyone else dare try to call him that…well let's just say you won't like to see Chuckles when he's angry. So anyways we've had our game of bowling after I’ve been beaten but Chuckles for like the 100^th time we always go for a drive-of course not a real car though because I’m not old enough but when I can start driving Chuckles will always be able to ride shot gun. I love chuckles he always cheers me up when I'm down. I could never argue with Chuckles he's too much of a good friend to me, He's been there when no one else was, and not talking to him just wouldn't be right, just unimaginable it would be. I don't know what I’d do without Chuckles, I love him, my only wish is for him to one day talk to me properly like have a proper conversation- oh well I guess maybe one day that day will come soon.”

The Edit

The editing stage of my short film is going really well. At first I thought it was going to take ages to put every single picture on the time line as there was about 1500 and I could only put them on one by one however after I had done this about 100 times I realized I was able to high light the images and move them. I found this so much easier and less time consuming although it did mean it took longer to render after they had been moved. Once I got all the images I needed on the time line I had to find a suitable duration for the each picture I started at 1 second long how ever that was far too fast and it was very hard to watch so I gradually made the duration longer and I found the right speed at 4 seconds long. Once I corrected the speed I had Miss Pemberton watch it through and she gave me some helpful feed back which was to cut out some of the images as it looked to ‘put together’ and kind of looked as if it was filmed on a camera that just had glitches in it which isn’t the look I wanted so I definitely had to cut out some frames. So over the next few editing lesson this is what I did. I found it quite difficult, as there were loads of pictures I had to look through and cut out to make it look right and more like a stop frame animation.  I can see that my short film shouldn't take that long to finish as I am almost done sorting out the images I just need to add the background music and voice over of which will all be done next week.