Distribution

The best place to view and show short film is on the Internet and that is how we will show our short. Our film is already on facebook for our fiends to see it and also on youtube and vimeo for the world to see, there haven't been many hits yet but over time i hope the film will become more popular. All the student film festivals i found want some submison money and they didn't have much to show for it so i felt it was a bit of a con. In terms of competitions i couldn't find many there were suitable for student but i did find a promising one from the BBC called the BBC film network, we have sent the short to them hopefully they will take an interest and enjoy the film. Also i entered the short in a competition via youtube link, the competition is called future shorts not sure how it will fair it seemed quite high production this is all i have heard from them in four days -

Submission received

Dear Louis Spanswick O\'Brien

Thank you for submitting Lazy Days to us. If you have chosen to submit a 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.

Submission ID:: 0000005520

All the best, Future Shorts Programming.

and the BBC haven't got back to me either but in good time i hope they will. I couldn't find a big market for student filming in the UK everybody wants more money and professionalism behind it so i really do hope the BBC find an interest. Overall i feel the best way for the film to get recognised is by streaming via facebook and vimeo, its free, easily acsesable and fast this is our best option. Now all we can do is push the video out there a bit more in short film enthusiast blogs and networks and hope for the best.

Audience

Our short film is designed to target a more niche audience, people who are interested in short film and go out of their way to watch it. Not having a mainstream audience means that we don't have to make a film to attract an audience, enthusiasts are our target so we made the short look how we wanted it to. The short has a quirky narrative involving a television stalking a man, this different style of story is what we wanted to make adding a comedic side to it helps engage an audience keeping them entertained and laughing. The music for the short i feel fits well, the start piece is slow blues guitar which sets the mood for the short giving it pace and style completely miss-guiding the audience from what the are to expect. The music that plays when the television is stalking the main character gives great comedic effect, it engages the audience and has perfect timing i feel this is a great pull factor to our short. At the start the pace is slow fitting with the music but when you see the telly for the first time the pace picks up and become really engaging for the audience, but towards the end it slows down and i feel the slow end is the weak point of our short and the audience can start to loose interest.

As a group we showed our short film to a class of year 12 student, students who have not been taught about short film all they know is what they have seen in their own time. After the screening we gave them a questionnaire (group blog) to gain some feed back and the outcome was pretty positive. The feedback showed the audience had i miss understanding off the moral message, we tried to give the impression of technology grip on society today but only two or three got that from the film. They also said the cuts between the stakling looked a bit naff and the end got a bit slow and uninteresting, which is fair enough as i also feel that theese were the film weak points aswell. Overall i think the feedback was pretty positive, they enjoyed the film and a lot said they liked the fact their was an older person playing the main character as it made it look less student like.

The short was posted onto youtube, facebook and vimeo, i did ask people to comment on it but there was only one person to comment was simons mum so there wasnt much interst online. I could have pushed it more but if people wern't intrested i didn't want to force it down them also i was happy with what the year 12 said, if the evaluation had more time i feel people would have stumbled across it and gave feedback.

Influences

I feel that inspiration week really helped for the first idea 'tramps', we were looking at news stories and one was about tramps. I Quickly thought of the idea 'tramps' and we all agreed on it and it began to go into production. In all honesty i feel that the short films i looked at weren't influential at all. We got our visual style and script from a film called 'Withnail and i' and a comedy scetch on the mitchell and webb look called 'sir Digby chicken cesear'. We picked up on the script for these straight away the black comedy really influenced the script for 'tramps' we wanted to capture the darkness of homeless life but a the comedic effect. The mise en scene from both pieces helped develop 'tramps', the double act, grittiness, costume and outrageousness really help to finalizing our idea.
For 'Tramps' the main theme was to finish where it started for example tramps opening shot was also the last shot, they went through a big ordeal but one of them comes out a tiny bit richer. the idea came from a short film we watched in the BFI called -"postal delivery"- Directed by John Beech 1971 - this was my influence for the whole 'coming around' idea which also happens in the end of 'Lazy Days', where at the end he's stalked by a laptop instead of a television. The idea for 'Lazy days' didn't come from inspiration week or the short films we watched, but from an incident that happened to Simon. After tramps fell through Simon quickly came up with idea and we all liked it, we began working on it straight away, making storyboards, synopsis etc. and filmed a few days later.

Lazy Days-Vimeo Settings HD from BDC on Vimeo.

completed short film

I am pleased with the outcome of lazy days its a nice slow paced film which fits well with the narrative as it is a slow paced story. I feel the continuity is great it needed to flow and be clean for the piece especially with the telly stalker scenes. The music fits well with the short the blues helps emphasize the slow pace and laziness and also gives it good comedic effect, however i do feel the cuts in the music is too potent and it sticks out. The fades between the telly appearing work well footage in-between would have dragged out the film, the cuts keep it short and sweet. We had problems with the camera and the boom kept getting in shot, so in one scene the camera jumps awkwardly jumps towards the character and looks odd, also the end scene seem a bit drawn out and uninteresting.

I feel the short fits well within the codes and conventions of short film, firstly the film is just under 4 minuets long therefore classing it as a short. Also most of the films we looked at during the research lessons had a moral message to them, so does ours the television stalking the main character symbolizes technology grip on todays society and how to much can be a bad thing. A lot of short films can have a quirky for example 'the post box' is a short i watched at the bfi were a man gets his hand stuck in a post box and makes a fortune, theme i feel 'lazy days' does with the telly and laptop following the main character seem quite a surreal theme. Twice in the short the main character looks directly at the camera at the audience breaking the fourth wall, this is nearly never done in feature length as it gives the fell that the main character knows we are watching. Lastly 'lazy days' has no dialouge it works through facial expressions and actions we couldnt possibly make a feature lenght out of it the film would be very boring, its the perfect script for a short.

I feel i had a big hand in the filming i was there everyday and i took on a lot of the shooting during those days. as the filming was at my house it was very easy also the actor lives with me as well so filming was a breeze, i add my contribution by directing the actor, inputting how i feel shots should be framed and working out how to make the jump cuts work e.g. bus stop scene. In the day in between the two days of filming i set up the camera in the front room and filmed day time television every 30 minuets for 20 seconds just to make sure we had enough footage for the time lapse scene. I feel we all put in a fair amount of editing during i did alot of log and capture, i laid down the genral story line giving our short structre, i edited it to an 'unfinshed' version, then we did alot of cutting down with all the shots making them shortter, i did alot of playing about with the piece giving it the right pace, colour and tone. Lastly pre-production for lazy days was a bit rushed as our idea tramps fell through we had to quickly make a new idea. I put alot of effort into 'tramps' compared to 'lazy days' but i still put work alot of work in not so much with the idea but the visual style, camera and paperwork you can see my contrabution on my group blog.

codes and conventions

'lazy days' fits into the genre of short film first off it is less than 5 minutes long which defines it as a short film. Also most of the films we looked at during lesson had a moral message to them so does ours the television stalking the main character symbolizes technology grip on todays society. some short films can have a quirky and theme i feel 'lazy days' does with the telly and laptop following the main character seem quite a surreal theme.