This week we worked on film.

We focused on showing vs telling by being tasked with creating a silent short film.

As a class we began the week by completing several workshops that focused on showing vs telling.

The first task involved re-writing a phone call to show what the conversation consisted on rather than telling what happened.

The original text was:

She answered the phone and gave her name. She said she did not take cold calls and that she regarded them as an invasion of privacy. She added that she was especially not interested in double glazing.

I changed this too:

“Hello, yes” shot back a high pitched squeak. “Lizzie Harrow” she replied when asked to give her name. Lizzie hated cold calls, her rolling eyes confirmed this. Clearly getting angry Lizzie shouted down the line “I do not take calls of this manner, I consider them to be an invasion of my privacy and to be honest, I just don’t have time for this”. Her shaking hand slammed down the phone and the line cut out. Lizzie breathed a sigh of relief before continuing on with her ironing.

This exercise was helpful because it taught me that there are other ways of showing vs telling, than just speech. I think the task allowed me to think about different ways to portray a story and the skills such as dialogue that I can use to do so.

Next we carried out a workshop that again worked on showing vs telling. This task involved re-writing sentences to show rather than tell. I think this task helped me significantly because it taught me that speech is not always necessary to get across a message.

The sentences were:

He felt tired.

I changed this to;

His arm supported his head as he tried to take part in his class – he knew now that the party last night was a bad idea as he fought to keep his eyes open.

She loved him.

I changed this to;

Her eyes were fixated on him as she watched from the sidelines. Her heart ached as she watched him fall to the floor as he was tackled. She watched hopefully; her face gleaming each time her scored. His eyes met hers and the final whistle blew – she knew in this moment that he was everything to her.

They loathed one another.

I changed this to;

If looks could kill both of those girls would be dead, Adam thought as he laughed. He observed the two girls shooting daggers at each other before shrugging his shoulders and getting into his car.

The children were bored.

I changed this to;

“Are we there yet, are we there yet?” the two children screamed consistently from the backseat. Their mum sighed heavily as she checked the sat nav – 200 miles to go!

Grandmother came home drunk.

I changed this to;

The children howled with laughter as they watched their Nanny falling all around the lounge – dancing and singing along to the music that played in the background.

I enjoyed this task because I think it allowed me to expand on my writing and get to grips with getting across a message without merely stating it. I think I wrote the sentences well and I plan on continuing to practice writing in a similar way as a way of expanding both my skills and knowledge.

Next we watched three short films that were all silent – this helped increase my knowledge of showing vs telling. Due to the films being silent we had to look out for facial expressions, colour changes and visual signifiers.

The first film was called the black hole and was set in an office.

From the first second of this film you could immediately tell that the man is bored and clearly unhappy with his job. I think you can tell he is bored through the dull grey based colour scheme as well as through the faint and minotinous sound of the copy machine that is consistent throughout. The main theme throughout this short film is greed – you learn this more as the film progresses. The main character starts off stealing a small chocolate bar after learning the black holes skills but by the end he is stealing money from the safe. The growing sense of greed throughout also adds to the ideas of boredom and the growing theme that the main character wants more in life. The visual signifiers suggest supernatural themes due to the black hole itself. Overall I liked the theme of the film but personally I think the plot is a little slow and that they possibly could have done more in the time frame of the film.

The next film we watched was titled Cargo.

 

The theme throughout this short film surrounds a fathers love for his daughter.

From the offset you see the fathers love for his daughter – the film begins with a loud crash sound this automatically convinces you that something bad has happened. Next, you see the father wake up next to his wife who now looks possessed and is trying to kill both him and his daughter, without a second thought you see the father jump out to save his daughter battling his wife as he does so.

The film explores a variation of emotions and themes throughout;

The first is sadness – the film makes the audience feel sad at a selection of points through both sounds and visuals. The first point being when the father peels the ‘mummy’ sticker off of the car and hands it to his daughter, this action almost acts as a goodbye for both him and his daughter. Another point when the film leads you to feel sad is when you see the father collapse – this part of the short film almost makes you give up on the father but when you see him clutching strands of grass it supplies the idea that he still has his humanity and is holding onto hope. This metaphor acts as a great way to explore the films themes and I think holding the grass as a way of holding onto hope is very clever.

The second is resilience – The short films explores a sense of being resilient and many points inflicting hope onto the audience by doing so. Resilience is touched on throughout the entirety of the film; you see the father pushing on at various points such as when he works out how long he has until he becomes like his wife and also when you see him walking through the fields. The main point in which I believe hope and resilience are explored is when the father even though he has become infected and zombie like, he is still walking to save his daughter. His daughter remains his main priority even as a supernatural being and I think that portrays a beautiful message through the theme of family love.

The third emotion the audience feels is happiness. The audience feels this towards the end of the film when they see that the daughter is safe. It shows you that no matter what hope can get you through the worst of situations like the fathers hope saved his daughter in the film.

Sadder, melancholy sounds are present in most of the film which makes you as the audience feel sad for both the father and the daughter. However the use of sudden upbeat tones at points when you think all hope is lost represent resilience and make you as the audience believe in the father.

Overall, I think this film was amazing – I loved the way its themes were explored and the message it portrays.

The third film we looked at was entailed Memories.

From the start of this film you can tell the theme surrounds sadness – the grey scale filter and the sad music confirm this immediately.

There are many symbols throughout this film – at the start the man crosses the road and it is not until you reach the end of the film to realise this could represent him crossing the line into the end of his life. Further into the film you learn of the mans dementia through him dragging a line of photos behind him. The line of photos represents the idea that his mind is trying to hold onto all his memories but he can’t. When the man reaches his front door most of the photos breakaway and are left outside this confirms the idea that he cannot hold onto everything that he wants to.

Next, you see the man sitting in his house looking through a photo album, each time he turns the page you see the photos fade and disappear which symbolizes the idea that his mind is giving up and he is starting to forget. As the film ends you hear would could be portrayed as the sound of a flatline as he reaches the end of the book – this suggests that his life ended with his memories.

I think this film is beautifully structured and well linked to both the mans generation and the message it wants to portray. Although the black and white picture represents sadness it also links to the mans age in a similar way to the classical music that is played throughout.

The use of colour throughout this film is well used and helps to portray when the man is at his happiest – the present day is displayed in black and white which suggests the man is unhappy with his current life but the memories are all in colour which suggests the man is at his happiest when he can remember his old life and the memories that made it.

The main theme of Dimenta is explored well and I think the film sends a very well produced message throughout. I really enjoyed this film and think it is very well put together.

After watching the three films and gaining a greater understanding of showing vs telling in both writing and film we were tasked with creating a short silent film.

The task consisted of us getting into groups and creating a short film that explored the idea of loneliness.

We started by brainstorming our ideas, as displayed below:


We then discussed each idea and decided to go with the idea number one but after talking to Greg we decided that it would be effective if we linked all three story’s together. We chose this idea because we wanted a challenge and decided that linking three shorter story’s as one would be very effective at getting our message across. We planned that each story would play at the start of the film and then the end of the film would end with the three girls coming together on a bench.

Next, we went on to write the plans and storyboards.

After these were complete we went on to write the script, ready for filming the next day.


Finally, we spent the rest of the week filming each scene and editing.

We did run into a few technical difficulties such as that the music wouldn’t play over the film.

Currently we are unable to upload the film onto the blog but we are working to solve this issue and will hopefully have it up soon in a separate blog post.

The final task of the week involved turning our film script into another medium. I chose to turn the script into a diary entry from one of the girls perspectives. I chose to write from Kerrin’s perspective – this was the girl driving the car when it crashed.

Here was what I wrote:

10th January 2015

Dear Diary, 

It’s all my fault. I can’t believe what I’ve done. I’m too blame. 

It’s her funeral tomorrow, I just don’t think I am going to be able to do it. How can I? How can I face her family, our friends? Knowing what I know, what I did. 

I was driving the car. I should have paid more attention to the road and now I am going to have to live knowing I took away someones daughter, someones niece. 

I can’t, I just can’t do this. 

I think if I were to continue with this piece I would take it as a series of entries that follow the script and end when the three girls become friends. I think I would take it as a series of maybe five or six entries.

I think the way in which I have written effectively portrays the idea that the writer is upset and clearly guilty but I do think it is slightly repetitive; In the future, I would definitely work to think of different ways to explore the writers emotions without her physically saying it – I could possibly change the usual layout of a diary entry and maybe use actions to display her emotions rather than her voice.

This week has taught me a selection of skills such as pre-production in film and how to create a film that sends a message to the audience. I also learnt how to show rather than tell which is a meaningful skill that will help within all my future writing.

References:

YouTube. (2017). The Black Hole | Future Shorts. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5_Msrdg3Hk [Accessed 10 Oct. 2017].

YouTube. (2017). Cargo | Finalist of Tropfest Australia 2013. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gryenlQKTbE [Accessed 10 Oct. 2017].

YouTube. (2017). MEMORIES – Award winning short student film. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85HDu87TGy0 [Accessed 10 Oct. 2017].