http://www.virginmediashorts.co.uk/

This is a link to the website for virgins short films competition, showing the winners from the past 3 years.

"Virgin Media Shorts is all about shining a light on Britain's best film makers and giving them the biggest possible arena to showcase their work.

Whether they're a Shane Meadows in the making, or a Ridley Scott rising, we think every raw talent needs a break.

We're passionate about discovering hidden talent. And as the only people to offer TV, Broadband, Phone and Mobile, we're best placed to offer film makers the biggest arena to showcase their work - online, on TV, through mobile internet.

What's more, the top 12 films will be shown on 214 cinema screens across the UK. And one lucky winner could walk off with up to £30,000 and the chance to work direct with the UK Film Council and Virgin Media to shoot their next film."

This is what Virgin offer to up and coming film makers.

media audiences presentaion

Media Audience Research

View more presentations from Jake Wilkinson.

Early planning ideas Prezi

Short Film ideas on Prezi

This is an example of a film review for still life that i created and made into a magazine review

Short Film: Target Audience Profile
For all films it is important that you know who your target audience is. This provides you with a basic blueprint for what you should include in your film and what the main bulk of your audience will respond well to and more importantly what they won't respond well to. Therefore it is a very good idea to build up an audience profile for your target audience and that it what we are going to do in this post.

For our short film we are creating a horror film genre and therefore we will be making an audience profile for the horror genre. The majority of modern horror film fans are aged between 15 and 25 and thus we have decided to do our audience profile about that age group.

Facts:

* Working Life: Most will be in full time education or in a part time job with the emphasis been on their social life
* Social Life: Are the most likely to go out on a night with their peers, much of their income will be spend on nights out
* Home Life: Most will either still be living with parents, in student accommodation or in a rented homes - very few own their own property
* Finance: Most will not be in full time employment so finances come either from part time jobs, family or student loans


Media Use:

* This generation tend to get most of their information from more modern forms of media i.e. TV, Internet
* When it comes to TV use most of this generation will tend to be drawn towards watching music channels, Sit-coms and sports (males)
* Internet use shows that this age group is the most likely to use social network sites such as Facebook, Myspace and Twitter etc
* This is also the age group that consumes the largest variety of music genre and therefore consumes the most music

Cinema habits:

* This age group are the most likely to go to the cinema with a group of friends, The average group size is 4
* While at the cinema 96% of this audience will watch the adverts at the beginning of the film
* They are most likely to go see a film within the first 2 weeks of its release with 72% of 15-25 year old's visits to the cinema to see a film that has been on release less then 2 months
* 23% of the age group are heavy cinema goers, this is classed as going to the cinema at least once a month

This information is taking from a Pearl and Dean Survey


Cinema Tastes:
To find out the cinema tastes of local 15 to 25 year olds we are going to produce our own questionnaire to find out information about their cinema taste's. Here is the questions that our questionnaire will include:

1. How many times have you been to the cinema in the past month?
2. Would you say that is the usual amount of times you would visit a cinema? (If not please specify what would normally be average)
3. Do you often use the Orange Wednesdays offer
4. What genre films do you prefer to watch?
5. Is their any genre of film that you would avoid?
6. Who do you normally visit the cinema with?
7. Do you prefer to visit the cinema or a DVD?
8. Could you give us a reason for your previous answer?
9. Do you ever watch short films?
10. If so, where do you watch them? e.g. online, Virgin TV etc
11. Approximately how many DVD's do you own?
12. Do you ever look at DVD extra's?
13. Do you ever rent DVD's or films over the internet?
14. Do you watch on-demand films? e.g. Sky Movies, Virgin On Demand
15. Do you ever watch films online?
16. How do you find out about the film world?
17. Do you hold a subscription to anything to do with films?
18. When choosing which film to watch do you pay attention to reviews?
19. Do you watch films because they receive awards? e.g. Oscars,BAFTA's
20. Do you watch films based on their star power?
21. Do you watch films because they are made by a particular director?
22. Do you ever watch films based on which studio releases them?

Short Film Plans: Genre
For our short film we have decided that the genre that our film will mainly be a horror genre. There are several different reasons for our choosing horror as a genre.

Firstly it is quite hard to generalize horror as a genre as it is split into several sub-genres leading to most horror films fitting into one of these sub-genre's. Examples of these different horror sub-genres are:


The Slasher Movie
The slasher movies were originally a product of the 1970's. They normally follow a run of murders by one psychopathic killer, usually against 1 town or group of people. The slasher genre has recently gone through a mini revival after the success of the Scream film series (which often parodies the sub-genre)












The Zombie Movie
The last year has seen an increase in the amount of movies that use Zombies as the films antagonists. Films using Zombies were also popular in the last 70s/ early 80s. The genre has seen several remakes of these original zombie movies in recent years including films like Dawn of the Dead











Teen Centered Horror's
Many horror films revolve around a group of teenagers that are often hunted by an unknown foe. In recent years many of the horrors revolve around a group of lead characters that are still in their teens. A reason for this may be that the main audience for horrors now is between the ages of 15 and 25.













Torture Porn
In recent years a new sub-genre has emerged that has become known as torture porn. These films often focus on torture and the subjects of the films suffering from painful and gruesome deaths. This genre of film is often referred to as the newest sub-genre in horror.












3D Films
Like most genres in the past year, horror is starting to move into using 3D technology for their films. In fact one of the first success's of the new incarnation of 3D was a horror film, My Bloody Valentine 3D. Many people suggest that this is where the future of the horror movie lies.















Horror: A Franchise Genre?
In horror it is very rare now that you will see a horror film that is a stand alone movie that does not belong to a Franchise. This seems to have been the case for at least 40 years going all the way back the 70's with early horror franchise's like the Friday the 13th

Rules for Making Short Films

While researching what different people believe to be the ways to make a good short films i have found what i believe to be the best rules for making short films:

1) You must use an original idea - Short film audiences do not tent to enjoy watching films that are along the same idea lines

2) Have a good script - The script in a short film has to be stronger then it does for a feature film because it has less time to engage and inform the audience

3) You NEED to engage your audience within the 1st minute - Many audiences lose interest in short films if the opening is too slow

4) Keep it short! - it seems a given rule considering it is for Short film but the shorter a short is, generally speaking it will be more successful

5) You must keep every shot interesting - for example during a short film your film making skills will normally be assessed more then it would be for making a feature film

6) You need a quality crew - because you have less people working on a short film those people you are using must be the best you can get if you want the best film - this also applies to the actors that you hire

Introduction to coursework

For our A2 coursework we were set the task of creating and filming a short film. The film must be close to 5 minutes run time and be appropriate to a target audience of our choice as well as fitting into a genre.

The film must also cover several key areas. These are the narrative devices that our film must include:

• The film must have a theme of time
• There must be a secondary theme of reference to technology
• There must be at least one narrative concept used
• There must be a specialized genre of sub-genre for the film

In addition to our film we must also use our practical skills to produce a film poster and then either a radio trailer for the film or a review of the film in the style of a film magazine

Rules for Making Short Films

While researching what different people believe to be the ways to make a good short films i have found what i believe to be the best rules for making short films:

1) You must use an original idea - Short film audiences do not tent to enjoy watching films that are along the same idea lines

2) Have a good script - The script in a short film has to be stronger then it does for a feature film because it has less time to engage and inform the audience

3) You NEED to engage your audience within the 1st minute - Many audiences lose interest in short films if the opening is too slow

4) Keep it short! - it seems a given rule considering it is for Short film but the shorter a short is, generally speaking it will be more successful

5) You must keep every shot interesting - for example during a short film your film making skills will normally be assessed more then it would be for making a feature film

6) You need a quality crew - because you have less people working on a short film those people you are using must be the best you can get if you want the best film - this also applies to the actors that you hire

The 3 point lighting system - There a 3 lights all directed at the subject, the key light the strongest of the lights, the fill light to remove any shadows and the back light placed behind the subject.

Backlight - The backlight is used to create a silhouette aro

und the subject.

Ambient - Gentle part of set, calm, warm, gently lit subjects.

Hard Light - Light directly on the subject, strong bold images, creates shadows

Filters - are used either during filming or in the editing process, the colour used usually reflects the mood in the scene.

Health and Safety

• Using the Redheads:

• Extremely fragile - When transporting use the bag and padding. Do not knock them, 2 people should carry them

• Hot! Take extreme care when handling the lights - they get very hot

• Do not cover with anything

• Do not look directly into the lights

• Switch off when not in use

• The bulbs are very expensive and break very easily. Extreme care should be taken

• Tape down the cables

IM HERE - SPIKE JONZE'S - REVIEW

Im Here is a quirky look at human romance through the eyes of a robot in an alternative reality where humans and robots live side by side, using similar techniques usually found in a full feature film, it is fit into a half hour short. It begins by showing the routine of one of the robots, Sheldon, a lonely librarian who wants more from life but lacks the confidence to do anything about it, that is until he meets Francesca, a fun loving female robot who helps to bring Sheldon out of his mettalic shell. The film shows the change in Sheldon's personallity and life from his old empty self to the more confident, exiting person Francesca helps to bring out as they begin to fall in love. As the characters are robots, there emotions to each other should be hard to show, but through different events in the film Jonez manages to show Sheldons love for Francesca. Very much worth a watch but in my opinion feels a little rushed, as you dont get to learn a great deal about the characters.

Short Film Prezzi

Short Film's on Prezi