Short Films Development (1) / 'Man's Best Friend'

-
'Man's Best Friend' a 4-5 minute student horror.
The main focus being on the usage of homemade practical effects having been inspired by sources such as 'The Thing 1982' (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rob_Bottin), 'Evil Dead 2' (which in turn spawned the now popular series known 'Ash vs the Evil Dead') and 'An American Werewolf in London'. I feel as though making a modern-day homage to these cult classics will serve as a testament to the cinematographic art form that is practical effects production.





For my short film I have planned to limit myself to a 5 second limit on the use of animated practical effects as I feel as though attempting to make anything longer than that would be either unrealistic from a production standpoint, or a waste of time relative to the amount of usable footage gained. Though the overall plot of my film is relativistically speaking, very basic, however I believe that my focus on practical effects will stir back memories of old classics that did not have to rely so heavily on CGI that they lost what initially grounded them to a realistic setting (i.e. 'Blade Runner', 'The original STAR WARS trilogy', etc.).

(Relative) Progress:
Initially I planned to create a 2 minuted animated short but it quickly became apparent that that wasn't feasible in due to both the set time frame and my general skill level. However I decided I would not fully abandon the idea since my dad had always taught me about the artistic usage of practical effects and visual illusions in film making. From there, I began to craft a simple film plot, reminiscent of something one would see in the late 80's / 90's; from there all I needed was a Monster.
I have spent around 12-14 hours working on a silicon arm model with a custom aluminium armature so as to allow retained movement for the creation of a 5-6 second stop-frame animation that will be included in the final version of my 'student film'.
One of the main issues I have come across during the production of this short, is the prevention of drag within the film's plot. I must allocate more of my focus towards the filling of time, ensuring that (almost) every scene possesses some kind of sensory/creative/ideological value. One way i might go about doing this with the inclusion of dramatic irony, by providing the viewer(s) with (sensory) information that isn't detected by the film's protagonist, I can imbue previously low value scenes with a sense of worth, transforming them into scenes of critical importance that help to drive the plot forward and improve the film's narrative structure.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Film Scene Analysis - 'No Country for Old Men' - Coin flipping scenes

-
Image
First coin flip scene:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLCL6OYbSTw Second coin flip scene:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGfvV3Syud8 The film, 'No Country for Old Men' is a hard hitting 122 minutes of suspense and conflicting duality, however, twice during its course the character known as Anton Chigurh ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anton_Chigurh ) presents a two different individuals with a near impossible dilemma, he actively puts everything they are into a single coin toss, conveying the philosophy that life and death are just two sides of the same 'coin' and that chance is the only real divide between them. In doing this Chigurh trivialises the very idea of being alive/human and ultimately embodies the concept of death and how it can seek you out whether you believe it to be your time or not. The first coin toss scene is featured in a small time shop located to the side of a long, dry, unforgiving road; roads are used a consistent theme throughout the ...
Read more

'Pan's Labyrinth' Opening and Ending scene analysis/comparison

-
Image
Youtube link: 'Opening' :  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMnp-XmMiEg Youtube link: 'Ending' :  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvjiQTdcCRU The film, 'Pan's Labyrinth', (directed by Guillermo Del Toro,) opens and ends with two near identical scenes. Beginning with little to no visual detail, the viewer(s) is only given the faint sound of (semi-fast) breathing; the sound is non-diegetic at first, creating a sense of ambiguity as well as emphasising the sound as it is not contested by any visual distractions. As the shot pans (no pun intended) upward, it is revealed that the source of the (now diegetic) sound is a (presumably severely) injured girl who is bleeding profusely from her nose; this indicates that she is possibly suffering from either internal bleeding or brain damage, given the setting she is in, one would assume that she wouldn't be able to receive the necessary treatment required to heal such wounds in time, further emphasising the ...
Read more

Film Analysis - 'Fish Tank' (Directed by Andrea Arnold)

-
Image
Film Trailer:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_u6pg8fuSB4 The film 'Fish Tank' is a social drama with a running time of 123 minutes and was directed by Andrea Arnold's ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrea_Arnold ); the film was produced with a budget of 3 million US dollars and grossed around 5.9 million US dollars profit. The film covers a number of social topics, such as statutory rape, domestic abuse, differences in social class and the difficulties of growing up (as a teenager); the overall plot of the film develops at a relatively slow pace, however you could argue that this somewhat grounds the story in reality and makes all the significant events that the main protagonist experiences all that more meaningful. The main setting of the film is based in an urban area, which seems to be used to emphasise/convey a crushing sense of imprisonment  and depression; within the beginning and end of the film there is a combined total of three scenes that focus on a mal...
Read more