The film I chose is called Universal Effects, and is based on the effects that knife crime has on a family. This is similar to the genre of our film, as Leon is involved with knife crime and we are seeing the effects of this on his family.
This frame is an establishing shot and they are very conventional is short films where they can occur at all times during the film. They are used to provide the audience with an insight into the geographical location in which the film is meant to be set, and therefore people can make assumptions about what to expect; where then sometimes the outcome may have a twist and is not what the audience expected.
Fast, hard cuts are very common and conventional in short films as they are used to bring pace in order to provide a message which is meant to bring out emotions to the audience. This shot is one where a fast, hard cut was used because the family has just found out that their son/brother has died.
Jump cuts are used in short films to provide an explosive and decisive message, and they are used in this film for the same reason. Therefore they can be said to be conventional in short films, where there is a harsh message trying to be shown and for a film that is dealing with knife crime, it would be expected to have these jump cuts. This shot is a jump cut cutting in closer, where there was a MS before.
There is frequent use of fades and dissolves in short films, to either show time differences or changes in location. As both of these are very likely to occur in short films, it is conventional to have them. This shot is showing a cross dissolve from a change in location.
This frame is showing a scene outside where there is ambient sound, and this type of sound is very conventional for short films, as there is a want from the producer to get the audience to understand the location and to receive any other information that is important with the scene. This shot i used in Universal Effects to provide the viewer with a feel of the two boys characters and the area they are in.
One thing which is typical for short films, in relation to the camera, is for there to be a lot of movement, and for there to be hand held shots where the feel of realism and somewhat documentary style is wanted. This is common in this short film and is seen a lot films which involve the concepts of crime. Therefore this shot in the film contains movement and the camera is hand held.
The lighting used in this frame is seen to be conventional as their son is dead and there is blue, cold colours used for the lighting. This is conventional as this creates a sad atmosphere for the audience and therefore is used in short films in order to create these types of atmospheres and effects.
The narrative structure of this film is to show an event (the stabbing) and then the effects on the family. This is very conventional for films of this genre, and there is usually the showing of some action, before the effects are shown to have taken toll on the family. This frame is showing the end of the film, where the boy who was stabbed is now dead.
Screen grabs from our film to show the conventions we did and did not use-
This is the first shot in our film, and it has seen to be conventional for there to be establishing shots throughout short films because they provide the viewer with an idea of the location and the surroundings. However we broke this convention because we did not want the audience to become distracted by the stereotypes that would have been apparent if we did have establishing shots; we instead wanted to focus on the emotional effects that were taking place.
This is a very quick cut in our film, and is from the first scene. These are very conventional for short films and we used a lot of them when dealing with emotions or parts of the film where it required pace. Therefore we have stuck to this convention in order to provide the viewer with a clear, explosive message where needed in many scenes in the film.
One very conventional item when looking at the camera shots, is that there is frequent use of CU's when trying to express emotions. We used close ups to try to show emotions where we could, however we only had a few and not as many as we should have. Therefore we did break this convention, because in a lot of scenes where they could have been used, they would have been jump cuts or cutting out other information that was needed in the shot.
This is showing the use of fades and cross dissolves that are present in our film. Our film has a lot of time lapses and changes of locations and days, and so it was necessary to have these dissolves. In Universal Effects, there is a lot of fades used as there also is a lot of changes in the location and time. Therefore we have stuck to this convention as they are needed in order for the film to flow well.
In this shot in the film, Lily is sitting with ambient sound in the background. This is another conventional item in short films as it gets the audience to realise and understand the location and can also play some part in setting up the characters personality. We decided to use a lot of ambient sound in our film in order to provide the viewer with a sense of what Lily is like and it also has other significance, as for example the same TV show is on everyday in the living room.
This frame is showing a convention that is apparent with lighting, where that when there has been death or sadness in the film, there is blue, cold lighting used. We used this convention because we believed it would be effective to the audience because it could represent anything that is sad, and there is no conclusion to whether a death has occurred.
This frame is showing the effects of Leon's actions on Lily and the distress she is going through. The convention for a short film that is relating to a similar genre to ours is that the narrative structure is usually set out so that the audience see some action, such as someone being beaten up or stabbed, and then after the effects are shown. However we have broken this convention as we show the effects throughout from the beginning, and the film does not contain any action of Leon being beaten up or stabbed. We went against this convention because we did not want the audience to focus on the actions that would have been shown, rather the effects that are taking place on the family and especially Lily.
This frame is showing a jump cut that we used in our film, and we decided to use it as our style in order to make our film different. In the film that I chose to depict conventions from, they also used jump cuts, and so it could be said to be a convention when dealing with films that are similar to our genre. We used them to bring impact and expressive emotions and this will also be used when dealing with issues such as knife crime.
This frame is showing some use of camera movement, as it was seen to be conventional for there to be a lot of camera movement and free hand used. We do have camera movement in our project, but only a couple of hand held shots such as this one. Therefore we have partly used this convention, but have not used as many hand held shots as other short films and in this aspect we have broken this convention. We did not use too many hand held shots because we were not showing any kind of action such as a stabbing, and so we did not think it would be suitable.
Summary-
I chose Universal Effects because it is based on a similar concept as our film, and so depicting the conventions from this film seemed suitable. In My Brother Leon, we have used many conventions that are present with short films, but we have also broken some as we wanted to be different in some ways, and did not think that some conventions were suitable, such as the establishing shot convention. Evaluating the production has made me realise that we have had a mix of using conventions of short films similar to ours, but also breaking some; and now when looking at the production, I believe that we could have incorporated some conventions which were not present or were of very little presence, such as having more CU's. However I believe that even though we have broken a few conventions, we have made our own style and an effective short film that provides a strong message which is necessary in order for it to be successful.
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