Update

Seeing as I am currently unable to film because of the foul (rainy and soggy) weather, I have recently been thinking about other tasks that have to be completed such as my film poster and review. Thinking about my film poster led me to photograph my puppet and mannequin just to gauge some ideas on what I want my poster to look like and feature. One idea that I particularly like is having a landscape image with the face of my puppet on the bottom. This was inspired by the film poster for 'Submarine' (a Richard Ayoade film) and I also found some character posters for 'The Muppets' which showed Kermit, Miss Piggy, Animal, etc. in a similar position except on a portrait poster. Finding this was very helpful because I was slightly worried about creating a film poster that didn't include any human characters. I am currently undecided whether my brother Jacob will be a part of the film poster or not.
Another task that I have been thinking about is my opening title sequence for my short film. I want to make it quite a fun and animated sequence that will not only feature titles including director, producer, costumer designer, props and cast, etc. but also an animation of the puppet's prior life in which he was alone and living in a dirty/uninhabitable place until he is found by Jacob and they become friends. I have watched a few YouTube videos of other students who have created their own animated title sequence that fits with the kind of theme/genre of my short film. I want the sequence to either end with a blend from the animation to the real footage or a scribble into the footage.
HOW I WILL DO THIS I HAVE NO IDEA. WHY OH WHY MUST I COME UP WITH DIFFICULT IDEAS?!
The inspiration came from finding the original drawings of my puppet and I thought that it would be a nice idea!
I also want to create a 'fun' production company rather than the simple one I made at AS.
I have been considering the idea of using a flick book to stem the animation from. I could either create an animated flick book of pages with nothing on which progresses into being the pages upon which the animation is on or I could film a flick book.

Cheeky photoshoot in the bath...

How are short films consumed?

There are many ways in which people view short films. Although there only a few select outputs in comparison to feature length films which show in cinemas all over the world for several weeks after their release date. The most popular and successful method of consuming short films is on websites such as Virgin Shorts and the BBC Film Network. Another method is through film festivals - New York Short Film Festival, Cannes, Sweden, Brussels, New Zealand and Australia. At the New York Festival many international films are shown which do not exceed 30 minutes and are in digital format for the screening.

Further practice

Magazine practice

On Friday, I went to go and see Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part 2 and I loved the way that Bella Swan looked as a vampire, particularly with the heavy pigmentation of her eye make-up. For this reason, I thought it would be a great practice for a magazine poster and this led me to think of this possible title. It seems relevant because the term in filmmaking refers is a technique in which a series of short shots are edited into a sequence to condense space, time, and information; this seems to fit with what a film magazine is all about.
The great thing about this image is the colour of Bella's eye - it allowed me to have a play around to change the colours of it to purple, blue, etc. which gave the image a completely different feel.

Film Location

For filming, I have chosen to use my garden as the location because there is a large shed that I can use and there are areas which I can use for the wedding scene. My brother also loves playing in the garden so it won’t be difficult to film with him. A current problem that I am facing is the weather - ideally, I would love to have some dry or moist ground to film on because I can't really allow any mud/rain to get on the puppet or mannequin. Or, I would love for some snow this winter because I think it would add a surreal sense to the wedding and I think fresh, untouched snow would look perfect. (Maybe if I'm lucky, this might work out).

New stage of production...

So, the newest problem that I have had to conquer is making my puppet poseable...Originally, I thought I could put a very fine wire or pipe cleaner on the inside of the material, along with the stuffing, however, this didn't actually seem possible. This was because the arms and legs had to be sewn in shut before the body could be assembled and so it wouldn't be possible to get them in there. My nan and myself tried to think of many methods and the best one that we found was actually applying the pipe cleaners on the outside of the material and then coating this with another layer of material. My main concern with this was that it could actually make the puppet too 'chunky' because my material is actually quite thick and dense looking. However, we thought we'd try it anyway and if it didn't work out then we could just unstitch it and try something else (not really what we wanted to be doing seeing as it would add further to the construction time).
We tried it out and it was actually very successful.
Here are a few images of how we did it:

 

As you can see, it worked out well and meant that the puppet could be moved fairly easily. It was important for it to maintain a position because I am wanting to use stop motion and so it wouldn't be successful if it couldn't do this.

I also bought a doll's stand which enables the puppet to stand-alone and it will be easily concealable in the filming stage. The extra layer of material also made me realise how 'skinny' the puppet would have been without it and therefore would've been less likely/able to maintain a position.

 



How to make a short film...

Narrative, or Documentary?
First, establish whether you are making a narrative short film or a documentary-like film.
Outline your idea.
Come up with a solid idea (but also one that you will be able to adapt through the production process), write your script.
Scriptwriting...
Consider the following things: Character development, plot development, an inciting incident and a character arch.
Story-board each shot in the film.
Decide what each shot in the movie is going to be. For example, wide shot, over the shoulder, tracking shot, close up, extreme close up, medium wide shot, etc.
Decide what you need for each scene.
Create a breakdown sheet.
Decide on the setting.
Will it be internal, exterior, or both?
Decide on props, actors, make-up.

Quick fun little summary

Today I decided to create a video to show how I made my puppet because I noticed whilst on my blog page that the images were not particularly easy to look at without extensive scrolling. Creating a video is also a good method for me to use on my blog because it shows a different use of technology. I used the Stupeflix YouTube App to create the video which enabled me to choose the music that I would like and what images I would like to use, it was a free App which was great because when online I found so many that had to be paid for or you were limited on what you could do. So, YAY, here is my construction video.