The commentary for Bringing Back Hope which is a teen drama short film aimed towards young women between the age of 15 and 25.
Please see the comments to see the full written script for the commentary.
Apologies for the out of sync sound
Our short film’s theme of despair originated from the 2009 Wordpress photo of the year which shows three women shouting on a rooftop in a dark and sombre location. This image generated a range of dark theme ideas for our film such as sorrow, fear, despair, defiance and poverty.
ReplyDeleteUnlike the AS film opening we created last year we haven’t included any comedic elements because we wanted to keep it serious. Dramas are not focused on special effects, comedy or action. They have low production values and in some cases no production value. The emotion and conflict create a different sense of reality where intense or dramatic situations take a hold of the audience.
In order to keep our short film serious we have used a clear and simple font for all of our credits. If we were to include our playful ‘popping’ teen logo from last year it would seem more like a teen film than a serious drama and this could confuse the audience
A short film called “Please!!” written and directed by Paul Black supports this convention. “please!” informed us that dramas are full conflict and captivating scenes which involve the audience through emotion.
The title “Bringing Back Hope” was chosen to connote that the character (Hope) is trying to bring back her own feeling of hope after the loss of her sister. As well as bringing her back to her former self. For the title we used a light ray effect which blurs it –showing that the path isn’t clear for Hope but it soon will be as the title becomes clear again.
Here is a moodboard I have created to give us a visual image despair, loss and isolation and how it makes people feel. I have used a blue filter to make the image feel cold and uninviting.
Our initial inspiration was from a short film called "When Five Fell" by WongFu Porductions. It tells the story of a couple through the use of extreme close ups of objects and voiceovers. We have done something similar with the sister’s journal being the main personal object and the source of all the voice overs.
Dialogue has been kept short and to the point and we only focus on two characters – we have done this to adhere to short film conventions. In short films there is usually only one or two main focal characters this is because there usually isn’t enough time to build up a full character profile and background within such a short space of time; if this were the case the audience could be confused and unsure of who is the lead protagonist or what information is important.
For all of the flashbacks in our film we have used soft focus and desaturate filters which indicate to the audience that the scene is in the past. The colour of the scene seeps through showing the warm colours of happier times for Hope.
We followed Gustav Freytag’s theory of the Dramatic Arc to help us structure our drama short film. Freytag believed that every drama’s narrative is set out as five main parts. These are: Exposition (voice over at the start), Rising Action (Hope going through the diary and flashbacks), Climax (Hope throwing diary and crying) falling action (sister reassurance scene) and finally denouement (Hope gets ready to go to her sister’s funeral and accepts that she is gone).
This is a moodboard I have created based on our target audience of teenage and young women.
Dramas often have a strong emphasis on emotion. Emotion is used to connect the audience to both the characters as well as their situations to sympathise with them. The loss of a close family member of best friend is an emotional struggle that a lot of teenagers go through. To bring this emotion across in our own film we have a scene where the sister is seen in an extreme close up with tears rolling down her face. This shot is at a high angle to make her seem small and powerless.
We used this shot of the window to show a transition of time there is a similar shot at the beginning of the film as well. Hope has been going through her sister’s diary all night and it is now time for her to go to her sister’s funeral.