my name is lisa

the film i will be deconstructing is a short film titled "My name is lisa " the film is about a young girl named lisa who uses her computer to address the world of her academic knowledge and question certain things about society. however the main point to the film is lisa feelings and her reaction to her mums detiriating mental illness which gets worse as the film progresses.

the only location in this film is the room which lisa sits in to go on her computer, and the front garden. this is important as it seems this as been done to make the audience relize that no matter how could things seem on the outside and however normal people act you dont know whats going on behind closed doors. it also emphasises on the films theme of sadness, which comes across in different ways during the film.

furthermore the colours used also emaphsis on sadness, although there is no particular use of any one colour, and we do indeed see a mixture, its the shade of the colour that symbolises the feelings of the main character. when lisa is in her home the shades of all the colours seems to be more shaded or faded they arent as vibrant as the colours we see when shes outside, for example when lisa walks home up through the driveway everyday, the sun is always shining the skies are clear blue, and all the tone on the colours are bright and cheerful, but when she enters the house they seem to fade, to shades of colour which represent sadness. which shows on the audience that when shes outside shes like every other ordinary girl, which gets repeated repeatedly during the length of the short film. everyday lisa walks up the drive way and everyday her mums deteriation is getting worse.

the clothes, the house, the car are representations of a normal family life and living basis from the outside they are a normal family, which adds to the effect of this short film, as you arent expecting the mums illness to actually take place, and this also adds to the dramatic sadness as you really feel for lisa as you see her keep trying to put on this pretence, and acting in a mature manor way behind her age. it also appears that talking over the computer is the only way she can act like a child again.

the sound used in this film, is one that relates again to the sadness of the character, the sound is sad gentle music, which is a little bit depressive. this music appears everytime lisa mums appears on our screen and interupts lisa, we also hear when lisa enters the drive leading up to he house, this is a good representation of the sadness cause it gives the dramtic feeling of what the main mood to this film is. and as the film goes on the music goes more suspensful but still sad when her mum suffers more and more with her mental illness which is building up to breaking point, when her mum forgets who lisa is completly. the music also replaces the lisas talking alot when lisa is talking via the computer she stops talking almost automatically and the music instantly takes over making us aware her mum is there.

the camera movements in thsi film are maily, trackign when lisa walks throught he drive, close up and mid shot, althought his is similar in most short films. but in this one the use of close up is especially effective as this film is about the feelings of lisa and ny using close up we can really see the expressions of her emotions in lisa face, and by using the mid shots we also get to see the mothers feelings of sadness and confusion by her body lanuage, as also when lisa walks up the drive her body language which is typically eyes on the floor which her body hunched, which is like she doesnt want to keep continue seeing her mum in this state. by using the tracking we can to follow lisa from face front up in her drive, this is effective because not only are we watching lisa preparing for what will happen next but the build up of watching lisa head home builds the audience up for what will happen next.

a very clever effect in this film is the fact that a lot of it is based with lisa talking via the webcam which is as if she is talking to us the audience directly, which makes the audience feel as if they have some sort of bond with lisa, and they can relate to her, by talking to use directly we sympathis more with lisa and understand her sadness.

the main editing in this short film is jump cut i think this as been used as each day we see lisa experience one situation than another and so forth, by using jump cut it is also an effective way to show us just how quickly lisa mum is detriating, we can see the rapidness of it all and by using jump cut the film emphasis it even more.

in my opinion the target audience for this film is 16-34 year olds, and mainly aimed at women, the reason for this is because it is a film about a mother and relationship which is a topic alot of women will read, watch it also is an emotional film which really connects more with the female audience. i beleive it is the age group i have stated is because it deals with some very complicated issues which you would have to understand to really understand the depth of the film. the film also has a mass audience as it has a wide age group and clearly more than half of the population her female.

the reception theory can be used here when talking about the film and its desired target audience. because the producers kknow their target audience and they know young females get really into mother /daughter realtionships and the issues they can face, i beleive they also know the auidence will be more emotionally attached to the film then men would be. by relising these expectations of the target audience they create a preffered meaning. because there is an agreement between the audience and the producer, they put in the film everything tha they want knowing it will be exactly the way the target audience desire.

this film is also a clear example of robert mckees theory of narratives having a simple 5 part structure. the inciting incident when lisa mum first forgets the luch, the progressive complivcation is when she frogets the luch again, crisis is when lisa mum is left sitting bedazzled in the car, the climax is when she relises she doesnt even know how to do the laundry extra and lisa screams at her, the resolotuion, lisa mum completly forgets who lisa is, although in a way this didnt the solve the problem at hand, the mental illness itself could never be solved , but it brought an end to the film and almost as if the illness had reached its end.

history of short films.

before we can disuss the history of short films we have to determine the definition of what a short film actually is.this is something many people find hard as apart from its time length there is no definite criteria criteria for short filmns although they do have their own forms and conventions. the technical term originally came from the north american film indusrty in the period of cinema.
short films are mainly associated with america when in the 1910's most of the faeture films started to be made into longer running ones.
the basis for short films were live acttion and animatation, but mainly it was asssociated with comdy and comedians such as laurel and hardy were well known for their short films along with many others. short films were also highly asscoaited with being about human intrests and concerts.
short films were particually popular with film compainie who produced and developed them through the silent era.
come the 1930s and after short films were being pushed aside and fewer films were being made, they were starting to be made by producers who had their own companies or forced theatres to take on the short films for the promise of using them as their big name feature, this was called block booking and this was made illeagal in 1948 in a u.s court.
in the 1960s short films were particuarlly reserved for independent filmmakers, they were known for battling and dealing with difficult topics that commericals films tried to avoid. and although the u.s was known for short films they are now better known outside of america.
comapnies such as warner bros still use short films and they are popular features on dvds as an extras. they are also vry popular as the first steps to cinematic for first tme filmmaker sas they are cheaper e=and easier to make.
thye are aslo used on tv to fill in the gaps when a programmes or long runnng film dont fit inot its precise schedule.
shorts tv was the first channel to speacialise in short films and broadcast in locations such as england and france.

audience theory

i will be discussing the differnet ways in which the concept of audience theory have been explained and changed throughout the years.
the first attempt to explain a mass audience reaction to a mass media text was called the hypodermic needle model, it was said that the audience would recieve the information through a piece of media i.e a film and would make no attempt on their own behalf to challenge this data or process it. although this is a basic way of anaylsis audeicne theory and some say a rather crude way it is important to state that this theory was developed when mass media was fairly new.
this theory suggest that the experience or intelligance of an indiviaudal is not important to the reception of the text and they will be infulenced by it regardless, they are saying that the aueicne are unmediated. because in this theory it is believed that the audience can be manipulated by the text and that an indiviudals way of thinking and behaviour are infulenced by the creators.
unsuprisingly these theory got a lot of critism, its ctritics included, parents, politicans and pressure groups who all argued that it explained why certain groups in society should not be exposed to certain media text for example rap music.
however, as the media progresses so did peoples approach to the audeince theory, lazarfield, berlson and gaudet belived that the explantationa nd the way audeicne theory worked could be explained by the two step flow. this was a procedure in which the information would be filtered through what they called the opinion leaders who would then take this information and communciate it to their less active asscoaites who were easily infulenced by the opinion leaders. they then suggested that audience would then mediate this infromation which was recieved from the media with ideas and thoughts from the opinion leader and less active assocaites. they claimed that the audience were not infulenced by direct process but by the two step flow.
this approach stopped the power of media and made them relaize and conclude that social factors were important in the way audience interpret texts.
in the 1960's the uses and gratification theory came about , theorists relized that individuals who consumed text in different ways for different reasons. laswell sugegsted that media text had the following functions for an individual and for society:
1. survelliance
2. correaltion
3. entertainment
4. cultrual transmissions
blumer and katz went on to expand this theory. they beleived that indviudals chose a text and use it for their own purposes:
1. diversion - escape from perosnal problems
2. personal relationships- emotional and other intreactions
3. personal ideintity- finding yourself your behaviour and your values.
4. survelliance - information which could be useful for living for enxmapke haoldiay baragains, finanical new and waether reports.
now i will introduce the reception theory. this theory beleives that individual differences such as gender race class and age all affect the reading of an indiviaual, this theory is based on stuart halls encoding/decoding theory. its said that the text id encoded by the producer and decoded by the audience because this can create big differences between two different readings of the same code. its said that by using recognized codes and conventions the creators can assume what the audience excpects depending on their age class gender ehtnicity, therfore the producers can posotion the audience and therefore create an agreed menaing of what the code means, using the research and theory have on the audience, which we call a preferred menaing.

encoding/decoding

many theorist have different appraoches to encoding/decoding. stuart halls approach to textual analyisis mainly focuses on negoatation and oppposition on part of the audience. he says that the audience does not passively accept the text and a certain amount of acitivity will become involved. he claims that the main reason why why some people accept or reject a given reading depends on the cultrual background of a person, and that the menaing of the rext lies between the audience and the producer. the producer may encode a text in a certain way however the reader will decode it differently.
umberto says that text aimed at large audeicnes are encoded so that most od the audeince decode the preferred meaning this is called a cloded text.
an open text is one that has many meanings and can be seen as ambigious which is understood by a number of audeince members in a number of different ways.
barthes belives that the meanings of images can be layed down to give a preferred meaning through the process of anchorage. he says all etxt are encoded in a way to reinforce dominanat, cultrual ideologies or values. the concept of myth is that text are encoded to make representation seem natural or common sense.

barthes codes.

roland barthes aims to explore the link between signs and their meanings, he aimed to establish the whole system in which all narrative styles are created. he says there are 5 codes which define an network which leaves a space of meaning in which the text will run through. he belives that every unit of a text is a virtual disgression towars another unit in the text. each of roland barthes codes appear through voices:

1. hermenuetic code - denotes an egnima that moves the narrative forward. it also dets up obstacles that will delay or maintain the suspense.
this is the process which is again broken down in order in to the following sequence in order to relvealing the truth :
1. thematisation - what in the narrative is the egnima?
2. positioning- additional confirmation of the egnima?
3. formulation of the egnima?
4. promise of an answear of the egnima
5. fraud- circumvension of the true answear
6. equivoclation- mixture of fraud and truth
7. blocking - the egnima cannot be solved.
8. suspended answear- stoppong the answear after it has begun
9. partial answear - some facets of the truth are revealed
10. diclosure of the truth.

when acode involves a move from a question to answear it is a code which is irreversible according to roland barthes. he says that the hermeuetic code encompasses the whole narrative.


2. proairetic code- empirical voice
this code emcompasses the action of the narrative. its basis is the dependency of the lexias upon the sequence and the content to impart the meaning. it also suggest that the actions of the novel are created by the reader.

3. semic code - the voice of person
this code focuses on the connoatation of the character barthes said that the character has not only characterisitcs but also also connotations because the person has anm existence. semic codes allow text to show rather than tell by describing material things in order to suggest immartial objects. the semic codes suggest that pieces of data that the text show are used to sugegst abstract concepts.

4. symbolic codes- voice of symbo,ls
human body acts an narrative to get the text to trangess. it does this by focusing on 3 trangesstions which are:
1. rhetorical
2.sexual
3. economical

the five codes as barthes said is a way in whioch you can interpret text , in which you can look at the relationship betwen the code and the text and compare it of the relationsahip between a perfromance and of stage commnetry to clarify the relationship. each code is associated with a voice!!

narrative theory- todorov,propp and volger

todorov- todorov was a bulgarian philospher and from 1963 he was writing and essays about liteary theory, thoguht theory snd culture theory.

he believed there was a basic structure for all narrative which was the cycle of equilibrums:
- a state of equilibrum (situation one)

- disruption of equilibrium by some action

- recognition that there has been a disruption

- an attempt to repair the disruption

- a reinsatement of the equilibruim



he suggested that stroies begin with an equilibrium or staus quo where any potentionally opposing forces are in balance. this is disrupted by some event, setting in chain a series of events problems are solved so that the order can be restored to the world of fiction.



propp- had a major in russian philosphy he took sentence strucutres and broke them down into analyzable elements.

he belives that tales take the following 31 sequences.



- absentation

-interdiction

-violation of interdiction

-reconainissance

-delivery

-trickery

-complicty

-villancy or lack

- mediation

-beginning counter action

-departure

-first fiction of the donor

-heros reaction

-receipt of magical agent

-guidance

-struggle

-branding

-victory

-liquididation

-return

-pursuit

- rescue

-unrecognized arrival

-unfounded claims

-difficult task

-solituion

-recognition

-exposure

-transfiguration

-punishment

-wedding



he also said that every tale consisted of stock characters, he said they were narraitve functions when he identified the theory about characters and actions. he said they provided a structure for text



- the hero- seeks something
- the villian - who opposes or actively blocks the heros quest
-the donor- who provides an object with magical properties
- the dipatcher - who send the hero on their quest
- the false hero - who disrupts the heros success by making false claims
-the helper- who aids the hero
- the princess - acts as a reward for the hero and the object of the villians plots
- her father- who acts to reward the hero for his effort


propp recieved some critiscm over his narrative theory he was accused of removing verbal consideration of character, mood and tome from the fairy tales and anything that made one fairytale different from another.
however, his supporters and followers agreed with him as they beleived you need to dsicover the elemnt buliding blocks for fairtytales that from the basis of narrative structure.


volger- he is a story analyst for disney, warner brother, 20th century fox and many more hollywood production comapnies. he looked at the construction of the narrative from the characters point of view

1 ordinary world
2 call to adventure
3 refusual of class
4 mentor
5 first threshold
6 test, allies, enemies
7 approach to the inmost cave
8 ordeal
9 rewards
10 the road back
11 resurrection
12 return with the elixir

he claims that stories and films are populated by 8 archetpes, which have the same basic fucntions in every story. he says that they display the same patterns of human behaviour and that they are symbolized by the usual characters

- hero
- mentor
- heraid
- shape shifter
- allies
- shadow
- trickster
- treshold guardians


mckee- is a creative writing instructor and he spends his time examing the narrative strucutre of a story and deciding what makes the story compeeling or not. he also has a simple 5 part strucutre for narratives:
1 inciting accident
2 preogressive complication
3 crisis
4 climax
5 resolution

levi strauss - a french anthropoligits and ethnologists, he claims that our understanding of words and their meanigns are based on our understanding of the difference between the word and its opposite (binary opposites) opposed to the actual meaning that the word contains. he says that words just acts as symbols and that the words actually have a relationship with their opposite and their opposing ideas. it is to be said that one side of binary opposites, is seen as more valued in some cultures and societies and that and individuals interpretation of a word is not so much to do with the actual meaning of the word itself but to do with our society and cultrual attributes.

. man vs woman
. white vs black
. young vs old
. hero vs villian
. west vs east
. good vs bad

forms and conventions of short films

in the early day of cinema all films were short film, however over time and with the use of a higher budget, techonolgoy advances,and big production comapnies short films have been pushed aside. short films are now distributed in a different way and are usually associated with indie film comapnies and through the use of social networking sites and sites such as you tube, were the film gets played and they are able to keep record of the views, hits and comments they recieve, they do it through these sites in order to get their target audience. they also can take into consideration the comments they recieve and make any alterations if nessacary and more than likely one day there short film will go into production.
by using these sites they are able to determine their target audience, they can see the age group and most of the time the sex of the people who are viewing and rating their short film, they are able to then give the movie a specific target audience and change the one they already had or the idea of one, this also enables them to see if they got it right the first tim round.
however, saying this short films are not given a certification as the likelyhood of the film ever going into production is very slim. so without certification anyone of any age realalisticy can view these films, so there is a chance the film will not end up with the most viewings from their desired audience as some people may not be allowed on such sites or may just not have access to them. unlike production films which have the certification and they know the age range their film is being aimed at.
another difference between short films and production movies is that the actors names are not included until the end of the clip or sometimes not included at all. for example in "The black hole" the actor name those not appear until the film is completely finished, this is because unlike production movies were the actors or indeed the actresses can have a big impact on the target audience and the audience, short films do not, the names of the actors arent going to improve the films viewings or ratings as the actors will not be well known.
a major difference between the two, apart from the length is the budget, ultimately short films have a lower budget then production movies, this means that the film is short in only one location most of the time, "my name is lisa" only has the location of her house and her front drive way. just like most short films only have one main character using an example from "the black hole" were the only character is the man we see who finds the black hole.
however what short films lack in money are usually made up through their creativity, short films tend to be more dramatic and keep your attention as they are on a shorter time length. there are no slow beginnings they take you right into the action and the main issue of the film, alot of short films tend to be more dramatic due to the fact they usually end of a cling hanger in a way leaving the audience wanting more, but gives enough to fufill there aim as a short film. "the black hole" which is clearly a great short film and has the forms and conventions of a short film as i have used it as an example alot, is a clear demonstartion of ending on cliff hangers because in the film when the man gets stuck int he safe you want to know wether or not he got caught!!!!
they tend to use a lot of non diagetic sound to, meaning the audience can hear the sound but is unable to see where it is coming from, which gives the film a more dramtic film and holds the audience attention, which in a short film is very important.

stroy line

1. mercy is at home in her bedroom flicking through an old photo album when an old photo of her an her childhood best friend falls out.
2. flashback - 2Yrs previous- mercys mum breaks the news to mercy that lily has sadly passed away. (All flashbacks will be in black and white)
3. next day - Mercy is walking home from university when she beleives she spots lily in the street out of the corner of her eye she goes to tap the girl on the shoulder, but its a case of mistaken identity.
4. arriving home in a state of shock mercy recieves a letter through her door after all other mail has been picked up and opened the letter and begins to open it while she heads upstairs to her bedroom. she opens the letter which reads bff and then looks out of her window to see lily walking past.
5. she runs out the house without thimking in a desperate bid to speak to her childhood best friend.
6. she ends up following lily to the local cememtry were lily was buried they hold eye contact.
7. flashblack - to the day when they first met they introduce themeselves hold hands skipping promising to be best friends forever.
8. they have an emotional confrontation in the cementry were lily begs mercy to come join her on the other side, as mercy goes to take her hand a series of back flashes appear from their childhood "Ones of them laughing, hugging, running towards the park, playin on the swings, then on da roundabout where lily felt off" whilst lilys voice over is saying " we remember we promised to be friends forever.
9. mercy pulls her hands from lilys says i forgive you and starts to walk away.
10. she looks back and lilys still standing there they both wave goodbye and mercy mouths rest in peace.
11. split screen - mercy and lily both walk away and lily screen dissolves to white.
12. mercy continues to walk away in distance as the theme music plays out to end the film.

idea

During the lesson we sat then and made a mindmap of ideas for our short film ;
- childhood bestfriends
- one of the girls commit suicide
- young teenager who dreams of becomig a superstar buit ends up a young single mum
- the girl works hard in the recording studio and finally makes
- finally meets a record manger and makes it as a superstar.

2ND idea

- childhood bestfriends and one commits sucide
- time goes by and although the girl misses her friend she blocks out the pain and gets on with life
- she finds a strange letter from her friend and the memories she covered up start to come back
- the dead girl is trapped between heaven and hell as she cant find closure, so shes stuck roaming the real world all alone and scared and wants to beg her bestfriend to come join her.
- the real girl taps the shoulder of the dead girl although its not her
-she ends up following the girl to a cememntry were they have an emotional confrontation they say their last goodbyes as lily goes to rest in peace finally finding closure.

narrative theory

- This is a mindmap of definition of narrative difference between narrative story and narrative plot.

WHAT IS STRUCTURALISM - structuralist concern themselves with how meaning is established ans maintained. they believe the meaning is attributed and is not already contained in the thing.
NARRATOLOGY- is a branch of structuralism that studies the nature of the story rather than the individual tales in isolation.

tevetan todrov - belives narrative is a casual transformation.

One narrative structure:
stage 1 - a state of equilibrum (Situation 1)
stage 2- disruption of equilibrum by some action
stage 3 - recognition that has been a disruption
stage 4- an attempt to repair the disruption
stage 5- a reinstatment of the equilibrum


todrov beleives that stories begin with an equilibrium of status quo where any potentionally opposing forces are in balance. this is disrupted by some event, setting in a chain of series of events problems are solved so that order can be restored to the world of fiction.


propp- was intrested in the narrative of folk tales. he beelived they were the same basic struggles and apperared to have stock characters.
the hero - a character that seeks something
the donor- who provides an object with magical properties
the villian - who opposes actively blocks the heros quest
the dispatcher - whos sends the hero on his / her quest.
the false hero - who disrupts the hero success by making false claims.
the helper- who aids the hero
the princess - acts as the reward for the hero and the object of the villains plot
her father- who acts to reward the hero for his effort

christopher volger-
story analyst for disney warner bros, 20th century fox, and other hollowood production companies. he focused on exploring the construction of narrative from a character perspective. his theory is called the hero's journey.

volger 8 archetypes within hollywood narratives:
1- HERO
2-mentor
3- heraid
4- shape shifter
5- allies
6- shadow
7 - trickster
8 - threshold guardians

levi strauss - binary oppositions

beleives that the meanings, narrative depend on the binary oppositions he explores this through underlying typical themes. he beleives that conflict helps to drive the narrative.

. man vs woman
. white vs black
. young vs old
. hero vs villian
. west vs east
. good vs bad

mckee
simple 5 part narrative structure:
1. inciting incidents
2.progressive complications
3.crisis
4.climax
5.resolution

campaign!!!

today after discussions my group decided that we were going to a campaign rather than a short thriller film, we decided this as we think the concepts we have will work better and have a stronger impact on our intended target audience than that as a thriller. we came up with the idea of either:
1- sexual health
2- crime
3- the risk of playing with fire
we have deiced that will work on these three topic areas out ideas and scripts together and by our next lesson will we decide the piece we believe will be the better for us to begin working on.
i have also watched a number of short films today those including; door, the black hole, my name is lisa and wrong side of the bed which i will now go on to anaylse.

5 minute film - the girl who played with fire

today we decided that we would be working in a group the group consists of me and dayo.
for our coursework we will be filming and producing a 5 minute film. we have chosen to the thriller stronger as we have a good idea that we both like and a plot that we are very intrested in continuing and keeping. we talked about names for our film and have deicded to call it "the girl who played with fire." the suggestion of slogans we have came up with is " if you play with fire you get burnt"
we brainstormed a view ideas and have came up with the idea of a girl who holds some sort of resentment towards her mother when the film begins the girl burns a picture of her and her mother. we have also decided to have the mothers voiceover during a part of the film. the ending with have the idea of the girl burning down her house, with the suspense of weither or not the girl dies, then we see her walking out in the distant, with the voiceover saying ." i told her not to play with fire". which will be her mother. at the moment we are still in the planning and brainstorming stage, so these are all ideas, although we are pretty keen on keeping the beginning and ending i have just stated.
we have also talked and sketched put a few ideas for our poster, we have decided the main picture on the poster will be the girl surrounded by the fire.