Media Language (Codes and Conventions) & Representation- The Black Hole

Representation: The Black Hole (2008)
  >Synopsis:
     >> A male office worker is at the printer and discovers a black hole which is printed on a piece of paper. At first he thinks it is nothing but when he accidently places his cup in the centre of the black hole it falls through. He ses this to reach through certain objects like the vending machine in which he retrieves a chocolate, then he discovers a better idea by placing the paper with the black hole onto the safe in order to reach his hand in and retrieve money. However, this backfires because of his greed and therefore when he crawls into the safe to get a better view inside the safe, the paper falls to the floor and the office worker is then trapped in the safe with no way out.
     >>Therefore, generally short films tend to represent a stereotypical everyday character that the audience can relate to. For example, in the short film 'The Black Hole' the one main character is a stereotypical businessman who's everyday job is being stuck in the office all day, which is monotonous and repetitive. This relates to both genders of the audience as business women and men who work in an office would generally feel what this character feels like. The location also relates to the audience as the way they have dimmed the colours to make the atmosphere more dull to go with the character's job status, relating more with the audience.
      >>In feature films, stereotypes can be used but because feature films are longer, they can expand and explore binary opposites to stereotypes which are more interesting to the audience as the audience would not find the storyline as cliche as other feature films they may have seen. Binary opposites to stereotypes are characters that go against the genreal stereotype of that age or gender. For example, media represents teenagers or adolscents as rebellious and wild where all they do is party and not care about any consequences, however, a teenage character can be the represented as the complete opposite, like hate partying, studying hard, not going out with friends as much as a stereotypical teenager would. Another example is gender, the stereotypes of females are;
            >Weaker than males
            >Emotional
            >Not good at sports  
            >Responsible for raising a family
However, sometimes women are represented as the complete opposite, they could be strong, independant and not a family-orientated woman, they can be athletes and just as good as men when it comes to sports.
Overall, due to the length of short films, they usually do not have time to explore binary opposite characters to the audience, therefore they stick to a stereotypical character instead that will relate to the audience, but will then show a twist to that character or that specific situation that character is in.

Preliminary Task- The Interview

Short Film Key Concept Analysis - Genre & Narrative

Genre    

        There are many genres under Short Film which include:
>Animation
>Comedy
>Drama
>Documentaries
>Experimental
>Gay & Lesbian
>Horror
>Romance
>Sci-Fi & Fantasy
>Thriller
>War
Some of the genres are the same as feature film genres such as comedy, romance, thriller, horror, sci-fi and drama. The generic codes and conventions for these genres for short films would be the same as the generic codes and conventions of these genres for feature films. This is because the other genres which are specifically dedicated under short film would be hard to create in terms of ideas for a feature film. The short film I have chosen to analyse is This Way Up, which comes under the genre animation. Animation allows very unique characters to be produced which would not be possible in reality and animation allows directors to create their character in terms of the way they would like their character to look and how they want them to be without having the headache of holding casting auditions and looking for their 'perfect' actor. However, it does have its' challenges as it involves patience, and a high standard of skills and qualitites in order to make the animation as realistic as possible. They would also be more expensive and take a considerably longer amount of time to produce than any feature film as they require different computer softwares for creating animated characters, and also require highly skilled artists to draw these characters, create a storyboard and overall bringing the characters to life, in order to relate to their target audience as closely as possible.
       In my opinion short film cannot be a genre in itself as genre describes and tells an audience what the movie is about because it gives away the stereotypical conventions in that specific genre of the film. For example, the stereotypical conventions of any horror includes a hero, a villain, the innocent dying and a cliffhanger at the end where the villain is not really dead or gone. Short film is like a feature film except obviously shorter in duration and involves a lot less than a feature film would require in terms of cast, crew and technology. Overall, a short film no matter what genre it is will always be considered a short film and therefore cannot be categorized as a genre.
Generic Codes and Conventions of a Short Film
Length:
>5-10 minutes is the length at which a short film usually lasts, the maximum length is 30 minutes, any film longer than this time is usually not considered a 'short film'.
   >Examples of short films include:
      >>Stranded- 10 minutes http://www.bbc.co.uk/filmnetwork/films/p00dyvrm
      >>Get Off My Land- 5 minutes http://www.bbc.co.uk/filmnetwork/films/p00gs4yj
      >>My Beast Friend- 2 minutes http://www.bbc.co.uk/filmnetwork/films/p007xb6t
      >>This Way Up- 9 minutes http://www.bbc.co.uk/filmnetwork/films/p004s5v1
Characters:
>As short films are only a few minutes long, there is only a minimum of one or a maxiumum of two characters introduced, for example in This Way Up, there are only two main characters, the two undertakers.
Unexpected Twist to story:
>Short films usually have an unexpected twist to them as they need to be interesting because of their length, the any film would be boring without a twist. In This Way Up, the twist is they end up being nearly crimated towards the end along with the coffin they were carrying and many other coffins. Another example is in the short film, The Black Hole, it starts off with a usual day in the office which relates to how business workers may feel, then when he goes to the printer a black hole is printed off on a piece of paper which he can put against an object and reach into it, we see that he uses this on a safe and reaches in to get the money but ends up being locked in the safe.
Budget:
>The length of these short films means their budget is relatively lower than that of a feature film, especially the major feature films like The Hobbit. However, sometimes, it may be a no budget film. Therefore, the average budget for a short film would most likely be anything between £1000-£3000 which would include small cast and crew compared to the size of the cast and crew in feature films.
Dialogue:
>Because of the length of short films, there is little or no dialogue in the short film. In my chosen short film animation, This Way Up, there is no dialogue exchanged between the two characters or just any diaolgue at all. There is only diagetic background noise, or non diagetic noise like soundtracks and sometimes throughout the short film no sound at all. Another example is in the short film 'Black Hole' where there is no dialogue from the main character, there is only the background noise of the printer printing out pages.
These generic codes and conventions of short film do differ from the generic codes and conventions of feature films as feature films are more longer in duration ranging from 60 minutes to 90 minutes if not more, like 120 minutes.

Narrative

 

>The narrative of short films mainly include twists or punchlines in order to make it more interesting because of the length of the film, it needs to be interesting and enjoyable for the audience therefore will need to include a twist to the story. This can be any twist like in This Way Up when the two undertakers nearly end up being crimated with the coffin they have been travelling on throughout the short film. Similarly in feature films, there are also mainly punchlines and twists as feature films are more longer therefore need punchlines and twists otherwise they would be monotonous and will not keep the audience interested and therefore get negative reviews.
      >For example in the recent feature film animated movie 'Wreck it Ralph' which had a target audience of children under the age of 10, despite it being a movie for children, it still had a punchline to it,- when king candy who was portrayed as a nice character at the beginning was really the villain intoduced at the very beginning of the film and end of the film, called turbo.



>The difference between narratives of short films and feature films is that in feature films, especially in horror movies, there is more tension and build-up to the punchline as the main storyline is building up in the beginning and the middle and towards the very end, the punchline is introduced suddenly in order to shock the audience and keep them interested in the film. This gets a bigger reaction from the audience as feature films have time for the storyline to build up, whereas short films do not have much time at all to build up the story to get the audience to have a bigger reaction. Punchlines in horror feature films usually always get the audience going 'Ohhhhh' as the storyline comes together, the audience may not have grasped the concept of the storyline at first, or got the wrong idea of the film and realise this when the punchline is introduced. However, sometimes the audience are shocked at some horror punchlines as these can include characters that are portrayed as "good" and "normal" but really are the villains such as psychopaths.

Barthes' Narrative Codes
      > Roland Barthe developed 5 codes that apply to films in general in order to be considered a "good" film. These include:
          >>The Enigma Code:
                >Which is something the audience does not know in order to build up to suspense and tension in a horror or even in any genre in general.
           >>The Action Code:
                >An action that the audience can see on screen that is not explained, for example, in a horror film, a character might be shown running away or even towards something the audience do not know about. This builds the suspense and tension as the audience have unanswered questions ('Why are they running? Who are they running from or to? Are they innocent or guilty?') and stay tuned to the film in order to find out.
           >>The Semantic Code:
                 >This code is applied to props used in the film to represent certain concepts such as wealth. Props used to represent wealthy characters are luxury cars, mansions, jewellery and status in society.
           >>The Symbolic Code:
                 >The Symbolic Code refers to a structure that organizes meanings through the use of binary opposites or stereotypes which go against the stereotype and conept that an audience may have of a film, including the characters, settings etc...
          >>The Referential Code:
                 >This looks at the audiences' wider cultural knowledge, morality and ideology.