Short film sheet

Conventions of 3 short films

   Film one: The present

In this screen grab we can see as the audience that the boy is a gamer as we can see the light of the TV screen is shining and reflecting against his face. The convention here is the lighting and what mood the short film has been set in so we can understand the film better. We can see he doesn’t like the light affecting his quality game time as the blinds are shutting out the sunlight from behind. We can also see the game he is playing is a shooting game due to the sound effects being added of guns at 0:02 and the reflection of the game play from his eyes. We can also infer he is so focused on the game he doesn’t acknowledge his mum coming home at 0:21 however his attention turns slightly to the present she got him as he looks back and forth from the box to the TV AT 0:28. His attention changes as his mum says to him to look at the present she got for him, which he questioned “for me?” at 0:40-0:43.  In terms of lighting being dark as his mum comes home she opens the blinds and we can see via his reaction he doesn’t like the natural light from outside shining on his face as it is ‘too bright’.

 

In this screen grab the convention at 0:51 he pays attention to the box as his mum told him to open it. As he opens the box he starts of slow building suspense for the audience and before opening it halfway the dog jumps out giving a slight jump scare to the audience as the focus shift changed from opening the box slowly to the dog coming out of the box rapidly out of excitement. From the boys reaction we can see his mood changes at 0:56 as he says “woah cool” and his tone of voice had changed as well, previously he was talking with a low tone and was moody. As he takes the dog out the box at 0:58 he has a smile on his face that makes him light up and the mood of the setting changes to be more optimistic.

In this convention there is a plot twist, when he is happy that he got a dog, and he takes it out the box he notices it has a missing leg just like how he does at 1:03 in which we see at the end of the film. He says “she’s got to be kidding me” when he notices this as his mum got him a dog with a missing leg like him which the boy clearly doesn’t like. He then starts to mistreat the dog and keep kicking it and goes back to his game and continues kicking the ball away as he didn’t want to play with the dog, however the dog kept bringing the ball back as he just wanted to play with the boy. We can see the boy was very angry as in this screen grab at 1:18 he says “get lost” and continues gaming. 

Film two: Post it love 

In this screen grab at 0:29 we can see one convention is the setting being in the office, we can infer this from the uniform they are wearing, the man is in a suit and the woman is in smart attire. We can also tell this is an office as they are both using a photocopying machine and there are cabinets in the room for files. 

another convention we can see is the genre of this short film which is romance. We can see this as the girl is smirking after they have just made eye contact whilst doing the same job at work with a wall between them. After looking at each other they both look away and she starts smirking at 0:46 giving us as the audience a signal of her having a crush on this man. We can also see the use of cinematography where she is in focus and the man is blurred out in the background showing she is the main focus and it gives it away from her smirk she has a crush. 

Another convention we can identify is the genre which is the storyline. We can see this through the communication of the man and woman communicating trough their actions and imaged through post it notes. The girl had made the gesture first of putting a smiley face out of post it notes first which the man retaliated and made a sun on her window and she replied with a heart in a bubble to signal she has a crush on him and hes in her heart this is shown at 1:48. 

Another convention is the lighting. at 1:21 we can see she pulls up the blind showing they have used natural lighting from outside in this scene and in the other scenes they use the office lighting in the building. she opens the blinds up to a post it image of the sun to pretend its outside she knows its from the man she has a crush on in the office as they are repeating these gestures of images out of post it notes back and forth. 

Another convention is the characters in this short film. We can notice there are 2 main characters who like each other are the man and woman constantly being shown, however due to it being an office there will need to be other people in shot to show it is an office working environment hence there are people doing their own work in the background of some shots. Here at 1:03 we can see the use of cinematography of the man being in focus and the girl he likes in the back with another lady doing her job blurred out in the back. This is where she makes the first move of the smiley face with post it notes.

Film three: Money Box

In this image, one convention is mise-en-scene. In this film we can denote the money has been used as a prop. We can see just before this he pulls his pockets out to connotate he has now money and pulls this loose change out. We can tell the actor doesn't have a good stable background from this.

Another convention used is the setting. We can see that the setting is outside with a vending machine on the street. We can denote the man approaches the vending machine. The director has filmed this scene to show us as the audience the location of the film. 

Another convention is the sound. In  this scene we can hear a sound effect of the machine accepting the cash and making a sound. We can denote this is a sound effect due to the sound being more enhanced and realistic as a vending machine would make a ventilated sound.  

Another convention in the film is the camera angles. I can denote the change of camera angles from mid shot, to close ups. Here we can see the camera angle is a close up of the man with cash in his hand. This denotes the shock and excitement from the man in which we can see slightly from his facial expressions. 

Another convention of the film is there is a beginning middle and end. This film is illustrated in order. We can denote this via watching the film we can see the title at the start, the plot which is the man getting a load of cash from the machine and the edit which includes credits.