Short film vs. feature length film

To say that I was impressed with both films would be an understatement. Shane Acker out did himself with both films. With his short film, he was able to have an enticing story fit into seven minutes. With his feature film, Shane was able to expand the story he had into an hour and twenty minutes. I personally felt entertained throughout the whole movie. I think that's a difficult thing to do. Keeping the audience's interest is probably the most nerve racking thing. It decides the future of your film. If it's going to be successful or if it's going to fail. Shane Acker definitely achieved that. 

Both films kept the same plot. A story about a post apocalyptic world with no humans or anything that lived. The audience only knows what's shown which are human-like figures made of burlap. In the short story the audience was to assume what happened and how the burlap creatures are functioning. In the feature film, Shane had elaborated on the backstory to the burlap creatures and why they are there. Since the short film was only seven minutes long it had only one main obstacle, the monster. In the feature film, the main characters had a myriad of obstacles that prevented them from accomplishing their goals. In the short film, there were two characters that the audience grows an attachment to. In the feature film, there are nine characters that grow a relationship with the audience. There's even a love interest for the main character that wasn't shown in the short film. Overall, I think I preferred the feature film over the short film because it was able to include a lot more that felt left out in the short film. 

Research 9, feature film

Time to watch the long version of 9! I'm excited to watch the feature film version because I loved the short

film. I thought the short film was well made. The short film was a total of seven minutes and was able to

include everything needed to make flow. It seemed as if I were watching a full length film. I do wonder how

Shane will be able to make the short he did into a full length film. I would totally be lost and confused on

where to start. I think that having to write out a storyboard where you had to accomplish a whole story

within a short time frame is difficult. Let alone having to expand it into a full length film. After watching the

short, I thought Shane did really well. I'm excited to see what he can do.

The feature film 9 was a story about what seemed like a post apocalyptical world with no humans or

anything that lived. The audience only knows what's shown which is a human-like figure made of burlap.

Of course by human-like I mean the extremities like arms, legs, and a head. Since the audience knows

that it's a post apocalyptic setting, it's safe to assume that these creatures are to embark on some type

of mission in order to discover or save themselves. Like any sensible story, there was the expedition, the

climax, and the resolution. There are many characters throughout the movie to add personal relationships

between the audience and the character's they're watching. The film has multiple obstacles.

The expedition includes 7 characters. Throughout the expedition each character faces an obstacle and

either surpasses it or doesn't. There was a 'fake' climax when the characters assume the journey is over

and they succeeded. The real climax of the story is when the main character realizes the real reason why

they were created and releases the souls of his friends. The resolution is when the main character sees his

friends being released into the sky. The main character's development went from clueless and lost to over

coming and brave. One directorial style I did notice was at the end when it rained over the remaining

characters. Throughout the movie there was no reference to a drought or any shortage of water to where the

rain in the end would hold significance. However, I feel that the director decided to take this approach at the

end because in past films rain is a symbol for 'cleansing'. In this case, the rain is a symbol for a fresh start of

the characters and they are 'cleansed' of everything from the past.

Research 9, the short

Time to watch a short film! I'm really excited to watch a short film because it'll give me

the ability to see how a short film should look. I know that every short film is different and that

there isn't a structure to follow, but I think it'd be nice to see a successful short film. The short film

that I watched was called 9. This short film was directed by Shane Acker. Shane Acker was a student at

University of California, Los Angeles and had submitted one of his projects into a film festival. It's so cool to

watch a film that a student made. Even though I'm not in college and may have the same experience as him,

it shows me that I might have the potential to make something great. Shane Acker took an interesting

approach to make his film animated.

9 was a story about what seemed like a post apocalyptical world with no humans or anything that lived.

The audience only knows what's shown which is a human-like figure made of burlap. Of course by human-

like I mean the extremities like arms, legs, and a head. Since the audience knows that it's a post apocalyptic

setting, it's safe to assume that these creatures are to embark on some type of mission in order to discover or

save themselves. Like any sensible story, there was the expedition, the climax, and the resolution. The

expedition includes the two characters that the audience can tell are friends, go around and find something.

The expedition also includes an obstacle when the main character's friend dies. The climax of the story is

when the main character defeats the monster that killed his friend. The resolution is when the main character

sees the rest of his kind become free. The main character's development went from being afraid to defeating

his fear.

Genre choice for film

 After doing our research we’ve decided it’d be best to choose ‘thriller’ as our genre. The reason we chose thriller as our genre because it best suits the vision we have for the movie. Since our pitch is ‘ A normal day you bump into someone that can change your life, but the fate of your future is out of your hands’, we’ve determined that it would best fit into the thriller genre. The film deals with a stalker that meets her stalkee randomly, hence the ‘A normal day you bump into someone’ part of the pitch. However, the part that fits the thriller genre the most is the ‘but the fate of your future is out of your hands’. Our film will deal with suspense and tension, the main aspects to a thriller film. We think that the researched helped a lot in determining which genre our film fit best in. But the fact that we had the ability to watch different films, the different aspects were really shown to us. Our pitch fits perfect within the thriller genre. There was no need to edit or make any changes at all. While choosing the initial three genres we felt it would be more productive to choose three genres that we could see fit our film in the future. 

My group member and I definitely have our work cut out for us. We both have high expectations for our film. We want to make it the best it can be. And that means working endlessly towards our vision. Since we’re both humans we have our doubts. This is the first time we’re working together, we don’t know if its a perfect match. Even though we came up with our pitch together, we might have different visions for it. We’re trying to keep a positive mentality when it comes to how our film will turn out. But not being able to work with each other in person might affect our film in a negative way. Fingers crossed it turns out great!

Genre research- Thriller, Romance, and Mystery

Genres we would like to research

 On to the next step in making our film! Although we’ve already envisioned what we’d like our film to look like, it’s always important to do the research that’s necessary to make our film the best it can be. We’ve decided that our pitch would best fit into three genres. The genres are thriller, romance, and mystery. We’ve watched countless films that fit into each genre so we feel our pitch matches them. Each genre has different qualities to them that could potentially fit our film. A thriller film is ‘characterized and defined by the moods they elicit, giving viewers heightened feelings of suspense, excitement, surprise, anticipation and anxiety. A romance showcases romantic love stories recorded in visual media for broadcast in theaters and on TV that focus on passion, emotion, and the affectionate romantic involvement of the main characters. It also shows their journey that their love takes them through dating, courtship or marriage. A mystery is characterized as a story that focuses on a puzzling crime, situation, or circumstance that needs to be solved.

Even though we’ve watched films in these genres and know the definitions, we still need do more research. Research is very important when it comes to the success of our film. Research allows the film to be accurate. We will conduct the necessary amount of research so our film can be the best it can be. In the past, group members have neglected the research aspect of developing our film. I feel that the problems we faced later on could have been avoided with conducting research. I hope with the research that’ll go into this film, we will be able to do better than last year. We want to make sure that we’re doing what we need to, while having fun. It’ll make the experience better and more memorable.